Changing Places

Wellspring of energy
Rises in the body’s core
Tap it and be sustained.
Channel it, and it will speak.

The source of all power is within yourself. Although external circumstances may occasionally hamper you, true movement comes solely from within yourself. The source is latent in everyone, but anyone can learn to tap it. When this happens, power rises like a shimmering well through the center of your body.

Physically, it will sustain and nourish you. But it can do many other things as well. It can give you gifts ranging from unusual knowledge to simple tranquility. It all depends on how you choose to direct your energies.

We cannot say that a person will become enlightened solely by virtue of having tapped this source of power; energy is neutral. It requires experience, wisdom, and education to direct it. You may gain power from your meditations, but it is possible for two people with the same valid attainment to use it in two different ways, even to the extremes of good and evil. Finding the source of spiritual power is a great joy; deciding how to direct it is the greatest of responsibilities.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I don’t really have a lot to say about spiritual power today. It is a wonderful feeling when you feel it, and when that energy is flowing within you things seemt o become effortless. I can’t keep mine flowing consistently but then i don’t tend to spend a lot of time in meditation. My energy source is definitely lying coiled and resting today. Perhaps I’ll push myself along to yoga later and get the juices flowing again… yawn. First maybe a dip in the spa and a long hot shower to get moving…

A green bird darting in the night.
Will you be able to see it?
Will you be able to catch it?

Cling to Tao like a shadow.
Move without a shadow.

Times of oppression and adversity cannot last forever. How is the transition made to new and better situations? In the midst of great difficulty, a tiny opportunity will open, if only by chance. You must be sharp enough to discern it, quick enough to catch it, and determined enough to do something with it. If you let it pass, you will be filled with regrets.

Stick to Tao like a shadow. Wherever it goes, you go. As soon as it throws something your way, catch it by sheer reflex. It is like the bird: If you try to catch it, you will miss. If you are always with it, moving at its speed as much a part of it as its own shadow, then it is easy to seize it.

When you act, however, you in turn must have no shadow. In other words, what you do must leave no messages, no leftover consequences, nothing that will haunt you later. That is one of the ways in which you avoid creating more bad situations for yourself: Your every movement is traceless.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

68. Opportunities

The greatest martial arts are the gentlest. They allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down. The greatest generals do not rush into every battle. They offer the enemy many opportunities to make self-defeating errors. The greatest administrators do not achieve production through constrainsts and limitations. They provide opportunities.

Good leadership consists of motivating people to their highest levels by offering them opportunities, not obligations. That is how things happen naturally. Life is an opportunity, not an obligation.

John Heider, The Tao of Leadership

No, the Chinese symbol for crisis is not the same as that for opportunity. See Pinyin.info or
Straight Dope for the details. I’m really tired of this myth. But it is true that when things seem very difficult, you have to look for any opportunity to change how things are going, and be ready to act on it.

I’ve had many wonderful opportunities in my life. I have few regrets about not taking an opportunity, although leaving traces, messiness and consequences from my own actions has left me with regrets. That is a part of Tao where I still need to do much more work.

Those who follow Tao do so
From their own predilection.
There are no promises,
Yet the rewards are immeasurable.

Of all the spiritual traditions, following Tao is among the least popular. Its adherents are poor and veiled with humility. In comparison, many traditions offer heaven, forgiveness, comfort, ecstasy, belonging, power, and wealth. Tao offers only three things: sound health, a way through the bewilderment of life, and liberation from the fear of death.

That is why there are so few followers of Tao. There is no glamour, there is no congregation, there is no ranking. You are either in the state of Tao, or you are temporarily out of it. When you die, you die.

You have to be tough to follow Tao. If you can avoid being discouraged by poverty, isolation, and obscurity, you will find an unshakable devotion that will last your entire life, and rewards will come in slow and subtle ways. You may not be suddenly rich and influential, but you will discover, to your great delight, that there is a secret source of sustenance. Once you taste that, all your doubts will fade, and both poverty and loneliness will be easier to bear.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Main Entry: pre·di·lec·tion
Pronunciation: pre-d&l-’ek-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: French prédilection, from Medieval Latin praediligere to love more, prefer, from Latin prae- + diligere to love — more at DILIGENT
: an established preference for something;
an attitude of mind that predisposes one to favor something. PREDILECTION implies a strong liking deriving from one’s temperament or experience

Merriam-Webster

Predilection is a good word to apply to Tao, a diligent love. You have to be a bit diligent to get into a state where you feel Tao, but once you are there, it’s a wonderful feeling. It does make so many things in life easier to bear, and you feel much calmer and more able to cope with things.

