Knowing
Without taking a step outdoors
You know the whole world;
Without taking a peep out the window
You know the colour of the sky.
The more you experience,
The less you know.
The sage wanders without knowing,
Sees without looking,
Accomplishes without acting.
Lao Tze is a poet we have been learning about in world
literature. When looking though the Tao Te Ching I used a peom called, “Knowing”.
When learning about Taoism I know that
it will relate to balance, and flow. When trying to make these connections in
the poem I found balance in certain parts of the poem. The main connection I found
with balance were knowing and without knowing. In the poem above it talks about
one knowing the world and knowing the color of the sky. From there it then proceeds
to talk about the unknowing. With these two words I can see how there is
balance within this poem. In the Tao Te Ching he uses balance in different ways
this might be though a cycle, such as; day and night or life and death.
The more
I read into this poem the more I started to understand where the balance fit
in. I looked at the first stanza, which discussed the knowing. This shows the
knowing, which is something like the sky. It then goes into the second stanza which
discusses the unknown. When seeing these two stanzas put together it made me understand
that there is more to experience in life than just knowing. It shows that life
will balance out and flow together as you grow wiser. The poem shows strong
relation on life and how it should be looked upon though Taoism.
