Tag: Tao te Ching

these passages are bringing me peace this morning.

Stephen is en route to LA and will be gone until the weekend.  I’m reading Hannah Coulter which made me cry last night – it describes love and grief with such raw beauty.  what would be my 4th anniversary is a week from tomorrow.  I feel discouraged and hopeful at the same time, which is a confusing mixture of emotions.  so …… I just thought I’d type up a few of these excerpts which I’m reading this morning, and which I should read every morning.

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.

Seeing into darkness is clarity.

Knowing how to yield is strength.

Use your own light

and return to the source of light.

This is called practicing eternity.

(52)

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

(9)

Colors blind the eye.

Sounds deafen the eart.

Flavors numb the taste.

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.

(12)

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.

If you stay in the center

and embrace death with your whole heart,

you will endure forever.

(33)

The Tao is always at ease.

It overcomes without competing,

answers without speaking a word,

arrives without being summoned,

accomplishes without a plan.

(73)

If you realize that all things change,

there is nothing you will try to hold on to.

(74)

That last one is going to probably take my whole life to master, and I doubt that will even be enough time.  However – I feel so much more peaceful right now than I did when I started this entry, so the words are doing me good.