Seeking Purpose Today

Tao Te Ching Day 55: The Spirit of Competition

The spirit of competition came to me as a radio interview while I was driving into work one day years ago. I had always been a competitive person; the need to prove myself against another was a strong motivating force for me as I was growing up. I had always competed to be better, to show that I was worth more than another. If I couldn’t do that, then it felt useless to compete at all.

Then came this interview with a former Olympic swimmer about why he competes, and his explanation blew me away.

He said, and I am paraphrasing, that competing for him was no longer about winning or losing. Competing for him was about being pushed to your absolute best by those you are competing with and giving your all so that you bring out the best in others.

Bringing out the best in others meant that when he competed, he had to show up and perform at his absolute best anything less would mean that those around him would be allowed to be smaller, less realized versions of themselves and, in so doing make him smaller. Back and forth, this would go until eventually a couple of dudes in motorized scooters show up and fall in the pool and drown.

Ok, sorry I may have gotten a bit carried away with that last part, but can you see the beauty of this incredible idea of how competition should work. Not for one’s self-worth or ego, but bringing the best out in everyone around you by you being your absolute best.

Amazing, right?

Chapter 7 embodies this idea as a way of service to all.

Heaven and Earth are everlasting
The reason Heaven and Earth can last forever
Is that they do not exist for themselves
Thus they can last forever.
TTC 7 (Lin)

When we do not simply exist for our glory, we transcend what is known as the finite game and move into the infinite game. We move beyond our own life and expand to the lives of everyone we encounter.

Lao Tzu, knew this.

Therefore the sages:
Place themselves last but end up in front
Are outside of themselves and yet survive
Is it not all due to their selflessness?
That is how they can achieve their own goals
TTC 7 (Lin)

The last line gets me and speaks volumes about the power of this methodology even in competition.

They achieve their own goals by putting themselves last.

That doesn’t mean the Sage never gets what they need; that means they remain humble and do the work necessary as if they were no better than the lowest person. They think only of how they can help people realize their most significant potential, and in so doing, the Sage reaches their own greatest potential because they teach by example and not by empty words.

What an absurdly radical idea. That I start with We instead of I.

Living a life where my decisions are not based on how I feel but the virtue of service to the world. How my every action may be in serving others to my fullest potential, thereby unlocking my greatest self.

Can you imagine a world where peoples thoughts didn’t immediately start with, “what can I get out of this,” but instead “what can I bring to this, what can I give to this person, this situation?”

Can you imagine the absolute shift, the quantum leap that would take place in the world if that kind of virtue were to grab people’s hearts.

It would change everything.

What if it I did it, though? Not worrying if anyone else was going to do it too. I bet my world would be transformed.

So, that’s where ill leave you today, in the place where I start, where We start.

Happy Day.

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Tao Te Ching Day 54: Leaving The Cage

I had a thought today. Many of us spend our entire lives doing jobs we hate based on the fear that at some point in the future, we will have to pay for our survival.

I see us like gerbils or lab mice in a cage with one of those upside-down water bottle things that give a drop at a time of water. We live like this, thinking that we are here in this cage that is life and this little dripping water is our only chance at survival, so although it is frustrating and annoying as hell with its measly little drops, we think, “at least I have this.”

We then spend the remainder of our lives serving and protecting this tiny, stupid, upside-down water bottle thing for its gracious and noble gift of life for us. We even teach our kids to do well so that one day they can have their own little water bottle thing (WBT).

Are we insane? Do we think ourselves this small and insignificant that we would spend our entire lives accepting drops of life when there is a whole ocean available to us?

I have had this conversation with myself over and over again throughout my life. It goes something like this.

“Man, I hate this job. I wish I could be doing something I really love, like writing.”

“Yeah, well, you can write if you want, but after work and once you’ve completed everything else. We got bills and responsibilities to take care of. Get your head out of your ass Matt.”

“Yeah, but if I do what I love, then I will have what I need. I will get filled in a different way, like spiritually and stuff. Plus, if I follow my heart, I will probably make way more than these scraps we are surviving on now.”

“Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Dude, when did you become such a hippie freak. Look, you want to die in a gutter starving and alone, be my guest. But we got kids to feed a mortgage to pay. You think the credit card companies will take a check made out for Love? Grow up, man. Now let’s get back to work; the boss is coming.”

And then the dark cloud of sadness that accompanies a life run by fear and not by bliss hangs itself above us, and we take another sip from WBT.

“Everything flourishes; each returns to its root
Returning to the root is called tranquility
Tranquility is called returning to one’s nature
Returning to one’s nature is called constancy
Knowing constancy is called clarity.”
TTC 16 (Lin)

Imagine if we all lived in our natural gifts and stopped worrying about how we would survive. That is the tranquility being promised.

The reality is this; bills are not going to pay themselves. Kids need food; some, like me, needed more than others, haha. It is scary as hell to go after your dream. It is also frightening to trust that what you need is already available to you right now and that WBT is just distracting us from the fact that the cage has been left wide open. There is a Universe so big beautiful, and abundant right outside if only we could take our little gerbil lips of that WBT.

What if everything you wanted was not the opposite of your fear, but instead straight into it. What if you could live the happiest, most whole life you could ever imagine, but you had to trust in something other than yourself for your survival? Could you do it?

I have to decide on a moment-to-moment basis sometimes to make that decision, but when I do, I become more filled with life than I was a moment before while living in perpetual fear that my WBT would disappear when I wasn’t looking at it.

You know, there would be no WBT without a gerbil or mouse to drink from it. In the same way that there would be no job without you to work at it. Can we stop giving all of our power over to the things that come from the source that is us and recognize that the wellspring of all that is in our lives comes directly from us.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Run towards the fear of the open door. That stupid water bottle thing (WBT) was only there to get you started. The ocean where it came from is all around you.

“The people all have goals
And I alone am stubborn and lowly
I alone am different from them
And value the nourishing mother.”
TTC 20 (Lin)

The Tao Te Ching does not expressly talk about the abundance of our capabilities in the same way I am speaking of them here. However, I have spent enough time reading and meditating on this book to know that what it is saying is that we are the same stuff as all the other incredible beautiful creations that exist in the Universe.

It is saying that we should not fear how we will be taken care of or what we will do, as it is all a natural unfolding happening within us. As an acorn becomes an oak tree, we can either allow ourselves to flourish or remain like an acorn in a small state of mind. Can you see that the larger the tree grows, the deeper its roots become and the more nourishment it recieves.

We are like this. Remaining small we only keep ourself cut off from the source of life.

Here is the rub, to be connected to the source of life we must be willing to grow beyond what we believe we are capable of. We must be willing to see a life outside of our current state of being. Hell we don’t even really need to see it, we only need to trust that it exists and then be as the Sage not doing anything but accomplishing everything. By not trying to overcome take the world the world will be given to us.

By not seeking virtue we will be virtuous, because we will be exactly that which we are. An eternal expression of an eternal nameless thing, we call the Tao.

Happy Day.

Tao Te Ching Day 53: Thankful

I sit here, in this chair in which I place myself to write to you, the world, about what I, Matthew Whiteside, have found on my journey through a text said to be written 2500 + years ago by an extremely wise Sage. On this day, I feel as though I have nothing to write in the form of cutting truth towards understanding the Tao Te Ching any better than a person that picked it up for the first time.

I find it fascinating that I have read this damn book every day for almost two months. I was amazed because I used to be a person that found it difficult to make it out of bed every day. Not being able to make it out of bed consistently to reading and writing about a book of wisdom to live one’s life feels so astonishing to me.

Who have I become?

I care about paying my bills on time. I care about taking care of the people around me. I care about other’s happiness besides my own. I don’t give up after a failure, and I follow through on my word to myself and others.
I keep my word.
I need a second to reflect on that sentence…

My God, I have become an adult, and I barely recognized it while it was happening. But, having studied the Tao Te Ching now for a little while, I realize the transformation the Spirit has undergone.

