Tao Te Ching Day 5: Just Stop (With Audio)

Audio Available on my Podcast Upon Awakening: A Beginners Guide Click the link to Listen. https://anchor.fm/matthew-whiteside/episodes/Tao-Te-Ching-Day-5-Just-Stop-ev059n

“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”

Tao Te Ching – Chp. 15

I swear man I feel like a mentally challenged child reading this book. As a man that prides himself on taking action and responsibility for the well being and good works in his life, this book is ripping me to shreds.

As a child I was mentally challenged according to the public school system after some serious head injuries and family traumas left me unable to focus and lacking any real drive. I would sit and stare for hours and hours on end, and the teachers would be so fed up with my inability to pay attention they put me in a small room with the other five children they deemed as trouble makers or mentally unequipped to learn like a normal person.

After years and years and years of practicing techniques to focus and learn “like normal people,” I find myself here, at the Tao Te Ching. All the effort I went through fixing my brain to conform to this world seems to be the exact opposite of what needed doing. I feel like a head injury would really help me understand the Tao.

Can I sit long enough to let my mud settle? Do I have the patience? Well, hell no I don’t and as an average miserable American I resent that question. Patience are for doctors Mr. Tzu and mud is for pigs to play in.

I have to be doing, right? I have to fix my brokenness, right? I have to overcome my lack, poverty, and get rich, right?

How the hell do you expect me to sit quietly as the world goes on with out me? How the hell can I allow others to become great while I sit and wait for the right action to come. “There’s gold in them there mountains and I mean to find every last piece,” (The old prospector in my mind says).

“The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, He is present, and can welcome all things.”

Chp. 15

I am Matt’s brain. I am Matt’s brain, pissed off at the injustice of the world.

Ok, enough is enough. I get it. I have to unlearn the patterns of me that have gotten me to this point. I would not have been seeking this had I not needed it.

But, Jesus, the unlearning of almost a life time of how to live in this world can make anyone feel a bit mad. I am having a very difficult time letting go of the need to do what I think I need to do.

I understand that through the patience of letting the world that I built fall away from me what is meant to be here will be and what is not, won’t.

I realize that I do what I hate over and over again, and I expect to feel different about it. Like running the same experiment time and time again hoping for a different outcome and then being upset that I got the same damn outcome.

The whole point of this study is to embody something completely brand new. I know exactly what happens when Matt goes out into the world and strives to prove himself worthy of money, fame, love, and attention. Matt ends up right back where he started, angry and frustrated that there is no end to chasing those things outside of himself.

Then the question always comes, “am I not good enough as I am? Must I continue to make everyone else happy in an attempt to be happy myself?”

When is enough, enough? The Tao has been asking me.

Is it enough when you have thousands of dollars? Remember you said you would be happy then. Then you got thousands of dollars and nice things and said, “I will be happy and feel secure when I have millions of dollars.” Then you lost sight of all that you had and all that you were and the money didn’t matter anymore, because there is no amount that is enough.

There is nothing that is enough to satisfy the earthly desires.

So, I must let them go.

What if I don’t do anything, and all that I have falls away? Will I be less of a person? What if the part of me that is searching for fulfillment knows that everything must fall away and the part of me that has learned the ways of this world is screaming in protest, making the sitting still almost impossible because it wants to live too?

But what if it’s time is up and knowing it’s life is coming to an end is screaming and scratching to stay here?

I believe that is the case. I believe, the Matt that has been here on this earth doing what Matt has learned to do is going to die, and the Tao is going to come forward.

It is already happening, it is already in process. There is no chance for Matt as we once knew him to remain.

So, I would like to thank him for his service. Thank you Matt for your strength and your passion. Thank you for the time you put into making this world a comfortable, safe, secure existence for us. Thank you for giving and receiving love to the fullness of your capability. You will be missed and remembered, and the newness of what is to come will give honor to who you were by its own unfolding and life. Good bye and thank you.

“True words aren’t eloquent; eloquent words aren’t true. Wise men don’t need to prove their point; men who need to prove their point aren’t wise.”

Chp. 81