Tag: beginner

Daily Tao / 249 – Outlook

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Spawned from a mountain cataract,
The long river surges to the sea.
Its torrents savage its igneous bed,
Yet one blade of rock twists it tightly.
Angry waves plow stone furrows into a maze,
And boats find it difficult to maneuver.
From this point, one man held off an entire army,
And poets found inspiration among the nests of eagles.

Along the Yangtze River is a high cliff. The space for the river narrows dramatically at this point, and the water must back up into a large bay before plunging through the difficult passage. Rocks underneath are treacherous, and even today boats find it difficult to negotiate this stretch.

At the crown of the cliff is the Temple to the White King, in honor of a man from ancient times. Numerous historical events took place here. In medieval times, a famous strategist was able to defeat an entire army with a much smaller force. Later, famous poets found inspiration from the high view of the river and mountains. In more recent times, the high cliff served as the headquarters of a warlord.

There are places in nature that can give people great power, but the character of the individuals determines whether the power is used for war or peace. It is not enough to struggle for vantage points. Position must be used with wisdom.

Daily Tao / 248 – Receptivity

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sun-shining-through-a-window-into-an-empty-room_i-G-28-2895-CYIPD00Z

I want to make myself an empty room:
Quiet whitewashed walls with slant sunshine
And a fresh breeze through open windows.

Some days are extremely fluid, and all possible courses of action are equally attractive. Rather than do something arbitrary, it is far better to empty oneself completely. Then the more subtle currents of life may be felt. One should avoid the mistake of random action.

Arbitrary action will most likely be out of accord with the times. It is artificial, a structure that we impose from our own thought. Such movements are invariably stilted and wooden; they do not have the fresh perfection of the natural.

We do not have enough peace. Yet peace will never be attained by perpetual action. Stirred water never has the chance to settle clear. A tree buffeted by winds can never grow straight. Give up all unnecessary activity. Give up all arbitrary actions. Make yourself receptive. The peace that you seek shall be quickly at hand.

Daily Tao / 247 – Dove

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spotted-dove

A dove got caught in the rafters last night.
I had quite a time trying to get her out.
She hit her head several times in panic.
Only when she was stunned was I able to care for her.

In the paper there was this quote from a sage:
“Human nature was originally one and we were a whole,
And the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.”

It was late at night. Her flapping caught my attention. I looked up to see her perched in the rafters. The dove tried to fly out, but she was either hurt or disoriented. She skittered across the ceiling. Landing at the blue windows, she looked out, unable to pass through the invisible barrier. I climbed up and tried to get her to fly out. She let me come very close but was unable to understand my language or actions.

She flew from me but quickly lost altitude and landed on the floor. I climbed down and urged her on. There was just a short distance to go, but she panicked and flew into a wall. She fell to my worktable, stunned, breathing hard, a feather lying loose at her side. Only then was I able to put her in a box and care for her.

She couldn’t understand my intentions and so was hurt. I was unable to help her without being frightening. Were all living beings once connected? Perhaps so, but in this world, the pursuit of love and compassion is not without pain and confusion.

Daily Tao / 246 – Tree

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tree

Did you measure to attain your height?
Did you use geometry to radiate your limbs?
Did you lament storm-torn branches?
Did you inventory your leaves for the sun?
You did none of these things, yet man in his cleverness
Cannot match your perfection.

When will we give up the artificiality of our tiresome lives and cleave instead to what is natural? All the achievements of man are only monuments to overwhelming pride. There has not been a single man-made item that has been a necessary improvement to the earth. Did we need the Great Wall of China? Did we need the pyramids of Egypt? Did we need the Colossus of Rhodes? Did we need mechanization, steam power, electricity, nuclear power, or computer technology? All our achievements have been for the sake of our exclusive comfort and gratification. We have only advanced the mad tangle of supply and demand that we call civilization.

We don’t need all this “sophistication” in order to live with Tao. Our involvement in society blinds us to this fact. We ignore the natural order of our own bodies and minds and close ourselves to the point so that only sex and drugs are stimulating enough. We lament that we are lost and alienated. Ironically, the answers are right nearby. If you just go to the nearest tree and contemplate, you will easily see the secret to natural living.

Daily Tao / 245 – Garden

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BCGardens_vegetables_box

Blinding heat divides day from night,
Brands short shadows into fecund soil.
Green tendrils, heavy with beans,
Coil around rustic bamboo racks.
Violet flowers gape erotically among velvet leaves :
A single gourd contains the entire world’s dream.

