Dao of the Day: The Universe is Colorful

Photo from the Chandra space telescope. Watch a really cool video here.

Be brave in daring: kill or be killed;
Be brave in not daring: live and let live;
One of the two brings gain, one harm.
But which man knows what heaven condemns,
What precedents it is guided by?

The way of heaven masters all:
It prevails though striving not,
It replies though speaking not,
Comes although uncalled,
And gives good counsel though affected not.
Heaven's net, cast far and wide,
Seems slack yet nothing slips outside.

- Dao De Jing, Stanza 73
Translation and Commentary by Moss Roberts

Dao of the Day - Preventive Medicine

Tackle difficulties when they are easy.
Accomplish great things when they are small.
Handle what is going to be rough
when it is still smooth.
Control what has not yet formed its force.
Deal with a dangerous situation while it is safe.
Manage what is hard while it is soft.
Eliminate what is vicious
before it becomes destructive.
This is called
"attending to great things at small beginnings."

A tree so big it can fill the span of a man's arms
grows from a tiny sprout.
A terrace nine stories high
rises from a shovelful of earth.
A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step.
Thus, one of integral virtue
never sets about grandiose things,
yet he is able to achieve great things.

-Dao De Jing, Capter 64
From The Complete Works of Lao Tzu, translation and elucidation by Huaching Ni.

Dao of the Day

"Venerable Teacher, what is the relation between a soul and its physical life?"

"Kind prince, take this pine tree as an example. It has strong roots, a stout trunk, numerous branches, twigs, cones and needles, yet it started from a tiny seed. The original seed from that tree was formed from warmth, wind, water and earth; however, this combination alone does not make a tree. The most important components are the energy rays emanating from numerous sources. Even the energy of remote stars and the sun and the moon. The spontaneous integration of all these ingredients nurtures the chance of a new life and brings beauty and intelligence to life."

-Hua Hu Ching, Chapter 37
From The Complete Works of Lao Tzu, translation and elucidation by Hua-Ching Ni

Video: Autumn

Autumn Reflection

This is a nice video on the change of the seasons seen through the prism of Chinese philosophy. I'm not sure if this is an old video, an early video, or if the people who made it are in the southern hemisphere...

More from Help Is on the Way

In medicine we like to stay grounded only in what we can observe. Observation forms the cornerstone of all types of medicine, Chinese or Western or other. We observe people's tongues, the color of their faces, their posture and gait, the quality of their speech, even what they smell like. Modern tools like blood tests and MRIs allow us to observe in a different way.

But what if you observe something that others can't necessarily see? Here's another clip from the L.A. Weekly story Help Is on the Way, by Courtney Moreno.

I didn’t think I’d be able to fall asleep sitting in the rig, but in the end I did. I slept and I dreamed. In my dream there was a clean white room: white walls, tile floor. John Doe was lying on the floor, still naked but cleaned up: no sign of blood or brain or even the wound for that matter, and his skin and tattoos were gleaming. His eyes were closed, he wasn’t yet dead but not alive either, and whatever life existed in him was in the form of a kind of coiled-up and angry tension: Some part of him refused to let go.

I got underneath him very carefully. Curled up in a ball, my head lowered, my breathing labored, I inched his torso into a sitting position by leaning my body weight into his back and pushing the ground away. It was slow, meticulous work and he was unnaturally heavy. His arms were relaxed at his side and his head was tilted back resting on my serpentine spine. His mouth was ajar and through the open channel of his throat came a kind of smoke or light. Every time I nudged him, his body relaxed a little more, and that strange substance slid out, curling up into the air around him.

That smoke, that light was grateful to be going. It was grateful to be going, and the more it left him, the lighter and more relaxed his body became. No tension, no ugliness, no holding on. Just a body on a tile floor, with smoke and light in the air around it, and me crouched underneath.

I want to be that grateful when I go.

Jesus Christ!

What did Jesus do between birth and age 30? The Bible provides scanty details. His birth story is well-known, and everyone knows what happened later in life when he started speaking out about the political and religious situation of the time.

Well, here's one answer: he traveled to the Kunlun Mountains to learn Daoism. Huaching Ni has written a very interesting story about where Jesus learned about the nature of the universe and how he learned his special skills (walking on water, loaves and fishes, and resurrection are all covered).

I really enjoyed this book. If you're interested in Daoism and Christianity, it's a good read.

Dao of the Day

Dr. Alex Feng is my martial arts teacher since I was a child. He's also a Chinese medicine doctor, licensed acupuncturist, and Taoist leader. Once a month, in Oakland, California, he gives a talk about Taoism and leads a meditation. Now there are two videos of these talks online, and I'm pleased to be able to share them with you!

