Hair on the Soap

The Spirit of September 12

2008-09-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

Much is said, for good reason, about September 11, 2001. Far too little is said about September 12, 2001. There is as much to learn from 9/12 as there is to learn from 9/11, perhaps more. We seem intent on remembering the lessons of the former, and almost equally intent on forgetting the lessons of the latter.

On the morning of September 12, 2001, we awoke to a different world. That world was not just one that had been shocked by an insane act of terrorism. It was a world that was united against the insanity of terrorism.

The “we” who awoke that morning was not limited to Americans. We were the world, and the world was us. Essentially every person who did not fall within the small circumference of religious or political zealots who we call “terrorists” was, on that morning, united in its revulsion.

On September 11, we gazed in stunned silence upon the destruction formerly known as the Twin Towers. On September 12, we witnessed that silence give birth to a precious unity and an incomparable resolve. The doors and windows that had been blow off those Towers were simultaneously blown open to all who watched them fall.

It was a moment of light breaking through the darkest cloud that had ever passed over America and all that America stood for in the world. It was a light coming from all good and decent people outside America, which was immediately joined by the light from all good and decent people inside America.

We were not Americans, Europeans, Africans, Asians, Islanders or any other national, ethnic or cultural clan; we were not liberal, conservative, moderate, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or any other political persuasion; we were not Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, atheists or any other adherent on the religious spectrum; we were not rich, poor, middle class or any other economic classification; we were not black, white, brown or any other racial hue; we were not straight, gay, bi, trans or any other orientation. We were a world united; we were good and decent people everywhere.

We, the world, bonded in our shared goodness and decency on September 12, 2001. We, the world, thought and felt and spoke as one that day. We, the world, were prepared to act as one that day.

But, then, the moment passed; the fires were smothered; the smoke wafted away; the dust settled; the planes began to fly again; the funerals were held. We went back to business as usual with little impact outside the airport security lines. What we had found together in stunned silence and what we shared together for several unique months in history began to dissipate, along with the unusual opportunity that this outrage presented us.

What happened? The new vision of unity gave way to the old illusion of division. From the horrible union represented by the commingled rubble of 220 floors at Ground Zero we once again erected a house divided. The world extended its hand to us and we extended our hand to each other – and then we let go and each of us walked our own way.

We forgot the power of silence and we began to talk, again. For a while the voices spoke words of wisdom and security, but before long the voices began to speak words of fear and insecurity. A frightened and deafening noise became the order of the day and the new pledge of allegiance.

America, the presumptive guardian of peace around the world, almost unilaterally declared war on two nouns – terrorism and tyranny – apparently losing sight of the fact that that war had first been declared not long after humankind organized itself into nations, religions and political powers, and had been fought endlessly for thousands of years in countless places around the world. Absent the millennial reign of a just and merciful God, there is no end to that war. Mankind cannot achieve victory against evil because evil resides in the hearts and minds of fearful people, nestled close to the false righteousness of self-interest.

What do we do? We can start as we started on September 12, 2001, by stopping and observing moments of silence during which we rediscover the ever-present basis for unity with other people throughout our country and around our world. In those moments we can reconnect with the reality that the world presents us with a unifying horror of some kind every day – be it war, terrorism, tyranny, genocide, torture, slavery, assassination, nuclear proliferation, poverty, famine, drought, deadly disease, infant mortality, the violent abuse of women and children, drug trafficking and addiction, abject hunger and homelessness, or the ever-near natural disaster.

Everyday thousands of men, women and children, most of whom are innocent victims, die from these horrors just as the 2998 innocent victims from 90 countries died from the horror in America on 9/11. Each of these horrors is equally deserving of its own war. Which is more deserving of the blood and treasure of our national and personal sacrifice? Which is less deserving?

What do we do? We can realize that we are in every one of these wars together, whether we believe that or not. We can realize that what happens to others and their families happens to us and our families. We can recall the oft-used words of John Donne:

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all….

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

Can you hear the bell toll today?

The Score

2008-07-23T05:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, John McCain said that Barack Obama is willing to lose a war so he can win an election. Outrageous rhetoric like that depicts what is wrong with American politics. To accuse a candidate of such a thing is akin to an accusation of aiding and abetting the enemy, which is treasonous, and that makes it ridiculous in this instance. Being willing to launch an insult like that for political gain reveals a character flaw in Senator McCain that indicates that he is not fit to serve as president, that he does not have the temperament to engage the country and the world in meaningful dialog. That is not the rhetoric of a leader.

Senator McCain has been attempting to cast the debate on the war in Iraq in simple-minded terms that play to the American ego. He speaks about the war almost exclusively in terms of winning and losing – it’s about victory or surrender, he tells us. It’s simple – Americans never lose; Americans always win.

But launching this war was never justified or explained as a war on Iraq that would be won or lost on the streets of Baghdad – we were told repeatedly that it was and is a war on international terrorism.

How does one ever declare victory in such a war? How does one win, or for that matter lose such a war? Who keeps score for such a war? Because the streets of Baghdad are less violent for a few months, we can declare that we’re winning the war on terrorism? That sounds like a young boy on the playground who just needs to yell, “We win!” no matter what the score is. That is not the rhetoric of a leader.

Senator McCain does not declare that we’re winning the war in Afghanistan, which is where the war on terrorism started, which is where the war on the terrorism of 9/11 should have been fought with undivided resolution. As long as Osama bin Laden remains a free man, free to plan and execute the next attack on America or its allies, then no American president can claim victory in this war.

It’s fair to conclude that in this war the score remains as it was on 9/12 – al Qaida, 1 – America, 0.

Tao Te Ching 81

2008-07-17T09:21:00.001-07:00

True words aren’t eloquent; eloquent words aren’t true. Wise men don’t need to prove their point; men who need to prove their point aren’t wise.

The Tao nourishes by not forcing. By not dominating, the Master leads.
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I can’t count the number of times that I have been eloquent, but unwise. I will try not to add to those numbers today.

I can’t count the number of times that I have forced, but not nourished. I have tried not to add to those numbers in these postings on the Tao.

I can’t count the number of times that I have dominated, but not led. I will try not to add to those numbers tomorrow.
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This is the end of my online journey through the Tao Te Ching. I will try to continue my offline journey through its teachings as I go on along the way.

I am grateful for the Tao Te Ching – a New English Version, written by Stephen Mitchell. I encourage anyone who reads these words to read his words. There is far more to be learned in that reading than I have captured here. It’s an “easy read” and it opens a door to a life of peace, contentment and wisdom. It promises true wealth in the form of simplicity, patience and compassion – our greatest treasures.

Tao Te Ching 80

2008-07-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

If a country is governed wisely, its inhabitants will be content….Since they dearly love their homes, they aren’t interested in travel….People take pleasure in being with their families, spend weekends working in their gardens, delight in the doings of the neighborhood. And even though the next country is so close that people can hear its roosters crowing…they are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it.
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As usual, there is more to this chapter than is quoted here. It should be read in its entirety, but there’s enough here to glean both a gross and a subtle point. The gross point is political – one might conclude that we aren’t governed wisely in America. We seem a little shy of contentment; many of us don’t find the doings of our neighborhood all that delightful; and most of us seem to be in love with the allure of traveling to other countries. I’ll leave it at that.

The subtle point is that this chapter isn’t about our “country” – it’s about our life. If our life is being governed with wisdom, then we are content with our life as it is. We aren’t seeking greater pleasure, enjoyment or fulfillment in the material world around us. We’re content to stay “home”, where we have what we have and it’s enough, no matter what we have. In this contentment, we don’t take flights of fancy to the realms of other, hopefully better relationships; other, hopefully more remunerative places to work; other, hopefully bigger homes and cars; other, hopefully finer clothing and jewelry; other, hopefully more contented lives.

Hope is a place that is defined by fear – the fear that we aren’t enough; that we don’t have enough. Hope is an attachment to something better in the future, just as fear is an attachment to something worse in the past. Hope and fear are opposite sides of the same coin; we can’t have one without the other. Said another way – they are the same thing.

Many of us have taken vows to love, honor and cherish, for better or for worse – a vow that should apply to life, not just to marriage. If we seek contentment, we need to know that we already have it, right here at home.

Tao Te Ching 79

2008-07-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame. Therefore the Master fulfills her own obligations and corrects her own mistakes. She does what she needs to do and demands nothing of others.
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Failure is an opportunity to take personal responsibility for our life. The other option, which is wildly popular, is to blame someone else, often anyone else. But once we go down that path there is no destination, only an endless walk over hot coals.

The Taoist Master understands the wisdom of meeting her own needs and tending to her own business without making that business dependent on others fulfilling her demands. In so doing, she removes the possibility of blaming someone else for her failure, which at the same time removes the possibility of someone else causing or contributing to her failure.

Standing on our own two feet, in our own shoes, is harder than it appears.

Tao Te Ching 78

2008-07-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice.

True words seem paradoxical.
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These words give a concrete example of the related teaching in Chapter 76. A newborn infant can move water aside without the slightest effort. Yet, that same water can drip on concrete and wear the concrete away as if it had no more strength than a newborn infant.

Everyone understands the power of water on the move. Yet, few understand the truth that being yielding and gentle will overcome the hard and inflexible. Most of us believe that power lies in being hard and unyielding, rather than appreciating that power resides in the relentless flow of the soft.

Note, too, that true words only seem to be paradoxical. They are paradoxical only in the mind that sees the world in dualistic terms. In the mind of those who see the world in reality, there is no dualism and thus no paradox.

Tao Te Ching 77 (Teaching 2)

2008-07-13T00:05:00.002-07:00

The Master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth. She acts without expectation, succeeds without taking credit, and doesn’t think that she is better than anyone else.
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The ability to give is infinite in those whose wealth is infinite. Recall that in the economy of the Tao Te Ching the three great treasures are simplicity, patience and compassion. It’s easy to see how drawing from a bottomless well that contains those living waters can go on forever.

Such wealth is amassed by following the simple, if not easy, guidance to act without expectation, succeed without taking credit and never think that we’re better than another. The effort expended in making expectations, taking credit and comparing ourselves to others drains our treasury.

Tao Te Ching 77 (Teaching 1)

2008-07-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

The Tao is like the bending of a bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance. It takes from what is too much and given to what isn’t enough.
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Again, we find a message of flexibility. Who among us does not have excess and deficiency? Who among us doesn’t feel out of balance? The Tao Te Ching invites us to find a perfect balance by adjusting our excesses and deficiencies. I note that it doesn’t suggest that we must rid ourselves of our excesses and deficiencies in order to find balance in the middle way. Instead, it speaks to transferring the energy from that which has too much to that which has too little.

I believe that as we strike such a balance, we will bleed off the energy in each extreme and rid ourselves of our excesses and deficiencies on our own, the way a swinging pendulum finally rests at the center point when the energy in its motion is allowed to dissipate.

Tao Te Ching 76

2008-07-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.
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This is one of my favorite chapters in the Tao Te Ching, so I’ve quoted all of it. It’s a thumbnail manual for living, and thus for dying. The truth of these six sentences has been manifest in my life more times than I can count.

Every time in my life that I’ve gotten hard, stiff, brittle or dry I have contributed to the death of something, be it a relationship, a communication, an innovation, or some needed change. Every time that I’ve remained soft, supple, tender and pliant, I have nurtured the life and well being of those essential things.

This chapter reveals one of the secrets of the martial arts, wherein the prevailing combatant is always soft, supple and yielding in a wise way.

I think of those who hold fast to their hardened positions in matter of politics and religion, those who have no flexibility in their views of the world and the affairs of men and women. In time, they will be broken.

I think of those people who have been the paradigms of peace and happiness in my life. Without exception, they have been flexible and able to bend in an adverse wind and then return to their full stature when the storm passes.

Tao Te Ching 75

2008-07-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people’s benefit. Trust them; leave them alone.
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This may be the ultimate challenge to government. People cannot buy food with money that is sent to the government. People cannot maintain their spirit if government intrudes into the aspects of life where their spirit arises and is nurtured and maintained.

The problem arises when people prove by their actions over a sustained period of time that they are not trustworthy in a way or in an area of life that hurts other people. The government often must intercede in those instances, while trying to avoid being too intrusive. Can government leave people alone if those people won’t leave other people alone? If one group of people presumes to act as a governing influence on another group of people, can government sit idly by and watch an abuse that is due to an oppressive imbalance of power?

Government must seek a delicate balance that is not easily struck – a balance between trusting people and helping people, between leaving them along and lifting them up.

Tao Te Ching 74

2008-07-09T06:38:00.001-07:00

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren’t afraid of dying, there is nothing you can’t achieve.

Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place. When you handle the master carpenter’s tools, chances are that you’ll cut yourself.
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All accumulation ends in dispersion; all meetings end in separation; all birth ends in death. All things are impermanent and subject to change at every moment. All attempts to grasp and hold on to something – anything – will be in vain, because that thing – all things – will change and become something different in due course. Attachments are futile, so it is wisdom not to try.

Christians will appreciate the reference to the master carpenter, even if some of them don’t appreciate the danger in trying to use his tools. His greatest tool was his word. Presuming to speak the word of the master carpenter, in his name or on his behalf, is a very risky undertaking, lest those words be spoken in vain. The cut inflicted by the negligent use of that tool can be severe.

Tao Te Ching 73

2008-07-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

The Tao is always at ease. It overcomes without competing, answers without speaking a word, arrives without being summoned, accomplishes without a plan.
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As I read this I thought about people I’ve known who always seem to be at ease. With a little reflection, I’m struck by the observation that these people didn’t compete; could speak without saying anything; were always present and available; and seemed to move through life without the burden of plans – in other words, at ease.

When I was in the military there was only one command that released tension and that was the command to stand “at ease”.

Tao Te Ching 72

2008-07-07T06:01:00.001-07:00

When they lose their sense of awe, people turn to religion. When they no longer trust themselves, they begin to depend on authority.
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What produced awe in humankind before the first religion was organized? What caused humankind to lose touch with our original sense of awe? Why did we see the alternative in various forms of religion? What have we surrendered by turning to religions for a sense of awe?

