Accuracy

Make every move count.
Pick your target and hit it.
Perfect concentration means
Effortless flowing.

A life that is spiritual requires focused action. It needs quick reflexes, accurate timing, and abundant skill. This is why followers of Tao are always compounding their self-cultivation: They want the ability to do whatever they want.

Each day your life grows a day shorter. Make every move count. All that matters is accomplishing what you envision with the greatest dispatch. Once you do, that aspect of your interest is discharged, and you can then go on to some new interest. If you do not engage in this ongoing process of action, you will never satisfy all the various aspects of the soul, and realization will never full mature for you.

Some assert that there is no end to desire, so we should undercut our ambition. But this doesn’t address the need for satisfaction. We need to have satisfaction in what we do in order to have a good sense of well-being. If we undercut our ambition, then we will never make any achievements nor satisfy our yearnings. This only leaves us with frustration, uncertainty, and timidity. Therefore, to follow Tao, we must identify our inner longings and dispatch them with a hunter’s accuracy.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

So many people suppress their ambitions in life, doing what others tell them they ought to do, or working to buy things they think they need instead of following their own dreams. Once you figure out that there is very little in the way of material things you actually need — food, clothing, shelter, the basics — then you are much more able to pursue your own ambitions and goals, the real ones, not the societal ones.

What do you really want to do? Find a way to do it. Then you can be so much clearer on what you want in your life. Take the class, read the books to teach you, find someone to teach you, but learn how to accomplish those goals. Don’t keep waiting for the right moment or time in your life to do something. Do it while you have the ambition and inspiration to accomplish it. That is the only way to feel satisfied with your life.