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Tao

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 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

ToV 3 – embrace bewilderment

The Master leads
by emptying people’s minds,
and filling their cores,
…
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

This whole chapter is really juicy and lays out emptiness, not-doing, and being in accord with the Tao really well. I’ve just pulled a couple of the lines that most captivate me.

The idea of creating confusion in those who think that they know immediately calls to mind the closing line of advice from a Rumi poem (sorry, no direct quote as I’m far from my beloved book collection right now) the line ends in: “give up your cleverness and embrace bewilderment.”

That’s really what it’s all about. Taking power away from your thinking mind – Read More »ToV 3 – embrace bewilderment

ToV 1 – try not to try not to think

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.

The only advice I got on Taoist meditation was: try not to try not to think. There are things you’re just never going to accomplish if you really put your head to them.

When I gave my friend this book, he complained of the poem-like verses, said he wished I would write stories to explain them instead (my 81 instalments is a bit of a friendly nod to that). But the reality is, this the ineffable baby! Read More »ToV 1 – try not to try not to think