Two weeks ago, I  purchased the Tao Te Ching at the UCLA Festival of Books.  Otherwise known as The Book of the Way , the Tao Te Ching was written by Lao-tzu, an older contemporary of Confucius.  I didn’t actually purchase the Chinese version but the New English Version translated by Stephen Mitchell.

The meaning of Lao-Tzu’s name is unclear but has been interpreted by many as “the Old Master” or “Old Boy”.  Many thought of Lao-tzu as a dropout from society, a loner, living in some mountain hut, unvisited for the most part except by the occasional traveler.   When he died, He left this manual on the art of living .   It has 81 passages and  embodies morality in its deepest sense.    It is filled with wisdom, grace, simplicity and humor.  In reading Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching, I was deeply impacted by many of the passages and feel compelled to share some of them with you – my readers, my friends, my family, my clients. I hope you find these passages equally meaningful and thought-provoking as I do.

Please note that some of these passages refer to the word “Master”, which is essentially “us”.  As Mitchell suggests in the foreword of his book, feel free to substitute Master with “he” or “she”.

Passage 9

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening the knife

and it will be blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

Mitchell’s notes:  Do your work, then step back.  When you do your work wholeheartedly , you are glad to let it go, just as a parent let’s a child go, into its own life.

My thoughts:  When I read this passage, I immediately think of how our lives are filled with excess.  Just this weekend, my husband and I were cleaning our our garage.  We have 8 bikes, 19 pieces of luggage, 14 ski hats, 6 sleeping bags, 10 blankets, 23 water bottles …you get the picture.  We have crammed our life with stuff, with possessions.  We’ve lived our life to earn more, to amass more, achieve more, and be more.  Advertisers has convinced us that we need x, y, or z to be happy. There are pills to make us feel better, exercise equipment to help us lose weight, cars to attract beautiful women, boob jobs to attract rich men, tampons so we can  horseback ride on the beach, breath mints for increased intimacy, loans to afford a bigger home, botox to conceal the aging process.  We have become an obese nation – both physically and materially.  We have bought into the notion that we can never have enough of anything.  Wayne Dyer suggests that the next time you’re mired in a desire for more stop and think of the Tao.  When the work is done, then it’s time to stop.  It’s much like eating food.  Stop when you are full.  The Tao says “to keep on filling is not as good as stopping”.  Practice humility rather than accumulating more material things.  When you stuff yourself to the brim, you are trapped into believing that more of something is the cause of happiness.  Martha Beck calls this the “shallows”, the world of physical objects. She suggests that “the reason we’re so starved in the shallows is that we’re not meant to be satisfied with material possessions.”  Simply said, we are not meant to be one-dimensional.  We are meant to live beyond the ego. 

Do as the Tao suggests:

Stop Chasing

Stop Filling

Stop Amassing

Instead Try:

Stopping

Surrendering

The only true path to serenity….