How did I come about this transformation of Spirit? I had to completely lose it to find it. I give all the credit in the world to a recovery program from alcohol for where I am today. I know that without it, I would not be sitting here writing this blog post. I would not be studying the Tao Te Ching. I would not have people in my life that care deeply for me and that I care about beyond words. I would not have found fulfillment beyond this world’s material manifestations.

I am thankful as hell today for my recovery program, and it reminds me of chapter 3 of the Tao Te Ching.

“Do not glorify the achievers
So the people will not squabble
Do not treasure goods that are hard to obtain
So the people will not become thieves
Do not show the desired things
So their hearts will not be confused.
Thus the governance of the Sage:
Empties their hearts
Fills their bellies
Weakens their ambitions
Strengthens their bones
Let the people have no cunning and no greed
So those who scheme will not dare to meddle
Act without contrivance
And nothing will be beyond control.”
TTC 3 (Lin)

When I was drinking myself to death every day, my life was full of comparisons and judgments. I had to be better than other people, and when I wasn’t, I had to drink until I could deal with that fact. I didn’t sleep or eat when I needed to. I actually didn’t listen to my internal guidance at all. I shut off all the ways in which God, or the Tao, or whatever you want to call it, was speaking to me and instead focused on all the shit outside of me that I had no control over.

I desired everything outside of me to make me feel the way I thought I was supposed to feel, and in that constant trying to attain something on the outside that already existed on the inside, I became a hollowed-out shell of myself. I didn’t know who I was or what I was anymore.

All I ever felt was ashamed, and the only thing that kept the shame at bay was drinking until drinking no longer worked, and all I felt was ashamed for what I had become.

But, this chapter speaks to the simplicity of what we must do to recover from this seemingly hopeless state. Instead of focusing on what is outside of us, the Sage feeds and nurtures our basic needs.

Sleep
Nutrition
Companionship

The Sage removes the outside world of temptations and focuses on right here, right now. I was saved at this moment, the eternal moment.
The more I go back to the simplicity of that state, the more I realize how everything else will be taken care of if I first take care of myself.

There are many sick people in the world, and I realized today that my job is not to heal any of them. My only job is to get myself healthy enough as to not become sick in their presence.

I realized today that being powerless over things outside of me is not a curse or some relegation to a weak life; I genuinely see what life is. Alcohol is out of my control because it makes me feel a certain way, and when it doesn’t do what I want, I am broken.

We have to only see that every feeling we ever wish to feel, every reality we ever want to experience, is in no single thing or place outside of us. Everything we have ever experienced is inside of us.

Even you, reading this now, is not happening on your phone or computer screen. These words are happening inside of you right now. No matter what we do, everything we do happens inside us because we are the source of all that is.

When I got sober, I realized this life isn’t about what I couldn’t do or the unfairness of the way things were but instead about the beautiful expression of what was happening inside me. When I finally came to peace with what was happening in me, the stuff outside of me began to change and became a gift instead of a curse.

So, if you are struggling with anything right now that feels outside of your control.

First, Realize that it is out of your control.
Second, realize how you want to feel is not dependent on the outside world but on your inner world.
Third, take a nap, eat a sandwich and talk to someone that loves you.

Watch as what you see is out of your control be transformed into the empowering catalyst of your own incredible life.

Happy Day.

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Tao Te Ching Day 52: Inflammation

There is an inflammation of the self that begins upon any great endeavor. Not an inflation of the ego but an inflamed sense of being, an agitation to the pressure of the process as it unfolds, can be seen as growing pains.

It’s like any process that requires growth. We must undertake the responsibility of pain and discomfort as we move into a distinctly different realm of our lives. There is no getting around this inflammation; it is the birthplace of a different being.

Yet, I can’t help but hate the recovery process. And the inflammation comes so much quicker than it used to. Seen in the light of exercise means that I am doing things that I haven’t done before. My old self is not used to these new movements; they are full of friction, more dynamic in nature than the way I once was.