When we were in Hawaii, one of the things we wanted to do was see the lava flow on the big island. We had to drive a long ways, then walk several miles over the lava to where it was flowing. There were places we could see the hot lava in cracks beneath our feet. But when we finally got out there to see the lava flowing into the sea, it was amazing. We sat for a long time just watching the glowing lava, watching new earth being created, seeing the water trying to extinguish the fire and rising off as steam. It was the coming together of earth, fire, water and air that made it so intriguing.

Tao is a lot like that. After a while, you begin to see the connections between things, the way that things change over time, new things being created as old things seem to die off. You know the cycles of plants and how they grow from a seed and return to many seeds. You wach your own kids grow up, yourself grow old, and all the changes of life, and are no longer afraid of changes, but come to embrace them.

Tao is spiritual, but it is not religious. There’s no dogma to learn, no promises of life after death or talk about gods and how we “know” they exist or any of that. There is only the observance of life and death and how it all works together, how the world around you changes. Science fits in beautifully with the Tao, with no contradictions. Tao fits with whatever you observe in life, and you can go back and find it in the Tao. Things you never understood seem to become clearer. You find yourself not striving for wealth anymore, because there’s little you can buy that you want or need. You don’t care about fame, because there isn’t anything you want from it. Loneliness isn’t a problem - you are always with Tao, unless you fall out of it for a bit. Usually that happens when someone or something interrupts you or distracts you. So it is a pretty happy state of mind, really.

The more you dwell in the spirit,
The farther you are from common ways.
If you want to speak of Tao’s wonders,
Few will listen.

If you spend a long period of time in study and self-cultivation, you will enter Tao. By doing so, you also enter a world of extraordinary perceptions. You experience unimaginable things, receive thoughts and learning as if from nowhere, perceive things that could be classified as precedent. Yet if you try to communicate what you experience, there is no one to understand you, no one who will believe you. The more you walk this road, the farther you are from the ordinary ways of society. You may see the truth, but you will find that people would rather listen to politicians, performers, and charlatans.

If you are known as a follower of Tao, people may seek you out, but are seldom the ones who will truly understand Tao. To speak of the wonders you have seen is often to engage in a futile bout of miscommunication. That is why it is said that those who know do not speak.

Why not simply stay quiet? Enjoy Tao as you will. Let others think you are dumb. Inside yourself, you will know the joy of Tao’s mysteries. If you meet someone who can profit by your experience, you should share. But if you are merely a wanderer in a crowd of strangers, it is wisdom to be silent.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Nature says few words.
A whirlwind does not last all morning,
nor does a rainstorm last a whole day.
What causes them? Nature.

If even Nature’s utterances do not last long,
how much less should human beings’?

Tao Te Ching, 23

Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know.
Close the mouth; shut the doors.
Smooth the sharpness; untie the tangles.
Dim the glare; calm the turmoil.
This is mystical unity.
Those achieving it are detached from friends and enemies,
from benefit and harm, from honor and disgrace.
Therefore they are the most valuable people in the world.

Tao Te Ching, 56

When I was a teenager, before I ever even heard of Tao, I remember coming across the quote “If you do not understand my silence, you will not understand my words”. It struck a chord in me since I was sometimes criticised for being quiet, or people said it was hard to get to know me, or that I was “reserved”. It’s more that I might not take part in light conversation or gossip. I tend to know people very deeply, sometimes too deeply for their own comfort. But I sometimes avoid what is considered as polite conversation. I would rather know what someone truly thinks about things than discuss the weather, or a sports team, or who is doing what to whom these days.

And people can be shallow. They may not think about anything very deeply. I observe them, and find their heart, and learn who they are. How they joke tells me their prejudices, how they talk about others tells me if they are a gossip or someone who truly cares for others. Even a casual mention of the weather tells me if they know and follow the changes or just react to them. “When is this rain going to stop?” can bring a response from me of “well, they say it will rain through tomorrow, and then be nice until next Monday”.

