The Tao in the Tarot

by Sarita Armstrong

  For the thief left it behind

  The moon at the window. ”

  The natural reaction would be to call the police - catch the thief. But here the beauty that is left behind is all important. Since the development of the Hanged Man the goal posts have been moved and we are playing a different game.

  It is only to be expected that the card Death should follow, for it is at the moment of death that we have a unique opportunity to step out of the round of worldly existence. It is at that point that we are most able to take the great leap forward that the Fool represents.

  Card 13: Death (Yin)

  In the previous card the man who was ‘hanged’ has taken a conscious step, but here we have a subtle, intuitive understanding of the inevitable need for change, for a continual death and rebirth in every moment of our lives. This brings about the same reaction as in the Hanged Man, for when we have actually stared death in the face we are never quite the same person again. It brings about a different set of values. It puts things in perspective. In many early religions the initiation ceremony included a period in which the candidate was made to believe he really would die, and this was a necessary step for him to have taken before progressing with his spiritual learning.

  My image shows a simple wooden door in an old stone wall, like a garden wall, and beyond the door can be seen a bright light and a garden. The door might well be marked ‘Exit’ but in the wall over the way through would be a sign saying ‘Entrance’. However, this is not to belittle the horror the actual death process may incur, so a lot of blood lies at the threshold.

  Akong Rinpoche puts it succinctly:

  “The physical body is like a new house, established at the beginning and inevitably demolished at the end. The mind is like someone who is renting this property for a certain period. The body is like a house and the mind is the person living in the house.”1

  This card relates back along the line of Yin cards through the little death of the Lover to the deep unconscious of the High Priestess. If we have understood the Wheel of Fortune we will be aware that we have died many times and the inevitable rebirth must follow for as long as we choose to remain on the wheel.

  A new life or a new way of life can only begin after we have given up the old outmoded ways, and that is what the card is telling us. Only through death can renewal occur because it is the natural way of the world. We see it in the seasons of the year and we see it in our own lives. We have to accept this state of affairs before we can continue the journey.

  On receiving this card in divination it is important to remember that dying occurs all the time throughout our lives. It is simply the end of one phase and the start of a new phase and does not necessarily indicate an impending death. Within a whole lifetime there are many smaller deaths and rebirths as we - for instance - change our partners, change our job, move house: all small deaths and rebirths that may be more important to us than the moment of our actual death when it does eventually occur.

  In our culture death has become a taboo subject. No one talks about it, and even the first signs of ageing are removed as soon as they appear. And yet, ageing and death are the two things we all have in common. It is the one certainty in the life of everyone and should really be faced together and with sympathy. Even if someone is dying before our eyes we often refuse to admit the true facts either to them or to ourselves. This is a very sad state of affairs. Children are usually brought up away from any possibility of infusing naturally the knowledge of the normal course of life and death. This could well be a contributing factor in the childhood obsession with games of killing and death, for modern children have no connection with the reality of killing and dying. But death, like anything else, does not go away if you do not think about it. We should already have learnt that anything repressed grows in the mind in a most unpleasant way.

  Nevertheless, apart from birth, death is probably the most important moment of our life, and even if one believes in a continuous existence it is certainly the one moment that will change us most. Those who by medical means have been brought back from the moment of death often tell of a bright light that is seen. This coincides with the instructions in the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead and other texts on the subject, and if one intuitively goes towards this light one does not become embroiled with the illusionary demons of the afterlife state. It is at that moment of seeing the light that one can step onto another level just as the Fool is shown stepping into the void. Many near death experiences are now documented, most showing no more than the state of mind of the person at the time of death, but the one thing they have in common is that the experience profoundly changes the person for the remainder of their life.

  The Exhortation: Remember that dying happens all the time!

  Death is twinned with

  Hexagram 18 Ku: Decay

  Upper Trigram: Kên: hard, desisting, obstinate, (a mountain). Youngest Son; Larger Yin.

  Lower Trigram: Sun: wind, wood, bland, mild. Eldest Daughter; Lesser Yang.

  SYMBOL This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing at the foot of a mountain. The Superior Man, [Elite Traveller] by stimulating people’s hearts, nourishes their virtue.

  For this card I needed a hexagram of dramatic importance that offered hope and illumination rather than one that seemed so obvious a choice. But Hexagram 18, Decay, fitted the sequence of the other hexagrams and in the event seemed so right, for Taoism sees decay and death as a part of life's system - a necessary adjunct to regeneration - and this is perfectly portrayed in this hexagram.

  Decay augers sublime success and the advantage of crossing the great river (or sea). [The Styx, or simply another journey, as the case may be.] What has happened once will surely happen again.

  This would apply to the round of birth, death and rebirth or simply to a psychological rebirth within this lifetime.

