I’ve spent a lot of the last 14 chapters trying to explain how Taoism isn’t some lay down in the dirt, do nothing, don’t try sort of principle, but a passiveness with an innate, more natural drive – wei wu wei, action arising from stillness. It’s hard to find the words to articulate it, which … More ToV 15 – Mud Settles and email Clears
I had a good rant the other day, about The Secret …and the Celestine Prophecy. I don’t get my knickers in a twist about much these days, but the cerebralization of the spiritual, the ego-greed- material commercialization of what is an innate human need makes me a little bonkers (and yes, the fact I get … More ToV 14 – the Tao of Ranting?
Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear. But but… I hear you saying in protest to these lines, the ideas of success and hope so ingrained into our collective psyches. Just hear me out, it’ll make more sense shortly! We’re starting to get into variations on themes here in these … More ToV 13 – Hope as a Delusion
Shiny! Shiny! Squaahk! You can almost hear our little grasping magpie brains being addressed in chapter 12. It isn’t my intention to fully quote Stephen Mitchell’s words (rather to encourage you to buy the book and read along), but this chapter is so elegant in its concise entirety I would do it a disservice by … More ToV 12 – The Magpie and the Sky
There’s an old math joke says: a topologist can’t tell the difference between a coffee cup and a doughnut (pausing while you look up topology and doughnuts, or sigh and wonder what is wrong with me). To a Taoist however, the coffee cup has a useful sort of emptiness the doughnut does not, and that’s what … More ToV 11 – Taoists and Topologists