What produced trust in humankind before the first government was organized? What caused humankind to lose touch with the original sense of trust? Why did we see the alternative in various forms of government? What have we surrendered by turning to governments for a sense of trust?

There is a famous Zen koan that asks, “What was your original face before your parents were born?” When we answer the koan, we will find the answer to the source of awe and trust, because that source will be reflected in our original face.

Tao Te Ching 71

2008-07-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. The Master is her own physician. She has healed herself of all knowing. Thus she is truly whole.
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The door to learning is the realization that there is something to learn; that we need to learn. The door to learning everything is the realization that we have everything to learn.

The status of world affairs provides ample evidence of the sickness that arises from people in positions of power “presuming to know” what is best or right or moral. These people have taken their personal views and opinions and dressed them up as knowledge, like a fantasizing child playing grownup.

The suggestion that we can be truly whole only if we heal ourselves of all our knowing is compelling because it suggests that our knowledge is the source of our overwhelming compulsion to see the world in fragments. Our knowledge, so called, causes us to see everyone as separate from ourselves; it’s the basis of you and I; us and them; right and wrong; good and bad; and the myriad other fragmented (dualistic) views that reside in our heads and hearts.

Wholeness – health, well being and peace – will be found only when we heal the things that divide us. The Old Testament prophets teach us “How good and how pleasant it is for people to dwell together in unity.”

May we be healed of our disease so that we may be whole and dwell together in unity.

Tao Te Ching 70

2008-07-05T11:09:00.001-07:00

My teachings are easy to understand … yet your intellect will never grasp them. My teachings are older than the world. How can you grasp them?

If you want to know me, look inside your heart.
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Why are we told to look inside our heart? Because that is the one place in us that is “older than the world”. It is a place outside and beyond the intellect. The intellect is the place of thoughts, concepts, judgments; the place where labels are applied and prejudices and assumptions are born.

At the heart of each of us is an essence that is perfect, peaceful and in harmony with everything else that shares that essence, which is everything else. At that place we connect with the way of life as it is, which is the way of life as it always has been and always will be.

Here, at the center, we can grasp the teachings that life offers us. Here, at the center, we put our feet on the only path that leads us to reality. All other paths lead us to a place of our own creation; a place where we grasp nothing other than our own thoughts, concepts, judgments, prejudices and assumptions; a place that is usually anything but perfect, peaceful and harmonious.

A Bold Declaration of Hope and Courage

2008-07-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”

May the independence declared in this paragraph resound forever in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

May God bless America and those in the uniformed services who defend her with honor and courage in their commitment to duty.

Tao Te Ching 69

2008-07-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

There is no great misfortune than underestimating your enemy. Underestimating your enemy means thinking that he is evil. Thus you destroy your three treasures and become an enemy yourself.
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Underestimating an enemy will make us ineffective in fighting that enemy. If we do not understand his motivation and intention and his view of what threatens him, then we do not understand how to proceed. That’s not to say that we must agree with his motivation, intention or views. But we must understand them so that we avoid underestimating him and his strength, direction and objectives.

We cannot determine that an enemy is evil without first determining that we are righteous. We must understand that our self righteousness is seen as evil by our enemy and thus we become his enemy and he underestimates us in one fell swoop.

In this dance of evil enemies we are both made poor through the loss of our three treasures – simplicity, patience and compassion. Death and destruction result, and the seeds of the next encounter with evil are planted.

Tao Te Ching 68

2008-07-02T06:00:00.001-07:00

The best athlete wants his opponent at this best. The best general enters the mind of his enemy. The best businessman serves the communal good. The best leader follows the will of the people.

All of them embody the virtue of non-competition. Not that they don’t love to compete, but they do it in the spirit of play. In this they are like children.
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Each recitation of the “best” reflects attention being actively given to someone else – an opponent; an enemy; the community; the people. The “best” among us know that they have something to learn or to receive from others in order for them to achieve what they seek. In this realization, there is no competition. In this realization there is respect and humility. In this realization, there is awareness that nothing is accomplished without the presence of others, be it an opponent or an enemy being fought, or a community or a body politic being served.

Children who know how to play well with others are much happier than those who see others as someone to defeat. Our schoolyard recess made that clear.

Tao Te Ching 67 (Teaching 2)

2008-07-01T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way thing are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
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As I reread this teaching, I wondered which problems and challenges that I’ve encountered in my life would not have been overcome by greater simplicity, patience or compassion. Are there any?

I thought about problems and challenges in marriage, parenting, education, and the workplace – what differences would have come from living my life out of an abundance of these treasures? I thought about the problems and challenges that have unfolded in the solitary realms of my mind and heart – what would have come from a more simple view and from being more patient and compassionate with myself?

I might have been a better person by being closer to the source of being. I might have been more aligned with the light, energy and way of life. I might have found more peace and reconciliation with the people in my life. I might have been “wealthy” beyond measure because I possessed these great treasures.

Then I wonder: how will I live today and tomorrow?

Tao Te Ching 67 (Teaching 1)

2008-06-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

Some say that my teaching is nonsense. Others call it lofty but impractical. But to those who have looked inside themselves, the nonsense makes perfect sense. And to those who put it into practice, this loftiness has roots that go deep.
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If you think the teaching in the Tao Te Ching is impractical, then suspend judgment for a while and try it; put it into practice and see if its practicality becomes apparent. If you think it’s nonsense, then look inside your mind and heart and listen for the still, small voice that may whisper the sense of it.

One thing that keeps us from living real and authentic lives is our use of filters in the form of judgments and opinions about life and the views of others. These filters prevent the new and the different from making any contact with us other than in a superficial and momentary way. We dismiss the lofty, the impractical, the so-called nonsense, lest we have to deal with the possibility that they are anything but lofty, impractical or nonsense. We don’t want anything to disrupt our accepted view of the world around us and the lives we lead.

Generally speaking, if tens of millions of people find something of value in a teaching, we should employ enough curiosity to inquire about it. If that number swells to hundreds of millions, inquiry should become a deeper investigation. Exceptions to any such generalization are appropriate, of course – but with some critical thinking involved, rather than merely dismissing the teachings as a matter of course.

I invite you to inquire into the impractical nonsense in the Tao Te Ching. Just for fun if nothing else.

Tao Te Ching 66

2008-06-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power.

The Master is above the people, and no one feels oppressed. She goes ahead of the people, and no one feel manipulated. Because she competes with no one, no one can compete with her.
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Humility is evident when people put themselves in a position to receive. That is a position of power, as evidenced by the massive power of the sea when compared to any river or stream that flows into it.

When a Master is humble then the people under her domain do not feel oppressed or manipulated. Oppression and manipulation are used by so-called leaders who are striving to attain greater power through arrogant or self-serving means. In the end, the inherent weakness in such leaders will be revealed and the people will look elsewhere for leadership at the first opportunity.

The last sentence quoted above is one of those paradoxical gems in the Tao Te Ching. The Master doesn’t see herself as a competitor and thus doesn’t present a competitive profile. Who can compete with something that isn’t there?

Tao Te Ching 65

2008-06-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

When they think they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don’t know, people can find their own way.

The simplest pattern is the clearest.
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Every so-called “leader” or “teacher” has discovered this truth. Trying to lead or teach people who already know the answers is frustrating and unfulfilling – for the leader and the led; for the teacher and the student. But, when people finally realize the extent of what they don’t know, then they search for knowledge and find wisdom mostly on their own. Leaders and teachers should open the door to not-knowing.

The principle of Occam’s razor says: all other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best; if given a choice, choose the simplest path, the simplest answer; in explaining any phenomenon, make the fewest assumptions possible. Following this principle brings only one thing: clarity. Some might say that that is the only thing that matters.

Tao Te Ching 64 (Teaching 2)

2008-06-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

The Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as the beginning. He has nothing, thus has nothing to lose. What he desires is non-desire; what he learns is to unlearn. He simply reminds people of who they have always been. He cares about nothing but the Tao. Thus he can care for all things.
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Letting go; letting be; remaining calm at all times. The level of peace in our lives may turn on how often we can say to ourselves, “Let it go” or “Let it be.” In that mindset we are far less reactive and resistant to the vicissitudes of life. We retain energy that is otherwise wasted.

Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” We profess to be free, when we aren’t. We profess to be seeking freedom, when we aren’t. If our focus in on things, rather than on no-things, then we’re not free.

Peace is found in no longer desiring for life to be other than it is at the moment. Thus, we should desire nothing other than the absence of desire.

Those of us who are a little more advanced in years probably smile at the thought of how much of our learning we’ve had to unlearn. It’s been said that the greatest knowledge is the knowledge that we don’t know, and that the more knowledge we attain, the more we realize what we don’t know.

Have we ever done anything greater for a loved one than helping them to see and appreciate who they are and to feel good about that awareness? Probably not.

Tao Te Ching 64 (Teaching 1)

2008-06-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

What is rooted is easy to nourish. What is recent is easy to correct. What is brittle is easy to break. What is small is easy to scatter.

Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
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The deeper we sink our roots into life, the greater our well being. The taproot of well being is awareness of who we are and who we are not; awareness of the here and now; awareness of our deepest intention and motivation.

The sooner we correct a mistake or a problem, so-called, the greater our well being. Allowing wounds to fester only risks infection and scarring.

If we become rigid, set in our ways, we can be easily snapped. Remaining flexible in the elements around us, whatever they may be, the greater our well being.

If our thoughts remain small, meaning they are centered only on ourselves and on the minute circumstances that irritate us, the easier our energy is depleted. Being “scatterbrained” is never a compliment. The greater we maintain our integrity and wholeness, the greater our well being.

Tao Te Ching 63

2008-06-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

The Master never reaches for the great; thus she achieves greatness. When she runs into difficulty, she stops and gives herself to it. She doesn’t cling to her own comfort; thus problems are no problem for her.
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Greatness is an inner quality to be realized by understanding our true nature and by becoming aware of reality. Greatness is not something external to be reached for and grasped. When we stop seeking greatness outside ourselves we will find the way to discover it already residing inside.

Discomfort comes in not being able to accept life as it is. Someone who accepts life does not see problems – s/he sees life as it is and by doing so s/he transforms and transcends difficulty.

Deployed

2008-06-24T05:16:00.001-07:00

Later today, my son will leave his home and family and return to a war zone. For six months he will be deployed on a patrol craft in the Persian Gulf, patrolling the coasts of Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. Nothing else matters to me today.

I salute his courage and commitment to duty and country. I pray for a safe return for him and all of his shipmates; and I pray for peace. God bless all who serve with honor.

Tao Te Ching 62

2008-06-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

When a new leader is chosen, don’t offer to help him with your wealth and expertise. Offer instead to teach him about the Tao.

Why did the ancient Masters esteem the Tao? Because, being one with the Tao, when you seek, you find; and when you make a mistake, you are forgiven. That is why everybody loves it.
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By teaching a new leader about the Tao, the way of life, we teach her or him not to fear. What greater thing could be taught to a new leader? The fearful are unable to see reality - life as it is right now. What greater vision could be offered to a new leader?

One who lives in harmony with the way of life will always find what they are seeking, because they will only seek what can be found in the way of life. They will be forgiven of their mistakes because it is not in the nature of life to pass judgment.

Those who seek to lead should learn not to fear; should be aware of the reality around them each moment; should seek only what life offers; and should cease passing moral judgment.

Tao Te Ching 61 (Teaching 2)

2008-06-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

If a nation is centered in the Tao, if it nourishes its own people and doesn’t meddle in the affairs of others, it will be a light to all nations in the world.
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The Statue of Liberty holds a torch high, as a light to all who approach the nation for which it stands. But that torch is only a symbol. The reach and brightness of the light actually being cast by our nation will be found in answering the following questions:

Do we nourish all of our own people? It is the hope of nourishment, of various kinds, that has drawn people to this land from around the world since the founding of Jamestown on May 13, 1607. Not all of our people are being nourished.

Do we meddle in the affairs of others? A nation is meddling when it intervenes in the affairs of others without being asked. Our nation has intervened when asked, and when not asked.

The reach and brightness of our national light is not what it has been in the past. But, the candlepower in that torch remains as great as it ever has been. I am hopeful that it will be a bright and far-reaching light to all nations of the world, again, some day.

Tao Te Ching 61 (Teaching 1)

2008-06-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

A great nation is like a great man. When he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers. He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.
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It has become rare to see a nation or the leaders of a nation admit to having made a mistake. “Being right” all of the time has become an ego-driven obsession. When an admission comes, it’s often half-baked or burdened with qualifications and thus rarely leads to the needed correction. The necessary and appropriate correction can only emerge from a full and honest realization of the error being corrected.

As for regarding those who point out our faults as our most benevolent teachers – forget it, at least in the halls of government. The idea of a “loyal opposition” that is acting in the best interests of the nation, rather than in the best interests of the opposition, has become so foreign as to be alien.

The most intriguing element of this chapter lies in the last sentence quoted above. This “shadow” truth applies to nations, political parties, religions, businesses, families and individuals. We cannot sum up the pain and suffering that would be avoided if everyone, individually and collectively, could see their enemy not as totally separate from themselves, but as a shadow being cast by their own actions, inactions, beliefs, prejudices, and judgments.

Shadows are simple things, and all shadows are the same. They are a blockage between the source of light and the common ground upon which we all stand. We should look at them and learn from them.

Tao Te Ching 60

2008-06-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

Center your country in the Tao and evil will have no power. Not that it isn’t there, but you’ll be able to step out of its way. Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself.
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Evil finds its power is our inability to accept life as it is. We “step out of its way” by staying present in the here and now, rather than wandering into the past or the future where our fears dwell. Fear is the ground from which evil grows, just as love is the ground from which goodness grows.

Evil draws its energy from our resistance to life. Removing that opposition depletes the energy in evil and it goes away.

Tao Te Ching 59

2008-06-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

For governing a country well there is nothing better than moderation. The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Nothing is impossible for him. Because he has let go, he can care for the people’s welfare as a mother cares for her child.
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“Moderation in all things” includes moderation in governing – what a concept that is. I wonder if it’s possible in the U.S. Can Americans and the politicians we elect ever find freedom from our own ideas?

