365 Tao

[adept]

HEART

Imagine your heart as an opening lotus.

From its center comes a crimson child,

Pure, virginal, and innocent.

 

One meditation gives this instruction :

Imagine your heart opening into a red lotus.

 

From its center comes a crimson child.

 

Bring this child out of your body and imagine him or her floating above your head. You, as a child, are holding a sun in each hand while each foot stands on a moon.

 

Hold this image as long as you can.

 

It is hard to bring out this child. When you try, you realize how many defenses you have built around yourself. You also realize how the experiences of adolescence and adulthood have stained you. Sometimes, you may even doubt that you have a pure and innocent self to bring out anymore. But each of us does. Each of us must find that crimson child within us and bring him or her out. For this child represents the time when our energies were whole and our hearts were untroubled by the duplicity of the world and ourselves.

[Marblehead]

Yeah, I do like to let my inner child out to play now and then. He is a real pest though so I have to keep him under constant observation and supervision. Hehehe.

 

Peace & Love!

[adept]

DIALOGUE

I still talk in my sleep.

I still dream.

How can there be perfect stillness

When my brain's so noisy?

 

We carry on a constant dialogue within ourselves. This is the origin of our problems.

The very word 'dialogue' means talking between two sides. We could not have an inner dialogue unless there was a split in our minds. We all have two sides; as long as they are not united, we cannot attain the wholeness that spirituality requires.

 

Even with years of self-cultivation, it is not easy to tame the wild mind. One might appear to have attained perfect control in all waking situations, only to find endless turbulence during meditation and sleep. This is a sign of incomplete attainment. Perfection must be total.

 

The process of perfection is long and must be methodical. Although our efforts must be to the utmost, we must never risk repressing ourselves. Indeed, rather than shutting away the unpleasant or unruly aspects of ourselves, we must take them all out and examine them. Daily introspection brings harmony to all our facets. Those aspects that are bad can be dissolved. Those that are of advantage can be cultivated. This effort will take many years, but in this gradual way, we resolve ourselves with our subconscious mind and free ourselves from the struggle and conflict.

[adept]

FARMERS

Plain country folk with rounded bodies,

Skin turning to bronze in the valley heat.

Why talk to them about Tao?

They eat when they are hungry,

They sleep when they are sleepy.

Even a sage with infinite permutations

Could not match their simplicity.

 

Do you want to know about simplicity? Go live with farmers. Their daily activities are coordinated with the seasons, they are close to the earth, and they do not spend their time figuring out how to attain status. They are honest and plain. They make no distinction between who they are as individuals and who they are as farmers.

Those of us who live in cities would be hard pressed to equal the farmer in simplicity. Simplicity, after all, is what Tao most celebrates. Who needs to know all the digits of pi? Who needs to engineer a new monetary policy? Who needs to strive for political office? None of these things is necessary to be a human being.

 

Give up unnecessary things.

[Marblehead]

I like that one a lot!

 

Thanks again for doing these.

 

Peace & Love!

[adept]

GARDEN

Blinding heat divides day from night,

Brands short shadows into fecund soil.

Green tendrils, heavy with beans,

Coil around rustic bamboo racks.

Violet flowers gape erotically among velvet leaves :

A single gourd contains the entire world's dream.

 

There is a great comfort in growing your own food. You are close to the soil. You use the basic elements -- water, sunlight, earth, air, and plants -- for your work, your sustenance, and your pleasure. You nurture your garden from seedlings to mature plants, tending, pruning, weeding. Year after year, you see cycles come and go, from sprouting to harvest to withering, to seeding again. You eat your plants to live. You don't mind and they don't mind. Some day, you will fall back to this earth, back into the sun-baked dirt, and you will become food for the plants. It's the way of all life, and it's all very agreeable.

Those who follow Tao say that all reality is like a series of nesting circles : microcosms within macrocosms. What is close at hand is a microcosm of what is far away. Why search all over for Tao? It is all contained in the seeds of the gourd growing in your garden.

[adept]

TREE

Did you measure to attain your height?

Did you use geometry to radiate your limbs?

Did you lament storm-torn branches?

Did you inventory your leaves for the sun?

You did none of these things, yet man in his cleverness

Cannot match your perfection.

