Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 12 — Belly Over Eye
The five colors blind the eye
Sensory excess deranges the senses; rare goods derange behaviour. The sage attends to the belly (essential nature), not the eye (surface desire).
Source context
- Theme
- suppression of sensory overload as prerequisite for inner clarity
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Advaita Vedanta — pratyaharaThe Yoga Sutras of Patanjali designate pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) as the fifth limb of practice, establishing cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 12's insistence that attenuation of the five colors, tones, and flavors restores the sage's inner sight.
- Buddhist — sense-restraint (indriya-samvara)Pali Canon teaching on indriya-samvara holds that guarding the sense-doors prevents defilement from arising, showing cross-tradition congruence with the Daoist counsel to prefer the inner over the outer.
- Neoplatonism — epistrophePlotinus in the Enneads describes epistrophe (return of the soul inward and upward) as requiring disengagement from sense-objects, a structural parallel to Chapter 12's rejection of sensory excess in favor of the belly over the eye.
Chapter 12
Colour's five hues from th' eyes their sight will take; Music's five notes the ears as deaf can make; The flavours five deprive the mouth of taste; The chariot course, and the wild hunting waste Make mad the mind; and objects rare and strange, Sought for, men's conduct will to evil change.
Therefore the sage seeks to satisfy (the craving of) the belly, and not the (insatiable longing of the) eyes. He puts from him the latter, and prefers to seek the former.