Verse 2 or You Can't Lose This Game

Tao Te Ching, 2nd Verse

Being and nonbeing produce each other.
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short, the high by the low.
Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality
and paradoxical unity.
The sage can act without effort
and teach without words.
Nurturing things without possessing them,
he works, but not for rewards;
he competes, but not for results.

The 2nd verse of the Tao Te Ching is the beginning to my explanation about why we are all here.

And let me tell you the summary of this blog -- life is not about winning or losing.

It's not about a God who condemns some and saves others. There are too many ways for us to lose if life is a game.

I've always had many questions about life and why we are here.

Will a child in Africa who never hears of Jesus Christ go to heaven?

Will the Dalai Lama go to heaven?

Is there a heaven?

Would a great Buddhist be condemned to hell for not believing in Jesus and a "horrible" Christian be saved because they profess to "believe?"

All these questions have made my mind spin. And the answers that pastors, friends and writers have provided just don't answer these questions.

No answers came for me until I began to believe in universalism -- the idea that all people are "saved" -- that all people will go to "Heaven."

The Tao Te Ching has only affirmed what I had already come to believe a few years ago.

The 2nd Verse explains the reason for humanity's existence. We are here simply to experience life so that someday when we reach enlightenment, nirvana, heaven or paradise, we will understand how great it is.

And just because we are all "saved" does not mean that we should just go out and do whatever we want to do.

The "rules" of life are here for a reason. Writings like the Bible and the Tao Te Ching, offer ways for us to live a better life. To truly be happy and content. But as Buddhism tells us, life is full of suffering and most of the time we will not win.

We will not be the best looking person in the bar. We won't be the fastest runner. We won't live a perfect life. We will get sick. We will experience stress and grief and loss.

But as the Tao Te Ching tells us in the beginning of the 2nd Verse:

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Or as T.S. Eliot wrote:


We shall not cease from our exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time


So life is about exploring. About experiencing beauty and ugliness. About knowing good and evil.

So one day...when this life ends, we will return to the Tao -- we will go to heaven and we will only know good.

And it will be great.

And for once we will have truly won.

Don't be afraid to believe that we all get to win. It truly changes how you see the world. Everyone is your friend. All are on your team.

This is what I believe Jesus meant when he said to treat your neighbor as yourself. And what the Tao means when it says we all were born of the Tao and we will all return to the Tao.

Oneness. UNI-versalism.

It's a beautiful thing. We all get to....

Enjoy the ride,
Damm