Paradox

*Delivered at Unity Church, April 1998*

About 12 years ago I was working in an office near Chinatown in San Francisco. Sharing my office was a middle aged Chinese matron named Agnes, who was always telling me stories about her enormous family and innumerable grandkids. One day I was agonizing over some insignificant breach of ettiquite I had made. Probably no one would notice, and I was feeling icky for nothing. But I'm someone who processes out loud, and I was going off about how lousy I felt because I might have offended someone. Finally, Agnes threw down her papers in exhasperation, pointing her finger at me, and exclaiming, "You too goody-two-shoes! If you were Chinese, we would make you go to doctor!"

I was quite taken aback at her outburst, and it made me think hard about my self-expectations. It also made me realize that the Chinese might have a much healthier approach to human nature than we in the West. For the Chinese, health is achieved when things are in balance, light and dark, hot and cold, good and evil. If someone was too good, and never got on anybody's nerves or did anything immoral, it is as much a cause for concern as it would be if a person were exhibiting reckless or criminal behavior, because this person is out of balance.

The Chinese talk about this balance in terms of Yin and Yang, which in the symbol of the Tao, look like two tadpoles, one white, one black, chasing each others' tails. The white tadpole has a black dot, like an eye, and the black, a white eye. This simple image, when dwelt upon can teach us more about the Tao (and thereby nature) than any number of volumes on the subject. The white one is called yang, and the black one, yin. Separate them and you really have nothing but tadpoles, but together they make an image of eternity, a circle, a balance, a whole, the Tao. They represent the concept of opposites which are dependent upon each other for their being.

Now, in Taoist reckoning, Yang is "force." It is active, while Yin is "acquiescence" and passive. Yang is "light," whereas Yin is the absence of light, or "dark." Yang is "warm" and "friendly," Yin, "cool" and "shy." Yang is "masculine" and corresponds to the sky, while Yin is "feminine" and takes to the Earth.

Many of my students are initially confused. They expect Yang to be dark and Yin, light, and want to contribute "evil" to Yang, and "good" to Yin. But neither Yang nor Yin is evil. Yang and Yin simply are, and too much of either may prove to be troublesome. This is a much more slippery concept than the simplistic one the students initially assume.

The Tao Te Ching says,

The Tao gives birth to one.
One gives birth to two.
Two gives birth to three,
And three gives birth to all things.

This verse is admittedly cryptic, but it is not impenetrable. The "One" of line one is the primal Tao, unrefracted, pre-distinctive; perhaps what scientists like Stephan Hawking would call a singularity. This singularity divides itself (by itself) into the "two" of line two. The result of this mitosis is equal and opposite halves, the Yin and Yang. Now, as the result of some seeming slight-of-hand, the two instantaneously create the third: the Whole. Now there is the Yang, the Yin and the Tao (the union of Yin and Yang).

One way of illustrating this is by looking at a marriage. A marriage consists of three people, not two. There is the person of the man, the person of the woman, and a separate but equal person of the relationship. This unseen third person is often the One to which both the man and the woman devote most of their energy, for it is only through the third person that they have their union.

When I first began to seriously study religion, down at the California Baptist college, I was bowled over by the realization that all spiritual truth is inseparable bound up in paradox. Jesus was both God and human. Wholeness means a balance between selfishness and sacrifice. The world was both beautiful and horrific. The paradoxes that were unfolding before me seemed undless, unfathomable. I became keenly sensitive to the opposites that God seemed to hold in tension. And then, of course, I discovered the Tao Te Ching, and was completely blown out of the water. There, I read that:

True perfection seems flawed.
True fulfillment seems empty.
True straightness seems crooked.
Great skill appears easy.
Great eloquence sounds awkward.
The path into light seems dark.
The way ahead seems to go backwards.
The path into peace seems rough.
True purity seems stained.
Appropriate caution seems like cowardice.

I thought it was spooky! Don't most of these sayings from the Tao Te Ching ring true to you? Can't you think of at least one example for each of the above; in the Gospels or in the life of great prophets such as Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mahatma Gandhi? Don't we recognize these truths from the experience of our own lives? "True words seem paradoxical" says Lao Tzu, and the principle seems to be fairly universal. The fundmentalists at the Baptist college, in fact, may say that it is paradoxical that a glimmer of God's truth can possibly emerge from within other, "pagan" religions. But emerge it does, beyond all comprehension. Paradox-the union of opposites-is one of the great themes of Taoist thought, and of religous living everywhere.

The question remains though, why is it this way? Why should truth be so bound up in paradox?

Truth does not exist in a vacuum. Truth is only true in how it relates to our experience. Truth has a relationship with reality and with its opposite, falsehood. This is the point at which the Tao can help us out. The Taoist believes that at the extreme of Yin, Yang appears, and at the extreme of Yang, Yin appears. Just look at the Tao symbol to see that where Yang is greatest, Yin begins and vice versa. They have a relationship, as do all opposites. A concrete example would be a feverish child. You want to break the fever so that his temperature will go back to normal, so what do you do? You do not pour cool water over him, instead you pile on the blankets so that he sweats and sweats until, finally, the fever breaks and he cools down. Why was it necessary to make him warmer? Why did that work, when cool water would not? Because at the extreme of Yang (heat), Yin (coolness) begins. This is attested to over and over in Chinese medicine; it is one of its central tenets. So ask St. John of the Cross about "the path into light" being the "Dark Night of the Soul." Ask anyone who has wrestled with their conscience about "the way ahead" seeming to go backwards. Only by breaking through is real progress made, and therefore we must not despise the rough, the dark, the empty, the cowardly, the flawed, or the crooked. It is a package deal. These must also be embraced, for without them their opposites cannot exist. The relationship must be bought as a unit or not at all. Lao Tzu explains this in the second chapter:

When people see beauty as beautiful,
They recognize other things as ugly.