There is a great comfort in growing your own food. You are close to the soil. You use the basic elements — water, sunlight, earth, air, and plants — for your work, your sustenance, and your pleasure. You nurture your garden from seedlings to mature plants, tending, pruning, weeding. Year after year, you see cycles come and go, from sprouting to harvest to withering, to seeding again. You eat your plants to live. You don’t mind and they don’t mind. Some day, you will fall back to this earth, back into the sun-baked dirt, and you will become food for the plants. It’s the way of all life, and it’s all very agreeable.

Those who follow Tao say that all reality is like a series of nesting circles : microcosms within macrocosms. What is close at hand is a microcosm of what is far away. Why search all over for Tao? It is all contained in the seeds of the gourd growing in your garden.

Daly Tao / 244 – Farmers

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farmers

Plain country folk with rounded bodies,
Skin turning to bronze in the valley heat.
Why talk to them about Tao?
They eat when they are hungry,
They sleep when they are sleepy.
Even a sage with infinite permutations
Could not match their simplicity.

Do you want to know about simplicity? Go live with farmers. Their daily activities are coordinated with the seasons, they are close to the earth, and they do not spend their time figuring out how to attain status. They are honest and plain. They make no distinction between who they are as individuals and who they are as farmers.

Those of us who live in cities would be hard pressed to equal the farmer in simplicity. Simplicity, after all, is what Tao most celebrates. Who needs to know all the digits of pi? Who needs to engineer a new monetary policy? Who needs to strive for political office? None of these things is necessary to be a human being.

Give up unnecessary things.

Daily Tao / 243 – Dialogue

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I still talk in my sleep.
I still dream.
How can there be perfect stillness
When my brain’s so noisy?

We carry on a constant dialogue within ourselves. This is the origin of our problems.

The very word ‘dialogue’ means talking between two sides. We could not have an inner dialogue unless there was a split in our minds. We all have two sides; as long as they are not united, we cannot attain the wholeness that spirituality requires.

Even with years of self-cultivation, it is not easy to tame the wild mind. One might appear to have attained perfect control in all waking situations, only to find endless turbulence during meditation and sleep. This is a sign of incomplete attainment. Perfection must be total.

The process of perfection is long and must be methodical. Although our efforts must be to the utmost, we must never risk repressing ourselves. Indeed, rather than shutting away the unpleasant or unruly aspects of ourselves, we must take them all out and examine them. Daily introspection brings harmony to all our facets. Those aspects that are bad can be dissolved. Those that are of advantage can be cultivated. This effort will take many years, but in this gradual way, we resolve ourselves with our subconscious mind and free ourselves from the struggle and conflict.

Daily Tao / 242 – Heart

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Imagine your heart as an opening lotus.
From its center comes a crimson child,
Pure, virginal, and innocent.

One meditation gives this instruction :

Imagine your heart opening into a red lotus.

From its center comes a crimson child.

Bring this child out of your body and imagine him or her floating above your head. You, as a child, are holding a sun in each hand while each foot stands on a moon.

Hold this image as long as you can.

It is hard to bring out this child. When you try, you realize how many defenses you have built around yourself. You also realize how the experiences of adolescence and adulthood have stained you. Sometimes, you may even doubt that you have a pure and innocent self to bring out anymore. But each of us does. Each of us must find that crimson child within us and bring him or her out. For this child represents the time when our energies were whole and our hearts were untroubled by the duplicity of the world and ourselves.

Daily Tao / 241 – Utopia

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utopia

Chant one million times for world peace, they told me.
Pray three times a day to end all wars.
Practice austerities to liberate all living beings.
But the world’s miseries have never diminished.

Periodically, some religious group proclaims that if everyone would just do something like chant, some fundamental social problem would be solved. Claims have been made that spiritual devotion could affect wars, famine, disease, the economy, and overpopulation.

Only personal endeavors can be spiritual. What you do with your daily devotions is purely for your own sake. Once you put ideals on a grand scale, they are compromised by the contradictions of life.

There is no utopia. There never will be. There is only the valiant attempt of each person to live spiritually in a world where spirituality is almost impossible.

Daily Tao / 240 – Goal

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What is an archer
Without a target?

It is not enough to have the philosophy of Tao. One must act. Actions, not words, are important. But mere movement is meaningless. One should have purpose.

Short-term goals help us determine each stage of our lives and experience it completely. Long-term goals give us perspective and continuity. Short-term goals help us understand the temporality of life and yet provide us with a way to benefit by that temporality. Long-term goals give focus to the experiences that we accumulate.

Our goals should be entirely personal. No one knows us better than we know ourselves. There is only one universal goal : a gracious death with no regrets.