“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 44” by Lao Tzu

“Death and the Miser” by Hieronymus Bosch

As for your name and your body, which is the dearer?
As for your body and your wealth, which is the more to be prized?
As for gain and loss, which is the more painful?

Thus, an excessive love for anything will cost you dear in the end.
The storing up of too much goods will entail a heavy loss.

To know when you have enough is to be immune from disgrace.
To know when to stop is to be preserved from perils.
Only thus can you endure long.

Once again, Lau Tzu offers a pearl of wisdom that is important today. Our present culture is one that encourages constant striving for more, regardless of how much you have. Corporations must always show higher earnings and growth, and the measure of personal success is determined by the rate of increase in wealth.

The problem with this mentality, as Lau Tzu points out, is that it is not sustainable. Eventually, there will be suffering as a result of this paradigm, and we are beginning to see this suffering manifesting in the world around us. It is time for people to step back and realize when they have enough, and not be in constant competition with everyone around in an attempt to prove that they are somehow better at the “Game of Life” than the next person.

For myself, I have found that an attitude of gratitude helps me keep the urge for excess at bay. I have much to be grateful for in my life. And yes, there are things that would be nice to have, but I don’t have the burning desire to accumulate and accumulate.

Thanks for stopping by, and take a moment to reflect on all the great things in your life.

“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 29” by Lao Tzu

Image Source: Wikipedia

Does anyone want to take the world and do what he wants with it?
I do not see how he can succeed.

The world is a sacred vessel, which must not be tampered with or grabbed after.
To tamper with it is to spoil it, and to grasp it is to lose it.

In fact, for all things there is a time for going ahead, and a time for following behind;
A time for slow-breathing and a time for fast-breathing;
A time to grow in strength and a time to decay;
A time to be up and a time to be down.

Therefore, the Sage avoids all extremes, excesses and extravagances.

I feel that this is a passage that every politician, every corporate CEO, and every Wall Street banker should read. It is essentially the same idea as expressed in the sayings “Live simply so that others may simply live,” or “The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth.” As I look around at the mania associated with the frantic quest after more and more, I cannot help but acknowledge that this mindset is totally unsustainable. If we continue to tamper with our world and strip it of its resources, we will ultimately initiate our own demise. Lao Tzu, who lived in the 6th century BC, already understood this. Why is it so difficult for people to grasp today?

The other thing that struck me as interesting about this passage is its similarity to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which was put to music in the song “Turn, Turn, Turn.” I am not sure whether there was a sharing of ideas between the east and west in antiquity, or whether the authors had both tapped in to the same source of divine inspiration, but the parallel is something worth pondering.

Today, I will avoid all “extremes, excesses and extravagances.” If we all made a conscious effort to do this, what a change it would make in the world.

“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 3” by Lao Tzu

By not exalting the talented you will cause the people to cease from rivalry and contention.
By not prizing goods hard to get, you will cause the people to cease from robbing and stealing.
By not displaying what is desirable, you will cause the people’s hearts to remain undisturbed.

Therefore, the Sage’s way of governing begins by

Emptying the heart of desires,
Filling the belly with food,
Weakening the ambitions,
Toughening the bones.

In this way he will cause the people to remain without knowledge and without desire, and prevent the knowing ones from any ado.

Practice Non-Ado, and everything will be in order.

As I read this, I thought about just how different the paradigm or our western consumer society is from the way of governing depicted here. Our society feeds on the stirring of people’s desires. We feed our society with a constant stream of imagery about how their life should be, about the status they should attain, where they should live, what they should eat, the right clothes to wear. On and on it goes, like a carrot dangling in front of a horse, always within sight but never within reach.

It is a sad truth that a society built upon constant craving and wants cannot sustain itself. We will eventually deplete all our resources and collapse upon ourselves.

Will we be able to stop filling our hearts with desire and instead practice contentment with what we have? Will we start to feed the hungry within our society instead of hoarding for ourselves? Will we start educating people to think about the common good instead of personal and individual ambition? And will we finally find a way to strengthen our society from the inside, to toughen the bones that frame our civilization?

These are difficult if not impossible questions to answer. But by at least thinking about them and discussing them, we take the first step toward a more spiritual and sustainable culture.