The statement that moderation means being free from the grip of our own ideas, concepts and opinions is a profound teaching. It does not mean that we don’t have ideas; it means that we’re not so attached to them that we can’t hear and understand the ideas of others. It means that we’re willing and able to bring our ideas to the marketplace of ideas and exchange them, trade and barter with them, until we find a middle ground – a moderate position – that allows us to govern our country well and care for the people’s welfare.

We have become so polarized in our country that no one can any longer claim that we govern well. Partisan politicians are held in low regard, with the president and the Congress having the lowest approval ratings in history. One party-line vote after another in Congress ensures a perpetual gridlock that prevents any meaningful progress on issues that bear on the welfare of millions of people in our country. Our national debate has gone beyond being polemic; it’s become paralytic. There is no freedom in paralysis.

We are governed poorly because we are governed by the immoderate. Far too many of us are held captive by our own ideas. We are so sure of their rightness. We believe that opposing ideas are not just wrong, but so deeply flawed as to be untenable. At our worst, we believe that our ideas aren’t actually our ideas – we believe they are the ideas of God, which ensures not just a dogmatic adherence to them but a death-grip hold on them. There is no freedom associated with the chains of dogmatic adherence or a death-grip hold.

I’ve mentioned previously the power of being able to say, “I don’t know.” There is even more power in being able to say, “I may be wrong.” There is freedom in being able to envision our ever-present potential for being something other than right.

Tao Te Ching 58

2008-06-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

If a country is governed with tolerance, the people are comfortable and honest. If a country is governed with repression, the people are depressed and crafty.

When the will to power is in charge, the higher the ideals, the lower the results. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.
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Almost every spouse or parent knows that trying to make someone be something or do something or change something is likely to produce the opposite of what is desired. Pushing someone produces the energy of resistance; which leads to more pushing; which leads to more resistance.

The last sentence quoted above is difficult for a lot of people to accept, as is all paradoxical wisdom (perhaps all wisdom is paradoxical). Eventually we have to accept that the only thing we can do is live our life in the best way we can. In so doing, we emit the energy of our morality and it will be felt and absorbed by those around us. That’s not to say that they’ll necessarily change their gross behavior, but they will be changed subtly and over time that subtle change will work its way to the surface of their behavior.

We have the power to influence, not the power to control.

This is as true on the national level as on the personal level. Each level must be governed with tolerance and without repression. Of course no one actually believes that they’re employing something as nasty as repression in the governance of their life, family or nation. Only the “bad guys” employ repression. The debate around “tolerance” has been similarly polarized. It’s a mantra to the left and an epithet to the right; and the more left or right a person is, the less tolerant they are.

It takes a tremendous amount of strength and courage to be tolerant and to avoid repression. As we look for leadership in our country, we should look for such strength and courage. Hint: these essential qualities will not be found in the hearts and minds of those whose leadership is based on a fearful worldview. The fearful are intolerant and repressive.

Tao Te Ching 57

2008-06-17T06:24:00.001-07:00

If you want to be a great leader, you must learn to follow the Tao. Stop trying to control. Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous the people will be. The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. The more subsidies you have, the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore, the Master says:
I let go of the law, and people become honest. I let go of economics, and people become prosperous. I let go of religion, and people become serene. I let go of all desire for the common good and the good becomes common as grass.
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Rarely on these pages have I quoted an entire chapter of Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching. But in the midst of a presidential election this chapter seems particularly appropriate for serious contemplation. The second paragraph above speaks both to the liberal and to the conservative among us. Each finds a central tenet supported and each finds one challenged.

Ah, yes, the middle way.

The paradoxical nature of the Tao Te Ching is readily apparent in the series of calls for us to “let go”. By letting go we discover what we believe we can obtain only through the thing that we’re letting go.

There can be no lawbreaker among us unless there is a law to break. We are only threatened in the presence of weapons that purport to defend us. Is there a sin in the absence of a religion that defines that sin?

Our efforts to control our world through fixed concepts are producing exactly the opposite of what we desire. Those efforts are producing a world that, by definition, is out of control. The world was created with the ability to govern itself, but we are unwilling to trust in that creation or in its creator.

What would the world be like if every person who purports to subscribe to the motto, “In God We Trust,” actually trusted in God? That world might be well described by the words honest, prosperous, serene and good.

Tao Te Ching 56

2008-06-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Those who know don’t talk.
Those who talk don’t know.

Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity.
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Without meaning to imply that I know anything, this seems like a good day to close my mouth and settle my dust. In doing so, I may take a step closer to finding my truest self.

Tao Te Ching 55

2008-06-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

He who is in harmony with the Tao is like a newborn child. Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak, but its grip is powerful. It can scream its head off all day, yet never becomes hoarse, so complete is its harmony.

The Master’s power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old.
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Expectation, which is synonymous with desire, is the father of disappointment and disappointment gives birth to death in the form of a withered spirit.

We should act without an expectation of results. Results are often outside of our control. Expecting certain results surrenders our power to others and thus drains our energy and ages our spirit. Whenever we feel that our “spirits are down” we can trace that feeling to some form of underlying disappointment that has arisen from some unmet expectation. We are in the grip of a desire for life to be other than it is.

This chapter doesn’t teach us to live without effort, but to allow the things of life around us to come and go without a desire for them to be other than they are at that moment. As had been said many times here, the ebb and flow of life at that moment cannot be other than it is at that moment, so any desire for it to be otherwise will bring disappointment and a diminished spirit.

Living in harmony with life as it is – is a source of power.
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I’m thinking of my dad on this Father’s Day. I miss him.

Tao Te Ching 54

2008-06-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Let the Tao be present in your life and you will become genuine. Let it be present in your family and your family will flourish. Let it be present in your country and your country will be an example to all countries in the world.

How do I know this is true? By looking inside myself.
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When we know, by looking deeply inside ourselves, that we are being genuine; when we know that our family is flourishing; when we know that our country is being an example to the entire world; then at those moments we are not experiencing three different forms of knowledge; we are experiencing one knowledge. Those seemingly different experiences are found in the same ground of being, a ground that we share with every living thing.

We have all come from the same source. Whether we are a theist who believes that all creation emerged from the light and word of God, or an atheist who believes that all energy and matter emerged from the one point that existed before the Big Bang – we believe in the Common Source, in the Unified Moment and Place, in the Singularity of Singularities.

When we touch truth, love and peace, whether in a genuine person, a flourishing family or an exemplary country, we are touching our home base. Without knowing it, we are admiring our own essence.

Genuineness is the same in every heart. Every genuine person, every loving person, every truthful person, and every peaceful person, feels the same to us. They seem different only in comparison to someone who isn’t genuine, loving, truthful, or peaceful. They each emit the same light and energy and we marvel at them without being aware of the shared light and energy that resides deeply inside us.

We appear genuine, truthful, loving and peaceful only when we allow that light and energy to flow in us, and then out of us. The genuine, truthful, loving and peaceful become translucent. People do not see through them as much as they see into them. If only we realized that at that moment we are looking into a mirror and seeing our own reflection.
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Happy Birthday No. 5 to my grandson!

Tao Te Ching 53

2008-06-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

The great Way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths. Be aware when things are out of balance.

When rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land; when government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures; when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have nowhere to turn – all this is robbery and chaos.

It is not in keeping with the Tao.
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Robbery and chaos – is there any of that inside or outside America these days? Because I’m still on a bit of a hiatus from political commentary, I will let this one rest on its own, other than to say that things are out of balance and it's time for us get off the side paths.

Besides, I’m still pondering a provocative comment from a friend and co-worker regarding yesterday’s posting. She gently challenged my offhand comment about rarely being drawn to worshipping an idol. I responded by ticking off a list of classic materialistic idols that haven’t sucked me is, while admitting that I could be accused of worshipping my wife too often.

Then she offered another suggestion – one that had never crossed my mind as an idol-worshipping candidate.

Intelligence.

I’ll be thinking about that for a while.

Tao Te Ching 52

2008-06-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

To find the origin, trace back to the manifestations. When you recognize the children and find the mother, you will be free of sorrow.

If you close your mind in judgments and traffic with desires, your heart will be troubled. If you keep your mind from judging and aren’t led by the senses, your heart will find peace.
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Finding peace – being free from sorrow and trouble – how does that sound? To me, it sounds like … well … nirvana. The Tao Te Ching joins the chorus of other wisdom philosophies to show us the way.

If we trace back from our sorrows and troubles we will find that their mother is our judgments, desires and sensory response to the world around us. The mind is the womb of suffering. Judgments close the mind; desires choke the mind; the senses lead us to a troubled and often chaotic mind. When we recognize these unruly children we will find their source, the place in which our sorrow is conceived and from which it is born.

Instead of posting the Ten Commandments in churches, schools and homes around the country, why not post this shortest of commandments – “Judge not.” Those two words are much harder to follow than most if not all of the Ten Commandments. I haven’t had the urge to kill or steal in a long time. I’m rarely drawn to worshipping an idol. Envy happens from time to time, but not nearly as often as in years gone by. But – I had the urge to judge multiple times while reading the morning newspaper just a few minutes ago.

Trafficking in desires is akin to trafficking in drugs. Each alters our perception. Each is an escape from life as it is at the moment; or life as we perceive it to be at the moment – life as we judge it to be. When we decide to stop judging life – the people, places and things around us – then we find peace in our heart. We will also experience a vastly quieter mind.

Peace and quiet sounds good to me.

Tao Te Ching 51

2008-06-10T07:47:00.001-07:00

Every being in the universe is an expression of the Tao. It springs into existence, unconscious, perfect, free, takes on a physical body, lets circumstances complete it. That is why every being spontaneously honors the Tao.

The Tao gives birth to all beings, nourishes them, maintains them, cares for them, comforts them, protects them, takes them back to itself, creating without possessing, acting without expecting, guiding without interfering. That is why love of the Tao is in the very nature of things.
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The reference to the Tao being “unconscious” is, to me, a reference to being unconscious of itself, which then leads to the enticing words “perfect” and “free”. Perhaps our path to freedom lies in being less conscious of ourselves until one day we’ve let the circumstances around us serve to complete us. Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven in perfect.” I recall that the more correct translation of “perfect” is “complete.” The Tao, like Jesus, invites us to be complete, to be whole.

The important realization is that we came into this life whole and complete. We lacked nothing. We lack nothing; but we think otherwise. We seek to fill gaps that are of our own creation. We are perfect and free by nature; but we feel imperfect and captive by habit.

The path back to our original self might be found in living life as follows:

Be less self-conscious.
Let circumstances complete us.
Create without possessing.
Act without expecting.
Guide without interfering.
Realize that love is the very nature of our being.

Tao Te Ching 50

2008-06-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings.

He doesn’t think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day’s work.
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This speaks to a pleasing blend of surrender and spontaneity that in turn offers us a path to a peaceful life, which includes a peaceful death. The underlying teaching is: less externally-directed thought and more internally-generated flow. The underlying encouragement is: don’t hold back – live life as it comes to us each moment of the day.

It’s all we have. It’s the only source of joy available to us.

Tao Te Ching 49

2008-06-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

The Master is good to people who are good. She is also good to people who aren’t good. This is true goodness.

She trusts people who are trustworthy. She also trusts people who aren’t trustworthy. This is true trust.
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Nondiscrimination is a lofty ideal seldom practiced.

Jesus told us to love those who persecute us; he said that even the sinners love those who love them. He called us to love the unlovable, which is another way of saying that we should love others as we love ourselves.

Heaven knows that we’re all less than good, less than trustworthy or less than lovable at any given time. Yet, in those times, we still desire and need, sometimes desperately, to be loved. When we are loved at our worst times, we feel truly blessed, and truly forgiven.

How can we withhold from others that which we so deeply need for ourselves? Nondiscrimination is a lofty idea seldom practiced. But it’s the only path to true goodness, true trustworthiness, and true love.

Tao Te Ching 48

2008-06-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need for force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering. ______________________________________________________

I rarely meet someone who doesn’t quickly embrace the idea of simplicity. We live complicated lives that exhaust us and often leave us in turmoil. Simplicity offers peace. The path to simplicity is simple – every day, something is dropped. True knowledge teaches us what to drop. So we pursue knowledge, adding to our understanding of what matters and what does not matter, so that we may step away from the unnecessary and the inappropriate.

One day we arrive at a point where we no longer feel like we have to act on life. We no longer arise each day to our “must do” list. We no longer interfere in the lives of others. We even stop getting in the way of our own life.

We arise for the purpose of living the life that is presented to us each morning. When that day comes we will find that nothing is left undone, which is what we’ve been seeking all along.

Tao Te Ching 47

2008-06-05T07:35:00.001-07:00

Without opening your door, you can open your heart to the world. Without looking out your window, you can see the essence of the Tao.

The more you know, the less you understand.
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What we seek outside ourselves can only be found inside ourselves. The world that we perceive outside our doors and windows is constructed inside our hearts and minds.

It takes a significant degree of learning in order to acknowledge how little we understand. The wisdom and maturity embedded in learned uncertainty brings peace. Accepting a lack of ultimate understanding is the door through which we find love, compassion, empathy and kindness. It takes a strong mind and a courageous heart to open and walk through that door.

There is tremendous power in the ability to say, “I don’t know.”

Tao Te Ching 46

2008-06-04T06:20:00.001-07:00

When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself; no greater misfortune than having an enemy.

Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.
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The gold is in the last line. Everything said before it is a preface. We perceive enemies and we prepare to defend ourselves from those enemies because we are gripped by the illusion of fear. FDR said it well in 1932 as we reeled from the frightening impacts of the Great Depression: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

We strive for safety and security in our homeland. To obtain that worthy goal we must see through all the fear in and around us. We’re trapped in an illusion of our own making. The planes hitting the Twin Towers were not an illusion by any means – but much of what has reverberated from their impact is coming from an illusion. In the white-knuckled grip of fear we perceive that a great misfortune has descended upon us – we see enemies to the left and the right and so we prepare to defend ourselves from those who we believe are intent upon raining terror from the sky.

