Today's Meditation(s): Duality is within us just as much as it is in the external world. Good and evil. Virtue and vice. Light and dark. Only one of those things exists. The others are illusory, imposed.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 37, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Apparent contradictions, again, placing Tao outside experience. Without desire there is tranquility. The Stoics say this, too. Want what you have. If I lose it, want that, too. Want life to be as it is.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 36, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English This one gets almost completely passed me. I see the tension of opposites, the flow from one state to the complimentary state. The existence of one allowing the other, perhaps making it inevitable. The final four lines, however, elude me. If not displayed, the arms are still there and ready to be used, but give way to options which take advantage of soft and weak approaches which find ways to coexist without conflict and violence.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 35, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English They're happy noises.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 34, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Tao is. There's no need to boast or proclaim its power. Simply by being , being everywhere and everywhen, it is enough. It's always there, if I am perceptive. Following Nature is possible if I know but how to see.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 33, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English If the Tao were known by all, there would be no conflict: everyone would have the same goal and the same path. Harmony would reign. If I knew the Tao, my life would be naturally ordered and satisfying. I do not. It is not. Though I am better now than I was.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 31, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English I'm a voluntaryist. Politically, socially, I believe in nonagression. Can I defend myself, others, and property? Yes. Can I proactively agress on someone? No. Is it always simple? No. Is it always easy to decide? No. Is it always black and white, solvable in a snap? No. Are there edge cases which are problematic? Of course.  All of these things apply, and usually to a much higher degree, to every other system. If you don't think so, you may need to investigate further. There are shadings involved, but the basic principle is as stated at the top. If I can, I will always prefer the nonviolent approach. Violence is, in fact, a useful but limited tool that need be used under rare circumstances. There's almost always a more desirable solution. One way, a way pointed to in this passage, is to reframe the problem, approaching it as people working together, rather than as opponents. That way, vi...

Today's Meditation(s): Mediations , X.29, (Waterfield, Hammond, Hicks, Long) “You’re afraid of death,” he said, “because you won’t be able to do this anymore?” This could be a lesson in learning to value day-to-day life more.... When fear of death hits, ask myself why? What do I think will happen? What do I fret over losing?

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 30, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Follow Tao, gather results. Let it flow through me and in me. Bend like grass. Leave force behind, find achievement.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 29, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Accept the world as it comes. Follow the Golden Mean. Find the natural course and proper pace.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 28, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Hmm. I've heard of the uncarved block before. Wu , I think it it called. The potential in the block. The usefulness only after it is employed. The purpose added to it. What is the progression here? How do I get from one thing to another?

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 27, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Seems more of an expected complication than a mystery. I know I've not seen through this teaching where everyone else before me just missed it. I need to look deeper. Am I a good person? A good person knows the Tao. I do not. I look, but I do not find. But I look. Does that count for anything? When my blind squirrel finds a nut, I pass it along, trying to give the gift to others. But the Tao that can be told is not the true Tao. Can the Tao be modeled? It must be possible. Can I model the Tao? I try.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 26, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English I don't get this one. It's opaque to me. I can sorta see something in the opening couplet, but only as separate ideas. Heavy as the foundation. Ok. Still masters turmoil. Ok. But I don't see the connection. Then there's a middle bit — remaining unattached and calm despite the lure of life's ten thousand things — leading to an end which relates to the beginning. Light and roots. Restlessness and control. But how do they fit? More to ponder.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 25, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English A human being is one of the four great powers of the universe. With the heavens, the Earth , the Tao. Wow. Linked in a chain, human to Earth to heaven to Tao, in a hierarchy of sublime influence.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 24, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Pace and perseverance. Indifferents and things which violate virtue. Pride, concern for the opinion of others, efforts to aggrandize myself, whether based truth or lies doesn't matter. And it doesn't work, anyway, as the passage tells us. It backfires.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 23, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Find what I seek. Find what I find. Find happiness in what is found.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 22, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English It's found in the contradictions and opposites, in the void between what is and what is perceived. Striving drives it away. I must open myself to it, let myself experience it without force or trying.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 21, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English It is found in the absence, in the unlit in-between, the interstitial places. It's hard to see with eyes. Hard to see even with imagination. Tao is mysterious and unclear. Unless you find it. Unless you attune to it. Is it a progression to a destination or a threshold event?

Today's Meditation(s): Consolation to Marcia , XI. 1, Seneca (Anderson 2015) Tonight is a good night. Tomorrow morning will be a good morning. Tomorrow night will be a good night  (Reserve clause in effect, of course.) Perhaps this might have been quoted another time? (Reserve clause, activated. Got ill at the get together tonight. Home now. Sleep now.)

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 20, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English All these negatives. All these undesirables. The shame of it. The horrifying embarrassment. The loneliness. But thinking makes it so....  But these are externals, indifferents. Unimportant-unless-I-mistakenly-make-them-importants. So, keep my priorities straight and, even if I seem to be missing on some things important to The World, I can still follow Tao.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 19, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English Again, a list of good things . . . to avoid? But see how the last stanza connects so easily to Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius? See simplicity. Do not add to impressions. Realize our true nature. I am my reasoning faculty. Only my judgments are up to me.  Cast off selfishness. Be cosmopolitan. Be a benefit to society. Think of others. Temper desire. Being rich will not satisfy me no matter how much I have, but wanting less will allow me to remain tranquil no matter my straits.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 18, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English But aren't these good things? Surely, but they are misused. They distract and mollify and pacify. And leave no room for Tao.