I just spoke with my dear friend Lauren, who’s in the throes of watching her cat, who’s been with her for 19 years, get ready to pass on. She asked for my advice about having Sweet Pea euthanized to avoid prolonging her suffering. After I read her this verse and told her my own experience with that tiny bee, Lauren elected to hold Sweet Pea in her lap until death claimed her. A reverence for life as a form of the Tao helps us all realize that we’re not in charge of death decisions.
Lao-tzu’s legacy is summed up magnificently in the words of T. S. Eliot, from his poem “Little Gidding”:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started,
And know the place for the first time.
This is death—nothing to fear, nothing to do.
This is what I believe Lao-tzu is saying to you in this profound verse of the Tao Te Ching:
Discontinue fearing your death.
It makes as much sense to think about your death in fearful terms as it does to perceive the color of your eyes in such a way. The Tao is in it all—birth, life, and death. Reread the T. S. Eliot quote, as well as the 40th verse of the Tao Te Ching (which I titled “Living by Returning and Yielding”). By returning in death, you’ll truly know the Tao . . . for perhaps the first time.
Examine the ways you kill.
Make a decision that you’re no longer going to serve in the capacity of executioner, including even the smallest and seemingly most insignificant creatures, and then act on it. Live this principle by allowing the lord of life and death to decide when the return trip is to be made. Don’t make this a crusade; just make your own commitment to exist in harmony with the Tao. And by all means, don’t impose your beliefs on others, for noninterference is one of the major positions of the Tao Te Ching.
Do the Tao Now
During meditation, practice dying while still alive. That is, leave your body, discard it, and float above the world. This will help you disconnect yourself from feeling that your physical shell is who you are. The more you are the observer rather than the object of what you see, the easier it will be to remove your fear of dying. Do this for just a few minutes daily. Remember that you are not this body—you are a piece of the infinite Tao, never changing and never dying.
This excerpt from Neale Donald Walsch’s Communion with God elaborates on this thought:
Which snowflake is the most magnificent? Is it possible that they are all magnificent—and that, celebrating their magnificence together they create an awesome display? Then they melt into each other, and into the Oneness. Yet they never go away. They never disappear. They never cease to be. Simply, they change form. And not just once, but several times: from solid to liquid, from liquid to vapor, from the seen to the unseen, to rise again, and then again to return in new displays of breathtaking beauty and wonder. This is Life, nourishing Life.
This is you.
The metaphor is complete.
The metaphor is real.
You will make this real in your experience when you simply decide it is true, and act that way. See the beauty and the wonder of all whose lives you touch. For you are each wondrous indeed, yet no one more wondrous than another. And you all will one day melt into the Oneness, and know then that you form together a single stream.
75th Verse
When taxes are too high,
people go hungry.
When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit.
Act for the people’s benefit;
trust them, leave them alone.
Living by
Demanding Little
This verse was intended to help the ruling classes and the nobility manage the realm. Understand that during the warring-states period in ancient China, rulers used onerous methods to impose order on the masses: They tended to keep all of the tax money that was collected from the people for themselves, flaunting their good fortune in the faces of the impoverished. Those who were overtaxed and overburdened would lose their spirit and sense of loyalty and ultimately rebel against the laws imposed upon them.
This book you’re holding in your hands isn’t intended as a social commentary to enlighten political leaders who take advantage of their positions (although I’d certainly invite any of them to take heed of Lao-tzu’s advice!). Rather, I wrote it to help you apply the inherent wisdom in each of the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching. So you’re invited to change the way you look at assisting others to stay inspired and have contented and peaceful lives.
You may believe that demanding more from those in your charge, such as your children or co-workers, creates more productivity, but Lao-tzu suggests the opposite is true. Demand little, he advises, and even leave people alone as much as possible. And the imposition of excessive taxation on the masses can have an analogous component for you to consider when it comes to how you treat those you’re responsible for leading.
Government officials often vote to raise more and more money for pet projects and even their own personal benefit simply because they have the authority to do so. Since they’re in charge of lawmaking, they write rules that allow them to be abusive toward the very people who pay their salaries and provide them with all of their benefits. In virtually all cases, those who are being taxed to provide luxurious lifestyle perks receive far less in the way of benefits than those who are the recipients of that tax. In other words, the rule makers and others in power are using their positions to take advantage of ordinary people. When this becomes too prevalent, those ordinary people become restless and disruptive, with scant respect for authority. As Lao-tzu puts it “People lose their spirit.”
Rather than demanding more because you’re older, bigger, richer, or more powerful, leave those you’re in charge of alone whenever feasible, trusting in their inherent wisdom to do the right thing. Overbearing, taxing authorities create rebellion and chaos—and you’ll create the same unless you check your inclinations and reverse yourself by being less demanding instead of more.