However, like with exercise, the muscles will soon grow accustomed to the new movement and adapt to handle them. My life will quickly adapt to take my new way of living. My spirit, my mind all work the same way. The problem with these two areas of myself is that the recovery for one’s mind and spirit are not as straightforward or as quickly diagnosed as muscle soreness.

While alive, the body is soft and pliant
When dead, it is hard and rigid
All living things, grass and trees,
While alive, are soft and supple
When dead become dry and brittle
TTC 76 (Lin)

Adaptation moves into the body by accepting that life must be received into the self through willing submission. When I work so hard to change some habit, thought, or idea, the friction of change is cutting away parts that no longer serve the greatest version of myself.

I realized to become soft after such difficult hard work is a necessary process to remain in the light and flexibility of life.

I amaze myself by this constant strain of progress followed by absolute agitation at my plateaus.

It is in all reality anger that I am mortal and that my human qualities are forgotten too often by me. How do I keep forgetting that I need rest? I am not some machine, and that rigid mechanical mentality is the stuff that brings me closer to living on the side of death than on the side of life, as Lao Tzu speaks of in Chapter 76.

Thus that which is hard and stiff is the follower of death
That which is soft and yielding is the follower of life
Therefore, an inflexible army will not win
A strong tree will be cut down
The big and forceful occupy a lowly position
While the soft and pliant occupy a higher place
TTC 76 (Lin)

I’m just trying to be soft as Charmin over here, haha. I Don’t want to continue cutting myself down with my inflammatory actions.

Happy Day

Tao Te Ching Day 51: Our Separateness

What are we if not confused a large portion of our lives? One mind in multiple different directions, dictating to the external versions of ourselves a life we wish to be true but because it is only a split personality of our true intent we find what we see as a bizarre-o world version of what we actually wanted.

The wishes granted then are of a life we have all asked for, a life of our greatest desires and dreams exist as if we had made wishes with the devil and not the God of our Heavens.

Why is it that we are constantly split? Where in life do we need more than one direction to go, not knowing that we may find peace in any direction. We are without a course, floating aimlessly in space until we are so sick of the nothingness that we decide for ourself the next direction we head in will be the last, even if it is the wrong way. We will make it right, because this ceaseless back and forth of this way or that has driven us mad and almost killed us.

So, this way will do just fine, thanks.

People ignore death.
When searching only for life’s bounty
People ignore death.
Only those who don’t strive after life
Truly respect life.
TTC 75 (Addiss & Lombardo)

The fear of the many is that there is, and never has been a true North for any of us. We are the aimless, distracted, wayward, sons and daughters of an accidental happening in the Universe.

To feel so lost and only want to be found, we run, we run so fucking hard in search of others. In search of some meaning, some purpose.

Why are we here?

“If you want something you never had,
You have to do something you’ve never done.”
-Unknown-

We search for the feeling we think we know we want. It feels something like, peace, something like fulfillment, something like love, compassion, understanding.

We have searched all our lives for something we know nothing about, using feelings we have spent very little time with. We are lost because we believe ourselves to be seperate.

We run in circles looking for the feeling that feels like a lot of things, but boils down to this.

We want to feel like we belong.

A belonging that goes on and on for all time.

We look around ourselves and say I see the only thing out of place here is me.

We find ourselves separate so that no amount of searching could ever place us in the right direction. We could never find our place even if we had eternity to search for it outside ourselves. Because it does not exist anywhere but where we are.

We keep looking for what looks like us so that we belong because we can not see that we are apart of the whole damn thing. A happening in the Universe, like the stars and the trees, the birds and the bees.

If a searching place is where we abide then the soul may never rest but at your side,
Come to peace with what you are, the natural happening of the stars.
Instead of seeking let us find, bonded together for all of time,
An eternal embrace of Yin and Yang
One to one forever the same.
M. W. Whiteside

We can not see for the eyes we were given. Our noses make us weak to the scent of substance. Hands that feel pleasure and pain and ears that allow all sounds in the same.

Lost forever, until we choose something different. We must only choose to find ourselves here, right now and in so we are no longer lost. Seeing ourselves as wholly one with all the Universe and everything in it our direction and place becomes clear.