 

When will we give up the artificiality of our tiresome lives and cleave instead to what is natural? All the achievements of man are only monuments to overwhelming pride. There has not been a single man-made item that has been a necessary improvement to the earth. Did we need the Great Wall of China? Did we need the pyramids of Egypt? Did we need the Colossus of Rhodes? Did we need mechanization, steam power, electricity, nuclear power, or computer technology? All our achievements have been for the sake of our exclusive comfort and gratification. We have only advanced the mad tangle of supply and demand that we call civilization.

We don't need all this "sophistication" in order to live with Tao. Our involvement in society blinds us to this fact. We ignore the natural order of our own bodies and minds and close ourselves to the point so that only sex and drugs are stimulating enough. We lament that we are lost and alienated. Ironically, the answers are right nearby. If you just go to the nearest tree and contemplate, you will easily see the secret to natural living.

[adept]

RECEPTIVITY

I want to make myself an empty room:

Quiet whitewashed walls with slant sunshine

And a fresh breeze through open windows.

 

Some days are extremely fluid, and all possible courses of action are equally attractive. Rather than do something arbitrary, it is far better to empty oneself completely. Then the more subtle currents of life may be felt. One should avoid the mistake of random action.

Arbitrary action will most likely be out of accord with the times. It is artificial, a structure that we impose from our own thought. Such movements are invariably stilted and wooden; they do not have the fresh perfection of the natural.

 

We do not have enough peace. Yet peace will never be attained by perpetual action. Stirred water never has the chance to settle clear. A tree buffeted by winds can never grow straight. Give up all unnecessary activity. Give up all arbitrary actions. Make yourself receptive. The peace that you seek shall be quickly at hand.

[adept]

OUTLOOK

Spawned from a mountain cataract,

The long river surges to the sea.

Its torrents savage its igneous bed,

Yet one blade of rock twists it tightly.

Angry waves plow stone furrows into a maze,

And boats find it difficult to maneuver.

From this point, one man held off an entire army,

And poets found inspiration among the nests of eagles.

 

Along the Yangtze River is a high cliff. The space for the river narrows dramatically at this point, and the water must back up into a large bay before plunging through the difficult passage. Rocks underneath are treacherous, and even today boats find it difficult to negotiate this stretch.

At the crown of the cliff is the Temple to the White King, in honor of a man from ancient times. Numerous historical events took place here. In medieval times, a famous strategist was able to defeat an entire army with a much smaller force. Later, famous poets found inspiration from the high view of the river and mountains. In more recent times, the high cliff served as the headquarters of a warlord.

 

There are places in nature that can give people great power, but the character of the individuals determines whether the power is used for war or peace. It is not enough to struggle for vantage points. Position must be used with wisdom.

[adept]

REVERENCE

An ocean of ink in a single drop,

Trembling at the tip of my brush,

Poised above stark white paper,

A universe waits for existence.

 

Everything we do should be imbued with reverence, and so one would think that we should begin with this concept. But no. Reverence only comes with experience and care. Only when we tire of our excesses can there be esteem.

Those of us who contemplate our world soon come to have a great sense of wonder. The perfection of the stars, the beauty of mountains and streams, the invigorating quality of clean ocean air fill us with feelings of celebration. In our own small way, we must create and bring order to our lives each day. We must be responsible, and at the same time express the wonder of all that we know as human.

 

A painter poises above blank paper. It is not the painting to come that is as important as that single moment when all things still lie in a state of potential. Will something ugly or beautiful be created? The stately determination to make something worthy of the materials and the moment is reverence.

[adept]

VITALITY

Snail, tiny spiral in calcified membrane;

Inchworm, a hairpin dragon;

Bumblebee, blob of velvet black and yellow;

White butterfly, syncopated burst of gladness;

Naked bulbs, white pubic tentacles in crumbling soil;

Pears, children of earth and sun.

 

If you ever doubt life, you need only spend a little time tending a garden. You will see great diversity. Everywhere that you look there will be some dynamic event in progress. Perhaps it's the way a lotus sprouts up from the rot and mud, or the way that an earthworm dances a writhing passage through the dirt. The smell of moist earth is strangely stirring, the sight of growing trees wonderfully appealing.

