While it’s clear that the world has changed dramatically over the past 2,500 years, the advice in this 80th verse offers wisdom for the 21st century and beyond. Imagine a world where weapons are vestiges of the past, displayed in museums to illustrate and warn the populace about an absurdly violent history. You’d see the conflicts on this planet exhibited from the perspective of human beings as tiny microbes living on the same body, equally dependent on it and on one another for survival, yet killing each other and destroying their host anyway. War would simply seem senselessly destructive.
When we look at the conflicts that have taken place throughout history, we cannot help but see that the hatred and rivalries in ancient and modern times make no sense. Why won’t (or can’t) people share the land and live together peacefully? What seems so important that it’s necessary to kill each other over it? Even in fairly recent times, those individuals who were so hated that we tried to decimate them have become our allies. So what was all the killing about? Why haven’t we learned to live in harmony with the life-giving Tao? The answers to these questions are obviously complex, but, unfortunately, they continue to need to be asked.
This verse doesn’t negate an effort by you to create ways to live your utopia. Instead, it’s offering you an escape from the vicious cycle of hatred, murder, war, and subsequent cooperation before the next cycle of violence erupts. You can return to the basics of a peaceful existence by choosing to live simply and placing less effort on needing to conquer anyone. When you see the inclination toward creating more war machines, vote instead for candidates who support peaceful ways for dealing with conflict.
Your personal choices also align you with the tranquil nature of the Tao. You can opt to do without some of the new technology some, or even all, of the time. You can choose to write by hand and feel your connection to your Source as the words flow through your heart onto the paper. You can choose to walk rather than drive as often as possible. You can choose to compute numbers without a calculator, and remember phone numbers as a way of personalizing your connections. You can choose to swim or bicycle for exercise in lieu of using machines.
There are many laborsaving devices that Lao-tzu may never have dreamed about, and you can eliminate them as part of your simplification routine. Maybe not having e-mail or downloading music is your way of symbolically staying close to the land that Lao-tzu speaks of in this verse. In other words, you can know what the modern world offers in the way of information and technology, while at the same time being aware of the areas of your life where you want to keep things basic. Recognize when you’re feeling the effects of information overload, too many gadgets, or overcomplication, and switch to a natural environment that pleases you for whatever amount of time you choose.
Lao-tzu seems to be encouraging you to simplify as a way to heighten awareness of your Tao connection. Try out these new attitudes and behaviors to help you change the way you think about your modern life; you may in fact change the life you’re living!
Practice radical appreciation.
Begin a practice of joyfully engaging with the things you take for granted. There are comforts such as your home, garden, meals, clothes, family members, and friends that you experience every day without ever appreciating them. Choose to pay attention—make the shift by giving thanks and loving appreciation. Spend more time close to home in awe over the many simple treasures that make up your life.
See paradise all around you.
Change your belief that you must travel, be worldly, and experience distant lands and people in order to have a fulfilling life. In fact, you could reside on the same street for a lifetime without ever leaving and know the bliss of the Tao. Keep in mind the thought offered by Voltaire: “Paradise is where I am.” If where you are is at home, with the same people, the same photographs, and the same furniture, make it your paradise. Find joy and solace in the simple. Change your view to see the pleasure in what you have, where you’re located, and who you are. Cultivate your utopia by feeling the Tao in every cubic inch of space.
Do the Tao Now
Devote a day to food! Appreciate the mysterious intelligence that created food for your health and pleasure, and say a prayer with every connection to it. Going grocery shopping, cooking, planning a dinner party, being a dinner-party guest, eating at a restaurant, grabbing a snack, or having some popcorn at the movies are just some of the opportunities to consciously explore that connection. See these food connections as a part of the endless Tao cycle, and being in your own utopia.
81st Verse
True words are not beautiful;
beautiful words are not true.
Good men do not argue;
those who argue are not good.
Those who have virtue do not look for faults;
those who look for faults have no virtue.
Sages do not accumulate anything
but give everything to others;
having more, the more they give.
Heaven does good to all,
doing no evil to anyone.
The sage imitates it, acting
for the good of all,
and opposing himself to no one.
