I Went to the Woods to Prove Lao-tzu Wrong

Henry David Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately.

Years later, I borrowed his famous opening for a poem of my own. But I gave my trip to the woods a somewhat different purpose:

“I went to the woods”

to prove Lao-tzu right or wrong,

curiosity

and skepticism

are such great motivators

Admittedly, this was not an entirely impartial investigation.

I had been reading Lao-tzu for years.

And I already thought the old dope was right.

Still, it never hurts to check.

Ten thousand times ought to do it

The next stanza admits the problem:

I’ve convinced myself

Lao-tzu was right, and I

already knew this,

it never hurts to recheck

things at least ten thousand times

So there I was, wandering through the woods looking at rivers, rocks, trees, seasons, growth and decay while carrying years of Taoist reading around with me.

Then I began finding Taoism everywhere.

Very convincing.

Also slightly suspicious.

If I expect to see something, I am remarkably capable of finding it.

But that raised a much more interesting question than whether Lao-tzu was right.

Why do the images fit so well?

Did Lao-tzu teach me to see Nature this way, or did Nature teach Lao-tzu?

Eventually the poem asks:

it’s as if Nature

has imprinted herself in

the psyche, perhaps,

I’ve got it backwards; do I

organize Nature myself?

That’s where my little expedition into the woods becomes troublesome.

I can look at water yielding around an obstruction and think of Lao-tzu.

I can watch something soft gradually wear against something hard and think of Lao-tzu.

I can see things flowing, changing, yielding, resisting and returning.

Again, Lao-tzu.

But of course I do.

I’ve read Lao-tzu.

Perhaps Lao-tzu has supplied some of the images through which I now see Nature.

But then the question turns.

Where did Lao-tzu get them?

Perhaps people have been observing these processes for as long as people have been looking at rivers.

Maybe I recognize Taoist images in Nature because the images arose through attention to Nature in the first place.

Now I have a circle.

Nature. Lao-tzu. Me. Back to Nature.

I don’t know where to cut it.

I’m not sure I want to.

A storm left something behind

Then there is the river.

After a storm, branches and leaves have collected against a rock dam:

rushing water brings

branches and leaves to collect

at the rock dam, all

memory of last night’s storm

raging over New England

The debris obstructs the water.

Except the river keeps going.

And that obstruction changes where its force goes:

those leaves and branches

try slowing the river’s flow;

yet, they force raging

water over a sharp rock,

just hastening its smoothing

Now I can start naming things.

Hard. Soft. Resistance. Yielding. Flow. Change.

I can point to the water and the rock and say, See? Lao-tzu!

And immediately I have to stop myself again.

What exactly am I seeing?

How much belongs to what is happening in front of me?

How much belongs to everything I brought into the woods?

The poem doesn’t settle it.

Instead, it becomes even more suspicious of the distinction.

The ten thousand things

The river contains more than water.

There are rocks, branches, leaves, weather, gravity, banks, fallen trees and whatever else happens to be participating that day.

The poem calls these the river’s ten thousand things:

don’t you see this now?

the river’s ten thousand things

work together to

form the Taoist metaphors,

soft, hard, smooth, yield, flow, and more

The Taoist images aren’t floating abstractions anymore.

They are here among things.

One thing presses against another. Something yields. Something resists. Something redirects something else. A surface changes. Water continues flowing.

I can separate these processes to think about them.

But the river doesn’t seem particularly concerned about where I’ve drawn the boundaries.

Perhaps I’ve got it backwards

That phrase keeps returning to me:

perhaps, I’ve got it backwards

It may be the most important line in the poem.

Not because the previous thought was necessarily incorrect.

Because suddenly another direction became visible.

Perhaps that’s what I was really doing in the woods.

Not proving Lao-tzu right.

Not proving Lao-tzu wrong.

Turning things around.

If Nature imprinted herself upon the psyche, what happens if I reverse it?

If Lao-tzu taught me to recognize Nature, what happens if I ask where Lao-tzu’s images originated?