No matter how well tended a garden is, there is constant entropy and disorder. That is fine. That is the way it is supposed to be. Our schemes and our aesthetics are imperfect. Our minds cannot comprehend the diversity of nature. Let nature take its variegated course. Variety is vitality.

[adept]

DESERVING

Prostrate before the altar.

Are you worthy of your deity?

Can you eliminate profanity,

And strive for constant adoration?

 

It is not easy to worship. Simply going to a temple once a week to have a priest intercede on your behalf is not enough. True worship is a daily act of humbling yourself before your deity and offering a pure heart and holy words.

A great holy leader came to my city once. He initiated 5,000 people into a simple practice of chanting. Since that time, it has been a struggle to keep up 108 chants a night. There is no prospect of stopping, no chance of "finishing."

 

In the same way, all scriptures must be recited. That means daily devotion. Once you begin, you cannot stop for the rest of your life. There is no room for laziness. Your body and mouth must be clean, you must be in a good frame of mind, and you cannot have uttered or done profane things. We must be worthy of our deities.

 

It doesn't matter if we are "getting anything out of it." Whether there is a response is secondary. The mere act of devotion is its own reward. It brings transformation.

[adept]

PATIENCE

This apple is like a jewel,

With every shade of red and green

And a perfect shape.

What a miraculous fruit.

 

The owner of an orchard came to visit me one day. He kindly remembers me every year with the best of his crop. As we shared a lunch, the talk turned to fishing. He told me that he had once had a great love of fishing, but that he now had little time for it. "I am an impatient man," he told me.

I replied that I thought him very patient. After all, not everyone can plant trees and tend them until they bear good fruit. He insisted that there was something to do every moment and that his orchards needed constant attention. "This year's apples are a bit smaller," he apologized. "I could have made them bigger by thinning the trees. It takes a man an entire day to prune a tree properly, and with over 500 trees, you can imagine the difficulty and expense of the task. So I let the trees grow as they wanted, and was still able to send my crop to market." The apples were sweet, of course, and not nearly as small as he said they were.

 

Those who follow Tao say that all things happen in their own time. What is lazy and what is hard work? Those who follow Tao say to follow nature. That requires patience. By knowing when to let the trees grow as they wanted, the orchard owner still had a good crop.

[adept]

INDEFINITE

Spring was a time of swaggering declarations.

Reaching autumn, one finds few absolutes.

Life is mystery and ambiguity,

Toward winter, that now seems agreeable and comfortable.

 

When young, one makes heroic attempts. The world will surely bend to our will, we think, and we will surely make grand contributions. Social injustice will be righted. The big questions will be answered.

I once went to see a master writer. Long retired, white-haired and fragile, she nevertheless evinced a sharp and discerning mind. I was a novice writer. She had edited hundreds of great authors. I peppered her with all my anxieties and asked her all the questions that my teachers never answered. To most of my questions she would only answer, "Yes." She knew all the answers, and she knew all the exceptions, and she knew the best thing that an older person could tell a younger person was "Yes." Yes, the affirmative. Yes, as in keep exploring. Yes, as in there are no ultimate answers.

 

I used to push for an immediate resolution to daily problems. Now, I am not so anxious. Is science right about things, or is religion? Is there good and evil on a metaphysical level? Is there one god, or are there many gods, or no gods? A hundred answers exist for these questions. They are all known, but no one agrees. Today, I think it all very fine. Let there be a hundred answers with none of them entirely correct. The asking of the question is already enough.

[Marblehead]

That is true, you know. Just to be able to form the question in a logical manner. Not so important if the question recieves an absolute answer or not. The joy of wondering!

 

Peace & Love!

[adept]

ARBITRARY

Meaning in life is arbitrary.

Why ruin the universe with rigidity?

 

Why do we make the choices we do? After all, we do not have unlimited freedom to do things. We find ourselves constrained by our gender, our race, our economic circumstances, our personalities that were shaped both by genetics and the random processes of life. Furthermore, we find that other people have their own ideas of what we should be doing, and they constrain us still further.

A person born into one culture will have entirely different options that one born into another. They may both lead valuable lives, but they will most certainly differ in many respects. The meaning that they find will come from different palettes. We cannot say that one person's life is more valuable than another's.

