The Tao of Oz

I've written many times before that Taoist themes pop up in the unlikeliest places. Often, we find such themes in classic works. I'm certainly not suggesting that an author sets out to pen a Taoist metaphor, but the universal aspects of Taoism can still be easily discerned. For but one example, The Wizard of Oz.

Near the end of this classic film, we find the following dialogue:

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda (Good Witch of the North): You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Tin Man: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I -- I think that it -- that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em -- and it's that -- if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?
Glinda: That's all it is!
Scarecrow: But that's so easy! I should have thought of it for you.
Tin Man: I should have felt it in my heart.
Glinda: No. She had to find it out for herself. Now, those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds!

In other words, a person can't find themselves looking externally. Our self is always where we are.

Even more importantly, no one can hasten the journey of someone else's self-discovery. Each of us must follow own own path in our own way in our own time.

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The Double-Edged Sword

I received my determination letter today from Washington's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. I have been classified as an "Individual with Severe Disabilities". While no one would be overjoyed to be classified as such, I am very pleased, if only because my worsening medical condition has been validated by the government.

Yet, this happiness is very tempered. Because I do not fall into the profoundly disabled category, I'm being offered NO SERVICES at this time. No, my name has been added to a waiting list and I've been told I can expect to receive the needed services sometime in the next 2-3 years (that's right, y-e-a-r-s)!

It seems there's not enough money budgeted to provide services to people with disabilities. Our government has more than enough money to wage a senseless war in Iraq, but we don't have enough money to assist our own citizens. Seems like rather odd priorities, doesn't it?

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Vegetarian "Terrorists" Among Us

I'm feeling much safer now. I've just learned that our intelligence community is being ever vigilant to protect me and you from vegetarian "terrorists". You know the kind I'm referring to, don't you? Yes, it's those [vile] people who gather vegetarian food to feed to the poor and the transient. Gosh, if we were to allow this type of activity to continue unfettered, it could mean the end of mom, apple pie and baseball!

According to "Keeping Tabs on the Peaceniks" posted on AlterNet today,

More evidence that the U.S. government is justifying surveillance of political dissidence under the guise of monitoring "terrorism" has recently come to light. Early this March an FBI agent's presentation at the University of Texas law school listed Indymedia, Food Not Bombs, the Communist Party of Texas and "Anarchists" as groups on the FBI's "Terrorist Watch List" for central Texas.

Food Not Bombs...is a moniker for volunteer-run groups that distribute unused vegetarian food from grocery stores and restaurants for free to the general population. Its name stems from a belief that excessive military spending could be redirected to provide food for the hungry.

It's damn scary to think that there are people out there wielding zucchini and carrots. I mean, those things are radioactive, aren't they? Would you want to chance sitting down next to someone on a bus or the subway who was "armed" with an apple or head of lettuce?

I shudder to think of the danger!

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Fiscal Amnesia

Ruth Conniff's column "Shooting for the Sun" in the April edition of The Progressive provides a most apt example of the disconnect between what the Bush administration SAYS and what the same administration DOES. Remember how the mighty shrub ran around shouting, "Support the Troops! Support the Troops!" while the budget he submitted to Congress cut things like VA benefits?

Well, here's another prime example:

President Bush snapped on his safety goggles and toured the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, on February 21. It was part of his tour to promote energy proposals that are supposed to end our "addiction to oil," as the president put it in his State of the Union address. Just before Bush's photo-op at the lab, the Energy Depatment quickly restored $5 million in funding the Administration had cut from the very programs the President was there to tout.

The lab rehired the thirty-two workers it had laid off the day after the State of the Union speech...the $5 million represents only a fraction of the labs $28 million shortfall. Bush's budget cuts have brought much of the nation's renewable energy research to a halt. [emphasis added]

I could make a glib comment here, but this story speaks for itself!

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Democracy Ain't Always Pretty

The Bush administration and pro-war conservative Christians must really be feeling a bit bewildered by now. We go to Afghanistan to liberate "the people" from the Taliban and yet we recently learned that a Christian-convert is facing the death penalty for denying Islam. We go to Iraq to liberate "the people" from Saddam Hussein and the people, in turn, don't vote for the US-backed candidates. We try to affect "democracy" for the people of Palestine and they overwhelmingly vote for Hamas.

What so many conservatives fail to comprehend is that democracy can be a bitch. When people are afforded the opportunity to make choices, said choices won't always be what particular people may prefer.