When a country’s leaders sow fear, they will reap enemies. Enemies are made viable in the womb of fear and they cannot remain viable unless they are sustained by fear. “Fear not,” said an itinerant Jewish shepherd from the city of Nazareth. Maybe FDR had read that advice. Maybe we should read that advice.

On another day I would write about the possibility that we may not want to be safe as we profess; that we are thriving on our steady diet of fear; that we are projecting our fear around the world; that we have now fashioned an identity from our victimization; that we have found a purpose in that identity. We are the savior of the world. With us on the prowl, there is no need for the quaint but naïve musings of an itinerant Jewish shepherd. But, that’s for another day.

Tao Te Ching 45

2008-06-03T05:41:00.001-07:00

True perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself. True fullness seems empty, yet it is fully present. True straightness seems crooked. True wisdom seems foolish. True art seems artless.

The Master allows things to happen. She shapes events as they come. She steps out of the way and lets the Tao speak for itself.
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We’ve said before and we’ll say again – things are often not as they seem to be. Because we think in dualistic terms, when we experience or conceptualize something we simultaneously experience or conceptualize its opposite.

We can only see imperfection in the presence of perfection; one cannot exist without the other. Fullness cannot be understood unless we understand emptiness in the same instant. If we see someone walking a crooked path, then we’re assured that straightness is there as well.

Is there an ancient source of wisdom that does not teach us that true wisdom is often mistaken for foolishness? If it weren’t mistaken for foolishness, then it wouldn’t be true wisdom. And it goes without saying that utter foolishness is often mistaken for wisdom.

What would we see in our life if we gave more allowance for things to happen, for life to be as it is? What would happen, what clarity would we experience, if we stepped out of the way and let the way unfold on its own? It might be true perfection; true fullness; true straightness; true wisdom; true art. That would be something to behold.

Tao Te Ching 44

2008-06-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success or failure: which is more destructive?

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
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If I were putting together a series of daily lessons in a self-help workbook I would be inclined to slip this chapter of the Tao Te Ching in about every third day.

All people seek happiness; and all people seek to avoid suffering. Happiness = accepting life the way it is at the moment. Suffering = desiring life to be other than the way it is at the moment, even though at this moment life cannot be other than as it is. Happiness and suffering are not about the quantity or quality of the people, places and things around us; happiness and suffering are about our response to whatever people, places and things are around us at a given time.

Happiness and suffering are inside jobs. If we’re looking outside to claim the one or disclaim the other, then we’re in for a harrowing trip on a long and winding road. It’s a trip that won’t end well.

The secret to a successful life is captured here – be content with what you have. Realize that there is nothing lacking. When we have this realization, then we possess an untold wealth. The world, literally, is ours.

Tao Te Ching 43

2008-06-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

The gentlest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world. That which has no substance enters where there is no space. This shows the value of non-action.

Teaching without words, performing without actions; that is the Master’s way.
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The Tao Te Ching is filled with paradoxical teaching. It invites us to see life in a completely different way – inside out and upside down. It challenges Western paradigms at almost every turn.

This teaching is one of the most important to me, at first challenging and then, over time, almost axiomatic. In a country that has embraced preemptive attack as a defensive model, it’s not easy to embrace the idea that gentle things overcome hard things. We know that dripping water can wear away granite and disintegrate concrete, but we have trouble applying that everyday lesson in national and international affairs.

Non-action seems weak if not heretical to anyone who responds viscerally to the bursts of dramatic energy expended by the political “action figures” we presume to admire. How can anything be performed without action, we wonder. Interestingly, however, it doesn’t take most of us long to recall how many important lessons we’ve been taught without words. If we let that analog work in for a while we can come to understand “performing without actions”.

But the movement from the gross to the subtle doesn’t stop there. The Tao insists that we take it as far as it will go – to the point of understanding that that which has no substance enters where there is no space. Let that one soak for a while and see where it leads.

Tao Te Ching 42

2008-05-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ordinary men hate solitude.

But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.
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Unlike us ordinary folk, a Taoist Master is probably no longer able to feel lonely. S/he may be alone, like any of us, but s/he has learned to embrace it because in it s/he finds everyone and everything. The Master has embraced the interconnectedness, interdependence and essential harmony in life.

When all the presence of all people and things is realized, how could anyone feel lonely? Solitude loses its meaning, and the fear of solitude loses its power.

Tao Te Ching 41

2008-05-28T05:28:00.000-07:00

When a superior man hears of the Tao, he immediately begins to embody it. When an average man hears of the Tao, he half believes it, half doubts it. When a foolish man hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud. If he didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the Tao.

Thus it is said:
The path into the light seems dark, the path forward seems to go back, the direct path seems long, true power seems weak, true purity seems tarnished, true steadfastness seems changeable, true clarity seems obscure, the greatest art seems unsophisticated, the greatest love seems indifferent, the greatest wisdom seems childish.
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For the few who have read these entries, I wonder: who immediately began to embody the Tao; who half believed and half doubted; and who laughed out loud.

When we hear the Tao and embody it, we see that life is not as it seems. We are called to a different vision, one that seems so contrary to the perceptions, assumptions and paradigms that we’ve long held to be true.

That which we thought was dark, becomes light; that which we thought to be backward, becomes a path forward; that which we saw as long, becomes direct; that which we deemed weak, becomes strong; that which we saw as tarnished, becomes pure; that which we considered changeable, becomes steadfast; that which seemed obscure, becomes clear; that which we dismissed as unsophisticated, becomes great; that love to which we were indifferent, becomes the greatest love of our life; and that which we regarded as childish, becomes wisdom.

Jesus said: he who finds his life shall lose it; he who loses his life shall find it; the least shall be greatest; the greatest shall be least; what is done in secret shall be rewarded openly; what has been said in the dark will be heard in the daylight; what has been whispered will be proclaimed; what is concealed will be disclosed; wolves come in sheep’s clothing; whoever exalts himself will be humbled; whoever humbles himself will be exalted; the first shall be last; and the last shall be first.

Such is the nature of wisdom throughout the ages. If we’re wise, we will embody it immediately.

21 - But, Who's Counting?

2008-05-27T05:26:00.000-07:00

Today should have been Dan’s 21st birthday, a day to celebrate another passage into adulthood by being able, legally, to lift a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a flute of Champagne in that celebration. Tonight, if not very early this morning, Dan would have headed off with a few friends to mark that passage as it has been marked since society first drew a date-certain line in that section of the social sand.

Instead, I will take two, maybe four, bottles of Sapporo beer to a gravesite outside of town. Anyone who knew Danny will understand why the beer must be Sapporo, Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, Orion or Otaru. I will sit in the grass over that grave and drink one of those bottles, and at the same time pour a second bottle into the earth that now serves as the marker for Dan’s passage. Then, if either one of us is so inclined I will do the same with bottles three and four. I suspect we will be so inclined. After all, a guy only turns 21 once in a lifetime.

May 27 is the hardest, the worst of the “Danny days” on my calendar. It makes March 15 seem easy by comparison. March 15 will always denote the anniversary of a life ended. May 27 has become the antithesis of the anniversary of a life begun. Birthdays are for the living. There isn’t really any way, for me, to celebrate the birthday of a child who has died.

I know that life cannot be other than as it is this moment, and that accepting that reality is the path out of suffering. But, today, I badly want life to be other than as it is this moment; and so, today, I feel the suffering that comes in the absence of acceptance.

Tomorrow I will hear Dan invite me to return to the path.

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T17:01:00.001-07:00

On May 1, I started wearing a red memorial bracelet in honor of Marine PFC Brandon Sturdy. PFC Sturdy was sitting next to my son in the back of a Humvee on May 13, 2004, when an IED went off just outside Fallujah. PFC Sturdy died in the blast; my son was seriously wounded, but came home and recovered. The difference for those two young men, and their families, was about the distance traveled by a half turn of the Humvee wheels.

My son, a Navy corpsman, was the last person to attend to PFC Sturdy. He did so with his uniform still on fire, for which he received a Navy Commendation Medal with Valor designation, along with a Purple Heart. Everything I could find out about PFC Sturdy is in the little memorial below. When someone dies at the age of 19, there often isn’t a lot to find out.

May is the month of my son’s birth, Brandon’s death, and Memorial Day, which we’re celebrating today. It’s an appropriate time to put on the bracelet. I believe that the appropriate time to take it off is after the last soldier or Marine dies in Iraq and Afghanistan. I hope that when anyone sees the bracelet I’m wearing, or anyone like it, they will remember the men and women the bracelets represent.

As of today, there have been 4,394 coalition troops (4082 Americans) die in Iraq. An additional 820 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan (507 Americans). More than 8,300 members of the Iraqi security / police force have been killed. At least 100,000 - 150,000 Iraqis and Afghan civilians have died in the war (there are estimates five times that number).

Four weeks from now, my son will return to duty in the Persian Gulf.

MARINE PFC BRANDON C. STURDY, 19, of Urbandale, Iowa, was killed May 13, while conducting security and stability operations. Friends say Brandon was always trying to make people smile. "He made everybody laugh. He could turn a situation around like that," said his eighth grade teacher Heidi Zlab, who said he disliked school but loved life, "I don't think he had an enemy." Brandon graduated from high school in Urbandale in 2003. "He was always trying to be the comical guy," said Sara Broek, 19, who attended elementary and high school with Brandon and was his neighbor. His mom is Shelly Rivera, an administrative assistant for an insurance company; his dad is David Sturdy. He was engaged to Tricia Johnson of Grimes, Iowa.

Tao Te Ching 40

2008-05-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.

All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.
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When breathing, inhaling is the return of the breath; exhaling is its departure. Another word for breathing in is inspiration. There is inspiration in the movement of the Tao. The opposite of inspiration is expiration. Without the movement of the Tao there is expiration. Life and death are matters of inspiration and expiration.

It’s unfortunate that we so often regard the word “yield” as reflecting a position of weakness when it is so often the only position of strength. Yielding is a source of energy and thus a source of power, because yielding is the basis for accumulating energy, restoring energy, and conserving energy. A combatant who does not know how to yield knows nothing about the martial arts. Yielding is like the return movement in the breath, the return movement of the Tao.

We perceive the world in dualistic terms. In that world all things are compound and have an inherent opposite. In this instance we’re told that there cannot be being unless there is also non-being. As soon as we take hold of the idea of life we must take hold of the idea of death at the same moment. We cannot grasp or recognize one without simultaneously grasping or recognizing the other. Therefore, being is born of non-being, and all things, including us, are born of both.

Happy 32nd Birthday to my oldest son!

Tao Te Ching 39

2008-05-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

In harmony with the Tao, the sky is clear and spacious, the earth is solid and full, all creatures flourish together, content with the way they are, endlessly repeating themselves, endlessly renewed.

When man interferes with the Tao, the sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles, creatures become extinct.
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The environmental message in this chapter is so obvious that it needs little commentary. When we mess with the natural way of life, we end up crumbling and depleted at best, and often filthy or in danger of extinction.

It’s more intriguing to apply this message to our internal environment – the interior of our body and our mind. Our body can remain solid and our mind can remain clear, and we can be renewed and flourish in contentment, if we remain in harmony with the way life is in the present moment. Remember, life cannot be other than what it is at this moment.

If we would like to improve life as it is this moment, then we’re invited to do so by living in harmony – with ourselves, with each other, and with the natural world around us. If we choose to live other than in harmony, then we must accept what flows naturally from our discord and interference – filth in its many forms, depletion, crumbling, and a sure demise.

Tao Te Ching 38 (Teaching 3)

2008-05-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos.

Therefore the Master concerns himself with the depths and not the surface, with the fruit and not the flower. He has no will of his own. He dwells in reality, and lets all illusions go.
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Similar to the last teaching, here the Tao Te Ching again notes the descent from the natural way of life through various levels of dualistic or ego-based judgment until finally arriving at the door to chaos. If we paused on this slippery slope at the point of “goodness”, then things wouldn’t be too bad. But, goodness lives next door to morality and it’s only one step from one yard to the other.

But even morality can erode and become nothing more than a ritualistic or habitual commitment to a carefully specified action or inaction. At that point the life inherent in the way, and whatever life may remain in goodness or morality, is gone – leaving only the dry husk of what was once a living faith. Welcome to chaos in the form of blind faith, dead faith, dogmatic faith or some other self-righteous, ego-centered belief system.

The Master is not caught in the illusion of faith, which is little more than a ritual. Rather, s/he resists the descent into chaos and remains as close as possible to the true faith that is embedded in creation. True faith in what, some may ask. The answer is to stop, look, listen, smell, taste, feel, and experience what is omnipresent and omnipotent. Then, you’ll know.

Tao Te Ching 38 (Teaching 2)

2008-05-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

The kind man does something, yet something remains undone. The just man does something, and leaves many things to be done.

The moral man does something, and when no one responds he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
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This teaching makes the cynic in me smile as I think about the descent from kindness to morality. I've become cynical about people and institutions who profess to be acting from a revealed morality, which they want to “share with” (i.e., impose on) anyone who does not share in their revelation.

When people act out of kindness they can accomplish many things, while leaving “something” undone. When people act out of their sense of justice they may accomplish something, but they leave “many things” undone. This suggests that being motivated by kindness is more effective than being motivated by justice, as the former is more likely to stem from love or compassion for others, whereas the latter is more likely to stem from judging others on the basis of some form of ideology.

But the descent becomes steep when someone professes to be acting from a sense of morality. At that point, judging others as good or bad, or right or wrong, has become the entire point. The motivation is now driven by doctrine or dogma. The result, often, is that “no one responds”. Many people respond to kindness, though not everyone; some people respond to justice, though many do not. But it’s not unusual for no one to respond to someone else’s sense of morality.

