Month: August 2013

Daily Tao / 231 – Order

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02 - 1740 Swedish brick wall

Build your life brick upon brick.
Live a life of truth,
And you will look back on a life of truth.
Live a life of fantasy,
And you will look back on delusion.

The good of today is based upon the good of yesterday. That is why we should constantly be attentive to our actions.

Take frugal people as an example. They recycle the scraps from their cooking into compost piles. They eat at home rather than in restaurants. They do not waste water. They shop carefully. They do not spend their money on frivolities. This is exactly the type of care that we need for spirituality.

We should not fritter our efforts away on amusements; rather, we should concentrate on endeavors most important to us. We should not randomly gather information; rather, we should try to order it into a comprehensive whole, thereby compounding our abilities to our own advantage. We should not carelessly tell lies, because we will then be divorced from the truth that we seek.

Whether our lives are magnificent or wretched depends upon our ordering of daily details. We must organize the details into a composition that pleases us. Only then will be have meaning in our lives.

Daily Tao / 230 – Perfection

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Taoism--old_sage

The hero comes down from the mountain,
Radiant with the power.
Yet one tussle with a dusty old man
Quickly tumbles him into the dirt.

In olden times, young men and women who wanted to be extraordinary trained in the mountains with a famous master. Away from all the distractions of society, isolated in the cleanliness, they remained on a high peak and did not come down until they had attained great ability.

Such people were heroes, the pinnacle of cultivation. However, in their subsequent wanderings in the world, such heroes would often come upon some oldster who could quickly best them. Whether in philosophical debate or physical skill, there was always some obscure wanderer who could outshine even the greatest of heroes. Why? Because the hero only had perfection, the strength of youth, and courage. The oldsters had the advantage of experience and wisdom.

There will always be people in the world better than yourself. Learn to recognize those elders who are wiser than you, and respect them. Know that you yourself will not be great until you have lived a long time.

To perfect oneself is difficult but not rare. To have perfect wisdom is rare indeed.

Daily Tao / 229 – Redemption

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Children-of-the-Mind-2

I meditate daily before the altar,
Yet I am still covered with sin.

In spite of daily efforts to improve ourselves, we still have many faults. We eliminate one, only to find new shortcomings. We free ourselves from some unwanted involvement, only to find new entanglements. Why is it so hard to find liberation? Because our own minds are the source of our difficulties.

Each one of us who has intelligence and ambition has profound desire. We want things. We devise strategies to get them. Whether it is the nearly instinctive drive for food or whether it is desire clothed in societal approval, our minds never rest in their hunger for satisfaction. Once we have desire, we grasp for the object of our desire. If the grasping is unsuccessful, we become angry, frustrated, and disappointed. If we get what we want, we only want more.

This grasping never ends. Though we meditate, we cannot eliminate this habit all at once. Therefore, though we may sit with all sincerity before the altar, we must also accept that we will not be quickly redeemed. The follower of Tao knows how to eliminate desire, accept personal shortcomings, and work toward a patient elimination of the mind’s own hunger for outward satisfaction.

Daily Tao / 228 – Depth

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wave

Morning light illuminates the meditating wrestler.
In his mind, even a wooden temple is washed away.
Who could challenge an ocean’s depth?

There once was a wrestler who, in spite of his great physical stature, lost most of his matches. He consulted coach after coach, but no one could show him how to win. Although he lacked neither might nor skill, he did lack concentration and confidence.

Finally, he went to consult a meditation master who agreed to help. “Your name means ‘Vast Ocean,'” observed the master. “Therefore, I will give you this meditation to practice.”

That night, the wrestler sat alone in the shrine and first visualized himself as waves. Gradually, the waves increased in size. Soon, he became a flood. Then the flood became a deluge, and finally a tidal wave. In his mind, everything was swept before him : Even the gods on the altar and the timbers of the temple were consumed in his surge.

Near dawn, the water settled into a vast and endless sea. That morning, the master came to check on the wrestler’s progress and was delighted. He knew that the wrestler would not lose again.

For each of us, it is only depth of character that determines the profundity with which we face life. We can either add to our character each day, or we can fritter away our energies in distractions. Those who learn how to accumulate character each day achieve a depth that cannot be successfully opposed.

Daily Tao / 227 – Consistency

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Without too much trouble,
One can keep to the main road.
But people love to be distracted,
And perspective is difficult.

People constantly declare that they want to walk the road of Tao. They say that all they want is to reach realization. But this is not true. If it were, they would simply walk their road and attain enlightenment right away.

Instant realization doesn’t happen very often because people become distracted. It is not given to every person to pursue Tao with the utmost consistency. Not every one even wants immediate realization. When enlightenment comes, the world becomes completely insignificant. Some of us still want to explore, be involved, amuse ourselves. That is all right, as long as you know that you are making up games and intrigues. In the final analysis, it is all right to be sidetracked a little bit, but one must always be cautious and come back to the main road without losing too much time or ground.

That is why a strong perspective is at the root of wisdom. One who follows Tao may appear to be going away from the goal, but such a person knows exactly when to pull back.

Daily Tao / 226 – Repetition

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My prayer beads are strung on my life span.
I am not allowed to skip a single bead :
Sometimes the bead is a seed. Or a bone.
Or jade. Or dry blood. Or semen. Or crystal.
Or rotted wood. Or a sage’s relic. Or gold.
Or glass. Or a prism. Or iron. Or clay.
Or an eye. Or an egg. Or dung. Or a ball.
Or a stone. Or a peach. Or a bullet.
Or a bubble. Or lead. Or pure light.
No matter what the next bead is, I must count it,
Perform my daily austerities.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Until repetition becomes endurance.

People seldom understand the power of repetition. What is repeated over and over again can become enduring; what is done in a moment is seldom lasting. If farmers do not tend to their fields every day, they cannot expect a harvest. The same is true of spiritual practice. It is not the grand declaration or the colorful initiation that means anything. It is the ongoing, daily living of a spiritual life that has meaning. Our progress may range from dull to spectacular, but we must accept both. Each and every day should be linked together, strung into a long line of prayer beads.

In life, you don’t know how many beads you’ve counted already, and you don’t know how many are yet to come. All that matters is fingering the one that comes to you now and taking the spiritual significance of that moment to heart.

Daily Tao / 225 – Prejudice

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No mother thinks her child ugly.
No one is indifferent to themselves.

We are all familiar with prejudice. It comes in many forms : nationalism, chauvinism, provincialism, racism. Many of us undoubtedly cry out against these injustices. As long as there is prejudice, we declare, we are never able to fairly know one another.

And yet, it is exactly a type of prejudice that also keeps us from knowing ourselves. If we think about it, we ourselves are the ones we most favor. We cater to all our bodily needs, our sensual indulgences, our intellectual curiosities, and our lustful ambitions. When we are sick or disadvantaged, no one feels our pain more or wails more loudly. When we are satisfied, no one rejoices with greater satisfaction. When we are on the verge of death, no one clings with such vehemence.

As long as we are slaves to our appetites, then we cannot have the attention for spirituality. As long as we value comfort over effort, then we shall never have the fortitude for a spiritual quest. As long as we adhere to intellectual ideas over experience, then we can never have a genuine perception of Tao. As long as we insist that we are separate, individual entities apart from the rest of the universe, then we shall never realize oneness.

No mother thinks her child ugly, because that child is her own creation. In the same way, we are inevitably partial to ourselves : We create ourselves. If we are to reach any sort of spiritual realization, we must confront and resolve this prejudice.