Sublime

SU CH’E says, “Sages don’t try to be above or in front of others. But when they find themselves below or behind others, the Tao can’t help but lift them up and push them forward.

Lao-tzu’s essential teaching of wu-wei, on the other hand, illustrates the futility of our attempts to control life. He emphasizes that it is only when you give up forcing or controlling anything that you begin to get the kind of control you always wanted, but never knew existed.

LI JUNG says, “Water has no purpose of its own. Those who can remain empty and not compete with others follow the natural Way.”

Society can be improved only by self-sacrifice. Heaven and earth are eternal. They are eternal because they do not exist for themselves. In the same way, a truly holy person does not live for himself, and therefore he can become eternal, and can achieve anything. —LAO-TZU

And so, the secret in Taoism is to get out of one’s own way, and to learn that this pushing ourselves, instead of making us more efficient, actually interferes with everything we set about to do.

Tao is a way of life, not a god or religion. It literally means “Way,” or path—a trail on the journey through life that conforms to nature’s own topography and timetables. Any path but Tao is, by definition, artifice. Western ways, which attempt to conquer rather than commune with the forces of nature, lead inevitably to a schizophrenic split betwe

HO-SHANG KUNG says, “Others seek the ornamental. Sages seek the simple. Others seek form. Sages seek Virtue. Others study facts and skills. Sages study what is natural. Others learn how to govern the world. Sages learn how to govern themselves and how to uphold the truth of the Way.

When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished, to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven.

The true sage, according to Lao Tzu, is someone who is of the people, with the people and for the people. Those who attain a high level of spirituality never do so in a vacuum.