The Organic Patterning of this Unfolding

This evening I want to try to share a view of reality that simply fascinates me. I’ll preface it by saying that I’m certainly not trying to convince anybody of anything or suggest special access to some truth; rather, it’s a philosophical, scientific, and experiential way of seeing the world that I’ve found enriching to my own practice and life. If something within it seems opaque or difficult to understand, it’s my failure to adequately communicate the mystical/experiential elements (combined with having 15 minutes to do so!).

This view stems from the rich spiritual and philosophical tradition of Taoism, which emerged in China some 2,500 years ago, and is attributed to Lao Tzu, who wrote the Tao Te Ching—commonly translated as “The Way and Its Power.” There’s actually little evidence to support Lao Tzu’s existence, but, historical fact or myth, Taoism presents an ontological framework—or foundational view—of the Tao, or the Way, sometimes understood as ‘the way of the universe’ or ‘the course of nature.’ Now, I’m already embarking on a fool’s errand, because Lao Tzu tells us quite clearly that “the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” So, I can only do my best to vaguely point to it with words.

Most will be aware of one of Taoism’s principal ideas of the balance and harmony of the forces of dark and light, as represented by the yin and yang, respectively. Beyond being a ‘groovy symbol,’ Yin and yang point to the profound reality of the interconnectedness of the universe, despite the diversity of appearances and the seeming independence that we perceive—“the myriad 10,000 things,” as we often say. Fully distinct but inseparable, like the two sides of a coin, the poles of a magnet, the peak and the valley of a mountain. Likewise, pleasure-pain, joy-sadness, life-death; mutually arising as essential pairs.

Similarly profound, and particularly interesting, to me, is the Taoist concept of Li (L-i). Li refers to the natural patterns and structures that govern the universe and all things within it. In other words, it is the organizing principle of the cosmos. Li was often referenced in terms of the markings in jade, the striations in muscle, and the grain in wood. It’s the organization of the universe and the distinct ‘things’ within it, revealed as organic patterns.

I’ve been considering Li in another context, with respect to what we perceive as the circumstances or unfolding of our lives. If nature arises ‘of itself’—as pure spontaneity (Chinese: tzu jan)—and manifests in space as Li, then we, and our lives, being inseparable from nature, must also be expressions of Li, in and through space and time.

So, the question I’ve considered is: Might truly ‘living into life,’ experiencing its fullness, be living according to Li—the organic pattern of life, that already and always is in its totality, but is only revealed to us in the act of traveling the path?

OK, what does this mean? Let me see if it can be made a little less esoteric, bringing the metaphysics into clearer view. It may require a bit of a shift in perspective.

We tend to consider ourselves as existing within space and time, as if both were fundamental and objective properties of reality. But, in the early 1900’s Einstein demonstrated the relative  nature of both space and time; and since then, theoretical and experimental physics has gone further and confirmed the insubstantiality of space and time. So much so that it’s been proclaimed that space and time are “dead,” meaning that they are not fundamental properties of reality; they don’t go ‘all the way down,’ so to speak. They are, rather, our mechanism or tool of constructing a comprehensible experience of reality. There’s theoretical support—and I’d suggest much experiential support—for a complete collapse of space, and past, present and future into a boundless here-now, experienced as present-moment unfolding of space and time. In scientific terms, this is referred to as the block universe: that is, the universe always and already is in its totality—a singular event—and our perception of it is nothing other than a ‘slice’ through it, allowing us to comprehend it through the dimensions of extension of time and space. But this way of perceiving is just a ‘convenient fiction;’ a useful convention.

Alan Watts presented a helpful thought-experiment to demonstrate the error in our perception. Imagine a slatted fence with one narrow slat missing; we’re on one side and a cat on the other. As the cat walks past the gap in the fence we see the head and then shortly thereafter the tail. The cat turns around and walks back and again we see head then tail. And so we conclude that event ‘head’ causes event ‘tail.’ But, of course, that’s ridiculous—we know in this instance that head and tail arise mutually as a single event ‘cat,’ but its totality was inaccessible to our view of reality. This is quite an apt analogy for our perception of space-time as a limited view, or a slice through the totality of the block universe. Similarly with a book, the story is always there in totality, but we can only comprehend it through reading, word by word.

So, if space and time are merely perceptual aspects of the whole, this can present a conclusion and experience that is understandably challenging for us to accept: it all already is, including the path of ‘my life.’ We tend recoil against this seemingly deterministic view of nature and reality, because, the thought goes: If life plays out like a series of billiard balls and I’m just being knocked around, then what’s the point of living it? We can get to nihilism. But, in a small way, that’s like saying there’s no point in reading a book, because it’s all already written; of course, not so—the only way to appreciate the story is to read it, line by line; to experience it.

There’s a scientific term for this, too: ‘computational irreducibility’: meaning, there’s no shortcut, there’s no prediction possible because of the incredible complexity in trying to describe what’s going on. The path of our lives can only be known through its arising, unfolding at the rate of time, and, therefore, every moment is completely new, unexpected, and unknowable until upon us, as us. Us living it is the only way for the path to be revealed.

And so, in this context of a singular whole (or better to say a ‘not-two’ whole), the grain or the patterning of a tree’s rings always already was, couldn’t have been otherwise, and yet, the tree’s growth, unfolding through space and time, influenced here-now by everything else. How interesting!

The Li of Life, then, is to know, to feel, this unknowable element of life and to lean into the flow of Li as it takes the path that was always there to be discovered through living. It’s already there in eternal wholeness, so, on one level, it’s impossible to not express our Li. But herein lies a paradox that can bring the mind to a standstill: you can’t not travel according to your Li because it is what’s happening, and yet, seeing that truth fundamentally alters the journey, inevitably so. It’s the inevitable recognition of it—what’s already there—that ‘changes’ the path. Expression of our Li of Life is “a new way of seeing”, one that manifests as an irrevocable change to the world. And this alternative way of experiencing feels more deeply aligned, and therefore more deeply fulfilling.

Within this perspectival shift, the living of it becomes the primary output, achieved in every moment. That’s not to say bliss, comfort, ease, or happiness in every moment—that defies the yin and yang of the cosmos—rather, it’s likely to be quite the opposite—uncertainty, discomfort, and, perhaps, a social devaluing. This is decidedly not ‘self-help.’ This is ‘self-challenge,’ ‘self-inquiry,’ inevitably leading to ‘other-help’ (or we might say ‘Self-help,’ with a capital ‘S’), fueled by deep compassion, creativity, and curiosity. A life permeated with a baseline satisfaction and contentment inherent within traveling one’s own pathless path, and yet a journey that was always there to be revealed, and that’s complete in each step. It’s through this alignment with Li that we may recognize that the meaning of life is, in fact, life itself.