We are the happening of cosmic beauty, as the blooming of a flower is the percussive sound of spring. A vibrant vibration that makes the senses ring for no other reason than the joy it brings.

Can we abide in that glory, in the space that allows us to be the magnificent unfolding of a bang that started at the beginning of time and extends all the way to us with the same Universe creating force?

That is the sameness we are in. The separateness is only a feeling created by the senses to delude our own eternal happening. When you find that you are found, you will feel the footsteps of God on the ground. You will feel the moving of the Tao through all things and you will see the individual experience of all of life.

“Five colors darken the eyes.
Five tones deaden the ears.
Five tastes jade the palate.
Hunting and racing madden the heart.
Exotic goods ensnarl human lives.
Therefore the Sage
Takes care of the belly, not the eye,
Choose one, rejects the other.
TTC 12 (Addiss & Lombardo)

Happy Day

Tao Te Ching Day 50: Truth We Hide From

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We can never go back to the way things were once we know the truth of life. We can obviously try and go back, but time and time again we will find a brick wall with buzz saws waiting to meet us.

The truth is a sharp blade that decimates anyone in its path. Anyone unfamiliar with the sharpness of its cutting teeth will not know how to handle such a dangerous instrument. Many of us walk blindly into death, not knowing that the truth will severe us from our old self.

But here is the thing about truth, you always now it when you see it, because you always knew it all along. It was not someone else keeping it from you. It was you keeping it from you. This is the hardest truth of all. That we willfully hide from ourselves the truth of any parts of our lives so that we can sleep better, or get on with our sad excuses for lives.

Knowing the truth might make us quit our job, or leave a relationship, or hell stop eating, drinking, and thinking the way that we do. And shit if we did that, well hell, our whole lives would change and we can’t change our whole lives, not little old us. We spent a life time building this damn house that we now live in with all the crap that we now OWN, what do I want with truth? I like my toaster.

God the knife cuts with such power that we fear even the thought of it. We fear all of it.

It cuts our roots out and says try again, this time start with the truth of who you are, what you are. Do not leave a single poisoned root because doing so could infect the whole process.

And you know what, it hurts. All of it hurts. Cutting yourself off from the life you thought you were supposed to have. Cutting yourself off from the things you wanted to do, or thought you were supposed to do. The shit is painful and unforgiving as Hell, but it doesn’t matter not in light of the truth.

All that matters when the truth shows up is that you are no longer capable of being the same person as you once were. You have to be the person the truth shows you to be. Hiding any longer is like playing hide in seek in broad day light standing in an open field with your eyes closed, thinking that because you can’t see anything, nothing can see you.

Well, guess what, everyone sees it. We wear the truth we hide all over us like cheap cologne and an oversized fur coat in summer.

If the truth doesn’t set you free in this life, it will set you free from this life.

So let it be, let it be, let it be. The truth is here for you and me to see.

The good news is that it is the best life you will ever have living in the truth.

“If People do not fear death,
How can you threaten them with death?
But if people with a normal fear of death
Are about to do something vicious,
And I could seize and execute the,
Who would dare?
There is always an official executioner.
Trying to take the executioner’s place
Is like trying to replace a master woodworker
Few would not slice their own hands.
TTC 74 (Addiss & Lombardo)

Happy Day

Tao Te Ching Day 49: The Tao Decoded

I have been digesting multiple translations of the Tao Te Ching for over 49 days. The past two days my writing came out in the form of poetry. But, I got to be honest, it felt really good.

Something about writing by feeling instead of sense, feels so much more expressive and meaningful than trying to make sense of someone else’s meanings.

I do not profess to know much about the Tao Te Ching, or Lao Tzu, however, I feel as though I am beginning to understand the writing on another level and it is because I wrote about it from feeling and not sense.

The Tao Te Ching is written in such a way that every translation boils down to 81 chapters of poetry. Every page is a poetic expression of the way in which Lao Tzu or the many Sage’s responsible for writing the Tao Te Ching, felt and expressed their feelings about life.

