Darkness is the Music of the Sun

Discovering the Tao Lost in Translation through Maps Hidden in Chinese Characters

Hidden Maps of the Tao

Dear Substack Friends, I have been quiet for a long time here. Meanwhile, creativity has been bubbling like a hot spring in my local community of Bellingham, Washington.

In the last two months, the community around me is experiencing a lot of pain, fracture, and uncertainty as well as grounded responsiveness to what ‘s happening in the political realm. More than ever I felt the urgency to offer the Taoist knowledge of sense-making to regenerate unity, interconnection, and harmony.

During last two months, I have been offering a course to a local community of folks who are interested in the Tao. This course is called the Hidden Maps of the Tao in Chinese Characters. No, it is not a language class, but it is about language.

Language Shapes Perception of Reality

Language shapes our perception of reality. Modern language, with English as a primary example, tends to be pragmatic and straightforward, aimed at “arriving at the point”, extracting meanings from the felt-sense and lived experiences sometime in a brutal way. With this language as the primary lens, we may experience the world as fragmented, transactional and alienating to the felt-sense of aliveness.

In contrast, ancient languages with an indigenous root, with Chinese as an example, works in an opposite way. It tends to enfold layers of meaning into simple phrases, enriching the felt-sense and feelings through poetic expressions. It also arranges many shades and nuances of felt senses into imagery and metaphors, through which one experiences more of an inter-connected, living world.

Chinese characters often consist of multiple parts, each carrying meanings, relations to history, rituals, and myths from time immemorial. When each character is translated directly into an English word, the deeper meanings, and the wisdom embedded in the profound experience of interconnection with all living being, are often lost.

When we peak into the kaleidoscope of each Chinese character, and contemplate on the meanings it transmits, we activate our feeling heart and intuitive mind, where the essence of the Tao already resides. This course I am teaching revives a poetic sensibility that sees the world an interconnected whole. In this essay below, you will get a taste of what I mean by that.

At Resonance Path, we are working on bringing this ground-breaking work to the wider world. We are planning to launch a virtual course based on this material in 2025. Please stay tuned to our newsletter.

This work has been a co-creation between this group of pioneers in Bellingham. I can’t take full credit for this, as the inspiration, frameworks and materials for this work has emerged out of a series of synchronicities, delightful surprises, and ongoing dialogue and interactions exchanged among a very lively community.

With that, in celebration of the darkest time of the year in the norther hemisphere, I present you 暗, Chinese character for dark or darkness, which in its poetic sense means the Music of the Sun.

暗，Darkness is the Music of the Sun

When we encounter something or someone that we don’t like, we often attribute darkness to it. We might also call a difficult period a “dark time”.

From the eyes of the Tao, darkness is just as integral to life as light. When we are presented with a situation or adversary that feels dark, one way to respond is to ask, What part of myself have I overlooked, rejected and ignored in the preceding phase of “light” that has just ended? How can I deepen the integration of these parts into who I am?

To live in the dark, to intentionally walk the path of darkness with integrity is an ancient art of the Tao.

The Chinese character for darkness is 暗, pronounced as “ahn”. It is composed of two parts. The left part means the sun, the right part means a rhythmic tone or sound. When we put these two components together, the poetic meaning of 暗 becomes the Music of the Sun.

Everything has a dark side. In Taoist philosophy, we believe that the ultimate Truth of the universe is hidden from the explicit meaning-making of the cognitive mind. That is why the first line of Tao Te Ching says the Tao that can be uttered into words are not the true Tao. However, the Tao is not inaccessible through words. It is through the implicit, the enfolded, the gentle caress of the words that the essence of the Tao shines.

Perhaps the most difficult lesson to learn from darkness is about ourselves. Our personality has a “shadow” side, which is different from, or even opposite to who we think we are. As our culture today is often fractured, polarized and disconnected, our identity, who we think we are, is what we rely on to get a sense of safety and belonging. Paradoxically, since safety and belonging often feels scarce, our identity can turn into a rigid, defensive insulation that further isolates us from life.

However, when darkness comes, we can choose to shed the layer of the old identity and be exposed to the reality with our raw, inner vulnerability. We can choose to dredge the deeper layer of the ocean bed of unconscious self, so we can rebirth a more robust, adaptable and enlivened identity that is connected with larger life forces.

After the election, many people in my immediate community are experiencing a lot of pain, despair and darkness. At Bellingham, Resonance Path has been offering a local gathering called Social Alchemy Lab as a space for people to listen to each other, feel our emotions, and transmute them into creativity. Together, we are exploring who we are in our deepest being beyond our visible identity. We choose to sing with the music of the sun.

In darkness, seek not light with our eyes. Instead, let’s tune our ears to listen to the music of the sun. I look forward to further exploring the mystery of who we are together with this substack community in the coming year!