I’ve practiced this approach to leadership my entire adult life by keeping the number of people who work for me and require my supervision to an absolute minimum. My demands on my manager/ secretary/all-purpose assistant are few and far between, and she’s been my sole employee for three decades. I allow her to negotiate contracts, to make all arrangements for speaking events, and to manage my very large business with an absence of demands from me. I don’t tell her what time to come to work, what to wear, or how to talk to people; and my reward for being a boss with minimal demands is someone who’s fiercely loyal, who can be depended on to do the right thing, who loves her job, and who is indispensable to me.
I behave the same way toward my editor, who has also been with me for 30-plus years. I write from my heart, allowing the words to flow onto the page, and then I send it to her. I trust this woman implicitly and allow her to do what she incarnated to do with no demands from me. My reward for being nonintrusive is to have my books beautifully and professionally polished. My editor and I also enjoy a loving, peaceful relationship, with both of us content and proud of the work we were destined to produce. While what I’m describing may seem impossible to you, it can absolutely be attained when you trust in the Tao to manage all of the details of both your professional and personal life.
The following is what Lao-tzu urges you to take from this 75th verse of the Tao Te Ching, which was originally intended for leaders of countries, but is applicable to everyone in a supervisory or parental role:
Don’t overtax yourself.
Lao-tzu’s reminder that excessive taxation will lead to a loss of spirit applies to you as well. If you weigh yourself down with excessive demands, you’ll wear yourself out or develop symptoms of depression, anxiety, worry, heart disease, or any number of physical ailments. Give yourself a break from self-imposed pressures that burden you, allowing yourself plenty of free time to commune with nature, play with your children, read,
see a movie, or just do nothing.
Trust those you’re entrusted to lead.
Don’t continually monitor those you’re responsible for raising or supervising; instead, develop a trust in your less experienced charges. They must be allowed to use their own minds, for they also have a destiny to fulfill that’s orchestrated by the Tao. So demand less and encourage more as much as you can, allowing them to pursue their own excellence and happiness. Your trust will lead to their trusting themselves and the wisdom that created them.
Do the Tao Now
Take a break from all that occupies your mind, including your responsibilities. Even if it’s only for 15 minutes, clear your mind, empty your “demands file,” and allow yourself the freedom that comes with being less exacting.
When you complete this, do the same with your children or someone who reports to you at work. Put your arm around them and ask them to go for a brief walk, just doing nothing but being together in nature. Then let them return to their responsibilities at their own pace.
If you’re thinking that your child or employee needs an imperious overseer, perhaps they’ve become that way because you haven’t trusted them to be self-reliant.
76th Verse
A man is born gentle and weak;
at his death he is hard and stiff.
All things, including the grass and trees,
are soft and pliable in life;
dry and brittle in death.
Stiffness is thus a companion of death;
flexibility a companion of life.
An army that cannot yield
will be defeated.
A tree that cannot bend
will crack in the wind.
The hard and stiff will be broken;
the soft and supple will prevail.
Living by
Bending
The thing I love most about studying the Tao Te Ching is its impeccable adherence to finding the Great Way by closely studying nature. In this passage, Lao-tzu asks us to change the we look at the concept of strength by noticing how the most solid and durable things in the natural world tend to be soft, gentle, and even weak. If we see strength as being hard, inflexible, and unyielding, he invites us to change that perception. Life, according to Lao-tzu, is defined as soft and pliable.
Some of my fondest memories of my eight children came from watching their flexible newly born bodies in awe. I could lay them on my lap and easily place their feet in their mouths or even behind their necks! They were perfect yoga masters at the tender age of only a few months or even days. When they were toddlers, I watched in amazement, often holding my breath as they bumped their heads, ran into walls without looking, and took what appeared to be nasty falls. Yet lo and behold, they’d shake it right off. What would have surely resulted in a broken hip or arm for an older person was hardly noticed by these limber youngsters.
By the same token, an older tree that’s getting close to death will become hard, brittle, and susceptible to fire and harsh winds. Since the tree can’t bend, a strong gust can blow it right over. As it ages, the wood becomes weaker simply because it’s inflexible. Its rigidity, which some think of as strength, has actually turned it into a weak organism. Similarly, at the moment of death all creatures go into rigor mortis, which is complete stiffness and, of course, a total absence of strength.
Being pliable and able to bend goes beyond the aging process that all bodies are destined to experience. Thus, Lao-tzu encourages you to apply this principle to your thought processes and behaviors. You’re reminded that rigidity and hardness accompany death, while pliability and even weakness are the companions of life. You may have been taught that strength is measured by how “hard” you are in your thinking or how inflexible you are in your opinions, and that weakness is associated with those who bend. But when confronted with any stressful situation, keep in mind that being stiff won’t get you very far, whereas being flexible will carry you through.