When the moral man is ignored, his self-righteousness flares and he resorts to force in some form. That force may be physical, intellectual or emotional; or it may come dressed in some spiritual guise. No matter the form it will attempt to overpower the will and control the actions of the “ignorant”, the “sinner”, the “unsaved”. The result, as we see around the world, is often violent.

We would do well to ascend this ladder and return to being motivated by justice rather than morality, and then by kindness rather than justice.

What would the world be like if everyone declared, as has the Dalai Lama: “My religion is kindness.” Things would remain undone, to be sure. But there would be less force and less violence and less death in the name of morality. That seems like a better world, to me.

Tao Te Ching 38 (Teaching 1)

2008-05-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

The Master doesn’t try to be powerful; thus he is truly powerful. The ordinary man keeps reaching for power; thus he never has enough.

The Master does nothing, yet he leaves nothing undone. The ordinary man is always doing things, yet many things are left to be done.
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If we believe that power lies outside of us, then we will be reaching for it day after day. If we realize that power lies inside us, and that it’s already there, then we are truly power-full. Because the Master knows this, s/he has no need to try to be powerful. Power is found through this self-realization, not through trying.

Life isn’t about doing; it’s about being. It’s been said that we are human beings who act like human doings. If we choose to be, which means being fully present here and now no matter what the circumstances may be, then we will find, almost mystically, that nothing is left undone – because we will know that life cannot be other than as it is at that moment. In a very real sense, there is nothing to be done.

Shakespeare nailed it: “To be or not to be; that is the question.”

The ordinary person is rarely satisfied with the present moment. S/he wants to changes things; to make them better; to make the bad stuff go away; to make the good stuff come. No matter how much s/he does, there are always many things left to be done.

Tao Te Ching 37

2008-05-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

If powerful men and women could center themselves in the Tao, the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms. People would be content with their simple, everyday lives, in harmony, and free of desire.

When there is no desire, all things are at peace.
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All suffering comes from the desire for life to be other than it is at the moment. That is one of the most essential truths I’ve learned. When we’re suffering we want life to move outside its natural rhythms.

Pain and suffering are not the same. Pain is an objective reality; suffering is our subjective response to reality. We usually don’t choose our pain; we almost always choose our suffering. We may not see it that way; but that’s the way it is.

If we can just be with life as it is right now we will find a measure of contentment and harmony residing there, along with whatever it is that we desire to be other than it is. The harmony naturally embedded in simple, everyday life is always present.

Contentment awaits those who are aware of reality and accept it. Within that underlying stream of contentment and harmony is freedom from desire. “Where there is no desire, all things are at peace.” That is a profound statement; one that can be tested readily in our daily life.

The next time you feel the absence of peace ask yourself, “What do you desire right now?” There will be an answer; something will come quickly to mind. The next time you feel the presence of peace ask the same question. There will be no answer; because in the midst of peace we don’t desire anything else.

Tao Te Ching 36

2008-05-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand. If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish. If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given.

This is the subtle perception of the way things are. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast.
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Some teachings in the Tao Te Ching need to simmer in our pots for a while. This teaching is like that. In some respects it’s counterintuitive; in others it parallels the wisdom of the Beatitudes and Jesus saying in Luke 6:38:

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full…. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

How many of us want something from life, but because of pride or fear we won’t allow it to be given to us. Learning how to receive a gift is often more difficult than learning how to give a gift.

Allowing something to expand or flourish allows its energy to be dissipated, like when a doctor tells us to just rest and let a viral infection “run its course”. Parents of young children know that on some evenings they simply have to let the little ones run around until they give out.

The martial arts teach the importance of using an opponent’s energy – letting it expand in our direction – as the means to take him down, exhaust him and eventually defeat him.

The Tao Te Ching invites us to remember that things are not always as they seem; in fact, things are often the opposite of what they seem. In a world that is trapped in dualistic thinking that should come as no surprise. There can be no shrinking unless there is expansion; there can be no floundering unless there is flourishing; there can be no giving unless there is receiving. Good cannot exist without bad; right cannot exist without wrong; vice only has meaning in the presence of virtue.

Tao Te Ching 35 (Teaching 2)

2008-05-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

Music or the smell of good cooking may make people stop and enjoy. But words that point to the Tao seem monotonous and without flavor.

When you look for it, there is nothing to see. When you listen for it, there is nothing to hear. When you use it, it is inexhaustible.
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Learning to enjoy the mundane things in life – those things that seem monotonous and without flavor – is essential to happiness, because most of life, ours and everyone else’s, is found in the mundane.

Synonyms for mundane include ordinary, routine, everyday, commonplace. Those words pretty much describe life. If our happiness is dependent on a steady rush of the extraordinary, the unusual, the occasional and the exceptional, then we’re going to come up a short of the mark.

We can see and hear the mundane, but we don’t, because we believe there’s nothing to see or hear. We’re wrong. It’s there, waiting for our awareness and our attention. Try it; look at it; listen to it; smell it; taste it; touch it; think about it.

Life is filled with the mundane – it’s everywhere and in everything; it’s the “stuff” of life. And, the best thing about the mundane – it’s inexhaustible. We can use it every moment of the day without concern for using it up.

Enjoy it.

Tao Te Ching 35 (Teaching 1)

2008-05-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

She who is centered in the Tao can go where she wishes, without danger.

She perceives the universal harmony, even amid great pain, because she has found peace in her heart.
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Staying centered in the way of life is the only safe place to live and the only way to find peace. Life cannot be other than it is this moment. We cannot change what has been and thus we cannot change what is. We should live in the center of life as it is right now; for it is only there that we are free of the fear that perceives danger. In that freedom, we may go where we wish.

Staying centered in the way of life is the only place from which we’re able to see the interconnectedness of all creation. Becoming aware of this inherent harmony is the path to a peaceful heart.

Tao Te Ching 34

2008-05-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

The great Tao pours itself into its work, yet it makes no claim. It nourishes infinite worlds, yet it doesn’t hold on to them.

Since it is merged with all things and hidden in their heart, it can be called humble. It isn’t aware of its greatness; thus it is truly great.
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Humility is hard to develop. But the Tao Te Ching invites us to find humility by following some basic advice:

§ We should pour ourselves into our work, but make no claim about it.
§ We should nourish the people around us, but make no attempt to hold on to or control them.
§ We should remain unaware of any greatness that may be in us; awareness of our greatness will diminish our greatness.

Referring to this as basic advice doesn’t mean that it’s easy to follow. It’s difficult – but it’s the only path to humility and thus to greatness.

Tao Te Ching 33

2008-05-15T06:58:00.001-07:00

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
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True wisdom, true power and true wealth are rarely what they seem to be. They are often the opposite of what they seem to be. Those who seek wisdom, power or wealth must first look inside. They should not look outside until they know themselves and have mastered themselves. That work should keep them busy for a while.

As for wealth – being rich – it’s a state of mind. When you think you have enough, then you have all that you need or want. Those of us who have adequate shelter, enough food to eat, clean clothes to wear, and access to healthcare are thereby able to declare ourselves to be rich at any point in time. We only need to become aware that we have enough, that in the grand scheme of events and circumstances we have our share of the world’s resources.

It may be fair to say that anyone who can access and read these words has enough and is truly rich, whether they know it or not.

Tao Te Ching 32

2008-05-13T05:41:00.000-07:00

When you have names and forms, know that they are provisional. When you have institutions, know where their functions should end.

Knowing when to stop, you can avoid any danger.
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Remember when mom or dad would tell us, “You went too far. You need to learn when to stop.” We’ve probably said the same thing to our children.

Eastern philosophy invites us to stop putting names and labels on people, places and things or at least to realize that any label is conventional and provisional, at best. But, our need to label is strong because it’s the only thing that makes us right and others wrong; that makes us good and others bad. After all, if others aren’t wrong and bad, then how are we to know that we’re right and good? Without our goodness, what separate us from the bad guys? Being right feels good to us. It feeds our ever-hungry ego.

Our collective ego, in forms such as religious denominations and political parties, also demands separation and a “house divided”. We profess the need for such institutions, but we cannot seem to define where their functions start or stop. We declare our cherished institutions to be “true”, but in doing so we strip away the boundaries for their roles in our lives while failing to see that such a declaration is just another label when it’s applied to any group of people, ideology or belief system.

In a self-constructed world of institutions that are right and wrong and good and bad, violent conflict between competing truths is inevitable and fills our world with danger. We keep going too far. We don’t know when to stop.

We owe our moms and dads an apology for not listening. We owe our children an apology for not practicing what we preach. Now would be a good time to stop.

Tao Te Ching 31

2008-05-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint.

His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn’t wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral.
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Luke 6:27 "But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
28 Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.
30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them.
33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?
35 But love your enemies, do good to them.
36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

- Jesus

Romans 12:18 “If is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

- Paul of Tarsus

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

These are not easy words to follow. Following them requires faith in their truthfulness, and requires courage beyond our usual ability to comprehend. Faith is not easy either to attain or retain when someone believes s/he is under attack. At such times, courage gets forcefully shoved into the small context of bravery in violent retaliation.

In the presence of our enemy, the only “f” words that come to mind are fight or flight. Faith is left to be exercised before and after the battles. Jesus, Buddha, the Tao, Paul, Gandhi, and countless other inspired voices of universal wisdom have directed us to turn to non-violent solutions for whatever threatens us – except in the direst of necessity and then only with the utmost restraint - and with sorrow and great compassion. As Jesus said, however, the words of the prophets are only for those with ears to hear them. Do we hear them?

The events of 9/11 created a dire necessity and the armed entry into Afghanistan in pursuit of those who are responsible for that attack was an appropriately restrained response. Invading Iraq was neither a dire necessity nor was it undertaken with utmost restraint. “Shock and awe” are not synonyms for sorrow and compassion.

The invincible always fall. Think of it – always.

A Blog Interrupted

2008-05-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

No, I don’t know why I stopped the Tao postings. I went out of town for a work-related leadership meeting on October 7, 2007, and when I came back home I didn’t return to the blog. Several friends and family have asked me about the lapse, but I haven’t found the energy to resume. For the last seven months there has been way too much hair on the soap. I just couldn’t pick it up.

Then, a few days ago my son-in-law posted on comment on the last entry I made in October. His comment began, “Well said”. That comment mattered to me a great deal. First, I wasn’t sure he read HOTS; second, I was surprised that he continued to check it for new postings; and third, the idea that I had written something that evoked a positive response in him seemed to reconnect me to the energy that is needed to make blog entries on a fairly regular basis.

So, I’m going to try to get back in the saddle.

I’d like to complete the series on the Tao Te Ching. Then I will turn my attention to the presidential election, which I regard as the most important election we have faced in several decades.

There has been no lack of political commentary on these pages in the past, but much of that was spent lambasting the Bush administration. As I’ve said here earlier, I got tired of my anger on that subject. Fortunately, January 20, 2009, is drawing close enough that there’s no need to pursue that commentary any longer – except to the extent that any candidate for public office appears to “stay the course” with regard to the foreign or domestic polices set by George Bush. In that case … well, that’s another day.

I don’t really want to comment on the 2008 primary election process for either party. I only want that painful, and at times pitiful, process to end. If there’s a god in heaven, that should coincide fairly well with the completion of the entries on the Tao Te Ching.

Happy Mother’s Day – to my mom; my wife; my daughters and daughters-in-law; my children’s mom; my mother-in-law; my sisters-in-law; and my nieces!

Tao Te Ching 30 (Teaching 2)

2007-10-05T06:05:00.001-07:00

Because the Master believes in himself, he doesn’t try to convince others.
Because he is content with himself, he doesn’t need others’ approval.
Because he accepts himself, the whole world accepts him
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I can’t count the number of times in my life I have verified this teaching – in two very different ways.

First, the vast majority of the people I have admired the most are those men and women whose self-acceptance and contentment give them a quiet confidence that isn’t dependent on the acceptance of others. These people rarely attempt to convince others to think the way they do, because they don’t need others to think the way they do.

Second, the vast majority of the times at which I’ve least admired myself are when I try too hard to convince others about something or when I’m caught in the snare of seeking the approval of others. It’s at those moments when I feel least acceptable and accepted. The root of my discontent at those moments lies in my lack of self-acceptance.

I’m experiencing the peace of self-contentment more and more as time passes. In turn, I’m experiencing the freedom that comes with letting go of many of my conceptual truths, or at least of the need to convince others about them. That’s good for me and for others in my life.

It always feels good to unpack after a long trip. I’ve come “home” with a lot of baggage to unload. During my travels I bought way too many truth trinkets and conceptual souvenirs that seemed appealing when I saw them in a foreign place. But, back home, they sit on a shelf for a while and then they get thrown away because they don’t look or feel right at home, the way they did on the foreign shelf.

There’s no place like home.

Tao Te Ching 30 (Teaching 1)

2007-10-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men doesn’t try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms. For every force there is a counterforce.

Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon itself.
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Time and time again throughout history we see instances when violence is directed against a country, an ethnic group, a religion, and in due course that violence produces an equally or even more violent reaction. Newton’s third law of motion says that for every action there is an equal and opposing reaction. The Tao Te Ching addressed this law of physics more than 2,000 years before Sir Isaac Newton.

Violence among people is not exempt from the application of this law. Violence produces violence, sooner or later. We should look closely at history and listen carefully to its countless lessons.

When Germany was defeated and humiliated at the end of World War I by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the certainty of the Second World War was set in motion. That war brought an even great horror in the form of the Holocaust.

The battles between Palestinians and Jews, Serbs and Croats, Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Basque nationalists and Spain, Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan, have been going on for decades, if not centuries. The sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis has been relentless since 632 C.E.

When the Taliban and al Qaeda attacked America in September 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan was set in motion. When America invaded Iraq in March 2003, the seeds for an insurgent reaction were planted, watered and fertilized in one motion. The cycles of violence will continue as long as violence is seen as the solution to violence.

But, we don’t have to turn to the tragic events in world history to see this law unfold. We can see the truth of this teaching acted out on elementary school playgrounds, in high school cafeterias, in domestic abuse, or in the turf wars between inner-city gangs.