Living Without
Accumulating
This final verse of the Tao Te Ching provides the closing message of this entire collection of ideas: You came from no-thing-ness. The place of your origination had no things; the place of your return is one of no things. Therefore, Lao-tzu is inviting you to replace the accumulation of more stuff with the celebration of your true essence. Just as nothing is pure Tao in its formlessness, the real you is that same formlessness . . . for you are the Tao.
The Tao Te Ching attempts to attract you to a way of being that recognizes nothingness as the Tao—you could call it a God-realized way of being. In this final essay, I’ve chosen to propose that you access your nonbeing, Tao self by living without accumulating. This means giving more, arguing less, and releasing your attachment to everything in the world of the 10,000 things. Ultimately, living this way even means letting go of your attachment to your life and your body. But you can practice this right now, while you’re still living in the world.
Saint John of the Cross speaks to this way of seeing your life:
To reach satisfaction in all
desire its possession in nothing.
To come to possess all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
All of this wisdom of nothingness comes out of the offerings of Lao-tzu, the ancient spiritual sage who wants us to experience the bliss of being all by knowing a nonaccumulating place of nothing ness.
It is difficult to imagine a world without things, yet in this final verse of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu takes you through what such a world would look like. You don’t need beautiful words, since there is no-thing for you to describe. There is no-thing to argue about, as there are no possessions to fight over. There’s no faultfinding or blaming, for all that exists is the hidden virtue of the Tao. And finally, there is no-thing to collect, amass, or accumulate, which leaves you in a state of creative giving and supporting. “Heaven does good,” says Lao-tzu, and good is a synonym for God, which is truly the same as the Tao.
Meister Eckhart illustrates the interchangeability of the words God and Tao in this piece:
God is a being beyond being
and a nothingness beyond being.
God is nothing. No thing.
God is nothingness.
And yet God is something.
You’re encouraged in this final verse of the enduring and amazing Tao Te Ching to do all that you can to imitate heaven while you’re here in form.
Try out these suggestions from Lao-tzu as you change your thoughts, and ultimately your life, forever:
Quit accumulating points for being right!
Let go of your p
ropensity for argument and replace it with the willingness to allow anyone with whom you have a disagreement to be right. End your quarreling ways by simply telling the other 81st Verse person something like this: “You’re right about that, and I appreciate hearing your point of view.” This ends the argument and eliminates blame and faultfinding at the same time. Change ego’s need to be right by using the Tao-based statement, “You’re right about that.” It will make your life so much more peaceful.
Reduce yourself down to zero or
Observe your body and all of your belongings, and then put them into the changing-world context. Keep this statement from Mahatma Gandhi in mind: “If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to zero.” So from a place of no-thing-ness or zero, become the observer, seeing what you accumulate in the world of things. From this perspective, you’ll find that nothing can ever truly be real in such a world. Practice this exercise whenever you’re feeling attached to your possessions or your point of view.
D. H. Lawrence dramatically captures this idea:
Are you willing to be sponged out,
erased, cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will never really change.
Now glance again at the title of this book, Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao. Be willing to change.
Do the Tao Now
I leave you with these words of Lao-tzu from Tao Te Ching: A New Translation, which were translated by Sam Hamill. Here’s the final verse:
The sage does not hoard,
and thereby bestows.
The more he lives for others,
the greater his life.
The more he gives to others,
the greater his abundance.
Copy these words by hand, study them, and put them into practice at least once each day. You will energize the flow of the Tao in your life, in this world of 10,000 things.
Namaste,
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Epilogue
I close this yearlong project on a personal note to share with you how these 81 verses unexpectedly increased my personal sense of awe and incredulity concerning the power and vast wisdom in this ancient classic.
Reread the display quote at the beginning of this book, which is attributed to Confucius. Legend has it that this master was so impressed by Lao-tzu’s influence that he sought him out for consultation on etiquette and rules, which was the major focus of Confucian philosophy but considered to be hypocrisy and nonsense by Lao-tzu. After meeting Lao-tzu, Confucius told his disciples that the man was a sage—a dragon with mysterious powers beyond the understanding of most people, including Confucius himself.
