by AK - Jeff 28 Replies latest jw friends
I got my quote slightly wrong so I this time I cut and pasted it from Mindfully.org translated by Stephen Mitchell.
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will 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.
Vs 1 of the Tolbert McCarol version:
The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The name is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Send your desires away and you will see the mystery.
Be filled with desire and you will see only the manifestation.
As these two come forth they differ in name.
Yet at their source they are the same.
This source is called a mystery
Darkness within darkness, the gateway to all mystery.
Very similar to BTS's above with slight variation.
Jeff
It's all about life's paradoxes. And it's all encompassing. That's how the Source/Universe/God works...........wf
burn,
:and it seems to my ignorant self, that this Tao is the same as God--as I understand Him.
The Tao means "the way" or "the path". The Tao mentions "Heaven" as a metaphor for perhaps "God". It is a very old book. I believe parts of it were written when Daniel was babbling his idiotic rants about Nebachadnezzer and petting lions in a furnace.
What is so wonderful about it, is how "gentle" it is. There are no commands demanded and no laws set forth. It just gently and matter-of-factly says it like it is.
Farkel
Either way, I am picking up a copy today, and a couple of others as Christmas gifts.
BTS
Having Studied Chen Taiji for a few years ( to say the least) I was exposed to the Taoist views early on and I never relaly felt that they conflicted with my Christian faith and as my faith has become stronegr as of late, I still feel the compatabiblity of the Tao.
The Tao is self-descovery, it is about a personal relationship with the universe, about not only understanding ones place but also about understaninf ones ability to shape the world around us and how to dea with life.
Very cool indeed.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
As if the immensity and diversity of the universe could be attributed to a single puny entity.
What is so wonderful about it, is how "gentle" it is. There are no commands demanded and no laws set forth. It just gently and matter-of-factly says it like it is.
That is what attracts me to it.
There are no commands demanded and no laws set forth
Well...No commands per say, yes, but "laws" are there, the laws od reaction and action, the las of inter-relationships, the laws of Yin and Yang.
The Tao is the source of, and the solution to, all the world's problems.
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Tsing Tao, that is.
om, AKA Homer "Hunan" Simpson
