Everyday Tao

[strawdog65]

Hello Everyone!

 

The book is : Everyday Tao, by: Deng Ming-Dao

 

===================================

 

1.

 

 

Dao. Tao, way, road path, course.

 

The ancients who first taught of Tao were simple, rustic people.

They formed their view by walking in granite-bladed mountains,

digging in grainy soil. and sailing down wide rivers.

 

As they worked and traveled, they slowly discerned a grand order to life.

They noticed the regular phases of the sun, moon, earth and

tides. They followed the seasons. They watched the births, lives,

and deaths of people, as well as the rise and fall of kingdoms.

 

In the nights, the ancients sat beside open fires and spoke to

those that wanted to learn. As illustrations of their ideas,

and to aid their students' memories, they drew pictographs in

the dirt.

 

They taught their lessons from what they had experienced:

life was a movement supreme- greater than humans, greater than

heaven and earth. Nothing was fixed, for everything- from cycles

of the sun and moon to the making and destroying of empires-

showed endless, cyclical transformation.

 

All this they summed up by drawing a

picture of Tao: a person running along a path.

Those who want to study Tao can gain much from that simple

image. It represents the organic movement of the cosmos as a

great, balanced, and dynamic body in motion, just as it represents

the path each of us follows through life.

 

Sometimes intellectual definitions of Tao can be challenging.

Returning to the image of Tao centers our contemplations.

 

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Comments?

 

peace

Edited December 5, 2010 by strawdog65

[Marblehead]

Hehehe. How can one comment on something that one totally agrees with?

 

But this:

 

They taught their lessons from what they had experienced:

life was a movement supreme- greater than humans, greater than

heaven and earth. Nothing was fixed, for everything- from cycles

of the sun and moon to the making and destroying of empires-

showed endless, cyclical transformation.

 

 

What else can one say? Cycles and reversion. Two key concepts in Taoist Philosophy.

 

And yes, life is greater than humans. We are only one of its expressions. Look into the heavens (universe). The same thing is going on up there as is going on down here. Just different forms of expressions but the expressions are vertually the same. Birth, life, and death. A constant returning indicating the cycles.

[manitou]

Sometimes intellectual definitions of Tao can be challenging.

Returning to the image of Tao centers our contemplations.

 

 

 

Thank you, Straw Dog, for bringing things back to basics. A man running along a path. Actually, I would say ambling down a path.

[manitou]

LOL. I just realized how well matched my last comment was with my new avatar...

[Marblehead]

Actually, I would say ambling down a path.

 

Hehehe. I prefer moseying along, myself.

 

Happy Trails!

[Marblehead]

LOL. I just realized how well matched my last comment was with my new avatar...

 

Yep. Hehehe.

[rene]

LOL. I just realized how well matched my last comment was with my new avatar...

 

There's ambling, and then there's wounded. Maybe Palin was around with her rifle.

[manitou]

There's ambling, and then there's wounded. Maybe Palin was around with her rifle.

 

 

Rats. I didn't think he looked wounded, only doing what my dog does gleefully on the rug. More of a joy of living thing? I really don't want an avatar that's been shot by Palin, LOL. If I get too many more comments of this nature, I guess I'll be changing him.....(This is really making me laugh.

[Marblehead]

There's ambling, and then there's wounded. Maybe Palin was around with her rifle.

 

That's sad but I had to laugh none-the-less. Hehehe.

[strawdog65]

Hello Everyone!

 

 

Everyday Tao : by Deng Ming-Dao

 

2.

=============================================================

 

Follow

 

 

Accept Tao as the supreme description of life, the ancients urged, and life in it's most spiritual form

will be revealed. But even among the earliest students, doubt persisted.

 

Should they follow the Tao through flood and famine, earthquake and drought, corruption and invasion,

lawlessness and banditry, fear and loneliness?

 

Why did the path the ancients advocated still hold misfortune?

 

In response, the ancients stood up, walked in a circle, and then wordlessly sat back down.

 

This confused the students, as it may well confuse us. What the ancients were saying, in their most

succinct way, was that each of us must accept and follow Tao. Good and bad are part of Tao and cannot

be avoided. Rather than exhausting ourselves by striking out on our own, or worse, trying to go against

the grain of life, we can come to see misfortune as part of the cycle we can both understand and utilize.

But we won't learn that unless we follow Tao with complete trust.

 

Just as the word "follow" shows one person following another, each of us can learn to follow Tao as if

we were following a trusted friend. Then we will never be lost in the cycles of happiness and disaster.

 

 

=======================================================================

 

 

Comments?

 

Peace!

[Marblehead]

Most cats and dogs have those traits. They will get up, do one or two 360s and lay back down in almost the exact position they were in before getting up.

 

Being inspired to act but then realizing that there is nothing to act upon.

[strawdog65]

Most cats and dogs have those traits. They will get up, do one or two 360s and lay back down in almost the exact position they were in before getting up.

 

Being inspired to act but then realizing that there is nothing to act upon.

 

Hi Marbles!

 

I knew there was a reason I respected my cat>

[strawdog65]

Everyday Tao

 

By:Deng Ming-Dao

 

 

===============

 

 

3.

 

See.

 

 

When students wanted to learn of Tao, they sought out the guidance of wise elders.

Learning was not formal. The ancients accepted any student they felt was sincere.

Perhaps there was a simple conversation under a tree or a quiet invocation touching a rock.

Then the younger one merely walked with the older one,

The students wanted to see Tao. By pointing out animals and trees,

leading the way through tiger-filled mountains and flower-covered valleys,

fording icy rivers, and crossing sun-scorched deserts, the ancients showed

the way of the world in its limitless variety.

 

What was so important about this method is that the ancients trusted their students to see.

They trusted their student's perceptions. They didn't say "Learn Tao from my words".

They didn't say, "You are incapable of seeing Tao."

They didn't say, "You can only gain Tao through elaborate rituals in temples."

Instead, they simply let their students live and travel with them, and they knew that

the students would see Tao in the wind and mountains, trees and rivers, animals and people.

 

The real Tao was the everyday Tao.

 

The idea that each of us can be directly spiritual is radical.

Most religions are based not on teaching adherents to be directly spiritual,

but in persuading them to trust in the intercession of minister or priests.

The problem with this approach is that we cannot gain access to

spirituality except through the medium of a fallible human being.

The example of the traveling students shows us otherwise:

 

If we want to see Tao, we need only open our eyes and trust what we see.

 

 

=====================================================

 

 

Comments?

 

 

Peace!

[surfingbudda]

 

 

All this they summed up by drawing a

picture of Tao: a person running along a path.

 

 

This image just about sums it up

[strawdog65]

Everyday Tao: By deng ming-Dao

 

==========================================================

4.

 

 

Sky/Tian

 

 

 

It was natural that the students wanted to know their place in the grand Tao.

The ancients told them that this would be apparent soon enough,

but the students pressed the old ones to reveal more.

Then the teachers gave a lesson still given to students today.

 

They pointed one hand to the sky and the other to the earth.

 

This gesture is one of the most profound in the tradition of Tao.

It places human beings between heaven and earth, but also after heaven and earth

in importance (the traditional saying is "Heaven, Earth, and Humanity".

It also serves as a reminder that people are a part of all things under heaven.

Even today, the world is often referred to by the phrase "below heaven."

 

The word Tian means "sky", "heaven", and "nature" simultaneously.

Thus, Tao was to be discerned in heaven/nature.

Contemplating the sky is one way of contemplating Tao.

 

Th sky is above us. It is endless, vast, ever present yet ever changing.

It is not an abstract philosophical concept but a daily presence.

The wind blows through its vast expanse.

The clouds gather and disappear in its vastness.

Without its air we could not breathe.

Without the sun, we could not live.

We can not live without the essential elements of the sky and earth.

 

The human spirit is great, and is not content unless it

has a greatness as vast as the sky's in which to roam.

 

We must not make our idea of Tao too small.

 

Even though Tao shows a person along a path,

it is an infinite path in an endless world.

 

 

===============================================================

 

Comments?

 

Peace!

[Marblehead]

Nice.

 

Yes, we need remember our place in the scheme of things, which really, isn't all that significant.

[Vajrahridaya]

I liked the book, "Chronicles of Tao."

[strawdog65]

I liked the book, "Chronicles of Tao."

 

 

 

Hi Vajrahridaya!

 

Yes... I am reading that one right now...it is very good!

 

 

Peace!

[Vajrahridaya]

Hi Vajrahridaya!

 

Yes... I am reading that one right now...it is very good!

 

 

Peace!

 

I like what he learns in the cave about the chakras. That really changed my understanding when I read it some 15 years ago.

[strawdog65]

Everyday Tao

By: Deng Ming-Dao

 

=============================================

 

 

 

Earth

 

 

 

5.

 

 

"What is bountiful?" The ancients asked.

True bounty was not the treasury of the emperor, but the generosity of the earth.

The golden hills provided home, country, belonging. The rich, black, fertile- smelling

soil gave grain, vegetables, and fruit. The blue-shadowed mountains gave shelter from

wind and storm. And the seemingly endless plains and deserts provided ample

room for exploration and adventure. Why worry about the abstruse,

the ancients asked, when everything we require has already been given to us?

 

If you want to follow Tao, the ancients said, first understand the perfection of

heaven and earth. Wind, rain, and sun come to us through the sky. The earth

gives us our home, our nourishment, jewels for our adornment, minerals for our

use, places for travel. As the old saying goes, "Why look for what is close at hand?"

You, like the young students of the ancients, may want to study Tao. Doing so

may be as simple as bending down to pick up a clump of earth.

 

So many of us look and look for Tao. The masters, it seems, are

still pointing one hand to the sky and the other to the earth.

 

 

=============================================================

 

 

comments?

 

 

Peace!

[Marblehead]

I watched a documentary a couple nights ago titled "Dirt".

 

It spoke to the same topic except it included opinions that we have been abusing what has been provided us for so long that it is unable to provide for everyone anymore.