The Known and Unknown

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.

http://www.chinapage.com/gnl.html

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.