210209 What I learned in my studies this morning

Today's Tao:

Therefore those who would conquer must yield, 

And those who conquer do so through yielding.

Zen for today:

The Gateway of Non-Duality is your original Mind. Speech and silence are relative concepts belonging to the ephemeral sphere. When nothing is said, nothing is manifested.

Cf. The Gospel of John: ‘In the beginning was the WORD.’

From The Daily Stoic: 

 

“We have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind— for things have no natural power to shape our judgments.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.52

You should see the look on people's faces when I say, "I don't care." to whatever bit of "news" is bothering them. Especially if it's political. 

The power of not caring is marvelous. I actively try to cultivate this. I should try even harder. It has released me from so much stress about things that truly make no difference in my life. 

From Eric Hoffer, Part III, Unifying Agents:

Action 

It's harder to agree on theories than to agree on goals. How often have two people agreed where they need to be but disagreed about how to get there? 

The doers want to be active; to have a goal and a plan. Then they can work the plan and getting closer to the end. 

The thinkers have, in Hoffer's terms, differentiated minds and come up with various schemes to achieve XYZ. Then they will insist on judging whose plan is better before ever setting foot in the lab, the studio, or the arena. 

Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie. Teamwork is rare in intellectual or artistic undertakings, but common and almost indispensable among men of action. The cry “Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower” is always a call for united action. A Communist commissar of industry has probably more in common with a capitalist industrialist than with a Communist theoretician. The real International is that of men of action.

(The True Believer, XIV-97)