If there is an inside and an outside, where exactly is the dividing line?

Every answer produces another direction from which I can look.

Eventually the poem itself turns the distinction around.

Love the world as oneself

inner and outer

simply don’t matter, since they

create a needless

division, now, one is free

to love the world as oneself

That ending did not come from nowhere.

Chapter 13 of the Tao Te Ching closes with the relationship between the self and the world. The translation I was reading takes the thought toward seeing the world as oneself and loving the world as oneself, from which care for all things becomes possible.

Other translations phrase the passage differently. Some speak of loving or valuing the world as one values one’s own body or self and therefore being fit to care for or be entrusted with the world.

That difference in translation doesn’t bother me.

If anything, it gives me another reason to keep looking.

My poem takes the thought somewhere particular.

The division that had bothered me earlier in the woods, Nature out there and psyche in here, begins to lose its usefulness.

I’m no longer sure which side owns the images.

Perhaps neither does.

Perhaps asking which side owns them was part of the problem.

And suddenly Lao-tzu’s invitation to love the world as oneself no longer seems like a separate ethical instruction tacked onto an observation about Nature.

It belongs to the question I’ve been asking all along.

Where does the world end and the self begin?

I went into the woods intending to investigate Lao-tzu.

Somewhere along the way, the investigation turned around and looked back at me.

I suppose the old dope gets another point.

For now.

A Small Practice

Take something you’ve read so often that it has become part of how you see.

Then go somewhere ordinary.

A woods. A city street. A kitchen. A garden.

Don’t try to prove the idea.

Just notice when it appears.

Then become suspicious.

Ask:

Am I seeing this because I was taught to see it?

Then turn the question:

Why was someone able to see it in the first place?

You don’t have to decide which direction is correct.

Sometimes turning the question is enough.

Original Poem

(for Henry David Thoreau, after Lao-tzu)

“I went to the woods”

to prove Lao-tzu right or wrong—

curiosity

and skepticism

are such great motivators

I’ve convinced myself

Lao-tzu was right, and I

already knew this—

it never hurts to recheck

things at least ten thousand times

yet, through all of this

I’ve found myself in Nature—

I recognize the

processes that happen out

there happen here within me

it’s as if Nature

has imprinted herself in

the psyche—perhaps,

I’ve got it backwards; do I

organize Nature myself?

rushing water brings

branches and leaves to collect

at the rock dam—all

memory of last night’s storm

raging over New England

those leaves and branches

try slowing the river’s flow;

yet, they force raging

water over a sharp rock—

just hastening its smoothing

don’t you see this now?

the river’s ten thousand things

work together to

form the Taoist metaphors—

soft, hard, smooth, yield, flow, and more

inner and outer

simply don’t matter, since they

create a needless

division—now, one is free

to love the world as oneself

Further Study and Sources

Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 13. The translation that prompted the poem’s ending connects seeing or loving the world as oneself with caring for all things. Translations vary, and other renderings connect valuing or loving one’s own body or self with valuing, loving, caring for, or being entrusted with the wider world.

Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching. Water, softness, yielding, flow and the “ten thousand things” have been companions in my reading of Taoism. In this essay I am not trying to establish a single correct interpretation of Lao-tzu. I am interested in what happens when those images reappear while I am standing beside an actual river.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden. The poem begins by playing with Thoreau’s famous departure for the woods, then gives the journey a different purpose: curiosity, skepticism, and an attempt to argue with Lao-tzu.

The questions about Nature and psyche, whether Lao-tzu’s reading has shaped what I see, whether those images arose from observing Nature, and whether the inner/outer distinction ultimately helps are where my own thinking has carried these ideas. I don’t regard those questions as problems that require final answers. They are reasons to keep walking.

About These Essays

These essays are for reflection, education, and life-coaching purposes. They are not psychological assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy, counseling, or mental-health treatment, and they do not replace care from a qualified mental-health professional.