Take chapter 26 as 1 of 81 examples.

“Gravity is the root of lightness,
Stillness is the master of passion.
The Sage travels all day
But does not leave the baggage-cart;
When surrounded by magnificent scenery
Remains calm and still.
When a lord of ten thousand chariots
Behaves lightly in this world,
Lightness loses its root,
Passion loses its master.
TTC 26 (Addiss & Lombardo)

This poetic language, does not give one the sense to understand what is being said immediately, but instead asks us to feel the weight of the words being used.

I find it so interesting reading four different translations of the Tao Te Ching, because you can see the subtle nature in which the words of Lao Tzu emotionally impacted each translator.

“When surrounded by magnificent scenery, remains still and calm,” is translated another way by Derek Lin as, “Even though there are luxurious sights, they are composed and transcend beyond.”

Which translation most accurately depicts what Lao Tzu was trying to say is anyone’s guess as we are now filtering feeling filled poetry through the lens of countless translations.

When we filter feelings in this way we may not ever know the true meaning as each “poet translator” takes on the task, like a game of telephone, and turns it into an interpretation of the artists true meaning.

But maybe that is what Lao Tzu intended. Lao Tzu said, (via translation of course), “True art seems artless.” Maybe this art, fashioned in the image of an original, is an original itself, and should be looked at thusly.

That we are no longer reading the words of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching but we are reading a description of a painting. The true art is in the way the painting is described, no longer in the painting itself.

So, the form has been transcended and not copied. Not given a different name but remaining the same because it is still the Tao and could never not be. It is expressed in the perfect way that it was always meant to be expressed; in a senseless poetic motion of the heart.

The words we speak do not speak to me.
The times we talk do not further our cause.
The life we lead is not locked in stone.
The peace we seek is ours alone.
We come from difference but sameness we abide.
Our lives become lost in the tidings we tie.
Lose what is lost and find what is mine,
Truth be unbonded to the one through all time.
M. W. Whiteside

If you want to know the Tao, you can feel it right now inside of you. If these words made you feel something, then that is the Tao. If you do not feel anything then that too is the Tao.

The Tao Te Ching was written as a cipher to decode feeling the Tao not understanding it or practicing it. Feeling it is the electric impulse of all, allness.

Happy Day

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Tao Te Ching Day 48: The Lies That Bind

Have we any meals for the meaningless? Can we enjoy the teaming ambivalence of our prosperity that grows the cells of our bodies to weigh on our souls.

Dirty dishes and ragged coughs.

Thirsty bitches and Un-cuffed power.

Wiser ones before and still a-facing the hour.

Go to the land of milk and honey and wait for your turn.

You showed up last, not every one gets burned.

You will, you will, you will learn.

Misery’s finest keeper is her own incessant thrum.

A noise so fine against the moving of the mind that the mind losses itself in the time it takes to choose between heaven and hell.

You can’t unsee the eve of despair when the leaders hold sway over all peoples ears.

Filling with mistrust and fear to bend their desires

Rewired their minds to kill the empire

Trust gone, gone on this old wet Meyer.

People unborn will be fresh in the fire.

Depression and anxiety fill are streets, we must consume all of the world’s finest treats.

Can’t be blamed for ones own faults, another man hangs and breeds another cult.

Pick up the self and put down the gavel

You judge you in your last and final hour.

When there are many restrictions in the world
The people become more impoverished
When people have many sharp weapons
The country becomes more chaotic
When people have many clever tricks
More strange things occur
The more laws are posted
The more robbers and thieves there are
TTC 57 (Lin)

Tied a knot against your will from the day you took the hill

All knots keep locks from frivolous epochs

Analyzing the inevitable

Prioritizing the explainable

People loose their homes to the tyrants

While the tyrants remain invisible

Building walls and weapons

We show our ass

Leaving behind the hero’s call

Sacred text forget them all.

Therefore the sage says;
I take unattached action, and the people transform themselves
I prefer quiet, and the people right themselves
I do not interfere, and the people enrich themselves
I have no desires, and the people simplify themselves
TTC 57 (Lin)

We poison ourselves with the potion of, feel better.