I am all about studying process and change. How things work and how they change over time. That is why the Tao appeals to me. And there are many things that speak to us in silence.

Spring is in the air in San Diego - the freesia are blooming, the birds are singing, the sun is shining after all that rain. It’s all so gorgeous….

ahhh….

Problems cannot be
Resolved at once.
Slowly untie knots
Divide to conquer.

In order to solve problems, it is helpful to first understand whether they are puzzle, obstacle, or entanglement. A puzzle need only be analyzed carefully: It is like unraveling a ball of yarn and requires patience more than anything else. An obstacle must be overcome. We must use force and perseverance to either destroy or move away from what is blocking us. An entanglement mires us in a maze of limitations: This most dangerous of situations requires that we use all our resources to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible.

No matter what the problem, however, it is important not to take the thing on while. Break it down into smaller, more easily handled components. More problematic situations are combinations of puzzles, obstacles, and entanglements. By fracturing them into these more basic elements, they can be managed easily. Even the greatest of difficulties can be resolved when they are slowly reduced. Then the knots of life are untied as easily as if we had a magic charm.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

It’s not about my politics
Something happened way too quick
A bunch of men who played it sick
They divide, conquer

It’s all here before your eyes
Safety is a big disguise
That hides among the other lies
They divide, conquer

Well I expect I won’t be heard
Because my silence is assured
Never a discouraging word
They divide and conquer

– Husker Du, Divide and Conquer

When you have a big problem to solve, sometimes it is difficult to break it into smaller pieces. One part of the puzzle tangles with another, and there are lots of pieces to consider. As an engineer, I was trained to divide problems into their pieces. In math, I was trained to look for common factors in a problem that could be divided out.

But in our everyday life, who is there to train us? Sometimes parents teach us to be good problem solvers, sometimes we can learn from how they solved their problems. But there are always situations you didn’t expect, things that you never dreamed could happen to you, and they do. Solving those problems takes time and effort, and drains us emotionally and physically.

Right now in our nation, there are huge problems, created by people who divide us as a nation so that we fight each other instead of seeing we are all being taken for a ride. How do we reunite to reclaim the government for everyone, instead of for the rich and powerful? Especially when they have convinced so many that they are the ones with the answers, that those who tell them differently are the enemy. We are not the enemy, we are the ones with our eyes open who see where the path we are on leads.

Ancient cultures warn us to be wary of the coyote trickster. Tao warns us to beware of those who offer us false promises.

When the great Tao is abandoned,
charity and righteousness appear.
When intellectualism arises,
hypocrisy is close behind.

When there is strife in the family unit,
people talk about ‘brotherly love’.

When the country falls into chaos,
politicians talk about ‘patriotism’.

– Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 18

We are in chaos, and most people don’t even know it. We are in crisis, and most refuse to see. Let those who can see, be together. We are strong enough to solve this puzzle, untangle these knots, and overcome these obstacles. Divide, and conquer. Let’s all take up our part of the puzzle, and remember the final piece is in our own pocket.

Daily Kos :: The Rise of Rove’s Republic

Best summary I have seen of where we are right now - go read.

A tree hemmed in by giants.
Requires tenacity to survive.

Times of adversity inevitably confront us all. We are denied influence, people will not listen to what we have to say, and we are restricted by circumstance. In this situation, followers of Tao must rely on their determination. Without that, they cannot emerge successfully from the danger.

During times of adversity, vision and determination decide the outcome. Mere doggedness never served anyone well. Observe carefully, and try to act. If you find yourself tested by the situation, take comfort in that fact that adversity frequently forces on to consolidate one’s resources. You can often emerge from adversity stronger than before. Don’t be overcome by fear. Take calculated risk if you must, or face danger if you have to. If your mind is focused to the utmost, you will triumph.

Without the difficulty of being hemmed in, the tree in the forest would not be forced to marshal its power to grow toward the light. It must truly bring forth all its inner strength to spread its branches. If it becomes grand, it is in part because of its suffering. Thus the times of adversity can be crucial to the development of one’s inner personality.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents
which in prosperous circumstances
would have lain dormant.