If you truly believe in democratic principles, you've got to accept this fact.

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What's So Civil About Debate?

While reading the newspaper this evening, a particular headline caught my eye that stated something like, "Bush Open to Civil Debate on Immigration". This got me to thinking -- What IS a civil debate? In my experience, what most people mean by this term is that they welcome a robust discussion as long as you end up agreeing with whatever their stated position is!

This is not merely a Bush administration problem. No, it's extremely commonplace. You hear Republicans and Democrats call for civil debate. The same goes for Christians and atheists. People talk about it in the largest corporations and at small neighborhood meetings. The call for civil debate is everywhere.

If we examine these two words, I think we'll find that they aren't a good fit; they don't mesh well together. In a manner of speaking, it's like putting oil and water together. You wind up with either very oily water or watered down oil.

Civil means "sufficiently observing or befitting accepted social usages; not rude". A synonym often used in place of civil is polite. Debate, on the other hand, is a far more aggressive word. It means "to engage in argument by discussing opposing point...to dispute".

Now, I realize that some people won't see a problem with the marriage of these two words. What's wrong with a polite argument? From my perspective, civil and polite are very subjective terms. What I may consider polite, you may consider downright vulgar. What you consider civil, I might call divisive.

Even further, arguments tend to devolve quickly into very emotional affairs. When most people that I know argue, there is a certain amount of tension in the air. If the argument lasts more than a minute or two, the conversation grows heated and some folks begin to lose their composure.

So, you see, in order to be civil, one must be rational. Unfortunately, arguments are more often the realm of emotion. Generally speaking, when rationality and emotions collide, the latter wins out.

For me, anyone who pleads for a civil debate is asking for something that doesn't objectively exist.

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Questions or Answers?

One of the key concepts in Taoism is the idea that opposites beget each other. It's the same supposition that Hegel made in his work on the dialectics. Feuerbach and then Marx, of course, took Hegel's concept even further in the discussion of dialectical materialism. In Taoism, this conceptualization is best typified by the Yin-Yang symbol.

Beyond this idea that opposites qualify each other and are gradients toward each other on the continuum of life, there also exists in Taoist thought the notion of balance and harmony. This has gotten me to thinking lately about the interrelationships between such concepts and I'm having a difficult time wrapping my wee brain around them.

If the goal of all being is the attempt to balance between conflicting forces, what then is the balance between good and evil or right and wrong? Put another way, what do we call the dead center between light and darkness?

In one manner of speaking, such a place must contain both lightness and darkness. Yet, on the other hand, we could just as easily posit that the mid-point between these two extremes (extremes in the sense of human comprehension) may not contain either. So what exactly is it? What do we refer to it as?

And this leads me to the real ultimate human question: What is the precise middle ground between life and death? Is it embracing life while recognizing death or is it something devoid of both?

I'm not going to offer a glimmer of an answer because, right now, I don't have any. That's not to say that I don't know the answer; it's more than I'm not quite sure of the question.

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Hmmm...

One of the many facets of having a blog is the pressure to write, even when you don't have anything you feel needs to be written. For some, it's simply a case of market numbers. Such folks are always working to increase their hit count. For others of us, the pressure to write is borne more out of a sense of duty and obligation to our regular readers -- We've invited you to be a partner in our virtual world, so we want to share something -- anything! -- with you.

As Taoists, however, we understand the importance of flow. Sometimes the river rushes swiftly. Sometimes it meanders. And sometimes the water is quiet and unmoving.

My waters today fall into the latter category. There are many things that I am contemplating; they simply haven't asked me to write them and, until they do, I won't.

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In Memory

A lot of the verbiage on so many blogs is about the most trivial matters. Others deal with local, regional, national and/or international news and commentary. Some, like this one, deal with philosophy and perspective which can sometimes border on the trivial. But some blogs deal with life and death issues and are about as personal as one can get.

The author of The Useless Tree is in mourning. His remarkable 14 year old son died yesterday. Many of us know about the trials, travails and great joys of his son's life through the book, Aidan's Way (Understanding disability from a Taoist point of view).

So, my one post for this day is in memory to Aidan Martin Crane. He has touched so many lives through the words of his father. As Luke Skywalker might say, "I feel a tremble in the Force".

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Of Rotten Canned Meat

There are a few certainties in each person's life: birth, death, taxes and...SPAM. (Even if a person never uses a computer or the internet, they still receive spam in the form of junk mail!) Yes, spam has become ubiquitous. Even more importantly, it's everywhere simultaneously. I'm beginning to wonder if spam isn't necessarily constrained by the space-time continuum.

