Page 17 - 1.News and Views Spring 2025 for Jim.

But I began to learn it was unwise to focus on either end of each cycle to the exclusion of the other.
Slowly, I ventured to accept the ups and downs of life.

It was this passage that help me most:
“Bowed down, then preserved; Bent, then straight; Hollow then full; Worn out, then renewed; Having
little, then preserved; Having much, then perplexed. Therefore, the Wise embrace the One, becoming
exemplars to the world. […] The way the ancients had it, ‘Bowed down, then preserved’, is no empty
saying. Truly it enables one to be preserved to the end.” [Tao te Ching XXII: 50, 50a & 50d]

This was long before I discerned the hidden message of the sacred tilting vessel. I unconsciously
absorbed the message of the lines above, the first I learned by heart. I slowly trained myself to
‘embrace the One’ of each full cycle, learning not passivity but non-resistance, a mysterious process of
calming unfolding within me. Unbeknownst to myself, I was unconsciously centring myself, a practice
within many faith traditions, including Quakerism.

It's the centre of the sacred tilting vessel, the hub, which is key. If unimpeded and empty, it remains
the reliable still point upon which the axis and the vessel turns, rising and falling in unresisting
repeated cycles. The hub’s stillness and emptiness enable an unseen energy to be manifest.

Aligned to the unseen nature of the Tao (you might say God, Christ or the Light within) a mysterious
energy is released within our sacred tilting vessel, keeping us centred on ‘that which is eternal’.
Alignment is a constant practice we can never unerringly perfect – but it certainly makes for greater
calmness.

Note:

The passages quoted are from the Penguin Books D.C. Lau translation of the Tao te Ching, slightly
paraphrased.

I practice core principles of philosophical Taoism, rather than its religious elements. I find them to be
very much in harmony with Quakerism, and many other mystic traditions.

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