  Wilhelm:

  The Chinese character ku represents a bowl in whose contents worms are breeding. This means decay.1

  This is a vivid symbol of death and the decay of the body. It is also a symbol for that which we held dear (otherwise we would not have kept it so long) which is desperately in need of being got rid of. We need to throw out the old (body/friend/way of life or whatever has grown rotten) and start again with a clean receptacle. We have to get rid of the old before the new can grow and it is often necessary to slough off outmoded ways of life before we can start out on a new journey. One door has to be closed before another can be opened. Hanging on to something that is already on the way out is an unnecessary delay to our progress through life – or death. It is as simple as that!

  Wilhelm:

  We must not recoil from work and danger – symbolized by crossing of the great water – but must take hold energetically. Success depends, however, on proper deliberation … We must first know the causes of corruption before we can do away with them; hence it is necessary to be cautious during the time before the start. Then we must see to it that the new way is safely entered upon, so that a relapse may be avoided…2

  Change for the sake of change is not what is being advocated here. We need to deliberate and be cautious before we take action, then we will know that we will be successful in whatever change we are making in our lives. We also need to understand the causes of decay so that we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

  At the real moment of our death the natural course of events is for us to go into ourselves by sleeping a lot, or even going into a coma, or in old age simply to spend a lot of time in inactive contemplation. This is why sudden, unexpected death is such a bad spiritual experience and why ghosts or un-quiet spirits are usually seen re-enacting the moments just prior to a sudden, often violent death. It is also why we need to maintain the correct attitude to those who are dying, and do everything to help their passing in a peaceful way, to achieve a beneficial death.

  Card 14: Temperance (Yang/Yin)

  After the extremes of the previous two cards we return to the centre, to the combinatio
n of the two aspects (the Hanged Man and Death) and a reminder of the necessity of combining the opposites in our psychological make-up. The only way to progress through these deep insights is to combine the extremes into a form of Temperance where one can juggle a bit but keep a balance. It represents the sense of ‘both-and’ – or ‘not only, but also’ that would be natural to an integrated duality and includes the idea that all is possible. Without this middle way, which marks the end of the Psychological Sequence, one cannot proceed to the Spiritual Sequence that starts with the Devil.

  Temperance holds the same position on this Psychological Sequence as does Strength in the Material Sequence (see Figure 1: & Figure 6:). If we had not progressed through the psychological phase but had instead remained in a material frame of mind, it is easy to see how Strength would have stagnated into all sorts of nasty things like power struggles and ego trips. In fact, we would have gone directly from Strength to the Devil. But now our strength is tempered by the knowledge and understanding we have gained through the intervening cards.

  Temperance - a word not often used in this day and age - is not only the control of any excesses in eating, drinking, sexual or other habits. True temperance is the control of one’s emotions too, control of excesses in speech and in attitudes and includes moderation in all one's behaviour. This is necessary before one can proceed seriously with a spiritual journey, which is why monks and nuns are expected to refrain from any form of physical or emotional excess when they are accepted for spiritual teaching. Even for those of us who try to muddle through life as best we can, the first necessity is to maintain a watch on our physical and mental excesses. We need to purify our lives.

  If you compare the card Temperance with the previous combined Yang/Yin card, Justice, we can see that Justice is a somewhat static card. The balance is being firmly held. But in Temperance there is a certain magical quality about the balance. In the image, the water is flowing from one cup to another in a materially impossible way. The Latin word temperare means to mix or to combine, and the water is not only flowing from one cup to another, it is combining the different elements in the cups.

  So there is another level to this card. One is not ready to start on the spiritual journey until all the elements of the personality have been properly combined. Such a person will no longer put things into compartments in their mind. There is not the idea of 'this is good and that is bad' - 'this is right and that is wrong'. Liking and disliking are no longer relevant, because we have already gone through the stages of the Hanged Man and Death. As Joan Grant wrote:

  “No longer shall you think, ‘This thing or that thing, this God or that God, this way or that way.’ Seeing all ways you know them for one, seeing all Gods you know them for brothers.”1

  This may be easy to say, easy to believe intellectually, but to take it into one's heart is the true measure of the mixing of all the elements: combining of the Yang way of discerning with the Yin way of absorbing. It is not enough to be able to say to yourself that you love your neighbour as yourself; you have to also feel it in your heart and be able to express it in your behaviour. It can only happen if we have truly realised what it means to be the Hanged Man, and what it truly means to know Death and not quail in its sight.

  Temperance is the first requirement for the dangerous path ahead. It is easy for those brought up in a monastic environment where temptations are few and everyone believes you are a spiritual person, to acquire temperance. Those who live in a materialist western world bombarded by extremes will find it much more difficult, if not impossible.

  The Exhortation: Go with the flow!

  Temperance is twinned with

  Hexagram 57 Sun: Gentle Penetration

  Upper Trigram: Sun: wind, wood, bland, mild. Eldest Daughter; Lesser Yang.

  Lower Trigram: Sun: wind, wood, bland, mild. Eldest Daughter; Lesser Yang.

  SYMBOL This hexagram symbolizes a favourable wind. The Superior Man [Elite Traveller] performs his allotted tasks in consonance with heaven’s (or the sovereign’s) will.