Throughout the writing of these 81 short essays, I felt an almost mystical attraction to Lao-tzu. In the early verses, I thought of him as a great educator offering all of us advice on how to apply his wisdom from an ancient Chinese perspective to our modern world. As time passed and I became more engrossed in his teachings, I began to feel that Lao-tzu was speaking directly to me . . . and then through me to you, and even to coming generations. It felt at times as if Lao-tzu was intently saying that we had to get these important messages or perish as a civilized society. As this book unfolded, there were times that I could even feel his presence.
When I concluded writing this manuscript, I had an unavoidable and painful opportunity to experience the dragonlike qualities that impressed Confucius. Through the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu gave me insight into the Way to confront the winds and clouds of time and space, along with what initially seemed to me to be an insurmountable crisis.
As I reread the final edit of Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life, I was presented with perhaps the greatest personal challenge of my life. I felt the deep internal hurt that often drives human beings into conflicts. I felt the anger that allows people to think of themselves as victims and ultimately leads to the extremes of war that are addressed so frequently throughout the Tao Te Ching. My thoughts struggled with how Lao-tzu could speak of never having enemies—surely it would be impossible for anyone to stay serene and feel connected to their Source of love and well-being in the face of what I was going through. What good fortune could be hidden in this misfortune that seemed to emerge out of nowhere for no justifiable reason? Was I now to be the designated teacher for “bad men”? On and on went the questions within me as I read each verse.
Then it began to feel as if Lao-tzu’s dragonlike character appeared, burning my face as I read. It was almost as if he spoke these words directly to me:
So you think you’ve mastered the Great Way because you’ve spent a year reading and interpreting these 81 verses. Here’s an opportunity to explore your mastery of the Tao. Here’s something unexpected that’s capable of turning you upside down and inside out spiritually, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Apply all that I’ve taught you: Stay peaceful; trust your nature; know that it is all perfect; and most of all, do nothing. Live the hidden virtue of the Tao. If you feel dragged into a war, refuse to have any enemies. Don’t have any violence in your mind—no revenge and absolutely no judgment. Do this while staying centered in the all-loving, all-knowing perfection of the Tao in the face of what you think of as insurmountable. Then you will be able to call yourself a man of the Tao.
I began to feel that Lao-tzu was warming me with his dragon fire, as each verse was exactly what I needed each time I reread it. What at first seemed so hopeless and devastating became my ultimate calling: to live joyously and with deep gratitude for all that the Epilogue Tao brings me. As you close this book, it is my wish that you, too, will be able to apply this great wisdom of the Tao so that you can, even in the most difficult of times, change your thoughts and enjoy changing your life as well. I may not be a Tao master, but I am a man of the Tao. However these words of the Tao Te Ching came to be written and to endure for over 25 centuries, I’m honored to have been called to help clarify them for you. I am at peace.
Thank you, Lao-tzu.
Acknowledgments
I thank the translators and authors of
the following ten books:
The Essential Tao: An Initiation into the Heart of Taoism through the Authentic Tao Te Ching and the Inner Teachings of Chuang Tzu, translated
and presented by Thomas Cleary
The Illustrated Tao Te Ching:
A New Translation with Commentary, by Stephen Hodge
Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tsu;
translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition,
by Lao Tzu; translation and commentary by Jonathan Star
Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, by Stephen Mitchell
Tao-Te-Ching: A New Translation,
by Lao-Tzu; translated by Derek Bryce and Léon Wieger
Tao Te Ching: A New Translation,
by Lao Tzu; translated by Sam Hamill
Tao The Ching, by Lao Tzu; translated by John C. H. Wu
A Warrior Blends with Life: A Modern Tao, by Michael LaTorra
The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner
About the Author
Wayne W. Dyer, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development. He’s the author of 30 books, has created many audio programs and videos, and has appeared on thousands of television and radio shows. His books Manifest Your Destiny, Wisdom of the Ages, There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, and The New York Times bestsellers 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, The Power of Intention, and Inspiration have all been featured as National Public Television specials.
Wayne holds a doctorate in educational counseling from Wayne State University and was an associate professor at St. John’s University in New York.
Website: www.DrWayneDyer.com
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