Half and Half

I got life. I got de. Richard Wilhelm translates de as life. So do those who translate the Daodejing as The Way of Life.

I have it. You have it. Your friends have it. Even Cloe, Fido, and Felix have it. And in full measure. None of us were short changed. We all have de. We're all built to the same pattern.

Today's Sunday Supplement (Parade) has this cartoon by Dave Coverly:

In our own private experience of ourselves, we are half empty and half full. Half wu and half you. Half yin and half yang. Half this and half that. The problem is that, like the good doctor in the cartoon, we overlook the empty half. Laozi is constantly pointing to the empty half, the interior half that only you can see. We see the scene, but we miss the seer. We identify ourselves with what we look like. We overlook the looker. At the center (the hub of the wheel--Laozi's image) of life is awareness, not appearance. At center I sense appearances. I see the scenery (the spokes of the wheel). I hear the music. I taste food. I listen to the thoughts. I feel the feelings. But I'm not all of these alone. I'm the one in receipt of all of these appearances--half empty, yin, this, wu. And I'm all that I'm presented with--half full (you). All of it! That's my life, my de. Here I am my awareness (wu), and there I am your appearance (you), the appearance of all things. And in full measure. I haven't been cheated. I am life. I am whole, complete. I'm vacant and occupied at the same time all the time. So is everyone. That's the good news. The trouble is they don't see it. They think they are only half way there. That's the rub.

Everyone is whole and complete. Everyone is doing life right. But not everyone knows it. Laozi points to this empty, aware center of ours in most of the DDJ verses. He gives us a wealth of images and metaphors for this empty and spacious and aware capacity that is the center of life. But we still look at the periphery for fulfillment, for completion. The periphery, the ten thousand things, will never be more that half of life, of de, of Dao. Fulfillment is never enough. Without the empty capacity at the center of our beings, the most we can hope for is being half full. Completion will never come until we see that we are half empty and half full. Half yin and half yang. Half wu and half you. Half this and half that (Laozi's terms too).

We are all living from this design. None of us is doing it wrong. But we know something is missing from the picture. The trouble is that Nothing (wu) is missing from our image of ourselves. Add this back and you are complete and whole and satisfied.