Changing Places

Simple Pleasures, Albert Fennel

“Be aware of Tao.”
Isn’t that simple?
No — let’s reduce more :
“Be Tao.”

Why go through all this rigmarole? Why endlessly examine scriptures and debate obscure actions of long-dead saints and equally dead words? We need to affirm experience over words, individuality over dogma.

After all this study of Tao, there should only be this simple conclusion :

There is only us and Tao.

No, more simple still is to be Tao itself. Then everything that is Tao is us.

Those who follow Tao reduce everything in complexity until they reach the final irreducible conclusion : You are Tao. When you can be that without any contradictions, then you have truly achieved sublime simplicity.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

“Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.”
– Winston Churchill

“Simplicity is the glory of expression”
– Walt Whitman

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.”
– Charles Dudley Warner

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

“From native simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity.” — Albert Schweitzer

Eliminate physical clutter. More importantly, eliminate spiritual clutter. ~D.H. Mondfleur

Live simply that others might simply live. ~Elizabeth Seaton

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. ~Lin Yutang

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris

How many things are there which I do not want. ~Socrates

America is a difficult country for anyone trying to simplify their life. We complicate things endlessly and are relentlessly pushed to be more, do more, have more. Our lives become complex webs of work, relationships, and always, more stuff than we can handle.

Be Tao. It seems very simple, to realize one is simply a natural being that is a part of everything else. But our relationship to the real, natural world is so often cut off, our understanding of ourselves is cut off as well. Connecting the two things as one is not an easy or simple task.

Can we achieve the simplicity of knowing we are Tao? Sure. And then we’ll forget, and need to remind ourselves again. The less often we need reminding, the simpler and more fulfilling our lives will become.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Tao. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.