The TAO in Everyday Life
STEPHEN LAU
The TAO is in every aspect of life: growing up; receiving education; seeking careers; getting married; raising children; connecting with others; staying healthy; growing old; and facing life challenges.
THE TAO IN HEALTH AND HEALING
Both health and healing begin with the mind first, and not the body. So, always keep a healthy brain for optimal health and healing from any disease.
Keep yourself hydrated because 80 percent of your brain is water. Enhance and improve blood flow to your brain with exercise. Quit smoking, and limit your alcohol consumption. Manage your numbers regarding your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. Promote good mental health with breathing exercise, and avoid anxiety and depression. Develop meaning and purpose in your life.
To be diagnosed with a disease or disorder naturally creates fear -- fear of the unknown and the outcome.
Human fear comes in different forms: instinctive fear, such as fear of a dangerous environment; and psychological fear, such as anxiety, paranoia, and worry. The former is more natural and grounded than the latter, which is based more on the factor “might.” But all fear has to do with failure to do something, and ultimately death. Once you have illusively identified yourself with that fear in your mind, the fear begins to overtake you as a person, and you then become the very thing you are afraid of.
Consumed with fear, your mind may then begin to expect something different from what you fear. Any expectation will project the thinking mind into the future; that is, you begin to live in the future, as opposed to living in the present. But the future is uncertain and unreal. The more you project your thinking mind into the future as expectations, the more self-delusions you may have created to distort your thinking, and thus preventing your mind from making the right choices and decisions regarding all your health and healing issues.
Health and healing is a life-long journey -- your journey. So, you must take the first step -- just as Lao Tzu famously said: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.".
The TAO
A journey with no desire and no intent:
Take your first step of no desire and no intent for healing so as to change as well as to overcome any attitude of confusion and even despair related to the trauma of your disease. On your healing journey, with no intent upon arriving at the destination any time soon, you will continue to keep yourself moving forward, and you will then go the long distance on your long healing journey.
A wise traveler on a long journey has no fixed plans, and is not intent upon arriving the destination within a certain time frame. But that traveler is ready to use all the situations and all the people encountered to help him along the long journey.
Likewise, your healing journey is a long, on-going process, and not a destination. With innate and inexplicable power, it may appear that everyone (including your doctor and members of your family) and everything along your journey are also playing a part in facilitating in your favor all your endeavors in healing your disease.
"We try to be good, and do the best we can,
yet sometimes bad things happen to us.
We have no explanation for that.
We just follow the Way,
one step at a time,
accepting the good and the bad,
as essential parts of life.
We quietly respond to every situation
with neither strain nor stress.
We trust the Creator.
His net, vast and loose,
covers the whole universe,
and nothing slips through.
He controls all.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 73)
Trust and obedience is waiting patiently while letting things turn around in the natural cycle.
Your health and healing journey is forever fraught with many difficult and challenging situations that are beyond your control. The wisdom is to accept, embrace, and learn valuable life lessons from them, while waiting peacefully for the turnaround in the natural cycle of recovery and rejuvenation.
According to the TAO, being free of desires is your path to detachment, and thus giving you clarity of thinking to start your own healing journey.
Paradoxically, if you have no desire to desire for change or healing, there is stillness, in which you may see yourself gradually changing for the better in order to slowly heal yourself:
“To live a life of harmony, we need letting life live by itself. . .
So, follow the Way
Stop striving to change ourselves: we are naturally changing.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 57)
“Accordingly, we do not rush into things.
We neither strain nor stress.
We let go of success and failure.
We patiently take the next necessary step, a small step and one step at a time.
We relinquish our conditioned thinking.
Being our true nature, we help all beings
return to their own nature too.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64)
According to the TAO, a good traveler neither has fixed plans, nor shows any effort to arrive at the destination:
“The softest thing in the world
overcomes what seems to be the hardest.
That which has no form
penetrates what seems to be impenetrable.
That is why we exert effortless effort.
We act without over-doing.
We teach without arguing.
This is the Way to true wisdom.
