There’s lots of really juicy stuff in this chapter, but I’m gonna go with the first few lines on this one. Keep it simple – for starters, we’ve got 79 more chapters to embrace the paradoxical weirdness of Taoism.
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
One of the main tenets of Taoism is the principle of just BE-ing. There is no good or bad, things just ARE. …at least until our thinkingthinkingthinking minds get a hold of them, then they start labeling stuff, deciding what’s good or bad, what should or shouldn’t be. That thinkingthinkingthinking mind really messes with our ability to just accept things and roll with whatever comes our way.
As soon as we view something as one way, we immediately trigger the existence of its opposite. This creates our dualistic reality of breaking apart into THIS and THAT instead of just letting stuff be whatever it is. We transcend this dualistic thought process when we stop judging, when we just let an experience happen, be in the moment, and move on to the next experience.
I remember going through a bit of a rough patch, my acupuncturist’s encouraging words: “just try and stay positive.” The stink-eye I gave him indicating I had no intentions of trying to be positive in this mess made him laugh and counter: “or not… that’s good too.” alluded to this non-judgement, non-duality.
So, if I may speak for the universe (and I’m already speaking for Taoism, so why not the whole frickin’ Universe); the Universe, if it could talk, would like to say:
“Hey man! don’t judge me!”
Valerie Roney 
Dear Val
My CDM Nurse Christie lives by Just Be. She’s also trying to teach me to live by it also. I guess we both have very good Health Care Providers. This coming Friday I’m going to start on a Nicotine Inhaler to start me on the road to recovery.
Love Moi
LikeLike
Just me I hope you don’t mind buy I put this on my Facebook page
LikeLike
Don’t mind at all! All the stuff I put up here is meant to be shared.
And I’m glad to hear you’ve got so many people in your life encouraging you to just be. :)
LikeLike
I’m following in my grey paper back copy of
LAO-TZU TE-TOA CHING
A New Translation Based on the
Recently Discovered Ma-wan-tui Texts
Translated, with an introduction and commentary,
by Robert G. Henricks
Ballantine Books, New York, 1989
It presents the chapters in a different order with different words but … still worth following along with, I’m sure.
LikeLike
That would be awesome!
Another point of view will be really helpful. Looking forward to you comments as we go along.
LikeLike
So my sister-in-law said something that really cracked me up last week. She was talking pessimism vs optimism and said: I’m not a glass half empty person, you’ve got no data to prove there’s anything in your glass at all!
When we told my brother about this conversation later, he was reminded of a poster with 4 glasses of water, each labeled:
half full (optimist)
half empty (pessimist)
I drank your water (opportunist)
half full of water, half full of air (realist)
I think this is a great example of what we’re talking about here. The universe is a realist, your glass is always full of something, it’s up to you to see what that is!
LikeLike
I love your last comment “…your glass is always full of something, it’s up to you to see what that is!” Think of the amazing possibilities of what could be in that glass.
LikeLike
I was just going to skip on this post, the original didn’t grab me. But your comments help…
Do the inequalities of relationships create each other? We would be the creators. Unwilling creators even. Partly, this piece shows how it is easier to create dualities and division than unities and commonality.
Interesting, Noel, that the same piece can really grab you, yet feel like background info to me. Kewl!
xo jyanti
LikeLike