We’ve been taught the truth since we were little children. Mom said, “What goes around comes around.” The Golden Rule makes the point in positive terms, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you,” and in negative terms, “Do not unto others what you would have them not do unto you.”

The law of karma embodies the law of cause and effect. Hate causes hate. Violence causes violence. The Bible teaches this principle as the law of the harvest – we reap what we sow. Sow the seeds of violence and reap the harvest of violence. The world, nature, the Tao, can give us nothing other than the fruit of the seed.

When will we ever learn?

Tao Te Ching 29

2007-10-03T05:49:00.000-07:00

Do you want to improve the world? I don’t think it can be done.

The world is sacred. It can’t be improved. If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides in the center of the circle.
_______________________________________________________

There’s only one thing we can improve – our self. If we want the world to be a better place, then we need to be a better part of the world in terms of our moral and ethical conduct. In so doing, we impact the lives of other people in loving and compassionate ways and that positive energy is then conveyed through those people to other people.

Our well being in life is sustained by living things and making any improvement in “our world” is a matter of improving the well being of the living things that contribute to our life. The world itself is what it is. It has its natural rhythms and processes and the best thing we can do for the world is to avoid tampering with its rhythms and processes.

It’s hard to avoid the indictment that we have treated the world like an inanimate object rather than like a living thing. As a result, we run the risk of losing the world just like we eventually lose every other object in our life.

The Tao Te Ching invites us back to the center of the circle, where we live in harmony with the rhythms of the world, where we have the clarity to see the world as it is. Only in that truly centered position can we see that there is no need, and no benefit, to trying to control the world.

Tao Te Ching 28

2007-10-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

Know the personal, yet keep to the impersonal: accept the world as it is. If you accept the world, the Tao will be luminous inside you and you will return to your primal self.

The world is formed from the void, like utensils from a block of wood. The Master knows the utensils, yet keeps to the block: thus she can use all things.
___________________________________________________________

I have often recommended The Four Agreements, a book by Don Miguel Ruiz, in which we’re advised to make and keep four agreements with our self:

-- Be impeccable with our word
-- Don’t take anything personally
-- Don’t make assumptions
-- Always do our best

Each agreement is challenging, but the one that may be the most consistently difficult for me is not taking things personally. Here, the Tao Te Ching advices us that accepting the world as it is, which is essential to living a peaceful life, is to keep to the impersonal. That might be another way of saying, don’t take things personally – everything that happens in our life is not all about us.

People who don’t take things personally are able to open up the ego-based shell that both defends and takes offense and thereby open up a path to the primal self – the real self that underlies all the egotistic layers – a self that is luminous in nature.

Similarly, rather than focusing on the objects of creation, including the self, the Master stays focused on the source of all things and by doing so maintains an ability to see, understand and use all things without discrimination. The Master’s drawer is filled with far more utensils than ours.

A Pause

2007-10-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

I’m one-third of the way through my brief commentaries on the Tao Te Ching. Many of the postings I made prior to September 1 were the result of hard labor. I worked and strained and struggled with many of them. It was heavy lifting and tiring. The postings I’ve made since September 1 have been just the opposite. They’ve flowed with relatively little effort.

I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from that observation. Just because something is consistently difficult doesn’t make it something to be abandoned and just because something flows with relative ease doesn’t make it something to be embraced. Someone else would undoubtedly have exactly the opposite experience. S/he would write with ease about politics, the war in Iraq or religious intolerance, whereas s/he would struggle mightily with commentary on a text like the Tao Te Ching.

For me, that latter has simply been more akin to my nature. Most of my new-age tendencies are rooted in old-age philosophies and worldviews. In time I suspect that I’ll return to what I perceive as heavier lifting, but for now it’s nice to rest in the flow of something that offers peace and well being through even momentary awareness.

I feel the need to admit the obvious. I regard the philosophy that I’ve written about over the last month to be sufficiently true to provide significantly helpful guidance for my life. But – that which seems easy on one level has embedded difficulty on another level. By that I mean, I don’t always walk the talk.

I wish I lived every moment of every day consistent with the principles that I’ve discussed over the last 30 days. But, I don’t. These teachings, which are natural for me to embrace and espouse, come equipped with their own strain, struggle and heavy lifting as I try to follow them. Staying in the present moment, avoiding dualist thinking, letting go of my multitude of attachments and aversions – are all a significant challenge for me. I’m a work in progress, to say the very least.

To those who know me and see the inconsistency, sometimes glaring, the problem lies with me not with the teachings I’m discussing here. In a month, a year, a decade, I hope to be more integrated. Integrity can be hard labor.

In the meantime, I practice.

Tao Te Ching 27

2007-09-30T08:12:00.001-07:00

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.
__________________________________________________________

When we realize that life can never be anything other than living in the present moment, then we realize that we have already arrived at the only destination available to us. Thinking we are anywhere other than here and now, or that we’re headed to anywhere other than here and now, is the illusion of a bad traveler.

Science is the pursuit of undiscovered truth. Anyone who believes that s/he already has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can never experience the joyful reward that comes from inquiry into the known in search of the undiscovered.

Following our intuition is nothing more than an act of trust. Intuition is to know something without the use of conscious reasoning, without the application of concepts. It is intuition that leads not just the artist but the scientist beyond the accepted conceptual understanding into an openness that produces the discovery of great art and great invention.

Tao Te Ching 26

2007-09-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement.

If you let yourself be blown to and fro, you lose touch with your root. If you let restlessness move you, you lose touch with who you are.
______________________________________________________

Who doesn’t long for an abiding sense of stability, being fully grounded, knowing that we’re standing on rock rather than sand? The answer is, the person who stays connected with the root of life, who stays aware of who they are, who doesn’t allow themselves to be blown about by every wind of doctrine, dogma or partisan rhetoric.

So many of us are addicted to movement. We seem to believe that life can only be lived on the move, flitting about here and there, doing this or that. We want to “lift off” and “soar in the wind” and go “higher and farther” than humankind has gone before. We call it “exploration” and “stepping into the great beyond”.

We seem unaware that the wind on which we soar is simply the prevailing wind of the day. Today it blows strongly from the west; tomorrow it’s a slight breeze from the east; another day it’s a gale force from the north or a hot, dry dust storm from the south. The wind that prevails one day is non-existent another day.

Our attention is continually diverted to the rustling of our branches and leaves. We forget about our root system, about where we came from and who we are. Leaves fall and branches get pruned, but the trunk and the roots remain stable and unmoved.

We seem unable to realize that the rest we cherish is the opposite of the windblown restlessness we live amidst. The rest we cherish is found in an abiding awareness of who we are. The restlessness we live is found in the desire to be someone else, in the attempt to make life other than what it is.

We scarcely consider the value of being unmoved. The greatest courage is often, if not always, found in someone who “stands their ground” in the face of a prevailing onslaught. When a tornado or hurricane tears through a community we marvel at the structures that remain seemingly unmoved by the wind.

Perhaps it’s time to stop and stand our ground. Perhaps it’s time to rest.

Tao Te Ching 25

2007-09-28T09:10:00.001-07:00

There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born.

It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Essentially present.

It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. It flows through all things, inside and outside, and returns to the origin of all things.
________________________________________________________

Most religions teach of a creative power, an infinite and unchanging source of life, an eternal ground of being that is omnipresent, inside and outside its creation. Most religions teach that the purpose of our life is to return to and remain united with that source of life.

Some religions teach that whether by divine design or human transgression we are separated from the origin of all things and that nothing other than divine intervention or human propitiation can bring the atonement (at-one-ment) through which we return and reunite with the perfection that existed before the universe was born.

Some religions teach that no such separation has occurred, indeed, that no such separation is possible. These belief systems teach that the omnipresent is just that – essentially present here and now, inside and outside of us, available at a moment’s notice. They teach that we only need to reawaken, to realize that something formless and perfect, something serene, something unchanging and infinite awaits our immediate return through simple awareness. The reunion has already occurred, because the separation never occurred.

The invitation is universal. We’re invited to step into the flow of life that pervades and surrounds us and to rediscover the serenity and unity that are its nature. We are united; we always have been and always will be. We’re invited to live our lives in the midst of that realization.

Tao Te Ching 24

2007-09-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

He who tries to shine dims his own light.
He who defines himself can’t know who his really is.
He who has power over others can’t empower himself.
He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures.

Just do your job, then let go.
____________________________________________

We divert our productive energy in our efforts to shine. We divert our productive energy in our efforts to control other people. We divert our productive energy clinging to what we produced yesterday, thereby depleting the energy needed to produce something that will last until tomorrow.

Most if not all of this diverted energy is redirected to our efforts to write a definition of who we are. Our ego demands a definition; it needs reference points to reaffirm its place and importance in the world. Sadly, that definition consists largely of imported reference points taken from an array of external models that we admire or aspire to emulate, or that we allow to influence us.

Once we decide to define ourselves this way, we step away from the opportunity to truly know who we are. That knowledge will only be found deep inside, in the natural grain of our wood, if you will, under all the layers of sealant, paint, varnish, grime and dust that have been applied or allowed to settle over the years.

Let go of trying to shine; let go of controlling others; let go of yesterday’s work and accomplishments; but above all, let go of defining – defining our self and others. Let go of all the covering layers applied over the years and allow the natural grain to be seen and enjoyed. The definition inherent in that grain will shine brighter than anything we think we can create.

Tao Te Ching 23

2007-09-26T05:26:00.001-07:00

If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.
____________________________________________________

Opening ourselves can be a frightening experience. New insights can challenge our sense of what is good and right and true in the world and that can threaten our carefully constructed, albeit false, sense of security.

Opening ourselves to loss is more than frightening. We exert a tremendous amount of energy in resisting a loss. The bigger the loss, the more we resist it. It’s hard work to accept a loss, but it’s even harder work to not accept that loss.

By opening our defenses and letting that loss “sink in”, by actually feeling rather than resisting or repressing the pain, we’re able to dissipate that pain over a much larger, open space rather than keeping it contained in a closed and deeply embedded place.

It’s like releasing smoke from a bottle. Outside the bottle is a much, much bigger container than inside the bottle. Natural dissipation brings natural relief from grief.

Many of us have closed ourselves off to the way that life naturally flows around us, on the “outside”. By opening ourselves, we allow that natural flow back inside our “bottle” and allow that flow to clear the stagnant air trapped inside. We relearn how to trust natural responses and with that trust we regain the insight that all things are the only way they can be at that moment.

We realize that accepting the present moment completely is the only real choice we have. All other choices are smoke in a bottle.

Tao Te Ching 22 (Teaching 2)

2007-09-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

Because the Master doesn’t display himself, people can see his light.
Because he has nothing to prove, people can trust his words.
Because he doesn’t know who he is, people recognize themselves in him.
Because he has no goal in life, everything he does succeeds.
___________________________________________________

The self that we’re inclined to display is a densely constructed ego that blocks the natural light that resides in each of us. It also prevents the absorption of light from outside our sense of self. Removing that filter is the meaning of enlightenment.

In doing so, we in effect lose the sense of self – we don’t know who we are, so to speak. With that filter removed, others can see themselves in us because they’re seeing through to the unifying commonality that underlies us all. We’re not just more alike than we are different; we’re all alike but just pretending to be different, because that’s what the ego requires us to do.

The need to prove ourselves right, or the need to prove anything for that matter, arises in the context of our ego. Once that obscuration is removed then, and only then, can someone else trust us. Only then can someone else trust that we’re acting other than in our best interest. Once we stop trying to prove this or that, then others can rely on the love and compassion we profess.

It’s hard for most westerners to picture a life that isn’t based on moving from one goal to another. We define success through the fulfillment of our goals and expectations. Of course, that’s simultaneously how we define failure and dissatisfaction. Having goals per se isn’t really the problem; it’s the ego-based attachment to them and the attendant self-judgment that creates the suffering.

Letting go of our ever-shifting expectations moves us away from the ever-present dissatisfaction that comes from a life build on sand.

Tao Te Ching 22 (Teaching 1)

2007-09-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial.
If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
____________________________________________

As mentioned in the introduction on September 1, the Tao Te Ching is filled with paradox, but that apparent contradiction is filled with wisdom. In it we learn that all dualistic concepts, and we employ hundreds if not thousands of them, contain their opposing sides.

If you accept one side, you get the other side. If you seek one side, you will find it in or through the other side. If you reject one side, then you reject the other side. If you want to avoid one side, then you must avoid the other side.

Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Wisdom, it seems, tends to be ironic.

Much of our suffering in life comes in the tossing and turning from one conceptual side to the other. That which makes us happy has the equal capacity to make us sad. Whatever has the ability to lift us up also has the ability to bring us down. We’re told at an early age that we must accept the good with the bad in life. That’s true, but only if we insist on thinking in terms of good and bad.

We have one other choice, and that is, paradoxically, to make no choice – to move beyond dualistic thinking and to realize that reality is not conceptual. Reality is what it is, here and now. Once we stop slapping our beloved “either / or” and “this / that” labels on people, places and things, then the reality of those people, places and things reveals itself.

If we want to be full of real life, then the Tao invites us to empty ourselves of our conceptual life.

Tao Te Ching 21

2007-09-23T20:25:00.001-07:00

The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao; that is what gives her radiance.

The Tao is ungraspable. How can her mind be at one with it? Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.

The Tao is dark and unfathomable. How can it make her radiant? Because she lets it.
__________________________________________________

By now one of the central themes in the Tao Te Ching is apparent. It invites us to find peace through no longer clinging to our cherished ideas. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with thinking or with the ideas and concepts that arise from our thinking. The problems come when we cling to them, when we attach ourselves and our identity to them.

One of the pivotal moments in my life occurred in the midst of three years of marriage counseling with my first wife. While the counseling wasn’t successful for us as a couple, this single moment changed my life. In this particular session, after our counselor had patiently listened to me answer her questions month after month, she finally threw up her hands in exasperation, slumped back in her chair, and declared, “Jon, you are SO into your head!” Her tone was not complimentary.

