hey stone, this one’s for you — a thank you for the link to the tao online. once, long ago, i began reading it and got to the second verse before life pulled me away and i didn’t return to it until now. picking up where i left off, verse three, i chuckled. what better example, eh?
verse three is timely. so i thank you for that as well:
Not praising the worthy prevents contention,
Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft,
Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire.In this manner the sage governs people:
Emptying their minds,
Filling their bellies,
Weakening their ambitions,
And strengthening their bones.If people lack knowledge and desire
Then they can not act;
If no action is taken
Harmony remains.
it occurs to me that western society would either not get this verse or scoff at it. i find it beautiful. how many times have i tried to show care or love to someone by praise only to find them grow more and more full of contentiousness in relation to me?
how many times placing esteem into a thing or circumstance only to suffer when it passes, as all things eventually do?
how many times desiring only to hurt and ache when it is found impossible?
hah. if i had a dollar for each time, i would not need to work.
it seems counter-intuitive at first, this notion that one thing creates its opposite. i find it interesting that heraclitus knew it at the same place in time when the zen masters, taoists, buddhist, et al were penning similar verses.
connectedness. how easily we forget that we naturally belong and are part.
there is a deep wisdom in the notion of not attaching. but all the world seems to nourish doing so.
hrm. not all the world. amusingly, this reminds me of the scene in ‘the gods must be crazy’. let me see if i can find it on youtube… brb. 🙂
if you’ve never seen this, you should watch it. not only is it the funniest movie i’ve ever seen, there are some pretty deep lessons in it, too. this is the first fifteen minutes, which sets up the primary storyline from which the many others in the movie are connected…. as are we all.
truly, worth a watching.
[youtube]66pTPWg_wUw[/youtube]