– Horace(Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Satires

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. — Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Adversity is the state
in which man most easily
becomes acquainted with himself,
being especially free of admirers then.

– Samuel Johnson

People are like stained – glass windows.
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in,
there true beauty is revealed
only if there is a light from within.

– Elizabeth Kubler Ross

There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. — Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, 1820

One source I was reading today suggested we must deal with adversity like an oyster deals with a grain of sand, and turn it into a pearl. Perhaps this works for the small irritants in life. Take those things that grate on your nerves, and see if you can coat them in something beautiful, eventually making lovely pearls from them.

But what of those larger problems, too big to turn into pearls? Well, how big is the problem, really?

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. ~Robert Fulghum

I have a friend who broke her neck as a teen and spent months in bed. Nothing else seemed important during that time for me than supporting my friend, visiting her daily and keeping her spirits up. My own health has always been pretty good compared to that. Even in the worst of my metnal health problems, I was loved and cared for. I’ve never been hungry for more than a day in my life. I have an artist friend whose home has burned down twice now. Watching her deal with it, I’ve learned possessions are not important, even those we have worked so hard to create. Her art still leaves, even though every bit of it was destroyed, twice.

How big are your problems, really? Can’t most of them be turned into pearls?

Quotes on adversity

Sleepless nights.
Diet, mind, conditions.
Hold the possibility of correction.

Whenever you feel out of sorts, or cannot sleep, or find it hard to work and think, you are separated from Tao. If you want to get back i touch with it, ask yourself three questions: Am I eating right? Is my mind tamed? Is my world safe?

It is not facetious to look at the way you eat whenever you feel out of step with life. Many problems can be alleviated by feeling better physically, and even if this doesn’t remedy things, it will give you a good basis for coping. Eat a balanced diet rich in nutrients. Take the time to understand proper nutrition and eat a large variety of foods according to the seasons. The skillful use of foods is far superior to medicine.

Next is the difficult mind that seems to have its own interests, habits, and excesses. The only way to counter this is to guard against worry, stress, intellectualism, scheming, and desires. This can only happen through a strong philosophical grounding and by methodical meditation.

Finally, environmental factors such as weather, natural and man-made disasters, and socioeconomic problems can break our unity with Tao. To cope with this, gain as much control over your environment as possible. Keep your home a haven, have control over your work place, and be independent enough to face emergencies. It is inevitable that one will fall in and out of Tao. The wise arrange their lives so that they can always return to balance.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

The Tao is the One.
From the One come yin and yang;
From these two, creative energy (chi);
From energy, ten thousand things,
The forms of all creation.
All life embodies yin
And embraces yang,
Through their union
Achieving harmony.

- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42

The Tao of heaven
Is like drawing a bow
Lower that which is high
Raise that which is low
Reduce that which is excessive
Add to that which is insufficient

- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 77

I’ve been very out of balance in the last few days. The kids have been off school, my husband off on a vacation day. It throws me off to not have time to be by myself, meditating or just being alone. The weather has been rainy and gray, which hasn’t helped. In good weather I can always escape into the garden. In the rain I’m stuck inside with everyone.

I like the feeling of being alone lately, more so than being around other people. Most people in our society are so out of balance that it can really throw me off to be around them. We had a friend over for dinner Sunday night who is leaving her job, and she seems so much happier and freer. When I’ve seen her before she was often stressed out, and now she smiles and laughs and seems so happy.

I don’t have the work stress right now, which is great. But dealing with two teenagers and a husband are stressful as well. The kids are learning independence, but are not able to be on their own yet, so it is a difficult time for them.

So, back to getting into balance again. Eating my omelets and salmon, getting my exercise, etc. And working on my mind, the perpetual challenge….

The world is dazzling,
I alone am dull.
Others strive for achievement,
I follow a lonely path.

Followers of Tao are nonconformists. The conventional label our behavior erratic, antisocial, irresponsible, inexplicable, outrageous, and sometimes scandalous. We hear other voices, respond to inner urgings. We have no interest in the social norm; we only care about following Tao. It does not matter if no one can understand us, for we are nurtured by something most people do not sense. Awakening to this inner urge, and distinguishing spiritual impulses from the merely instinctual, is one of the crucial goals of self-cultivation.

