Introduction

This verse plays on pre-historic Chinese cosmology. Like all cosmology, it is valid as a subjective experience for the person living it and a metaphor for spiritual truths. The closest Western parallel I’m aware of is Gaia from Greek mythology. She is the mother who needs no husband; the fertile, primordial essence that emerged from chaos herself and then spontaneously “gave birth” to the spiritual realm in the form of Uranus.

This story is not dissimilar to other forms of emanation or creation stories. God called forth light from the dark depths and set the two apart. From Ginnungagap (the primordial void) emerged Muspelheim (fire) and Niflheim (ice). Ein Sof (limitless nothing) gathered into a point, Keter (Crown), and began the emanation process.

Metaphorically, this likely refers to the great “I AM” (self-reflexive awareness) emerging from Pure Consciousness to create sentience. At this point in our meditation manual, we are still developing a sense of gratitude and awe for this fundamental capacity at the base of our experience.

Translation

The fertility of the spirit is eternal.
The profound and mysterious creatress.

This generative mother’s womb
is the origin of Heaven and Earth.

A Subtle, continuous existence
its functions are inexhaustible.

Commentary

The fertility of the spirit is eternal.
The profound and mysterious creatress.

The verse opens with two characters that literally translate as “valley spirit.” In the mythos, this points to the “Cereal God,” though it can also abstractly point to the primordial womb. Most likely, it’s simultaneously indicating both because they are such related concepts.

The Cereal God is the Chinese god responsible for the fertility and abundance of the earth through its constant phases of birth, death, and renewal. Ancient people saw the emergence of agriculture, especially grains (soybeans, rice, corn, millet, wheat) as a supernatural gift. Cultivating these “children of the earth” allowed civilization as we know it to emerge and flourish.

It’s not such a giant leap to see how this supernatural gift can be like a “primordial womb.”

When we understand Weaving the Way as a practical manual for meditative living, comparing it to similar texts of the epoch, a common theme emerges. That theme is a reverence for the spontaneous emergence of “light” from the “darkness” and the subsequent capacity for sentience.

Interestingly, the same character for “valley,” 谷, in its association with the “Cereal God,” is also used in the phrase “five cereals” (五谷). We coincidentally have five external senses that “light up,” or create, the outer world. Sentience is the interplay of consciousness with the sense organs and their objects. A pure, blank slate profoundly and mysteriously illuminated to create our world.

This generative mother’s womb
is the origin of Heaven and Earth.

Throughout the text, the Dao, when referred to as the origin of all creation, is known as “the Mother.” The spiritual attribution of “the source of all things” to the “primordial womb” is not unique to Daoism, as we saw in the introduction. Shakti (divine female) takes the latent essence of Shiva (divine male) and gives it life. Prajnaparamita (the perfection of prajna, consciously experienced deep sleep state) is said to be the “womb that births the Buddhas.” So on and so forth.

Part of Weaving the Way is developing a devotional attitude toward the process of inquiry into our experience. To liken the basis of our experience to a mother is to evoke connotations of safety and loving care. Such an attitude is essential because deep meditation can be scary from an individual, egocentric perspective.

Unity consciousness brings about Fearlessness and Love. We become Fearless because we see everything in its context and understand that our mental representations can’t hurt who we truly are. We become Loving because all that exists is a shared expression of life, acting as harmonizing catalysts for evolution.

A Subtle, continuous existence
its functions are inexhaustible.

The notion of a “subtle, continuous existence” with “inexhaustible functions” is another way of creating awe and mystery toward the firmament. The biodiversity of life on Earth is already staggering. How much more so is the complexity and scale of the entire Universe?

However, a less grandiose but no less mystifying and delightful understanding is available to us.

We can feel this “spark of life” immediately when we stop and reflect on how remarkable it is to be alive. How can we see? How can we raise an eyebrow as an unconscious expression? Nothing in our physical form can do it by itself. It must be animated somehow. This animating force is called consciousness. It persists, yet it’s constantly changing. It can’t be known intellectually, but it can be known experientially.

To know this is to know the Dao.