When people see goodness as good,
They recognize other things as being bad.

Therefore existence and non-existence produce one
another
Difficult and easy achieve each other
Long and short define each other
High and low rely on each other
Voice and accompaniment harmonize with one another
Front and back follow each other.

The greatest problem posed to theologians of all time is the very existence of evil. Yet without evil there would be no good. If there were no suffering, we would not appreciate grace even if it leaped up and bit our noses. Life would have all the savor of unprepared tofu and would hardly be worth our time and trouble. Truth is not found in good in isolation, but only in good as it relates to its opposite. The point is that neither good nor evil is important; what is important is the tension between the two.

Nicholas of Cusa calls Divinity "the coincidence of opposites."3 Lao Tzu would call it the Tao.

One of the most celebrated dualisms is the paradox of the relationship between body and spirit. In the Tao Te Ching, we are asked "Being both body and spirit, can you embrace unity and not be fragmented?" The true human being does not reside in the spirit, nor is the human really only animal; he or she is neither one nor the other, but both, the tension found between the opposites. Lao Tzu asks a very difficult question above, one with which humankind has struggled from its earliest philosophical records.

The Tao Te Ching speaks of matter and spirit as sort of partners, one of which is incapable of functioning without the other. Taoists speak of spirit as "non-being," implying something that exists in objective reality, but which possess no physical manifestation, or "being." Meister Eckhart in our own Christian tradition spoke in similar terms when he said that "God is a being beyond being and a nothingness beyond being."

Lao Tzu presents non-being as absolutely necessary for physical realities to "function," and vice versa.

Thirty spokes join together at one hub
But it is the hole in the center that makes it
operable.
Clay is molded into a pot
But it is the emptiness inside that makes it
useful.
Doors and windows are cut to make a room
It is the empty spaces that we use.(11)

The first time I read these verses, chills ran down my spine. I felt that I had been told a great secret that was in fact the most obvious thing in the world. That was the relationship between matter and spirit. One is not dominant. "Existence and non-existence produce one another." Lao Tzu finishes by explaining "Existence is what we have, but non-existence is what we use."

Spirit is what animates these lifeless lumps of clay! Spirit has no expression on this planet without its lover, flesh. Spirit and flesh entwine in passionate embrace, loving one another, cherishing the gift the other brings! Scripture tells us that God looked on what He made and said "It is very good."(Gen. 1:31) Nothing has happened to change that. Perhaps humankind's "fall" is partly a result of our forgetting just how "very good" it is. Matthew Fox suggests that the Original Sin is this very dualism itself.7 We need to dig deep into our tradition and retrieve the wisdom that "the soul loves the body"8 and celebrate it.

The last paradox I'd like to mention is evidence of the Creator's great humor and Lao Tzu's sense of irony in noticing it. It is this: "The softest thing in the World overcomes the hardest thing in the World." It sounds simple, but how profound! It is one of the most important laws of the Universe.

In the whole World nothing is softer than water.
Even those who succeed when attacking the hard and
the strong cannot overcome it.
Because nothing can harm it
The weak overcomes the strong
The soft conquers the hard.
No one in the World can deny this
Yet no one seems to know how to put it into
practice.

Water's way of meeting force is by yielding. Yet, yielding, it is able to carve millions of miles of caverns out of solid rock. Water is responsible for the glories of the Grand Canyon and the Arizona mesas. Water, by yielding, by patience, has no enemy of equal. Rock it hews and metal it rusts, yet at the same time ministering to the needs of all living beings. This is the way of the Tao. As long as there is the Tao there will always be a David to defeat Goliath, a timid and victorious Gideon, an Esther with all her craft and gentility. This law was not lost on Jesus, a quiet man whose gentle integrity saw him murdered and ultimately the victor in a glorious resurrection. The yielding yet resolute Gandhi had learned this lesson, too, as had Martin Luther King, Jr. Their commitment to non-violence, to yielding, to gentility, are testament to this fundamental law: "To foster gentility is true strength." Power is not determined, as man supposes, by the number of missiles stockpiled, the ratio of horses to footsoldiers, the number or ferocity of warriors, or the statistics of corporate clout. The victory will go to the one who knows how to yield.

Paradox is a slippery thing. We shouldn't knock ourselves out trying to get a grip on it, it is by its very nature ungraspable. What we can do, however, is embrace it when it presents itself to us, to be open to conflicting truths, and not strive to be "too goody-two shoes." Balance, the coincidence of opposites, these are the very things that make the universe what it is. And you know what? We are a part of that. Amen.

Please close you eyes and become centered right where you are in your chair.

Do you ever feel like you have more than one person inside you? A warm and understanding person, and an impatient person disgusted with people's stupidity? Do you have a shy and timid person inside you, and at the same time, a ham who loves to perform. Do you have a genius, and a dunce? Welcome to the club. We're starting a new club right here this morning. We'll call it "All my me's" and you are all charter members!

In your minds eye, assemble your cast of charactors, all the "Me's" that inhabit your mind. Imagine a room, and into this room, lead your shy person by the hand. Tell him or her to just stand by, others will be here soon. Now into this room, bring your ham, your show-off. Now bring your bossy person, your control-freak. Ask your codependent self to join them. Bring all yourselves to this room. It might start getting crowded. That's okay, just adjust the size of the room in your mind's eye. When they are all assembled, imagine that you have arms big enough to go around the whole room, big enough to embrace them all, to draw them all into your bosom and cherish them. Take your big arms, and draw them in. Welcome the paradox of you, all of the "you's" that you know of. Amen.