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Tao Te Ching

ToV 10 – Chill Sistah!

There’s something about that hint of fall in the air, that gentle reminder summer is wrapping up, nudging you to quit goofing around and get back on with your life.

Had me a wee freak out the other day, tried to take my notebook down to the park to add to the zombie romance, instead found my head swimming with All The Things that I had to do, wanted to do, needed to do. Some of which were new and scary and overwhelming. My stab at fiction abandoned, I instead started making notes on all those things, trying to fit them in some set of priorities, what to focus on next, how to get around that obstacle.

Just getting it out of my head and on paper gave me some perspective and put all that tumble rolling around into something that fell into some manner of separateness on paper. It was no longer All The Things, All At Once. But just a bunch of things, all with their own varying needs and timelines.

Then I read this:Read More »ToV 10 – Chill Sistah!

ToV 9 – MOAR peace? pfft!

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.

I was once out for a walk, back from the chiropractor I think, feeling all open and aligned. The sun was shining, a light breeze was blowing; it was, as Winnie the Pooh would have said, a hummy sort of day.  I was enjoying the moment, smiling, thinking: this, now THIS is a day.

Two young men in suits (on a summer afternoon!) see me from across the street, run over to greet me.

“How would you like to have more peace in your life?”

“Actually, I’m feeling pretty peaceful already, thanks.”

“Well, but you could be MORE peaceful.”Read More »ToV 9 – MOAR peace? pfft!

ToV 8 – humility and respect

If I was compiling a manual for living, this chapter would be in it. You should read it, ALL of it.

The lines I’ll pull from here are more general, but great paradigm shifts of humility, simplicity, allowing everything to just be.

…like water, which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.

*  *  *

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.

When you’re in the Tao, it’s easy to just do the thing that needs to be doing, you don’t need glory or to be doing the shiny stuff, you are content with the stuff others disdain due to lack of extrinsic reward. This doesn’t mean you have low self esteem and are happy to be crapped onRead More »ToV 8 – humility and respect

ToV 7 – paradox of selfless fulfilment

The Master stays behind,
that is why she is always ahead.
…
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

It’s a tricky business, selflessness. Because it isn’t being a doormat, there’s a power in it, in it’s own way.

Brian Eno once said the one thing sex, drugs, and religion all have in common is surrender Read More »ToV 7 – paradox of selfless fulfilment

ToV 6 – you can use it any way you want

It [the Tao] is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

These words get me so excited!

People tend to think a spiritual life is a separate, special sort of life; that you have to be a yoga teacher, or life coach, or provide a home for wayward pigeons or some such. Not so! The Tao is ALWAYS present, no matter what you do.

I can remember talking with one of my spiritual mentors about his giving up a particular meditation and martial arts practice. He said: I don’t have to do that to be peaceful, I can be peaceful mowing the lawn. And that’s just it, it isn’t so much what you do as HOW you do it. Mindfulness and love can manifest in anything and everything you do. 

When I think about the people I most admire spiritually, you wouldn’t necessarily know them to be spiritual people on the surface.Read More »ToV 6 – you can use it any way you want