A light bulb came on in that moment. I knew exactly what she was saying. My head was my fortress. It was where I went to defend myself; it was my safe place. My head had enough ammunition in it to allow me to repel all invaders for a long, long time. I thought I was in a highly secured place – I just failed to realize that it was a prison.

Letting go of our thinking is an amazing step into freedom and fresh air. The sky is clear outside those prison walls. We can make good use of a lot of our thinking and of the thinking of others, if we make sure we keep the doors and windows open and remember to step outside when the usefulness has ended.

At the risk of diminishing the point, perhaps we should give more thought to a little bit of counsel from The Beatles, who may have been truly “speaking words of wisdom” when they encouraged us to, “Let it be, let it be.”

Tao Te Ching 20

2007-09-22T01:25:00.000-07:00

Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure.
Must you value what others value, avoid what other avoid?
____________________________________________

So much of our thinking isn’t our own – it’s been borrowed, or foisted upon us. Parents, church, school, friends, fellow partisans, the media, employers – all provide the materials from which so much of our thinking is assembled. It’s a wild mosaic, constructed of shards of this and that.

As a result, we too often value the things that others value and devalue what others devalue. We believe that we’re values-driven, when we actually fluctuate between being values-light and value-less – at least in terms of possessing values that we can truly call our own.

In his song, “You’re Only Human”, Billy Joel reminds us:

You're only human; you're allowed to make your share of mistakes;
You're not the only one who's made mistake;
But they're the only thing that you can truly call your own

Ironically, our mistakes are often the last thing that we’re willing to call our own; we’re fond of attributing them to others.

The Tao Te Ching invites us to reclaim a set of values that are eternal and veritable. We do so by quieting our mind’s incessant pursuit of “yes” and “no” and “success” and “failure”, and all the other dualisms that we believe make up our values. As the dirt in the water settles, clarity reemerges and reveals a set of values that have been inherent in our nature since the day we were born.

We rediscover who we are. We rediscover reality. We begin to value life on its terms, rather than in accordance with the terms and conditions of the social contract we’ve entered into with so many others over so many years. In so doing, we find peace and freedom and in that peace and freedom we bless the lives of others in ways that we’ve never done before.

Tao Te Ching 19

2007-09-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won’t be any thieves.
_________________________________________________

It takes time to come to grips with this chapter. It appears to strike at the heart of the American way. Actually, it strikes at the heart of our ego-centered and insecure need to compete and compare and, more importantly, at the heart of our self-righteous need to pass judgment on others.

Over the years, each of us has constructed our personal concepts of holiness, wisdom, morality, justice, industry and profit. Sensing that we are an insufficient foundation for our own proclamations, we attribute our concepts to our God, to our Country, to our Constitution, to our Partisan Truth, to our form of Capitalism, to our American Way of Life. People in other religions, nations, parties, socio-economic models, and ways of life do the same thing. Truth dons a million masks.

We become laws unto ourselves, and then we become the judges who interpret, apply and execute those laws. We become like God – knowing good from evil.

The Book of Genesis teaches us that the original sin of mankind is not found in an inherently sinful nature, but is found in our desire to “be like God, knowing good from evil.” That was the serpent’s temptation in the Garden of Eden – to be like God. God allowed Adam and Eve to eat from every tree in the Garden but one – the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam and Eve that “when you eat of it you will surely die.” How true that is.

Once we take upon ourselves the role of God, the role of judge, and believe that we possess the truth – knowledge about what is and is not holy, wise, moral, just, industrious and profitable – then we are on the road to death in various forms and degrees.

If we lay aside our self-righteousness and trust in creation, in the way of life and in our inherent nature, then we will find happiness and do the right thing. Then we will stop stealing the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then, we will once again have the eternal life that we had on the Seventh Day of creation when God rested and invited us to enjoy life in the Garden.

Tao Te Ching 18

2007-09-20T08:02:00.001-07:00

When the Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth.

When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born.
______________________________________________________

When we fail to trust – in the inherent power in the way of life, in the inherent nature we share with others – when we fail to remain aware that life can only be lived in the present moment – that’s when we begin to compensate. Unfortunately, most of our attempts at such compensation are little more than expressions of ego and conceit.

We step in to the self-created and illusory void and attempt to fill it with something we call good, pious, clever, knowledgeable, filial or patriotic. In the midst of our insecurity, we grab for handrails, without realizing that those handrails aren’t connected to anything solid.

In each response, we divide people. We become good, while others become bad. We become pious, while others become irreverent. We become clever, while others become dimwitted or naïve. We become knowledgeable, while others become ignorant. We become devoted, while others become fickle or unfaithful. We become patriotic, while others become disloyal.

Each response is a sad attempt to reassert some form of self-importance. We endeavor to feel good about ourselves by trying to manufacture something that can never be made – superiority over others.

Tao Te Ching 17

2007-09-19T05:42:00.001-07:00

When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy.
___________________________________________________

How many politicians, religious leaders, business executives, neighbors, parents and friends have ignored this simple wisdom? Some of my greatest failings have come from a failure to trust. Conversely, some of my greatest success has come from the simplest acts of trust.

This injunction includes trusting ourselves, trusting our inherent nature, trusting our intuitive sense of what to do or not to do. If we don’t trust ourselves, we make ourselves untrustworthy, and when we make ourselves untrustworthy other people sense that and are likely to feel the same about us.

Trusting ourselves is an expression of self-respect. Trusting others is an expression of love. Subtle governance is an art.

Failing to trust is an expression of fear. We seem to believe that the more control we assert, the more secure we will be. We seem to believe that the more aware people are of our leadership, the more respected we will be. As is so often the case, the Tao Te Ching invites us to turn our beliefs upside down.

Tao Te Ching 16

2007-09-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.

When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted…dignified.

You can deal with whatever life brings you.
______________________________________________________

There is a connection between the mind and the heart, between thinking and feeling. What we feel arises because of what we’re thinking. The Tao Te Ching invites us to return to the peaceful emptiness of non-thinking.

Non-thinking is ever present in each of us. If we can slow down a little we will see that non-thinking lies before and after each thought, and in between each word that we hear in our thoughts. We just need to open up that space and enjoy the peace that lies within it.

These teachings don’t mean that we’re to become thoughtless people. Thoughts happen, including good and productive ones. Rather, we’re being taught to know when we’re thinking, what those thoughts are, and what those thoughts aren’t. We’re being taught that the harm isn’t in the thinking, it’s in holding on to our thoughts as if they are real. We’re being invited to enjoy the freedom that comes in letting go of our thoughts long enough to become aware of what is real.

It’s in this clarity of the mind and peacefulness of the heart that we realize where we come from. We rediscover that clarity and peacefulness are our inherent nature, always awaiting our return – always present before and after the thinking that obscures that nature. In that realization we find tolerance, healthy disinterest, amusement, kindness and dignity.

With those strengths reclaimed, we can, indeed, handle whatever life brings.

Tao Te Ching 15

2007-09-17T06:05:00.001-07:00

Do you have the patience to wait till your mind settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?

The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting, she is present, and can welcome all things.
____________________________________________________

Is there a belief system in the world that doesn’t extol the virtues of patience? Meditation is training in patience. In meditation we’re invited to “just sit” and allow the mind to settle and regain its natural clarity.

Water is water and remains water at all times and all places, no matter what else is put into it, no matter what sediment might be stirred up into it. There’s no such thing as muddy water, only water that has had dirt placed in it by some non-water means. Therefore, the water, pure and clear, is always present and available for those who have the patience to wait for it to arise.

Given the chance, our thoughts and feelings will simply and slowly settle, coming to rest at the bottom of our mind, so to speak. While we may think that our mind has become clear, in fact, it has always been clear. We’ve just allowed the non-water elements to settle down, for the moment.

When our mind is settled and clear then the things that we’re seeking in the mind will arise and become apparent – not by our seeking, but by our non-seeking. Remember the coin – seeking and non-seeking are co-dependent, one arises out of the other. Paradox is ever present.

The practiced master has trained her mind to move beyond seeking, and beyond the expectation that attends seeking, and in so doing she becomes aware of the clarity within her and in that clarity she discovers that all things are present and available to her. She is fulfilled.

Disappointment is a function of expectation. Drop one and the other goes away. The irony is that what is left behind isn’t a lack of fulfillment, as we might expect, but a fulfillment that will never disappoint.

Tao Te Ching 14

2007-09-16T10:55:00.001-07:00

Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end.
You can’t know it, but you can be it, at ease in your life.
Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom.
________________________________________________

I’ve considered knowledge to be something of great value. Only recently have I become a little more skeptical, as I realize that my so-called knowledge is infested, if you will, with concepts, extrapolations and judgments of my own making. What we “know” is often little more than what we believe or perceive, and what we believe or perceive goes through a host of filters and lenses of varying focal lengths.

To me, the challenge is to move from knowledge to wisdom, which is the careful application of truth to the moment at hand. Wisdom is being in touch with the real world, being grounded and freed from common thinking – the thinking of an ego-centered mind that discriminates between “me” and “you” and “good” and “bad” and “right” and “wrong”. Judge not, said Jesus.

This wisdom leads to truly being alive. “You can’t know it, but you can be it.” As others have said, we shift from living as a “human doing” to living as a “human being”, which leads us to the essence of wisdom – an earthshaking realization of where we come from.

We come from good stuff. Metaphorically, we are waves arising from an eternally present ocean, an ocean that has an infinite power to create waves of every kind. We are, indeed, created in the image of God, the creative power that is forever the ground of our being.

One of the greatest errors in the thinking of mankind is the notion of original sin, the idea that women and men come into this life in a depraved condition that, absent some external intervention, will lead to damnation in one form or another. That idea is the creation of a priestly class who led institutions that assumed the role of being the vehicles of our salvation. We need no such vehicle driven by no such people bearing no such notions.

As the Apostle Paul said, “continue to work out your salvation…for it is God who works in you.” It is the act of discovering our true nature, which is God working within us, as surely as it is the ocean working within the waves, that leads us out of the “fear and trembling” experienced by those who are not aware of who they are.

We come from good stuff. Good stuff is in us. Those who are aware of their deepest and truest nature are filled with the wisdom that leads them from fear to love to happiness to peace.

Go to the mirror – and find the wisdom to smile.

Tao Te Ching 13 (Teaching 2)

2007-09-15T09:13:00.001-07:00

Hope is as hollow as fear.
Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self.

Have faith in the way things are.
________________________________________________

If we boil all our emotions down, we’re left with a residue in the shape of a coin. On one side is love and on the other side is fear – once again, we find opposites sides of the same coin – where there is one, there is the other.

All other emotions, including hope, arise from either love or fear. Of these two, only love is real because love is experienced and expressed in the present moment. Fear is never in the present – fear resides only in the past or the future, neither of which are truly real here and now.

Hope is fear looking forward rather than back over the shoulder. Hope is fear wearing a faint smile rather than a worried grimace. Hope is something grasped by people who fear that what they hope for will not happen.

The only way to be hopeless is to be fearless. The only way to be fearless is to move beyond the need for hope. The fearless have no need for hope.

Tao Te Ching 13 (Teaching 1)

2007-09-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

Success is a dangerous as failure.
Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.
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Success has to be as dangerous as failure. It can’t be otherwise; they’re opposite sides of the same coin. With one, we get the lurking presence of the other one in equal size and weight.

Similarly, “up” can exist only in the presence of “down”. They, too, are co-dependent. When up and down are experienced on a ladder each is equally dangerous because of the instability inherent in either direction. Whether we’re going up or going down we have only one foot on the ladder at a time.

The Tao invites us to go through life without thinking in terms of success and failure. These are relative and subjective concepts that have no bearing on truth and reality. Truth and reality are free of dualistic concepts.

The Tao invites us to stand firmly on ground where stability and balance are possible. The only solid ground is the present moment – here in space and now in time. Instability is found when we take a one-footed journey down to the past or up to the future. If we feel insecure, then we’ve gone off in one direction or the other.

The Buddha is often depicted sitting in meditation with one hand lightly touching the ground. This simple gesture reminded him, and reminds us, that the purpose of any form of meditation is to bring us back to the ground – the present moment – the only place where peace and contentment can be found.

Life can only be lived in the present, moment after moment. When we wander up or down our ladders of perceived success or failure, we leave life behind, on the solid ground, where it awaits our return.

Tao Te Ching 12

2007-09-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Thoughts weaken the mind. Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky.
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Some truth is self evident. Who hasn’t worn themselves to weakness by thinking too much or too long; who hasn’t experienced the withering that comes from desiring someone or something too much or too long.

This doesn’t make thoughts or desires bad. Like the bumper sticker says, these things happen. They come; they go. The weakness and withering come from grasping our thoughts and desires – it’s the mental or emotional attachment to the thought or desire that brings the exhaustion and other forms of suffering. Our problems arise when we don’t allow things to come and go, when we “hang on for dear life.”

Grasping causes us to clinch the heart and close the mind. The Tao invites us to open our mind and heart by allowing things to pass. After all, passing is the nature of all things. Everything is impermanent – that which arises is that which subsides. It’s our attempt to make something permanent, to make something other than what it is, that brings our weakening and withering.

Our inner vision, our nature, which is aligned with the nature of all things, will teach us this truth if we will stop, look and listen to what we’re being taught.

Tao Te Ching 11

2007-09-12T07:05:00.001-07:00

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a home, but it is the inner space that makes it livable.

We work with being, but non-being is what we use.
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This is one of the few times when I will quote an entire chapter from the Tao Te Ching. Chapter 11 profoundly demonstrates the value of emptiness and invites us to become more aware of it in and around us. It’s an invitation to insight.

Emptiness is essential; it can be found everywhere. If there were no empty spaces within letters and between words, there would be no communication, no understanding. If there were no empty spaces between the notes we hear, there would be no music, no rhythm, and no harmony.

We describe silence as golden because it is empty of sound. We relish a clear, thus empty sky or the clear breaks between passing clouds. Pain makes us grateful for its absence, a form of emptiness. We eat, and thus live, only because we experience being empty.

Reunion is made joyful only by the separation that opens space and time between us and a loved one, a form of emptiness. Absence, we’re told, makes the heart grow fonder. We know the feeling of joyfulness only because we know we know what it means to be empty of joy.

