John Cleese has given some very witty talks on creativity in which he comes off as a de facto Taoist, or as I like to say, a small ‘t’ taoist. Well, I suppose anyone with contrarian views is potentially a de facto ‘t’aoist. To get the most from this post, google this short video [youtube […]
Continue reading…The Nutty Things We Do
While pulling myself into an odd yoga shape this morning, I thought, this is nuts! No normal animal on the planet would do this. In fact, no other animal does most of the things our species does. Working, resting, and engaging in the basic biological functions is all that we have in common with other […]
Continue reading…A Symptom’s Point Of View
A symptom’s point of view does more than anything I’ve found to carry out chapter 4’s counsel… Subdue its sharpness, separate its confusion, Soften its brightness, be the same as its dust. The symptom’s point of view is about managing how we judge the world. The innate way of judging the world is actually a […]
Continue reading…Fear Is The Bottom Line
There is much more to fear than meets the eye. We often associate the symptoms of fear (i.e., the outer reactions fear instigates) as the fear itself. These reactions span a range from ‘flight’ to ‘fight’, although screaming and fleeing are the images that usually come to mind. Actually, pure fear is profoundly more subtle […]
Continue reading…Change we can believe in?
Many people are disappointed with President Obama. This is a good example of how easily our expectations sow the seeds of our disappointments in life. Mature character boils down to how gracefully we can accept a reality that doesn’t match our expectations. Children get their hopes up for one outcome, and when life goes another […]
Continue reading…Science, Religion, Truth
It is striking how obvious, yet subtle, the relationship between science, religion, and truth is. This could be an example of chapter 71’s, My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no one in the world can understand them or put them into practice. There are profound spiritual […]
Continue reading…Children Know What Adults Forget
What in particular do children know that adults forget? For some clues, google [Kids face up to disgust surprisingly late]. Consider this excerpt from Science News: Kids viewed images on a computer screen of adults displaying the six basic emotional expressions. The kids’ task was to assign faces to boxes at the bottom of the […]
Continue reading…The Spirit of Yoga
2019 Postscript: This is a copy of the 2010 PRINCIPLES update for the yoga book I wrote in 1979. At that time, I was focused on the problems that arise out of a belief in free will. In 2017, I finally realized the natural roots of this belief and most everything else that haunted me […]
Continue reading…The less I think, the more I know
The less I think, the more I know sounds a little odd. It parallels that equally peculiar line in chapter 56, One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know. If anything ever begged for elucidation, this does! The problem with thought lies in the preconceptions necessary to think and speak. This […]
Continue reading…Exquisite Balance
I never ever use the word exquisite, but this morning while standing on my head I thought, “How exquisite this moment of perfect balance feels”. I went on to consider other facets of life such as working, eating, speaking, and shopping. In all cases, balance is possible, but is often only partial and so seldom […]
Continue reading…Skullduggery is rampant in nature
Google [Nature’s recourse: How plants and animals fight back] to see how plants and animals fight back when mutual arrangements between them go sour. Here’s a short excerpt… Nature has a shifty side. Bees cheat flowers. Flowers cheat bees. Fish cheat other fish, and so on. The more biologists look, the more skullduggery turns up. […]
Continue reading…What Shapes How You Think?
Google [Does Your Language Shape How You Think?] for research that speaks to my recent post Thinking Clouds Consciousness (p.119). This offers interesting details underlying this question, although, in my view this is a no-brainer. Clearly, language and thinking are inextricably linked… It takes one to do the other. If you can, flip off the […]
Continue reading…Tao As Emergent Property
Generally, emergence occurs when something has a trait that its parts don’t have individually. The emergent property exists only when its parts interact in a combined whole. In a Taoist version of this, the ‘simple’ forms the basis upon which the ‘complex’ emerges. Here, I see each layer of existence as an emergent property modeled […]
Continue reading…Balancing Difference With Similarity
Noticing differences greatly assists survival… up to the point of diminishing returns, especially for a thinking animal like us. Even so, the naïve acceptance of difference as a true portrayal of reality would not have been a problem for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, given their truly down to earth circumstances. Conversely, our naive acceptance of difference […]
Continue reading…Thinking clouds consciousness
I sat looking out over the ocean this crisp morning. I had finished my morning routine of yoga, calligraphy in the sand and tai chi, so I could just sit in the sand and let my mind think on itself. What stood out today was how deeply consciousness is separate from thinking. This may be […]
Continue reading…Where Is Freedom?
I bought a finch in Japan in the early 70’s. I took it home and left the cage door open so it could fly around if it wished, but it wouldn’t. It just stayed contentedly in its cage. Months passed before it ventured out. I left the window open too, and soon it would go […]
Continue reading…Decisions Decisions
Harvard Decision Science Laboratory held a fascinating interview. For a transcript, Google[Decisions, Decisions – CBS News]. Here is a short excerpt: Here is a short excerpt: It may not sound rational, but experts say emotions and gut feelings are more important than intellect in making choices. “We’ve never succeeded, never, in having people recognize the […]
Continue reading…Poor Thais And Rich Swedes
I had a little bakery on the Thai-Cambodian border in the early 60’s. It was little more than a shack, but big enough for me and my common law Thai wife (photo right), her mother, brother, and sister (1). Most of the customers were Thai peasants who would stop by for some sponge cake on […]
Continue reading…Time’s Arrow
John Wheeler was a visionary physicist and teacher who helped invent the theory of nuclear fission, gave black holes their name and argued about the nature of reality with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. This quote from him about language and time shows he must have been a natural ‘taoist’, so to speak. Perhaps he […]
Continue reading…Desire and Contentment
Chapter 46 puts forward a curious dilemma. According to that chapter, when the way prevails in the empire, fleet-footed horses are relegated to plowing the fields; when the way does not prevail in the empire, war-horses breed on the border. However, chapter 34 holds that, The way is broad, reaching left as well as right. […]
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