Tao Te Ching, Verse 15

“Don’t just stand there, do something!” is great advice during a fire and I’ve taken it as good advice for nearly all occasions – but it’s not always good advice – I’ve mentioned in these entries how too much time spent “doing” and not enough time spent “being” makes me stupid and anxious – as Stephen Mitchell notes “We need space in order to see, silence in order to hear, sleep in order to carry on with our wakefulness. If our senses are too cluttered with objects they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay” – if our minds are too cluttered with thoughts, “they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay” (just as mine has been of late) – if our hearts are too cluttered with desires, “they lose their acuteness and will eventually decay” – I’ve mentioned that when God is trying to teach me something, he puts the message ever before my eyes – at one point, when I was trying to complete those questions on the Springdale application, I mentally questioned, “why is this so fucking difficult” and a voice inside my head responded, “because you’re trying to do it by yourself instead of relying on me (God)” – after that I went outside and had a smoke and told God that it was all up to him – that I didn’t care about it anymore – and then I came in and basically just typed the answers that I finally used on the application – I was reminded of the passage from Tao Te Ching, Verse XXXXVIII [this is why we don’t use Roman numerals anymore], “Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can't be gained by interfering.” – this is the principle of wei wu wei – it’s what God is (once again) trying to teach me – I’ll talk about it more later. I’ll leave you, with Siji Tzu’s commentary: “Like our ancient masters, do not seek, do not expect. Stir up the lakebed and watch it settle. Pour water into your teacup, but do not overfill. Enjoy a flower the same in a battlefield just as on a rivers edge. Be like nature and do not judge good from bad. Accept an honorable guest the same as a criminal.”