The first verse of the Tao Te Ching is one to be returned to, again and again ... The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and …
Taoism
Quarantine Favorites
Strangely enough, my daily rhythms during our quarantine time—from “stay at home” to the more recent “safer at home”—have not been dramatically different from what they had been, before this all began. For quite some time, my yoga/qigong practice has been a “home practice.” And, likewise, the majority of the freelance writing that I’ve recently been engaged with takes place in my home office … …
Inner Peace, Contentment, Satisfaction
An excerpt from my new book ... Everyone has had some experience, however fleeting, of deep inner peace, contentment, and satisfaction—a moment of feeling utterly complete. Perhaps such moments have come while listening to beautiful music, or being embraced by your beloved, or feeling awestruck by a million stars in the night sky, or even in the context of an emergency when some kind of quiet …
Scripture, Sutra, Ontological Heft
The Tao That Can Be Told In the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, Taoist sage Lao Tzu famously proposes that: The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. (translated by Stephen Mitchell) And I resonate with this, completely. There is this eternal …
Great Sky-Circles
The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings. ~ Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks) * * * I don't often suggest specific yoga asana or qigong sequences, but here's one—which I have explored and greatly appreciated—that aligns beautifully with …
Fasting Of The Heart-Mind
The Whole Being Listens Here's an interpretive rendering—via Christian mystic Thomas Merton—of a passage from the Chuang Tzu that describes a Taoist practice known as "fasting of the heart-mind." The basic idea is to notice the difference between three levels of hearing: (1) hearing with the ears; (3) hearing with the heart-mind (i.e. intellectual and/or emotional understanding); and (3) …