Thursday, October 18, 2007

Tao Te Ching Wisdom for the day

#45
True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.

True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
ture art seems artless.

The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.

another excerpt says,
Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion
you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course

....and,

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.

Is it just my imagination, or is everything I'm reading today in the Tao Te Ching aimed at inviting me to let go, let things take their course, stop worrying, controlling, obsessing, striving, pushing too hard, going too fast?

step out of the way.....

So the wisdom of the day would be that. Let yourself go with the flow, and stop paddling up stream. It's a lot easier to let the boat follow the river. Row if you must, but you will advance more quickly when you let go to the river's current.

Life is a current. I can ride the waves of my life, being buoyant, being still in the center, and letting the ups and downs come. It takes a focus on what is real, what is permanent, to allow myself to not get upset by the changes, by what is impermanent.

If I look back a year ago today, I was unsure of the future, I was hoping things would change more quickly. Then boom, a few months later we had heard of a new house on the water, I applied to teach at the women's centre, life and the river kept flowing. Now we are renovating, and I am teaching. If I look towards the future, it is still uncertain, i.e. I have no way of knowing for sure what is coming.

But I am starting to trust the flow.

nameste,
musemother

2 comments:

Kelly said...

It is not your imagination. That is what the Tao Te Ching is telling you.

Creative Soulful Woman said...

thanks Kiki
the Tao Te Ching is a wonderful book isn't it?
jenn