This is not a popular way
because people prefer over-doing.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 43)
Begin your health and healing journey, and take your first step with effortless effort and humble simplicity:
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
Both health and healing begin with the mind first, and not the body. So, always keep a healthy brain for optimal health and healing from any disease.
Keep yourself hydrated because 80 percent of your brain is water. Enhance and improve blood flow to your brain with exercise. Quit smoking, and limit your alcohol consumption. Manage your numbers regarding your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. Promote good mental health with breathing exercise, and avoid anxiety and depression. Develop meaning and purpose in your life.
To be diagnosed with a disease or disorder naturally creates fear -- fear of the unknown and the outcome.
Human fear comes in different forms: instinctive fear, such as fear of a dangerous environment; and psychological fear, such as anxiety, paranoia, and worry. The former is more natural and grounded than the latter, which is based more on the factor “might.” But all fear has to do with failure to do something, and ultimately death. Once you have illusively identified yourself with that fear in your mind, the fear begins to overtake you as a person, and you then become the very thing you are afraid of.
Consumed with fear, your mind may then begin to expect something different from what you fear. Any expectation will project the thinking mind into the future; that is, you begin to live in the future, as opposed to living in the present. But the future is uncertain and unreal. The more you project your thinking mind into the future as expectations, the more self-delusions you may have created to distort your thinking, and thus preventing your mind from making the right choices and decisions regarding all your health and healing issues.
Health and healing is a life-long journey -- your journey. So, you must take the first step -- just as Lao Tzu famously said: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.".
The TAO
A journey with no desire and no intent:
Take your first step of no desire and no intent for healing so as to change as well as to overcome any attitude of confusion and even despair related to the trauma of your disease. On your healing journey, with no intent upon arriving at the destination any time soon, you will continue to keep yourself moving forward, and you will then go the long distance on your long healing journey.
A wise traveler on a long journey has no fixed plans, and is not intent upon arriving the destination within a certain time frame. But that traveler is ready to use all the situations and all the people encountered to help him along the long journey.
Likewise, your healing journey is a long, on-going process, and not a destination. With innate and inexplicable power, it may appear that everyone (including your doctor and members of your family) and everything along your journey are also playing a part in facilitating in your favor all your endeavors in healing your disease.
"We try to be good, and do the best we can,
yet sometimes bad things happen to us.
We have no explanation for that.
We just follow the Way,
one step at a time,
accepting the good and the bad,
as essential parts of life.
We quietly respond to every situation
with neither strain nor stress.
We trust the Creator.
His net, vast and loose,
covers the whole universe,
and nothing slips through.
He controls all.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 73)
Trust and obedience is waiting patiently while letting things turn around in the natural cycle.
Your health and healing journey is forever fraught with many difficult and challenging situations that are beyond your control. The wisdom is to accept, embrace, and learn valuable life lessons from them, while waiting peacefully for the turnaround in the natural cycle of recovery and rejuvenation.
According to the TAO, being free of desires is your path to detachment, and thus giving you clarity of thinking to start your own healing journey.
Paradoxically, if you have no desire to desire for change or healing, there is stillness, in which you may see yourself gradually changing for the better in order to slowly heal yourself:
“To live a life of harmony, we need letting life live by itself. . .
So, follow the Way
Stop striving to change ourselves: we are naturally changing.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 57)
“Accordingly, we do not rush into things.
We neither strain nor stress.
We let go of success and failure.
We patiently take the next necessary step, a small step and one step at a time.
We relinquish our conditioned thinking.
Being our true nature, we help all beings
return to their own nature too.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64)
According to the TAO, a good traveler neither has fixed plans, nor shows any effort to arrive at the destination:
“The softest thing in the world
overcomes what seems to be the hardest.
That which has no form
penetrates what seems to be impenetrable.
That is why we exert effortless effort.
We act without over-doing.
We teach without arguing.
This is the Way to true wisdom.
This is not a popular way
because people prefer over-doing.”
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 43)
Begin your health and healing journey, and take your first step with effortless effort and humble simplicity:
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
TAO in the following: