Chapter 8 - Good

The highest goodness resembles water
Water greatly benefits myriad things without contention
It stays in places that people dislike
Therefore it is similar to the Tao

Dwelling with the right location
Feeling with great depth
Giving with great kindness
Speaking with great integrity
Governing with great administration
Handling with great capability
Moving with great timing

Because it does not contend
It is therefore beyond reproach

What does this mean?

Water is one of the most vital things on Earth without us even thinking about it.  We cannot argue about  water's benefits.  We need it to live after all.  It also sticks around in the worst places if spilled.  Damp clothes, pot holes, moldy rags, carpet spills and wet dogs are all examples of how water sticks around in the worst spots and makes life less comfortable.

Goodness should be like that.  It should feel like bringing in groceries while it's pouring rain.  It should be like getting your hands muddy when gardening.  It should feel wet and uncomfortable.

Imagine if you barely have enough money to live and helping an unfortunate family member get food when they are hungry and broke.  Imagine having to tell someone the truth that will hurt them but they need to hear it.  Envision being there for a elderly family member to comfort and help them when they need you the most.

In all of these situations, the theme underneath all of it is that, for you, it's not going to be pleasant or easy.  This is how opposites work. True, selfless virtue cannot not be nice or comfortable or convienent.  The real secret is to accept it for what it is and be humble and empathetic in doing so.

How can I use this?

However, following the Tao is easier said than done.  We are talking about improving the intersection of our mental state and physical life.

There is no need to tell you how to use it, it's directly in the passage.

Dwelling with the right location. Your home embodies how you want to live.
Feeling with great depth.  You feel your emotions completely and have great empathy.
Giving with great kindness.  You give what you do not need to those who do.
Speaking with great integrity.  You only speak the truth, as plainly as words will allow.
Governing with great administration.  You handle your family, work and household business simply and effectively.
Handling with great capability.  You seek optimal wisdom, health and skills to handle anything.
Moving with great timing.  You have patience and decisiveness.

You can change what is in your home to match your values.  You can meditate to get in touch with your feelings.  If you are reading this blog, you most likely still have things to give.  You can learn to speak without sarcasm.  You can organize and prioritize your menial tasks.  You can eat better, excersize and improve your skill set.  Through mindfulness, you can even practice patience and decisiveness in all that you do.

These are all things in your life you can change and at little cost to you.

To do these things is not pleasant or fun to our base desires.  We do not get that chemical reward from our brains when we do them like we do from Facebook, junk food or TV.  We get a spiritual reward when we look back at how our life is better.  It is the difference between building a tent and building a castle.

These are the steps to being good to yourself.

Chapter 7 - Selflessness

Heaven and Earth are everlasting

The reason Heaven and Earth can last forever

Is that they do not exist for themselves

Thus they can last forever

Therefore the sages:

Place themselves last but end up in front

Are outside of themselves and yet survive

Is it not due to their selflessness?

That is how they can achieve their own goals

What does this mean?

Concepts and ideas do not want to fulfill a base instinct.  They have no self.  All the things in nature follow their instincts to survive.  Due to nature's balance, each part is not in it for individual desire but for maintaining its own survival.  Life has lasted for millions of years.

At its core, it's simple: to be a sage, give up desires.  Live selflessly.  How far you take it is how much closer to the Tao you'll be.

Being a sage is accepting having enough.  You only need food, water, shelter and healthy social interaction.  Everything else is just desire. 

There is plenty of evidence for this.  

Look at biology.  Not getting what you want feels bad and stresses you out.  Stress can cause many health problems, including death.  That stress compounds if you think you need it or are entitled to it.

Examine our common psychologies.  We are surrounded by fancy toys.  We inhabit a culture of consuming.  We tell our young ones they can do anything.  How can we live with the Tao with all of these things that exist outside the Tao?  

Think how opposites work.  If your life is about having stuff and doing things, then you will never be happy because you will never have or do enough.  An opposite of excess is desire.

If living selflessly reduces your stress, alleviates responsibility of taking care of stuff you don't need and you have more time to do things you truly make you happy, the only painful part is leaving the comfort zone you currently live in.

How can I use this?

Practice gratitude.  We live like little gods.  We can travel span continents in hours, pick any kind of food we want to eat, and visit infinite worlds with TV, books and movies.  Most serious medical conditions can be treated and we can communicate with anyone, anywhere, instantly.  If we don't have what we want, we can have it shipped in days.  Modern life is amazing and wonderful.  Being grateful is the first step to realize you do not need it.

Analyze your goals to get things.  Do you have goals about just getting more things or the money to buy them?  Look them over and see if it is the thing that is a need.  If that end is just to satisfy your wants and not a need, you should meditate on it to see if it will truly satisfy you to have it.

Simplify clutter.  Beauty in art pulls your eyes to details but is not cluttered.  The most truthful thing in our lives can be simply stated but have great nuance.  Nature is simple until you complicate it.  If your life is filled with things you will not use or need, are not displayed beautifully and can be replaced easily, why keep it?  Value a beautiful display of things you keep.  Value the peace of mind free space brings.  Get rid and store piles of junk.

Do not start by giving up everything except the bare minimum.  Work your way there at your own pace.  

Living selflessly has profound implications but is very simple.  It is like learning to swim.  Very few can just jump in the ocean and not drown.  Most of the time, people start by wading in, holding onto the side of the pool, dunking your head underwater and so on.  They play with the concept of being in water.

So to start being selfless, we must play with selflessness to get comfortable with it. 

Chapter 6 - Spirit

The valley spirit, undying
Is called the Mystic Female

The gate of the Mystic Female
Is called the root of Heaven and Earth

It flows continuously, barely perceptible
Utilize it; it is never exhausted

What does this mean?

The passage refers to the valley spirit.  Why a valley?

When you are in a valley, you are surrounded by nature on all sides.  One can rethink the "valley spirit" that we are in the valley of the Tao sitting at the very bottom.

To take it further, think about our existence being a Russian doll.  At our core, there is our true presence, the I in "I am."  The next layer is our thoughts and emotions.  The next layer is our senses and our bodies.  Then we have our subjective realities we interact with.  Next is the objective reality that affects all of us; things and ideas.  The next layer is the source of reality.  The last layer that permeates all other layers is the Tao.

The passage also refers to Mystic Female.  Her gate is the root of Heaven and Earth, or things and ideas.  Why is this powerful figure female?

To go back to the russian doll analogy, I think that men understand the layers dealing with the world around them more naturally, and women understand the layers of the body and emotions more naturally.  To use the female valley spirit is to understand your body and emotions.  It is internal awareness.  We need our senses and emotions before we can understand the outside world.

To fully embrace the Tao, one needs all the layers, not just the ones you are born being aware of.

How do I use this?

This requires mindfulness.

Just like a someone who trains every day to use his training as muscle memory instantly and naturally like a martial artist or athlete, one must practice mindfulness and then use it all the time.  I'm still learning this.  There are many to learn it, but practicing it every day brings you closer to just being mindful as a default.

The true goal is to be mindless about being mindful.

Where did I start?

1. Meditate.  
Focus on awareness.

Stop and concentrate specifically on your breath, how it goes in and out.  How your lungs move and your nose tingles.  Notice other things going on.  Maybe sweaty feet in your socks: how does each part of each toe feel.  How about the tips of your fingers.  Did you wiggle something even though you are holding still?  Do you notice the air on your arm hairs?

Be aware of all things you see and hear.  You think and feel, but just acknowledge it and do not react with movements, thoughts or feelings.

Do this whenever you get a few minutes.  Meditate for a minute in the car before driving to work.  Do it as you are getting ready to sleep or before you get up in the morning.  Meditate before turning on the TV for 10 minutes after the kids go to bed.  Make it a habit.

2. Chores.
I have a tornado of thoughts and feelings without channelling mindfulness.  When I sweep or clean without awareness, I always ended up missing spots because I wasn't aware of missing them.  Recently, I started practicing mindfulness during simple chores.  I extended my awareness outside of myself to what I see.  Now, I miss less spots.

This has helped me across the board.  I'm a safer driver, a better worker at work and I listen to my family better when I am mindful.

3.  Cut out distractions.  
Our goal is to be mindful all the time, and this means living in a sea of modern distractions and crazy situations.  However, just like any new skill, we need to practice it correctly.  You'll eventually get there where you can be mindful with all of the distractions going, but you have to start without them.

Turn off the TV or video game.  Silence the phone.  Ignore Facebook and e-mail.  Cut the music.  Wear comfortable clothes.  Use the restroom and have a snack.  Put thoughts and feelings aside for the moment.

When all that is done, channel awareness and just do the task mindfully.

Chapter 5 - Impartial

Heaven and Earth are impartial
They regard myriad things as straw dogs
The sages are impartial
They regard people as straw dogs

The space between Heaven and Earth
Is it not like a bellows?
Empty, and yet never exhausted
It moves, and produces more

Too many words hasten failure
Cannot compare to keeping to the void

What does this mean?
A straw dog in ancient China was a ceremonial object that was discarded after they used it, like christmas trees we have today.  They are important during Christmas because you need them to put presents under, and then we destroy them afterwards.  Nature does the same thing with reality.

Before humans, species were still going extinct every day.  We have natural disasters every year that decimate entire towns and cities.  Earth has had five different world-wide extinction events that killed almost all life on earth.  Supernovas have destroyed entire solar systems.  Reality is not sacred to the Tao.  It's obvious that nature does not care one way or another.

Since the Tao does not care, neither should we.

I am not saying you shouldn't love and respect people around you.  You should.  I'm not saying to be selfish or treat people badly.  Don't do that.  I'm not saying to ignore other people's needs.  You can still feel love and respect without caring.  They are seperate.

The care I speak of is the attachment we have to people's happiness.

It is the way opposites work.  If you do not care, people will care for themselves.

Think about a terminal patient who wants to not suffer anymore.  Imagine how much more suffering they endure simply because their family cares.  The family makes the ill person live with machines and expensive medical treatments.  If the family stopped caring, they would not inflict suffering on sick loved one.

Think about those who stay with an abusive partner because they care what it will do to their family.  If the victim would stop caring about their partner, he could leave and get help for themselves and their family.

Think about your child who cannot build a tower out of blocks and you build it for him.  Because you care, you deny them the opprotunity to figure it out for themselves.  It's not like they are suffering because they haven't eaten in three days.  They are just frusterated out of their own desire.

You can put all sorts of words out there to justify why you care.  You have social obligations.  You do not want to restrict your feelings.  It will drive you nuts to not care about someone.  You are worried about how you will be thought of.  You might confuse caring with needing.  The more wiggle room you give yourself, the more likely you will fail when it's important to keep your desire out of actions.  Keep it simple.

The old saying rings true about a bird in a cage, "If you truly care, let it go.  If it was meant to be, it will come back."

Chapter 4 - Use

The Tao is empty
When utilized, it is not filled up
So deep! It seems to be the source of all things

It blunts the sharpness
Unravels the knots
Dims the glare
Mixes the dusts

So indistinct! It seems to exist
I do not know whose offspring it is
Its image is the predecessor of the Emperor

What does this mean?

How does one "use" the Tao?

Look at the examples.

• If you are using something sharp, what is the force that dulls the edge?  Nature.
• If you are tying something together, what force either breaks it or loosens it?  Nature.
• If you shine something, what force stops it from being shiny after a time.  Nature.

The most natural thing we do all the time is breathe.

You don't have to think about breathing, it just happens.  Unitl you think about it.

Thinking about each breath is breathing is without Tao.

Your thoughts have to be empty of breath to breathe with Tao.

Using Tao is using natural action.  We cannot define it like the rest of the Tao, but we can give some examples.  Let's look at martial arts.

Before martial art training, if one gets into a fight, the actions come naturally.  You don't even have the capacity to think about it because the action is simple: fight or flight.

If you are just learning martial arts and get into a fight, you think about the position of your fist, the pivot of your hips, the stance you take.  Your mind searches for the right move or technique to win.  Unfortunately, once aware of the knowledge, it is not natural.  You throw the wrong block, you're thinking to long to react, you try something out and get punched in the face.

In other words, what happens to the untrained, unthinking fighter is something we'd all have: beginner's luck!

Once you are a master, actions become integrated into your body as muscle memory.  Those techniques become as natural as breathing.  The important distinction is you do not think and you just do.  The primordial nature comes back.

How to Apply It to Every Action

Just do it.

If you think about doing it while you do it, you will not do it naturally.

Sure, to be really skilled at something, you need practice, understanding and talent, but you don't need skill to live in the Tao.

In fact, the closer you are to the Tao in your mind, that practice will be forgotten and just incorporated naturally.

So just do it.

Chapter 3 - Others

Do not glorify the achievers
So the people will not squabble
Do not treasure goods that are hard to obtain
So the people will not become thieves
Do not show the desired things
So their hearts will not be confused

Thus the governance of the sage:
Empties their hearts
Fills their bellies
Weakens their ambitions
Strengthens their bones

Let the people have no cunning and no greed
So those who scheme will not dare to meddle

Act without contrivance
And nothing will be beyond control

What Does It Mean?

The Tao Te Ching will tell you to not teach people about the Tao.  Due to the nature of having no words, you can't teach it like math.  Due to how opposites work, forcing people into it is the easiest way to drive people away.

If you cannot teach Tao directly and you cannot tell people your philosophies without driving people away, how are you suppose to run a organization with Tao in mind?

Lets put this in context of being a retail manager.

If you make someone an assistant manager or fire someone and make a big deal out of it, it doesn't matter why.  You will create tension and make everyone question your decision.  If you brag about all the extra things you can afford with your higher salary, everyone will be jealous of you.  If you demand things exactly your way, your staff will wonder if it's even worth it to still work there.

This is all the way opposites work.

I know this personally.  I was a retail manager and I did all of these things.  I got demoted pretty quick when I demoralized my entire staff this way.  I learned from opposites then and it was ultimately good for me.

I think the optimal way now to manage is to just do the job yourself simply without expecting others to do anything.  Those closer to the Tao will just do the work with you.  Those who are full of desire will eventually get bored and leave.  If you keep it simple and value free, there is no way to be sneaky to abuse the work for personal gain.

In the end, those that stay will work for it's own sake, and that is close to the Tao.

This idea works everywhere if you're not afraid enough to give up control.

Movies:

Go watch the old The Karate Kid to see Taoist management in action.  The tournament at the end is actually the least important part of the movie if you're looking for philosophy.

Chapter 2 - Opposite

When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other
Therefore the sages:
Manage the work of detached actions
Conduct the teaching of no words
They work with myriad things but do not control
They create but do not possess
They act but do not presume
They succeed but do not dwell on success
It is because they do not dwell on success
That it never goes away

What Does It Mean?

Good and evil are just two forms of one idea.  It's a coin with two sides.  You cannot separate an idea from it's opposite.  In fact, you need evil for good to even exist.

The more you gather good things in your life, the more the evil that can happen.  Not just the the actual non-good quality about the thing itself.  Imagine if that good thing goes away. That vacuum is filled by the non-good that it brings.

And you can replace good with any ideal or virtue.  If you make a part of your house more beautiful. it makes the rest of it seem ugly.  If you try to force order by creating strict laws, the more likely is someone will break them.  The more you want, the more things you have.

This will negatively compound itself if you are emotionally attached to these things.  Love, anger, hate, jealousy, fear can all can come from attaching yourself to one side of an opposite and not embracing the entirety of it.  Stress and irrationality spring forth if you expect good and get evil.

Emotions are part of the body's response to your view of reality.  It's a combination of your brain and your heart.  It's really important to recognize them as things that do not have opposites.  This is very important to know, because the Tao doesn't talk about emotion directly, but about ideas and virtues.

Emotions are real things, not ideas.

This is why the sage, or someone who embraces the Tao, acts this way.

They use all of reality, but do not force reality to hold to one side of an opposite.  They create without attachment.  They do things without caring about the outcome.  Most importantly, they have no expectation of success.  That way, they can do anything with no fear or doubt.

The sage does things for their own sake and is happier for it.

Real World Analogies

Anyone attached to the good a dishwasher brings knows the emotional suffering when it breaks down.

Here's another scenario.  Let's say I want to write a philosophy blog with the expectation of praise and wealth.  I heard it's a great way to make extra money even though I don't like writing very much.  I pour hours of time and effort into making it the best blog I can.  I borrow money I think I might make to pay for a new car.  And after years of writing, it never gets a single view.

I will suffer from disappointment and lose my new car.  I will feel horrible and like a failure, until I get over it.  I lose my attachment to it.

However, lets say I just enjoy writing about philosophy.  I don't expect it to make me famous and I never expect money out of it.  I just do it for it's own sake.  After years of writing, it never gets a single view.

When I'm tired of writing and look back at all that time I spent, it was never wasted because I enjoyed it and I was fulfilled by it!

Now think about the last movie you went to that you had high expectations of.  Your friends loved it.  It received good reviews online.  You finally make time to go see it.  You are already attached to the outcome of whether the movie is good.

• If the movie is great, then it met your expectations.  You get exactly what you went there to see.
• If the movie is awful, then it feels bad.  It makes it real easy to not enjoy yourself because you expected it to be better.

Now, go to the same movie, but you never heard of it.  You have no expectations on it's quality and are not emotionally attached.

• If the movie is great, for me there is a sense of surprise, wonder and joy!  It's like finding a penny on the ground.
• If the movie is awful, it doesn't feel too bad.  You are more open to the fact that you can enjoy the bad parts as well.

The movie never changed.  You did.

Chapter 1 - Unknowable

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence
Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

What Does This Mean?

Start at the end of this chapter.

When it says the mystery of mysteries, the most mysterious thing of all is "Why and how did we get here?  What is our purpose?"  If we could understand this secret to the universe, we could live fulfilled lives in accordance to that purpose.

Every day, we experience the world in terms of things and ideas.  Every single thing and every single idea is the "myriad things".

When it speaks of Heaven and Earth, it is actually referring to the two categories: the physical and not-physical.  Things and ideas.  The Tao is where both things and ideas come from.

Things and ideas are circular.

With ideas, we can bring abstract in our lives.  We use ideas to describe a thing, but ideas cannot exist without a thing to be an example of it.  You cannot know "red" without an fire truck or an apple.

With things, we get to interact and live with reality.  A thing is defined by how it represents it's ideas.  A thing can have color, shape, size.  An apple is in part, made up of "red".  You can only know an "apple" by it's ideas: red, round, sweet, soft and so on.

The words we use to name every thing and every idea aren't the same as knowing it.  Because of this, our species does not have the ability to describe the Tao.  Words fall short of understanding.  To demonstrate, consider the following:

• Can you describe a mystery and still keep it a mystery?  No.  The act of describing a mysterious object makes it less mysterious.
• Try to imagine white and black at the same time as the same thing and what that looks like.  No.  It cannot be gray or have stripes or flash as those are different.
• Can you truly envision an infinite number of anything in it's entirety?  Not really.  In your mind's eye, whatever you envision is still too small to see infinity.

Now just think about a thing that is occupying infinite space and no space at all at the same time, and it represents every idea, including the idea of mystery or not knowing.

That is the Tao.  This is what is meant by the Tao cannot be named.

"Why and how did we get here?  What is our purpose?"  Those answers directly involve the Tao.  There are no words to answer these type of questions just like we cannot imagine contradictions or infintiy, and that is wonderous.

What Can I Take From This?

Accept mystery.   We can understand up to a point, but we still use human language and are limited by a human perspective.  This is just how it is.  We must accept that there are things we cannot know. This includes practical things as well, not just infinity, mystery or Tao.  Not all of us have the same level of empathy or intelligence to know, but the wonderful thing is we all have the capacity to live with Tao.

Accept language as a human construct.  Humans made up all words, and like any other tool, sometimes people use them in ways you don't understand.  In other words, what you think someone said might not be what they meant.  Take the time to ask someone about intent if they say something that doesn't make sense in a non-judgemental way.  When it is your turn to speak, keep it simple to avoid someone taking what you said the wrong way.

Chapter 0 - Skirting the Edges

What is this blog about?

Our lives are mostly subjective.

What we think is happening becomes our reality.

By changing the way we think, we can change our world.

The way we think is what I call philosophy.

Everyone uses philosophy. Philosophy is simply defining the world and studying those definitions for underlying patterns.

Your morals, creeds, mantras, mottoes and goals are your applied philosophy.

How you feel can be changed by how you think and the opposite.  However, feelings are unconscious while thinking is conscious.  Because of this, it's hard to just "feel" your way to peace and contentment.

One must stop, think and test our own philosophy to feel differently.

With this blog, I want to share how an ancient book, the Tao Te Ching, has changed my philosophy in such a way that I am at peace when I follow it.

Why should I think differently?

I can't be the judge of that, only you can.  If you are content in your life, then great!

No complaints or desires?

Nothing you want?

If you died now, would you be satisfied with how your life is?

If not, and especially if you've been stuck in a rut for a while, maybe it is time to explore virtue and meaning again.

What is the Tao?

Well, I can give it a 'name', but to describe it is impossible.  The Tao Te Ching skirts the edges of definition itself so people can learn that it exists.

If it helps, most religions have a "creator" of everything.  God is a good example to help think about it.  It's deeper than God, revealed by the age-old question is "Who created God?"  The answer is usually that God always exists and is infinite.  Just don't personify God (or Tao) in any human terms, as Tao defined by the Tao Te Ching is infinitely broader and deeper than specifically "spirit" or "deity" we can think about.

What now?

A couple things:

I plan on talking about each chapter in the Tao Te Ching.  There are dozens of different translations.  Ancient Chinese is tricky.  However, I plan on focusing on the message to take away from it, what gets me thinking and how I see things differently.

I also want to help use plain language for Eastern philosophy concepts.  Even though the Tao cannot be described, the ideas that pour forth are good food for thought.

Caution...

I will treat the Tao as a philosophical concept.  I don't want to exclude a specific religion from what you can take away from this.  The only faith you need is that, despite our inability to measure the Tao in any way, is that it exists.

My studies have always been self-taught through the same college books and ancient texts professors have read.

Bear with me.  I think about philosophy, so I can write about it.