 

Of all the people who have lived, have any of them been truly "better" than another? We see in their lives only the exercise of preferences, not differences of inherent meaning.

 

All meaning in life is arbitrary. It is not tied to god, family, or self unless we define it as such. Nothing in life gives us meaning in and of itself. It is we who assign meaning to objects and relationships. We all try to make the structure of our meaning pretty, but in the end, there is no escape from the feeling that it is all arbitrary.

 

It might be better not to ruin the universe with our own patterns.

[adept]

BREAKTHROUGH

In late summer, heaven's breath is damply hot.

It smothers the earth with dullness.

Suddenly, thick clouds gather :

A wave of polar air passes like a frigid rake.

Acorns fall like bullets,

And a new wind breaks through.

 

When the air is hot and humid, there is a feeling of dullness and stagnation. Everyone is oppressed by lassitude. As the seasons begin changing, fresh air comes from the arctic. Clouds that have been building up begin to dispense rain, and damp air is exchanged for fresh, cool breezes. At night, the heavens are changing so quickly that lightning flashes from colliding clouds, and thunder heralds the revolving of the skies.

The same is true of human life. If the heavens cannot endure stagnation for long, how can stagnation last with us? If we find ourselves blocked and frustrated in life, we must look for the inevitable outlet. Nothing is permanent, so how can our obstacles last? We need to look for the first opportunity to set things moving again.

 

On the other hand, sometimes stagnation comes from our own laziness or incompetence. In this case, then it is we who must show initiative and stimulate a breakthrough in dull circumstances. As soon as we see a chance, we must act. Unless we engage ourselves and events fully, we cannot expect to act sufficiently.

[adept]

CLEANSING

Early autumn rain cleanses away smeared heat.

A grateful traveler takes in crystal skies and crisp air.

Distant mountains seem more vast and blue,

And the sound of the waterfall grows more loud.

 

Autumn is coming. The air becomes fresh and crisp. The fruits of summer are being harvested; the heat of labor is beginning to cool. There is a more relaxed feeling in the air : The fiery activity of summer is replaced by the celebrations of autumn.

In spring, we all had to struggle to make the ascendancy of the year. In summer, we reveled in the glory of fire and vigor. Now, we can begin to let things relax. Just as the pumpkins are beginning to fill out, the squash is hanging heavy and golden on the vines, and the leaves are starting to hint of warm colors, so too can we look forward to mellowness and quietness.

 

This is the time for harvest. But every planting and growing season also leaves behind excess and inevitable waste. The dust of summer still lingers. The stubble in the fields will have to be burned. We must harvest fully and then clean up fully. Harvest is also the time of cleansing and taking stock.

[adept]

BRIDGE

Dream arch shimmers in storm clouds:

Bridge between heaven and earth.

Its entrance is hard to find.

 

In legends, they say that the rainbow is the bridge between heaven and earth.

Think how difficult it is to walk this bridge. Not only does it appear very seldom, but we cannot easily find it. It seems to be just at the horizon, but the more we go toward it, the more it eludes us. To find its end, to even stand at its base and contemplate the dizzying heights that must hover over its high arch is even more impossible. If we were to stumble upon that sacred path, could we be light enough and pure enough to walk its raindrop surface to the embraces of gods?

 

My companion says that he once saw a triple rainbow. What a rare sight indeed! Truly, the land where he saw it must have been blessed, and he was lucky to have such beauty revealed to him.

 

But then again how high must heaven be to need three insurmountable bridges?

[adept]

STIMULATION

Sex, coffee, liquor, and cigarettes

Are the totems of today.

Stimulation has replaced feeling.

 

In today's world, these are the unfortunate equations :

Do you want intimacy? Have sex.

Do you want to be energetic? Drink coffee.

Do you want freedom from inhibitions? Drink wine.

Do you want a fashionable prop? Smoke cigarettes.

 

Why is it that these things have replaced what should naturally be done? Because people have lost the knowledge of how to do these things without artificial stimulation. Why not seek intimacy through sensitivity? Energy through good health? If we overcome our obstacles, we won't need inhibition. Pretension will fall away. Only then will there be a blossoming of Tao.

