Today’s episode was recorded outside in Fairview, NC, where the 17-year locusts are partying hard in the background. Verse 78 contains the third of only three instances of the word “water”. However, Water serves for Taoists through the centuries as THE single metaphor or model for Tao Itself. Act like water and you will live, refuse, get all brittle, and you’ll break upon the rocks. Water wears down mountains. Iterodes hard places, and makes the rough ways smooth. But especially, when acting like water, the tough become tender. Soft like water, they wear things away; and outlast every unnatural thing.

Thanks to Teresa Aeschliman for her voice. The song Loveis the Water that Wears down the Rock is by Pat Wictor & Brother Sun, performed by Brian Graves, Jen Folkers, and Andy Barnett

Verse 77 this time. I call it ‘The Tao of Robin Hood,’ who was an equalizer of his (mythical) day, like Tao is all the time. In its yin-yang algorithm, ‘just enough’ is given to all, so no one lacks, and no one has more than enough. If another, ‘human tao’ interfereswith ‘Heaven’s Tao,’ then the yin-yang balance actually takes from those with too much, and gives to those with not enough.

In this episode Marc confesses his love of Marx’s analytical power to understand big power issues (though he has no love for Marxism, or its actual practices in real time).

We hear from lots of voices today: Thich Naht Hanh, The Buddha, Mick Jagger, Sun Tzu, and Herman Melville.

As we near the end of Tao te Ching’s 81 verses, we see Lao Tzu revisit some high themes we’ve seen before. Today’s verse 76treats how our grounding and rootage in the Way of Tao leads to a flexible, supple, resiliency, which leads to a longer or better life than one dedicated to grasping, getting hard-set and inflexible. In today’s podclass I provide some practices and ideas for living softly and nimbly, as well as reminder of those practices and ideas that we “can” practice that leads only hardening of life’s categories, to brittleness and dryness, leading perhaps to small deaths even before our final death.

Here’s our Mantra: “Soft at the center, strongin the flow.”

Reminder! Along with Chandler Schroeder, I am beginning a new series of podcasts called “TheTechnicolor Dreamcoat of Religion“ to which you can subscribe now for updates and our first semester of classes on how religions get made. (https://www.youtube.com/@TechnicolorDreamcoatofReligion)