  To match the powerful yet gentle card of Temperance we have a balanced but flowing hexagram signifying wind and wood. If we look at the lines we have a preponderance of Yang and yet the whole sense of the hexagram is Yin in its mildness. It is Double Wind. Wind can be warm and mild and soothing, yet wind - as any sailor knows - can be dangerous and powerful, as strong as a tornado or as gentle as a wafting breeze on a summer afternoon. It signifies the ‘both-and’ mentioned earlier.

  Life on earth would not exist without the movement of wind. We would not be able to breathe, and we would have no weather patterns: so not only would humans be extinct, but the earth would have no seasons and be barren of growing things. Wind is created by the air being moved by the turning of the world and the difference in temperature between the poles and the equator. It is forever trying to find a balance by taking from where there is too much and replacing where there is too little. Hot air over the land is pulled towards the cooler shore line. Where heat rises from the land it draws in cooler air. Cold air over the mountains sinks to cool the overheated plains. Climate is a continual reaction and mixing, always trying to find an equilibrium.

  We should take this as an example of how we may turn our life around – to take from where there is too much and to add where there is too little. To mix it all up a bit more. This is the essence of Temperance - the maintenance of equilibrium by continual movement.

  Wilhelm:

  This hexagram … means on the one hand gentleness, adaptability, on the other penetration … A two-fold penetration is required: first, penetration of a command to the feeling of the vassals, scattering the evil hidden in secret recesses, as the wind scatters clouds; second, a still deeper penetration, to the depths of consciousness, where the hidden good must be awakened.1

  We need to be flexible and adaptable, and to penetrate to the core of a problem. We must be able to see the bad influences in our daily life and to get rid of them. Then we need to look to our inner consciousness and root out the bad influences that lie hidden there.

  Wilhelm’s commentary tells us: it means baptism and giving life. 2 This is interesting, for the first undertaking in any spiritual journey is a baptism, being both a commitment and a blessing at the same time. Here in the Second Octave we see Temperance as the peaceful culmination of a rather traumatic journey through our middle-mind, but as we move towards the Third Octave we now see it as the essential criteria of calm understanding and contemplation that is required if we are to move into the higher - or deeper - levels of consciousness.

  Wilhelm also puts us on notice of the impending card of the Devil:

  In human life it is penetrating clarity of judgement that thwarts all dark hidden motives.3

  Before we move on we must be sure we have that penetrating clarity of judgement for it is the start of a journey into something altogether lighter - or darker, as the case may be. We need to have clarity of mind and purity of soul.

  The Third Octave - The Spiritual Sequence

  Temperance is the end-note Do of the Second Octave and it is also the first Do of the Third Octave, the Spiritual Sequence of the Tarot (see Figure 8: The Major Arcana as Opposites and Combination Cards & The Octaves). We have worked through our mental problems and now engage on a deeper level. The Yang 'male' of the Material Sequence developed into ‘the intellectual’ in the Psychological Sequence. Now in the Spiritual Sequence ‘the intellectual’ develops into ‘the meditative.’ On the Yin side, the ‘female’ of the Material Sequence developed into ‘the intuitive’ in the Psychological Sequence and now it moves into ‘the mystical’ in the Spiritual Sequence.

  At the start of each Octave the first two cards show us the dangers that we face as we step into each new phase. On the material level the Empress and Emperor may remain for ever in an isolated state, unable to move from their ivory towers and participate with the rest of the world. In the Psychological Octave we may turn aside from the world and become a ver
itable Hermit for ever, or we may (like the vast majority) stay forever on the merry-go-round of the Wheel of Life. Here in the Spiritual Octave we are faced with the temptation to use our spiritual prowess for material benefit, as in the Devil, or we become entrapped in the labyrinth of our own psychic making as in the Tower. Having a true understanding of the combination card Temperance prepares us against falling into either trap.

  These later pairs of cards need to be thought about together rather than as individual cards for we are leaving behind the opposites and coming towards a synthesis. But even so, the following cards apply quite specifically to the different ways the Yang and the Yin find expression in us. The essentially Yang card of the Devil is represented by a hexagram that is actually made up of two lesser-Yin trigrams even though the hexagram is a powerfully active one. On the other hand the card of the Tower is represented by a hexagram that is essentially Yin in its aspect of a Sacrificial Vessel, or Cauldron, yet it is made up of two lesser-Yang trigrams, perhaps reflected in the phallic symbol of the Tower. There is a lot of movement and interplay going on.

  The goal of the spiritual journey is the acquisition of the three qualities of limitless joy, wisdom and compassion. These three qualities are represented by the triangle of cards: Star (joy), the Sun (wisdom) and the Moon (compassion). The Devil represents pure intelligence which needs to be tempered by love in order to move towards wisdom. The Tower signifies raw emotion that needs to be transformed by intelligent understanding into true compassion. When this is achieved the Joy represented by the Star ensues. Thus the triangle of Star, Sun and Moon, representing joy, wisdom and compassion is the final triangle before the two end-cards that take us beyond the human condition.