Happy Day

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Tao Te Ching Day 47: Long Day

Those who know do not talk
Those who talk do not know
TTC 56 (Lin)

Some day’s speak for themselves.

“Close the mouth
Shut the doors
Blunt the sharpness
Unravel the knots
Dim the glare
Mix the dust
This is called Mystic Oneness.”
TTC 56 (Lin)

I also call this meditation, or as I have become found of calling it; “napping with purpose.”

I hope everyone enjoys their night. I am going to let silence speak for itself today.

Exquisite finality,

Distant futility,

Missing frailty,

Hopeful failure,

Increased fantasy,

Belittling frantically,

Speak for the winners,

Yell for the badlands,

In the city, even the poor no excess,

No exception to the access.

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Tao Te Ching Day 46: Home

I stepped away from it all today. My girlfriend and I packed the mountain bikes in the truck and went in search of a mountain. Luckily we had a pretty good idea where one was. Good thing mountains aren’t always moving all over the place of their own accord, how would anyone take a hike?

Any way, it was really good to get out of the city and into nature. I needed it, she needed it. I realized while we were out, no matter how much I go into my self during meditation there is a need to get away from the things we find ourselves attached to in this life.

Even if those things are our homes, our families, our possessions, or our jobs. Even when it is something you love more dearly than anything, space can sometimes be just the thing needed to find your true home all over again.

This idea I had today actually goes, in some ways, against what Lao Tzu said.

“Without going out the door, know the world.
Without peering out the window, see the Heavenly Tao.
The further one goes
The less one knows.”
TTC 47 (Lin)

I am not saying Lao Tzu is wrong in saying we do not need to go anywhere to know the world, we must only look within, and thinking that we can find out anything about the world or ourselves by going out into the world is missing that we contain the world, the world does not contain us.

However, I do believe the act of getting away from what we know is a healthy way of untethering our invisible binds we have to the things in our lives.

Mentally, emotionally, we are always creating attachments to things in our lives that we hold dear. When we separate ourselves from those things the anxiety produced by the tethers of these physical things begins to dissipate and the longer we can remain away from them the less they weigh on our psyche.

Now maybe, if I was in a place of complete non attachment I would not have any need to get away from my physical home to now that my real home is always in my heart and I can abide there any time I’d like. As is, I am still with deep and powerful attachments and fears of loss in this physical world that need to be massaged and worked out like a crick in the neck.

It was so great to get away and ride up and down a mountain on my sweet ass Walmart mountain bike that was barely holding together, which increased the sense of danger and made it more fun. I got to meditate on top of a mountain next to a sign proclaiming “This is the home of jumping spiders,” I was like,

“Pfft, I am like a child, no insect or bug shall sting me. No rhino or tiger will hurt me.”

Which, thank God nothing got me. And while I was meditating I received a small dose of the peace I had so desperately been seeking the past few days and although it wasn’t a lot, it was enough.

I realized in my meditation that we always get everything we want. Are lives are filled with the things we wanted. It is why so many of us are unhappy. It is not that we don’t get what we want its that very rarely we want the things in life that we actually need.

To actually want what you need and need what you want is called perfect harmony. This is why gratitude lists exist. This is why every spiritual teacher, and every teacher teaching anything about manifesting, tries to first impress on the person the understanding that you already have exactly what you want in your life it is because you do not realize it yet that you can not materialize the other things you think you want.

Great need must be matched with a great want, when these to things are in harmony nothing is unreachable.

It is a teaching in the Program as well, “people who need to get sober rarely do, only those that really want to get sober, get sober.”

So, maybe I am not a Sage as of yet. Maybe, I need some more time to come to full understanding of the peace that lives with in all of us and find the unattached desire in my heart. Maybe, I still have a long way to go.

I am ok with that. I am ok with right now.

“Therefore the sage
Knows without going
Names without seeing
Achieves without striving.”
TTC 47 (Lin)

Happy Day

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