My morning meditation consists of listening to music, reading from various books, surfing through Tao blogs and other things I run across as I ease into my day. Sometimes these thoughts and ideas come together with a single theme, some days they do not. Some days I share what I find here, other days I store these things up while I think about them until they build into a blog post or perhaps simply fade into my being. Some things spring unbidden into my head and I find I must simply write them down. Those are the best things. It is all Tao, and it is all good. Of course some mornings are busy so I don’t get a chance to post until later. Today is one of those days.
So here is the day’s collection ….
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“Gifting” is the giving and receiving of love and energy between individuals in all of its possible forms: with words of affection, acts of service, quality time, physical touch. It is a process that requires you to be open to the world around you and find the strength in your own vulnerability. He writes:
“For your life to feel profound and full of love’s power, practice opening at all times, including times of hurt. Feel and breathe your heart’s deep hurt, and the hurt of others, without closing. Offer the openness of your heart to everyone, and especially to those who are wounding you. The only alternative is to close and live unfulfilled.” ~ David Dieda
How is man to live in a world dominated by chaos, suffering, and absurdity?
According to the mystic/philosopher Chuang Tzu: Free yourself from the world.
Chuang Tzu tells the story of a man named Nan-jung Chu who went to visit
the Taoist sage Lao Tzu in hopes of finding some solutions to his worries.
When he appeared, Lao Tzu promptly inquired,
“Why did you come with all this crowd of people?”
The man whirled around in astonishment to see if there was someone standing behind him.
Needless to say, there was not; the “crowd of people” that he came with
was the baggage of old ideas, the conventional concepts of right and wrong,
good and bad, life and death, that he lugged about with him wherever he went.
It is this baggage of conventional values that man must first discard before
he can be free.
“Free yourself from the world!”
“You know that in all tombs there is always a false door?”
Renisenb stared. “Yes, of course.”
“Well, people are like that too. They create a false door—to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority—and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is a bare rock… And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth—their true self reasserts itself.”
— Agatha Christie
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Dr. Howard Thurman
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