We all have many voices, personalities, ambitions, and tendencies within ourselves. The ability to distinguish between them, and the ability to silence all the voices save for Tao’s, is imperative if one is to reach this state of being. Once one is in touch with the true Tao, there are no doubts, and the murmuring of others cannot have any effect. One is as comforted as a child at its mother’s breast.

The more one walks in Tao, the more one is interested in self-perfection. All that matters is constant cultivation to be with Tao. This is a lonely path. There are others who follow Tao, but it is not always possible to meet them. That is why is takes someone both sensitive enough to hear the call and strong enough to walk the solitary path.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the sufferage of the world.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after one’s own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.

– Alan Keightley

I guess I’m pretty much a nonconformist. I don’t always do this because I’m listening to the Tao, though. I have done a lot of things due to following those other voices in my head. Tao helps me to silence a lot of them, though. I’ve never really paid much attention to what others think about me, but when it’s someone whose opinion matters to me and they pull away their support for me, that has hurt, a lot. I’ve learned to let go of those hurts, but the scars are still there and tend to keep me from getting close to people and trusting other people sometimes.

I’m not nonconformist to be different. I just grew up in an age of questioning authority and the norms, and it stuck. It’s not a case of “I want to be different, just like all my friends!” I’ve just learned to enjoy people who are different, who think for themselves and can make their own decisions about what works in their lives. I find them more interesting, and more honest than those who try to hide what actually happens in their marriage or in their lives for fear of being out of the norm.

So the Tao works for me. Not because I hear a call, or am strong, but because it makes sense to me. It gives me ideas to think about that help me organize my life a little more clearly, and doesn’t have a God I must believe in or a strict set of rules I need to follow. Tao just is, and is in everything. And I just am, and am into everything.

Lavender roses.
Incarnate fragrance,
Priestly hue of dawn,
Spirit unfolding.

Even on the road to hell, flowers can make you smile. They are fragile, ephemeral, uncompromising. No one can alter their nature. True, you can easily destroy them, but you will not gain anything; you cannot force them to submit to your will.

Flowers arouse in us an instinct to protect them, to appreciate them, and to shelter them. This world is too ugly, too violent. There should be something delicate to care about. To do so is to be lifted above the brute and to go toward the refined. When we offer flowers on our altar, we are offering a high gift. Money is too vulgar, food too pedestrian. Only flowers are unsullied. By offering them, we offer purity.

The tenderness of flowers arouses mercy, compassion, and understanding. If that beauty is delicate, so much the better. Life itself is fleeting. We should take the time to appreciate beauty in the midst of temporality.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

My golden retriever loves to eat my roses. If I’m in the yard pruning them, he will follow me around just so I’ll toss him the flowers and he can eat them. I love my roses, as I love all my plants, and I’m grateful to Laura who taught me I could grow them organically so I would be able to fit them into my organic garden. I think I have a couple dozen rose bushes now.

Flowers are important to me, as are all sources of beauty. They are indeed a reprieve from trouble and worry, and tending them has grown to be a joy for me. I hope I will always have a garden to tend, and a golden retriever to eat my roses.

Pharyngula::It’s more than just math

“The real problem is that so many people want the shortcut to the “right” answer (although students will change their tune when it’s a matter of me going blind this weekend trying to decipher chicken scratches in blue books to give partial credit for applying the right method to a genetics problem, even if the final answer was off.) It’s Bronowski’s conflict between knowledge and certainty: most people prefer certainty, especially when knowledge might give them an answer they don’t like. And they especially favor certainty when it requires nothing more than learning a single datum, rather than the work it takes to do a calculation or derivation or document a chain of evidence.”

This is exactly the division in America right now between the left and the right. The right want to be certain of everything - God exists, he told us how to live, Keynes and Adam Smith told us all we need to know about economics, parenting is just a matter of telling your kids to just say no to sex, drugs and rock and roll. The left want to learn and want to know how things really work in the world. They are open to thought, to experimentation, to trying something and seeing if it works. Who is more adaptable to change? Who is more adaptable to the realities of the world? Who will be able to lead us into the future, where so many things are unknown and unknowable? I think that’s pretty clear.

