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.
Translation of the Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchel
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Layer upon layer
She finds deep in her own experience the central truths of the art of living, which are paradoxical only on the surface: that the more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be; the more we let go of what we love, the more present our love becomes; the clearer our insight into what is beyond good and evil, the more we can embody the good. Until finally she is able to say, in all humility, "I am the Tao, the Truth, the Life." S. Mitchell
Translation of the Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell, Harper & Row, 1988. In keeping with copyright law only the chapter under study is fulltext. All other chapters show only the first stanza.
Study Group Contac: Lissa Lord:lissalord@gmail.com
Tao in WordLayers
Layer upon layer
I have a friend whose grown daughter holds a resentment toward her that focuses on "the divorce" of twenty years ago. This is a source of pain for both mother and daughter. My friend visited with her minister who suggested that her daughter suffers from a closed heart. Wow. We both know how painful that feels because we, like her daughter, have lived life and have had our hearts broken more than once. The longer we hang onto resentment the more painful the event. How to recover? Each in our own way. I know very well that when I think about someone who has hurt me, my first reaction (unconscious but very real) is to close my heart and that feels rotten. Perhaps, Tao 64 has a clue: "The journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet." There is no way out other than to start where I am and move. Now, during the day I think "Keep your heart open, Lissa. Keep it open." This works for me. It is a self taught habit--I relearn daily.
ReplyDeletea. Do not force your spirit; do not work at it or try too hard.(Bright-Fey) This comment is what I want to convey to myself and the females around me. It seems that the women I know try too hard, push too hard, walk too hard and even pray too hard. We chase perfection and never catch it--not even close. "Do not force your spirit" reminds me of what I already know, forcing a goal only makes me tired, depressed and cranky. I checked Wikipedia for the Greek myth about Sisphus being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Well, it is time to stop this nonsense. "Do not force your spirit." We'll get to the end of what we are trying to do or not--Period. Learn the lesson, if your goal has to be forced use non-action to get the work of it done. There is a difference between focus and force. Focus is rational and force is not. Rational can sense where the action is leading and stop when ridiculous enters into the action. Rational includes acceptance and moving on. Can you force someone to like you? to love you? Can you force your book to be published? your daughter to get the award? Can you force your next step? Force peace? Force an end to war? My love of the Tao is absorbing, absolutely without force. . .it is easy.
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