This is a long video, but at about the 31-minute mark he talks about centenarians, those who live to be 100 years old.

There are a couple common denominators. It's not about do you smoke; it's not about do you eat fish, or vegetable or zucchini or ling zhi or ginseng, or chicken or tofu, it's not about that. Do you drink alcohol, whiskey, wine, lime juice... it's not about that. It's about number one: can you still walk? Motility, mobility. That's why tai ji says, first things first: train your legs, train your foundation.

Two, interestingly enough, all the centenarians were still working. Working. Busy. They got things to do, places to go, hands to shake, babies to kiss... people to make contact with. There's service, they're still servicing. Selflessly. Wu wei.

Enjoy.

Dao of the Day

All of us, before we were born, were natural spirits. Once we have been born into the world, our original spiritual naturalness is blocked by the cultural and religious limitations of the time and place we live in. Although we are all natural spirits, because of the different kinds of worldly education, formal and informal, all of us view things differently. By becoming attached to the limited view, rather than everybody seeing the expansive natural truth, people fight. When people become developed, they do not fight anymore. They enjoy a different way of life called harmonizing with nature.

-Hua-Ching Ni, The Power of Natural Healing

Happy New Year! Dao of the Day

The universe is shaped exactly like the earth if you go
straight long enough you'll end up where you were

-3rd Planet, Modest Mouse

This song lyric references the holographic universe, the idea that each individual part reflects the whole. It's an important idea in Chinese medicine - the environment not only influences our human bodies, the environment IS our bodies. For clues on how to take care of yourself, look to the natural world.

Previously:

• The Universe is Like a Hologram
  
• Acupuncture for Portland
  
• Dao of the Day: Funkadelic

Dao of the Day

Words of truth are not beautiful;
Beautiful words are not truthful.
The good do not argue;
Those who argue are not good.
The wise are not extensively learned;
The extensively learned are not wise.
The Sage is not mean.
Simply doing things for others he feels greater fulfillment.
Simply giving to others he feels he has gained more.
The Tao of heaven benefits and does not harm.
The Tao of the Sage is to accomplish without competing.

-Lao Tzu: My Words Are Very Easy to Understand by Cheng Man-Ching and Tam Gibbs, Chapter 81

Words to trust are not refined.
Words refined are not to trust.
Good men are not gifted speakers.
Gifted speakers are not good.
Experts are not widely learned;
The widely learned are not expert.

Wise rulers for themselves keep naught,
Yet gain by having done for all.
Have more for having freely shared;
Do good not harm is heaven's Way;
The wise act for and not against.

-Dao De Jing: The Book of the Way by Moss Roberts, Chapter 81.

Dao of the Day

So wide can't get around it
So low you can't get under it
So high you can't get over it
This is a chance
Dance your way
Out of your constrictions
Here's a chance to dance our way
out of our constrictions

-Funkadelic, "One Nation Under a Groove"

Dao of the Day

In previous posts we've explored quotes from the Dao De Jing, the classic attributed to Laozi. Today we strike out in a slightly new direction: the Zhuangzi! Zhuangzi was a philosopher in the Warring States period who is supposed to have been Laozi's student and successor. The two are linked so closely that the school of thought attributed to them was known as "Laozhuang thought" before there was such a thing as Dao-ism.

Today's quote is from Thomas Merton's translation of the Zhuangzi. Thomas Merton was an interesting fellow - he was a Trappist monk who didn't read or write Chinese, although he was fluent in several other languages. His method of translation was to gather together the translations available in the languages he knew, read and assimilate them all to make an English version.

If a man steps on a stranger's foot
in the marketplace,
he makes a polite apology
and offers an explanation
("This place is so terribly
crowded!")

If an elder brother
steps on a younger brother's foot,
He says "Sorry!"
and that is that.

If a parent
treads on his child's foot,
nothing is said at all.

The greatest politeness
is free of all formality.
Perfect conduct
is free of concern.
Perfect wisdom
is unplanned.
Perfect love
is without demonstrations.
Perfect sincerity offers
no guarantee.

Dao of the Day

Today's quote from the Dao De Jing:

The five colors cause man's eyes to be blinded.
The five tones cause man's ears to be deafened
The five flavors cause man's palate to be cloyed.

Hard to obtain merchandise causes mankind to do wrong
So the Sage concerns himself with the abdomen and not the eyes
Therefore, he rejects the one and chooses the other.

This is from Lao Tzu: My Words Are Very Easy to Understand