Death is
The opposite
Of time.

We give death metaphors. We cloak it in meaning and make up stories about what will happen to us, but we don’t really know. When a person dies, we cannot see beyond the corpse. We speculate on reincarnation or talk in terms of eternity. But death is opaque to us, a mystery. In its realm, time ceases to have meaning. All laws of physics become irrelevant. Death is the opposite of time.

What dies? Is anything actually destroyed? Certainly not the body, which falls into its constituent parts of water and chemicals. That is mere transformation, not destruction. What of the mind? Does it cease to function, or does it make a transition to another existence? We don’t know for sure, and few can come up with anything conclusive.

What dies? Nothing of the person dies in the sense that the constituent parts are totally blasted from all existence. What dies is merely the identity, the identification of a collection of parts that we called a person. Each one of us is a role, like some shaman wearing layers of robes with innumerable fetishes of meaning. Only the clothes and decoration fall. What dies is only our human meaning. There is still someone naked underneath. Once we understand who that someone is, death no longer bothers us. Nor does time.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

“When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries”.

– Ancient Tibetan Buddhist saying

Men flow into life, and ebb into death.

Some are filled with life;
Some are empty with death;
Some hold fast to life, and thereby perish,
For life is an abstraction.

Those who are filled with life
Need not fear tigers and rhinos in the wilds,
Nor wear armour and shields in battle;
The rhinoceros finds no place in them for its horn,
The tiger no place for its claw,
The soldier no place for a weapon,
For death finds no place in them.

– Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

I think Lao Tsu’s message is pretty clear - be filled with life, and you have nothing to fear from death. My own personal belief on death is pretty similar. I think what we “lose” at death is the sense of being an individual, and that we flow as “spirits” back into the universal energy, whatever it is. Whatever you believe or suspect happens after death, even if it is that there is nothing after death, life is an amazing experience and living it fully, being fully aware and awake, is a wonderful choice.

For those who are suffering, life can be merely pain, though. Death for them may be a release from suffering and pain. That’s why I think if people who are very ill wish to die, they should be allowed to do so. Keeping someone alive against their will is to imprison their soul or spirit. And I don’t think there is any hell for those who take their own lives, or even for those who do evil.

I rather like the Hindu and Buddhist idea of reincarnating people according to how they lived, but like hell, it is likely just wishful thinking. Living well and doing well for others is its own reward, and there are legal means for dealing with those who act to hurt others. Putting some to death for their crimes satisfies our need for revenge, but I don’t think it discourages many criminals.

Whatever else, death is final for our lives as this particular individual. I don’t think there’s any heaven we go to where we stay this person forever and live with those we have loved. I think coming to terms with that is probably difficult for most people. They like the illusion that there is a place just for them and their friends. But it is illusion. Death is a transformation into something else, and what that is, nobody really knows.

Aww…

Life is
Beauty,
Terror,
Knowledge.

A crucial part of following Tao is seeking knowledge. All the efforts of self-cultivation are meant to make us a fit vehicle for that search. Sometimes what we learn is not pleasant. With learning, we glimpse life as it really is, and that is difficult to bear. That is why spiritual progress is slow : not because no one will tell us the secrets, but because we ourselves must overcome sentiment and fear before we can grasp it.

There is an underbelly of terror to all life. It is suffering, it is hurt. Deep within all of us are intense fears that have left few of us whole. Life’s terrors haunt us, attack us, leave ugly cuts. To buffer ourselves, we dwell on beauty, we collect things, we fall in love, we desperately try to make something lasting in our lives. We take beauty as the only worthwhile thing in this existence, but it cannot veil cursing, violence, randomness, and injustice.

Only knowledge removes this fear. If we were shown the whole truth, we could not stand it. Both lovely and horrible details make us human, and when knowledge threatens to show us our follies, we may realize that we are not yet ready to leave them behind. Then the veil closes again, and we sit meditating before it, trying to prepare ourselves for the moment when we dare to part the curtain completely.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

The follower of knowledge learns as much as he can every day;
The follower of the Way forgets as much as he can every day.

By attrition he reaches a state of inaction
Wherein he does nothing, but nothing remains undone.

To conquer the world, accomplish nothing;
If you must accomplish something,
The world remains beyond conquest.