Being fruitless gives meaning to being fruitful. A glass half full is given meaning only by a glass half empty.

Many of these examples are trite, I know, but they open the path to a significantly more profound meaning of emptiness that the Tao Te Ching will address later. For now, it’s enough to contemplate that non-emptiness exists only because emptiness exists. As with all dualisms, we can’t have one without the other. Therefore, everything that we use and enjoy emerges from and is dependent upon emptiness.

Tao Te Ching 10

2007-09-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep to the original oneness?
Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?

Having without possessing, acting with no expectation, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.
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Our thoughts and feelings rise like waves on an ocean. As we ride each wave we think that it’s somehow separate from the ocean. We actually believe that we can “catch a good wave”. We lose sight of the fact that it, like all other waves, arose from the ocean and will quickly return to the “original oneness”.

We all suffer from our wandering minds, what Eastern philosophers call the “monkey mind”. Our thoughts and feelings jump from branch to branch, grabbing this or that vine, swinging from tree to tree. It’s a triple-canopy jungle in there!

Stepping back, letting go, frees us from our wandering and allows us to settle on what we’ve been seeking all along – understanding. Understanding lies outside our mental activity. Stepping back actually moves us forward.

Who hasn’t experienced the sudden insight that comes when we finally step back from all our thinking and simply allow that understanding to emerge? Understanding is something we experience by living life here and now, not something that comes from wandering in thought.

Our disappointment with life lies in our expectations that life should be different than it is at the moment. We believe that life is or at least can be under our control and that we should “take control of our future”. This idea is contrary to the wisdom that encourages us simply to “lead a good life”. Leading without controlling; acting without expecting; having without possessing – the way to a good and peaceful life.

Tao Te Ching 9

2007-09-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
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There’s a lot of talk about freedom these days. In the name of freedom, we chase after money and we chase after security. Everyone involved in such a chase believes that their objective lies at the end of the chase. The only thing at the end of that chase is the lie itself.

The most powerful word in these two lines is “unclench”. We can call it stress, anxiety, insecurity, or some other description of the internal tension inherent in chasing after something that we’re never going to get – enough. When do we have enough money, enough security, enough approval – enough of whatever it is that we’re chasing as the means to peace and happiness? If we feel the need to chase after something, then we’ll never have enough of whatever it is – we’ll never unclench.

We should act in a way that naturally gives birth to the approval of other people who are acting in a similar way – without either person caring about getting that approval. That kind of approval flows with a natural resonance, without care or chasing. We should give no thought to seeking the approval of people in some other way. If we do, we surrender our freedom to them; we’re held captive by our need for approval and by their willingness to give it.

Tao Te Ching 8

2007-09-09T11:28:00.001-07:00

The supreme good is like water…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.
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We respect people for many reasons but we almost always respect someone who exhibits a sense of peace and contentment, no matter what their station in life may be. It’s only the ego-driven person who believes they find respect through competing. This idea doesn’t make competition bad; it just removes its goodness.

These two lines invite us to draw a contentment connection between “the low places” and simply being yourself. Just as water naturally flows to and nourishes the low places, the “supreme good” naturally flows to and nourishes those who are content with themselves as they are in the present moment.

Comparing ourselves against other people is one of the growing sicknesses of our time. The need to compare drives the competitive addiction to what we perceive to be beauty, wealth and power. Real beauty, wealth and power are found on the other side of that coin.

Tao Te Ching 7

2007-09-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

The Tao is infinite. Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself, thus it is present for all things.

The Master is detached from all things; that is why she is one with them.
Because the Master has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.
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One of the recurring themes in the Tao Te Ching is detachment – letting go – and particularly letting go of the self – the ego. The more self-centered we are, the more fearful and dissatisfied we are and the more we suffer. The more we get outside of ourselves – letting go of our overriding sense of self – the more loving and compassionate we are. (Note: I did not say “we become”; I said “we are”.)

Like the bellows discussed a couple of days ago, the more we empty ourselves of our ego, the more capacity we have for fulfillment. It is only the ego that perceives a lack of fulfillment and a constricting dissatisfaction with life as it is. It is the ego that experiences fear. It is the ego that dwells in the past and the future.

The ego perceives a separation between us and “others”. As we detach from the ego we experience the underlying oneness with others, a unity that gives rise to the love and compassion that are inherent in that unity and thus inherent in each of us.

Only in the present moment are we free from the ego; only in the here and now will we find satisfaction and fulfillment. Try letting go – it’s perfectly fulfilling.

Tao Te Ching 6

2007-09-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

The Tao is empty…yet inexhaustible.
It is always present within you.
You can use it anyway you want.
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We can only discover what is present within us if we are present within ourselves. What keeps us from being fully present and inexhaustible? It’s our lack of emptiness.

We’re filled with our judgments, opinions, concepts, assessments, ideas and views of the world around us, all of which have arisen in the past and are being projected into the future. Our minds are filled with past troubles and future worries; too often we’re focused on our fears – fears based on what we believe has happened to us and on what we believe may happen to us.

The inexhaustible power of “the way of life” is available to whoever makes the choice to return to the present within them.

The next time that you’re suffering or feeling dissatisfied, let go of the thoughts occupying your mind. The thoughts will still arise, but you can choose to let them come and go; you can choose not to grab hold of them. Instead, you can return entirely to the here and now and experience what is happening in the reality of the present.

Get back in touch with your breathing and the beat of your heart; get fully connected to your sitting, standing, walking or whatever else you’re doing at the moment. Touch the ground, literally and figuratively.

Tao Te Ching 5

2007-09-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable.
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Jesus taught that God “causes his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.” Similarly, he told us not to judge others. What meaning can that injunction have if it doesn’t mean that we’re not to judge the good and the evil we believe we see in others?

The Tao, like God, gives birth, in a manner of speaking, to all things. All things come from it and all things return to it. When we pass judgment on people and things we give birth to the concepts of good and evil. That which I call good, someone else calls evil. That which I call evil, someone else calls good. There is only a child’s handful of things that all of us call good or evil. Perhaps that handful is all we need to remember.

In the second line above, the Tao Te Ching introduces us to its paradoxical nature and to the Eastern concept of emptiness. This isn’t emptiness as we think of it – rather, it’s a paradoxical emptiness, one that contains everything.

In this example, if a bellows were not empty, it would be of no use. As we expand a bellows we expand its capacity for emptiness and in so doing we increase its capability. The Tao invites us to expand our capacity and capability in similar manner.

One of the things we need to “empty” ourselves of is our judgment of the good and evil we believe we see in others. Those judgments, along with myriad other concepts, assessments, opinions, ideas and views, fill our “bellows”, leaving no space for it to function as intended. To the extent that we “empty” ourselves, we will increase our clarity, capacity and capability.

Tao Te Ching 4

2007-09-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

The Tao is like a well: used but never used up…filled with infinite possibilities.
It is hidden but always present.
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It is difficult to trust in life the way it is in the present moment. In the grip of dissatisfaction, we continually grasp for a life that is other than “the way it is”. The hidden will rarely appear present to those who are dissatisfied with the present.

If we can stay in the present moment rather than focusing on and fearing the past or the future, then we will discover the eternal presence of a heretofore hidden well of infinite capacity. The flow of “the way of life” is powerful and it offers that power to anyone who will stay centered in that flow rather than grabbing for the walls of the well, past and future.

Life is an infinite succession of present moments each of which is filled with the possibility of satisfaction. When we are truly present here and now we discover that life is, indeed, the way it is and that life the way it is – is O.K. Frankly, it has to be O.K. because life can’t be anything other than the way it is at this moment.

Neither can we be anything other than the way we are at this moment. If we desire to be something different in the future, then we have to change the way we are right now. Life is only live here and now.

Tao Te Ching 3

2007-09-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

If you over-esteem great men, people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal.
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This is another manifestation of dualistic thinking. Once we create “powerful” people, then at the same moment we create “powerless” people. We can’t have one without the other.

There are hundreds of examples of our society over-esteeming “great” men and women – in politics, religion, sports, big business, literature, education, music and the arts, and the entertainment industry. When we look at the highly esteemed and we experience envy, coveting, or merely a subtle desire to be more like them, and thus less like ourselves, we experience the absence of power.

We can only be healthy and stable, whether as a country, a society, a community, a married couple, or a family, when power is balanced.

Once we declare that the possession of property is not only “good” and “valuable” but is also a primary source of power, then at the same moment the absence of possessions becomes “bad” and those who don’t possess property become “valueless” and “powerless”. At the same moment, the inherent need for balance in the universe results in “bad” people stealing, in one form or another, in order to obtain power and reestablish balance. The greater the number of dispossessed and “powerless” people then the greater the number of people who steal in order to dispossess someone else.

We purport to cherish equality in America but, given our inclination to over-esteem and overvalue, too often we settle for the illusion of equality.

Tao Te Ching 2

2007-09-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
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We are trapped in dualistic thinking. We have divided and categorized people and things on the basis of this conventional thinking. In so doing, we fail to realize that one side of the dualism cannot exist without the other side. If you have one, then you have the other.

Picture holding a coin. The “other side” of the coin is never seen; we see only the side that’s facing us. We’re incapable of seeing both sides at the same time. But, just because we can’t see the “other side” doesn’t mean that the “other side” isn’t there. If we turn the coin, we see the “other side” – but in so doing, we lose sight of the “other side” that we saw just a moment before.

For example, that which we call bad also brings good; that which we call good also brings bad. We can only rid ourselves of the bad by ridding ourselves of the good that accompanies it, because good is on the backside of bad.

Danny’s death is the worst experience my wife and I have endured – the death of a child is as “bad” as it gets. With it, however, came an explosion of “good” in the form of personal growth and altered perspective that has changed how we experience almost everything in the world around us. We are better people now, by far, than we were on March 15, 2002.

We have another choice – we can rid ourselves of the self-created ideas of “good” and “bad” and realize that something simply is what it is and that in reality, as opposed to in the conceptual world that we’ve constructed in our mind, our categorizing of some thing neither adds to nor detracts from what that thing is. The death of a child is the death of a child. We shouldn’t try to add to or detract from what is, because it’s a futile effort that creates nothing more than the illusion of truth.

If the truth will set us free, then we shouldn’t settle for truths that are relative, conventional or provisional in nature. We should seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the whole truth.

Tao Te Ching 1

2007-09-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.
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At the moment of birth each of us is given a name. As soon as we become aware of that name we begin to believe that we’re different than others. Naming and labeling divide one from another; they separate people and things; they make each person and thing particular, which is to say peculiar.

But with each name or label we not only create separation between people and things, we create separation between us and reality. Names and labels are by their nature limiting and to one degree or another always unreal.

There’s a certain degree of arrogance in presuming to give someone a name or something a label. Wherever there is arrogance there is also ignorance. The more we use names and labels, the more limited we make the world around us, and thus the more ignorant we become about the reality of that world.

Names and labels also give birth to confusion because each name or label means something different in each person’s mind. What I think of when I say your name is not the same thing that you think of when you say your name, and vice versa. Which thought is real? Neither thought is real, because each is about a name or a label that at best reflects conventional or relative truth. Names and labels are provisional, mere conventions.

We should be very careful about how we name and label people and things. For example, “enemy” and “evil” are names and labels that are used in countless ways by countless people to separate the relatively “good” from the relatively “bad”, which is relatively true at best and relatively false as often as not.

Anyone interested in absolute truth as opposed to relative truth should be very careful when speaking of or listening to names and labels. When God was asked to reveal his name on Mount Horeb, he declined. Instead, he referred to himself as “I AM WHO I AM.” Indeed he is; as are we; as are all other people to whom we give names; as are all other created things to which we give labels.

The Way of Life

2007-09-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, May 9th, I couldn’t write any more. I had grown tired of my anger. My postings became increasingly focused on the insanity in Iraq and the inevitability that nothing much was going to change there until January 2009 when, hopefully, the country will turn to a different kind of leadership with a radically different vision of how to combat terrorism in the world.

So the postings stopped. A part of me wanted to shift to a different focus but I was unable to ignore the war and its damaging impacts on America, Iraq, the Middle East and the world. I could not get beyond the view that my president and his advisors were actually fostering rather than fighting terrorism.

Enough of that, at least in that form. I want to do something different with these pages for a while.

For the last two to three months whenever I’ve taken my evening walk alone I have listened to a reading of the Tao Te Ching, as translated and read by Stephen Mitchell (http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/). Mitchell’s bio in his translation of the Tao Te Ching says he was “educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice.” I love that line.

I intend to lift a quote from each of the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching (each chapter is less than a page long) and add a short commentary. If all goes well, that will be what I write about for the next 100 days or so. After that, we’ll see.

The authorship of the Tao Te Ching is attributed to Lao-tzu, who we’re told may have been a contemporary of Confucius (551 – 479 BCE) and may have been a library archivist in one of the small kingdoms of the day. Whoever penned it, the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching has reverberated throughout the world for more than 2,500 years. That alone makes it worth reading. Its content makes it worth studying.

The Tao Te Ching speaks about the Tao, something that does not lend itself to definition. Chapter 1 tells us, “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” Often translated as “the Way,” to me the Tao refers to “the way of life”; the way in which and through which all of life unfolds without regard to what we do or don’t do. It is the source, the immutable, the reality, the river and the energy of life. It has also been aptly described as “the eternal present”.

Those of us who live in accord with “the way of life” - those of us who live in the present moment rather than in the past or the future; those of us who realize that reality lies beyond our concepts, judgments, opinions, ideas and views - are freed from the suffering that comes from living contrary to the “the way of life”.

The Tao Te Ching is about freedom. We’re told that the war in Iraq is about freedom and that “the enemy hates us for our freedom.” The Tao Te Ching teaches us that no one at war with an enemy is free and that no one who hates is free and that no one who fears is free. It’s time for enemies everywhere, the hateful and the fearful, to find the freedom that comes with living here and now in accord with the way of life. It's certainly time for me to do so.