Change the way you think about strength, not just as it relates to those in positions of power, but for yourself as well. There’s a lot to be said for what we’re conditioned to think of as weak: Begin to see that strength is weakness, and weakness is strength . . . just another of the Tao Te Ching’s fascinating paradoxes.
Here’s what Lao-tzu urges you to consider as you apply the lessons of this oft-quoted 76th verse:
Be strong by bending.
Be willing to be like palm trees in the midst of hurricane-force winds—their so-called weakness somehow gives them the strength to survive devastating storms. The same is true for the way you relate to others, so listen more, allow your viewpoints to be challenged, and bend when necessary, knowing that you’re actually choosing strength. The more you think in rigid ways, refraining from considering other points of view, the more you’re liable to break. As Lao-tzu reminds you, “The hard and stiff will be broken,” while “the soft and supple will prevail.”
Examine your unbendable attitudes.
Scrutinize your attitudes on matters such as the death penalty, legalization of certain drugs, abortion, gun or birth control, taxation, energy conservation, and any other issues on which you hold an unshakable position. Then make an effort to walk in the shoes of 76th Verse those who have opposite opinions. When you consider the rebuttals they’d offer, you’ll see that this old proverb has some truth in it:
This is my way!
What is your way?
The way doesn’t exist.
Today, for example, I had a conversation with my daughter Serena concerning a presentation she was to make before one of her college classes. She was convinced that her conclusion was unbendable regarding a large retail chain’s employment policies. There was no room for discussion—they were wrong and she was right. Yet for the sake of an intelligent discussion, I took the position of the retail giant and tried to offer that perspective to her. As our discussion continued, my daughter found herself bending just a bit. As she realized that every story has two sides, she found herself willing to listen to the opposition. Serena was able to bend in a way that made her strong.
If leaders on both sides of any matter were willing to at least listen to each other, conflicts wouldn’t need to escalate to life-and-death proportions. By listening, yielding, and being gentle, we all become disciples of life.
Do the Tao Now
Every day in yoga class there’s an exercise that reminds me of this verse of the Tao Te Ching, and I encourage you to practice it right now. Stand with your feet together, raise your hands above your head, and stretch as high as you possibly can. Now bend to the right as far as you can go, stretching for 60 seconds. Then return to an upright position and do the same on your left side. All the while, see yourself as flexible, supple, and able to bend in harmony with the Tao.
77th Verse
The way of heaven
is like drawing a bow:
The high is lowered,
the low is raised.
When it is surplus, it reduces;
when it is deficient, it increases.
The Tao of mankind is the opposite:
It reduces the deficiency
in order to add to the surplus.
It strips the needy to serve those who have too much.
Only the one who has the Tao
offers his surplus to others.
What man has more than enough
and gives it to the world?
Only the man of the Tao.
The master can keep giving
because there is no end to his wealth.
He acts without expectation,
succeeds without taking credit,
and does not think that he is better
than anyone else.
Living by
Offering the Surplus
If you view the ways of heaven from a distance, you’ll find that nature is perfect. The Tao is at work, invisibly keeping a Divine balance. When I was in Sedona, Arizona, for instance, I took a tour of the forested areas in the s
teppes of the majestic red-rock mountains. After I lamented the recent fires that had decimated so many trees, the guide explained how this had actually been nature at work. “For millions of years,” he explained, “when the forest gets too thick, nature’s lightning strikes and thins out the forest.” Without such an occurrence, the timber would choke on its own surplus. This is how our planet works.
While at times natural events such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, windstorms, and excessive rainfall can seem disastrous, they’re actually maintaining balance. This is also clear in the lives of butterflies, flocks of geese, or herds of caribou and buffalo—the sport of killing upsets nature’s system of dealing with surpluses. And the Tao agrees: “When it is surplus, it reduces; when it is deficient, it increases.” Observe nature, says Lao-tzu: If deficiencies exist, don’t continue to reduce what’s already in short supply.
The lessons in these final verses relate to governing the masses by staying harmonized with the Tao. Lao-tzu seems to rail against people in positions of political power who took from the needy to give themselves more of what they didn’t need. In today’s world, we can see evidence of this practice in myriad ways, but especially in lawmakers voting themselves benefits to be paid for by everyone else: They give themselves 95 percent retirement packages, medical insurance for life, limousines, private parking places on public land, and free first-class travel, even as they strip the needy and serve those who have too much. And in countries where starvation is rampant, it’s not unusual to see large amounts of food and supplies stacked on docks while people die from malnourishment because government representatives think they’re “above” all that.
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life Page 28