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Ah, Tao is sometimes full of lovely contradictions. Do we really need to forget something every day, or learn something every day? I think the reality is both are true. We learn new things, new facts, gain new knowledge, and we forget a hurt, an injury, whatever pain someone has caused us. In learning about the world, we learn things that are terible and hard to face. In learning about Tao, we learn that by working with Tao, those things become easier to face, until at last, they seem trivial, like nothing.

I don’t think Lao Tzu really meant to encourage us not to learn or act on on our knowledge. He meant for us to understand the world well enough and completely enough that there is no need for us to act, because we don’t do anything requiring us to take action. It’s paradoxical, but sometimes the less we do, the less problems we create for ourselves. By not eating harmful food, smoking, taking care of our bodies through exercise, we don’t need to take action to repair our health. By living in harmony with others, we don’t create conflict.

Are actions forced upon us at times? Certainly. But the ultimate goal is to not create situations that cause harm and that we need to respond to. But it is an ultimate goal, not something that is easily applied to everyday life with all the problems we must face.

So forget something every day. Forget that someone insulted you. Forget that someone cut you off in traffic. Forget that your kids or your spouse annoyed you. Give away anything that needs dry cleaning. Stop ironing - buy clothes that don’t wrinkle or look good wrinkled. Blue jeans are great. Forget that the kids’ rooms are messy - let them live that way if they like. And give away the collections - you don’t really need them. Simplify your life, however you can. And look out the window, at the sky and birds and plants and just - ah. Isn’t that better?

Tidal windstorm
Splits trees and rock,
Yet cannot last a day.
So much less, man’s work.

When a storm hits, an entire ocean of wind and rain is spent upon the land. Leaves are turned inside out, branches are torn, and even hard granite is worn away. But such gales seldom last and entire day. In spite of the tremendous amount of force that is released, the storm cannot last.

If heaven’s works cannot last a day, human works must be even less lasting. Governments barely survive from year to year, the rules of society are constantly being challenged, the family erodes, personal relationships decay, and one’s career topples. Even the monuments of the world are now being destroyed by air pollution and neglect. Nothing lasts. It is simple fact that no event set in motion by human beings lasts forever.

All our efforts are temporary. They borrow from preexisting forces, ride the current of natural events, and disappear according to the dictates of the situation. It is best to realize the transitory nature of things and work with it. Understanding the world’s ephemeral nature can be the biggest advantage of all.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

The impermanence of all forms is the starting point of Buddhism. The Buddha taught that ‘all compounded things are impermanent’, and that all suffering in the world arises from our trying to cling to fixed forms - objects, people or ideas - instead of accepting the world as it moves and changes. -Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p211

Learning impermanence was (and is) a very difficult thing for me. To lose my parents to death, to lose friends over our differences and experience their lack of compassion for my suffering their absence, to lose my youth, all these things were great losses to me. It has taken a long time to accept that nothing is permanent, that all things change in time. I will grow old and die, my husband and kids will as well, and so on. Nothing in this life is permanent.

The up side is, the hard times and the things that seem like terrible evils in the world are not permanent, either. There are no situations that will not change in time, even seemingly intractable ones. People will die, others will take their place and feel differently, experience the world differently. Sometimes change may take many generations, but it does happen. And eventually, inevitably, all of us will be gone from this world.

Which is a good thing. Who wants to live forever? It would be quite sad, really, seeing this earth consumed in the inevitable ball of fire as the sun explodes.

Christianity

It seems as long as we’re sin-conscious enough, we can identify ourselves as Christians. A good friend of mine, a minister, used to do a funny imitation of the “holiness movement” of his boyhood. Screwing his face into a righteous scowl, he’d declare, “Bless God, I don’t swear, drink, smoke, spit or chew or go with those who do, and I don’t play cards, dance or go to movies!” Conversely, we could add the positives: “I go to church regularly, tithe, vote for every “family-values” legislation I’ve been told is right, and even my minivan is sanctified by a chrome fish.” And it’s a wonder that so few have noticed that in the life and teaching of Jesus in the gospels, this exaggerated sin-consciousness is peculiarly absent — except among the religious fellows whom Jesus corrects for missing the point, or for their hypocrisy. But today also, the question is rarely considered as to whether living for such distinctions really has anything to do with compassion for your fellows or delight in God. Often it comes from clinging allegiance to an abstraction, a code of “Christian conduct.” Dead. But the problem really reminds me of the man who ran up to Jesus, fell to his knees and said, “Good Rabbi, what must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus raised up a question mark against his notion of goodness and gave him what Zen Buddhists might call a koan:

“Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus continued:
“You know the commandments: Do not murder; Do not commit adultery; Do not steal; Do not bear false witness; Do not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” The man said, “Rabbi, all these have I kept since I was a boy.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “There is one thing you lack: go, sell all you have and give it to the poor, and you will have heavenly treasure; then come and follow me.” When the man heard this his face clouded over and he went away sick at heart, for he was a man who had large estates. And Jesus looked around at his disciples and said, “Children, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

What is good? Jesus ignored the man’s claims to following an abstract code and asked the man to do one thing based on true compassion instead of moral conceptualism. And, you want to know eternal life? A camel doesn’t get through the eye of a needle unless it becomes nothing. Jesus told his followers. “Unless your righteousness is deeper than the righteousness of the scribes [copyists of the written religious/moral law], you will never enter the kingdom of God.” Confucius said it in his way, “Goody-goodies are the thieves of virtue.”

Pattern and creativity
Are the two poles of action.

It is wise to plan each day. By setting goals for oneself and organizing activities to be accomplished, one can be sure that each day will be full and never wasted.

Followers of Tao use patterns when planning. They observe the ways of nature, perceive the invisible lines of destiny. They imagine a pattern for their entire lives, and in this way, they ensure overall success. Each day, they match interim patterns against their master goals, and so navigate life with sureness and grace. It is precisely this ability to discern and manipulate patterns unknown to the ordinary person that makes the follower of Tao so formidable.

When unpredictable things happen, those who follow Tao are also skilled at improvisation. If circumstances deny them, they change immediately. To avoid confusion, they still discern the patterns of the situation and create new ones, much like a chess player at the board. The spontaneous creation of new patterns is their ultimate art.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

The third viewpoint of nature, and the one we will discuss at length here, is from the Chinese, who use the word Li, to describe nature as organic pattern, translated as the markings in jade, the grain in wood, and the fiber in muscle. All of it is just infinitely beautiful, flowing in all sorts of complicated patterns. There is an order to it, but you cannot put your finger on it. It simply cannot be measured or put into words or symbols. When you look at a cloud, it is not a cube, nor is it circular. It has no specific order to it that we can describe and yet it is perfect. Look at a tree, a mountain, or the foam on water when it hits the shoreline, even the stars; all amazingly beautiful, in all kinds of wild and crazy patterns. All of it has an order to it that we simply cannot measure or describe. This is Li - organic pattern.

The Tao is not something different from nature, the birds, the bees, the trees, or ourselves. The Tao is the way all that behaves. So the basic Chinese idea of the universe is that it is an organism. You cannot find the controlling center of it, because there isn’t any. Everything is a system of interrelated components, all interdependent on the other. Like bees and flowers; you will not find bees where there are no flowers, nor flowers where there are no bees or other insects that do their equivalent. Therefore though they look very different, they are in fact inseparable. They arise mutually. There is no cause and effect as we study with such veracity here in the west. Light and dark, high and low, sound and silence - all are only experienced in terms of their polar opposites.

http://www.yakrider.com/Tao/Taoism_Daoism.htm

For me, the world is about process. Whatever task you attempt, there is always a process of fulfilling that task. If you don’t define a process, then the process is simply random. But even randomness is itself a pattern.

Natural processes are somewhat predictable - the days of the year, the seasons, the time of sunrise and sunset, etc. For a woman, there’s the monthly flow. In some ways, I think maybe this atunes women more to process. But we are all creatures of habit, to some extent, and have certain patterns in our lives.

When things are not going well, the trick is to look for the pattern that is going on, and find a way to change it. When things are aligned the way you want them to be, the trick is to be mindful of any discrepancies in the pattern you are trying to create or follow.

But Tao and life are about change. The real ability is to be able to adapt to those changes and alter your plans based on those changes.