Introduction

This verse opens with a paradox: the same quality, resolve, can either release or restrain. The difference is a structure determined by recognizing the appointed time.

The lines that follow deepen this seeming paradox into a transcendent resolution. As we abide in the unknowability of the seeming chaos of life, we are not offered answers, but we begin to recognize patterns. The Way of Heaven doesn’t justify itself; it reveals itself through what it does. What seems random becomes traceable. What seems loose holds everything. What seems silent responds without fail.

Translation

Resolve with certainty is the point,
Resolve without certainty is the nock.
Each of these brings benefit and harm.

That which heaven depends on…
Who can know it?

The Way of Heaven,
Complicated, yet perfectly traceable,
Voiceless, yet perfectly responsive,
Unsummoned, yet arriving on its own.
It explodes yet is perfectly coordinated.

Heaven’s net is vast,
Loosely woven,
yet nothing is lost.

Commentary

Resolve with certainty is the point,
Resolve without certainty is the nock.
Each of these brings benefit and harm.

Picture yourself as an Olympic archer. You are in the gold medal round and have trained your whole life for this moment. Your resolve is crystallized into a diamond tip. Nothing could ever cause you to deviate from your mission on every shot, a perfect 10. Something you have done hundreds of thousands of times.

You’re competing against someone just as good as you. Maybe better. Now it’s down to the final arrow, and all you have to do is what you know you can do. Make the perfect shot. When you do, you will win the gold and realize your lifelong ambition.

You’ve taken up your bow and nocked your arrow. Your eyes are dialed in on the target. Your hands move with the certainty of a master archer. The string slots into the nock. You draw. The fletching comes to rest on your cheek, right at the corner of your lip. A familiar nesting place.

But wait! Something isn’t right. HOLD! What is going on?

Time is ticking – of the 120 seconds to shoot the six arrows, 90 seconds have elapsed.

Tension has crept into the back. It’s subtle, but enough that it will divert the arrow. Resolve has sharpened awareness of the necessary conditions. Despite the pressures of time and the closeness of the dream, resolve demands a pause. A hold long enough to release that tension.

Deep Breath – it softens.

Only 15 seconds left.

Draw. Rest. Sight. Hold. YES! Certainty arises.

TWANG! WHOOSH! THUNK! “BULLSEYE!”

Most of our life choices are not so obviously dramatic. Yet, even in the most mundane of moments, Integrity (德, dé) is the resolve to act appropriately, releasing the point of the arrow into the target or holding the nock against the string at the appointed times.

That which Heaven depends on…
Who can know it?

Heaven, the mysterious activity of life unfolding, is not easily understood or grasped. To accurately describe even a universal experience, like grief, can defy the capacity for language. How much truer is this for the (seemingly) chaotic reality of life as a whole?

Of course “I” can’t know it. No “one” can!

But through “not-knowing” we step through and beyond “I don’t know” and into the true knowing of Weaving the Way.

In that knowing, we discover…

The Way of Heaven,
Complicated, yet perfectly traceable,
Voiceless, yet perfectly responsive,
Unsummoned, yet arriving on its own.
It explodes yet is perfectly coordinated.

Somehow, this unfolding is infinitely complicated, yet it all makes sense. There’s a clear connection to how the interplay of events unfolds, and everything ends up having its purpose. Somehow, without ever saying a word, life unfolds with a perfect responsiveness to the conditions that are present. We don’t call a future into being; it arrives on its own through our becoming (see verse 64.) The explosion of life truly does seem like chaos, yet it makes perfect sense when carefully observed.

Weavers of the Way discover, through such careful observation, that:

Things happen the only way they can.
We are in the midst of the happening process.
We can only see with clarity that which has already unfolded.
The future remains a mystery because each thing that can become does so in its own way, and the next moment of being receives all the influences of what is currently becoming.

The result is that life is viewed as an ongoing chemical reaction, of which we are a catalytic element. In this Way, we are neither fatalistically passive nor narcissistically free-willed. (Recall verse 17).

Heaven’s net is vast,
Loosely woven,
yet nothing is lost.

We will not understand everything. We will not see all the factors at play. We will feel adrift and lost in chaos. Things will happen to us in a way that feels painful, unjust, and out of control. And we know nothing is lost. Nothing is outside of the harmonious interplay of forces. And we aren’t asked to like it. We are asked to have the resolve to bring our catalytic energy to bear– or not. Recall verse 25:

The Dao, Heaven, Earth, and Identity are all Great.
These are the Four Greats of the “nation”
and “the Person” is one!

Earth shapes Identities
Heaven shapes Earth.
Dao shapes heaven.
Weaving the Way shapes the Dao.

Ultimately, it’s our resolve to be sensitive to the appointed time that makes us Weavers of the Way.