Learning from Children

I noticed this article in the NYT today:

In the view of the primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, the extraordinary
social skills of an infant are at the heart of what makes us human.
Through its ability to solicit and secure the attentive care not just
of its mother but of many others in its sensory purview, a baby
promotes many of the behaviors and emotions that we prize in ourselves
and that often distinguish us from other animals, including a
willingness to share, to cooperate with strangers, to relax one’s
guard, uncurl one’s lip and widen one’s pronoun circle beyond the
stifling confines of me, myself and mine.

And it immediately brought to mind passage 55 of the Daodejing (Lau translation):

One who possesses virtue in abundance is comparable to a new born babe:

Poisonous insects will not sting it;

Ferocious animals will not pounce on it;

Predatory birds will not swoop down on it.

Its bones are weak and its sinews supple yet its hold is firm.

It does not know the union of male and female yet its male member will stir:

This is because its virility is at its height.

It howls all day yet does not become hoarse:

This is because its harmony is at its height.

To know harmony is called the constant;

To know the constant is called discernment.

To try to add to one's vitality is called ill-omened;

For the mind to egg on the breath is called violent.

A creature in its prime doing harm to the old

Is known as going against the way.

That which goes against the way will come to an early end.

I reflected on this passage in chapter 5 of Aidan's Way:

"Virtue" (the Te of the Tao Te Ching – sometimes translated as "integrity") here means the recognition that every entity in the universe is complete and integral unto itself. Each thing has its own particular character, its unique disposition. We cannot use one thing to assess another; rather, we must see how each thing expresses itself and fulfills its own possibility. This is what the infant does: she observes and absorbs, she does not categorize and judge. She innately understands that each thing and every person, even a severely disabled brother, has its place in the world and its own particular value. From this vantage point, she is safe from the wasps and vipers of disappointment.
….

The question for us adults, searching as we were for a transcendent meaning of our worst tribulations, was this: can we learn to be the child?

The Useless Tree

Learning from Children

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