Everything has its yin and yang. The way is the place in which these forces balance quietly. And indeed unless you go out of the Way, they will tend to stay in peaceful harmony.
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 167
I love this description of the Tao. Seeing it as the place where the pendulum is still and centered makes sense to me. The Way, is the in between...the harmony, the balance between extremes. Without force on either of the opposing sides, the pendulum does not move. Without effort, force, struggle or resistance the pendulum stays centered and still. It is the natural state, the way it is meant to be. There is no need for effort or action or force of any kind to be in the Tao. It is only when the pendulum is pushed...when we go out of our way to exert energy that we begin to go back and forth between extremes. We lose the Way. We lose the Breath of Vacancy (Verse 42)
What is the Way Between?
It is between our ideas of "good" or "bad", "right" or wrong", "Ugly" or "beautiful", "sadness" and joy. We are meant to be still, calm, centered and at peace. Equanimity offers us that centered-ness. We are meant to be in between these ideas...accepting all. When we are in the Way, we are not leaning towards one side or the other...not seeing the need to grasp and cling or the need to push away or resist anything Life offers us.
Away from Center
When we discriminate, judge and label with our minds, as we tend to do...we have a tendency to cause conflict within ourselves and within our world. We become "stressed". We get the pendulum swinging back and forth and we slip out of the Way...getting lost in its rocking motion, in the mind activity. We come to believe that motion is our reality and no longer connect with the reality of stillness. The further that one goes out (from himself), the less he knows. We become unbalanced.
Movement Out and Movement In
In the video linked below, Eckhart Tolle describes the universe as having two purposes in a way that can be linked to Singer's Pendulum example. He says the universe has outgoing movement with the purpose of it becoming and doing. As manifestations of the Universe, we will have this need within us to create, to act, to do...so we leave something of value behind. The pendulum swings out and away from its center.
We also have this ingoing movement where we are compelled to draw back to the center, away from doing and back into Being, into stillness, and into the present moment. If we must swing away from the center, we don't want to swing too far. Even going back and forth from doing to being requires momentum.
Beginning and Ending in the Center
The Tao, I believe, exists in between being and doing. In order to feel harmony and at peace we need to find that sweet spot between action and non-action, between doing and Being, between Heaven and Earth. We are not of this world but we are in it. We, therefore, cannot retreat from Life all together nor can we retreat from the quiet stillness all together. It is from the center that we move and not from outside forces that push us in either direction. Once we are in the Way, in the center where the pendulum does not move, we act from there when we need to and we retreat back into stillness when we need to...but we do all in the Way. The Way will always bring us back to center.
It is a pretty cool way of looking at it, don't you think?
James Legge (1895) Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. https://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm
Michael Singer (2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger
Eckhart Tolle (2019) What is the Divine Purpose of the Universe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skFQck_gWT8
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