[adept]

LONELINESS

Loneliness need not be despair.

It could be an opportunity.

 

Why are people lonely? It is because they feel no contact with anyone or anything else. They need to feel that they are valued, that they are a part of something, and that their environment will respond to them. When that does not happen, they feel isolated.

One of the major strategies for combating loneliness is to have a mate and family. That is not always perfect, and the problems of a relationship and family sometimes outweigh the terror of loneliness. It is far better to be self-sufficient. Then whether one has loved ones or not, one will not suffer from loneliness.

 

Some people claim that self-sufficiency is a myth. A person is a social animal, they declare; people cannot successfully live outside of some community. But that is not the correct way to understand true self-sufficiency. What we are referring to is a supreme sense of connection with oneself and the cosmos around oneself. This doesn't preclude community with others, but it does prevent the excesses and shortcomings that occur when society is one's only source of union.

 

Tao surrounds us. One who is with Tao is never lonely, but is an integral part of the natural cycle. In the same way that water surrounds a fish, Tao surrounds us. If we feel lonely, then it is only because we are forgetting how we are totally immersed in Tao. That is why loneliness can be an opportunity : It reminds us that we are dwelling on our own egoistic identity rather than on the support of Tao.

[adept]

COUNTERPOINT

It is blazing hot today.

Valley heat is drawn to meet the coast.

The cool days of autumn dance with false summer.

White within black, black within white.

 

Autumn was coming on, and yet today there is a sudden shift. It is hotter than summer. Even in the midst of a cooling trend there is its opposite.

In the minds of those who follow Tao, duality in life is not clearly demarcated. There is a fuzziness at the line. Day does not have a sharp border with night. So it is with the alternations of the seasons. It is not a simple, smooth continuum from summer into autumn. There is complexity and counterpoint.

 

If nature is full of subtlety and even false appearances, how wise must we be in order to follow life's rhythms unerringly?

[adept]

NONINTERFERENCE

I love this lake,

Basin of heavenly tears,

Tilted from lunar pull

Jostling its shore.

I love these mountains,

Stark rock outcroppings,

Sculpted by the oceans,

Lifted at some unknown time,

Isolated in a field of vetch,

Cleaved by silver falls.

A sentinel owl regards me unblinkingly,

And beyond, alpine forests form a cadence

To a distant moon.

 

The earth is overrun by investigators and engineers. The wilderness is made vulgar with the noise of tourists. We don't need their thermometers and saws. We don't need bridges and monuments. In the context of Tao, this is to violate the earth with human ambition and to crawl over the landscape like flies over fresh fruit. Instead we should simply walk through this mysterious world without being a burden to it.

[adept]

APPRECIATION

The sun rose and set today in twelve hours.

We plucked golden pears from arching branches.

Climbing a thousand steps to a rustic temple,

We made our offerings to the gods.

At nightfall, we sat in warm companionship.

A crescent moon joined our circle.

Dipping water from the silver-braided stream,

We set it bubbling in an earthenware pot.

It's not easy to brew good tea,

But this teapot has a venerable history:

A scholar once pawned all his books for it.

Now it imparts the flavor of antiquity.

 

Autumn equinox is the time to reflect upon life. If we have enjoyed a bountiful harvest, we express our thanks. If the year has been difficult so far, then we are happy for what we do have and resolve to do better once the chance comes. The appreciation of life does not require wealth or plenty. It requires only gratitude for the beauty of the world.

[adept]

STYLE

An old man sits on a granite step.

He plucks a treasured guitar.

The strings throb with feeling;

He needs no audience to open his heart.

A boy enthusiastically wants to learn his style.

"Style?" asks the man slowly. "My style is made of

The long road of life, of heartbreak

And joy, and people loved, and loneliness.

Of war and its atrocities.

Of a baby born.

Of burying parents and friends.

My scale is the seven stars of the dipper.

The hollow of my guitar is the space between heaven and earth.

How can I show you my style?

You have your own young life."

 

Everyone has their own style in life. The old have perspective. The young have vigor. We can learn from each other, but we cannot have what the other generations possess. We are each shaped by our generations, and to transcend the limitations of our time is a rare occurrence indeed.