The one thing about spam that really bothers me is that most such pieces aren't written very well. Each one seems chock-full of misspellings, incorrect grammer and lax or nonexistent punctuation. They seem to be the last reservoir of the famed dangling modifiers and run-on sentences.

I realize not everyone may be as discriminating as I am. However, if I receive a solicitation from someone and said solicitation is very poorly written, I'm immediately suspicious. I mean, if you want me to part with the little money I have, I think you should at least make the effort to present me with something readable!

Here's a piece of spam I received early this morning. It's unremarkable -- It's not much different from the thousands of others I've received. And, of course, it's poorly written. (I will denote some of the most glaring problems.)

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

I have a client that [not "that", but "who"] deposited a huge amount of money into our bank here in London [a period, comma or semi-colon is needed here] unfortunately he and his family was [were, not was] involved in the latest tsunami mayhem. The money is stuck here in the bank because all his next of kin died with him. [If he's dead, you no longer have a client.] What I don't like is to see the bank add it to their Billions. This money can be used for charity purposes of [or?] things like that. I must be frank [comma or period] I do not know you or anything about you. [comma, not a period] But I need somebody I can trust that I can front as his next of kin somebody far outside my area. [If you don't know me, how do you know you can trust me?] The money involved is $45,000,000.00. [Come on now! Who desposits $45 million dollars into a bank account?]

We can use $1,000,000.00 for incidental expenses and share 50% into two [does not make sense] for ourselves and the rest 50% [the "other' 50% or the rest OF THE 50%] can be given to [a] charity or Tsunami Victims [no needs for capitalization]. I will provide you with full information when you accept my offer. I am sorry I have to reach you this way, but due to the nature of my job [another missing comma] I have to hide my identity for now. I am also sending this email to some other people [yet another missing comma] in case you don't believe my story.

This is a risk free transaction and there is nothing to fear about [rather odd phrasing]. I will be in control of every process. [That's not very reassuring.] This is not a spam letter [If somebody feels the need to tell you it's not spam -- guess what? -- it's spam!]. Take it very serious.

Waiting for your Urgent [no need for capitalization] reply.

Best regards
Kem Purr

Do you have any spam you'd like to share?

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A Return Engagement

Reincarnation is a belief prevalent amongst Hindus, Buddhists, some Taoists and I'm sure other people too. Such adherents believe that a person's soul or essence is reborn several times in different earthly expressions before reaching heaven, nirvana or perfection. Personally, I've always thought that reincarnation was a really far-fetched idea.

Lately, however, I've come to realize that I too believe in reincarnation, albeit in far different way than most who utilize the term.

To put it in its simplest terms, for me, reincarnation is nothing more than the act of human compost. From what I've observed in my lifetime, all matter eventually dies and breaks down into its most fundamental elements. These elements come together to form new matter.

We see this process at work in our home compost piles. We bring together vegetable scraps, fallen leaves, small twigs, grass clippings and a variety of other spent plants. With a little time and care (and even without the care), the various parts of this mass breakdown into a rich mulch which we spread on our gardens and lawns. From this mulch springs new life.

That's fine and dandy, some of you may say, but what about a person's soul or essence? Well, I don't see why the very same process can't occur with our spiritual side. It could be that, when we cease our present earthly existence, our spiritual essence returns to Tao and is thrown onto the giant soul compost pile to be transformed into celestial mulch. In time, this spiritual mulch becomes the springboard for the essence within future matter.

I'm certainly not suggesting this is the way it is. I'm just saying it's as good a possibility as the next belief.

As a Taoist, I really don't ponder these sorts of things very often because it represents the kind of question that we can't answer in this lifetime. Why waste a lot of precious time and energy worrying or debating what none us can know definitively until we get there.

That said, I see nothing wrong with people casually expressing their beliefs on this topic or venturing to guess what the "hereafter" MIGHT be like.

Anyone have an interesting theory you'd like to share?

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Mexico Defeats US 2-1

After having stated in my last post that I no longer follow sports like I did in my youth, I'm leading off my second consecutive post with a sports story (the irony here is not lost on me). In the inaugural World Baseball Classic, the team from the good 'ol US of A isn't going to make the Final Four. Our boys insured that outcome by losing to the team from Mexico today.

I realize that some of the more reactionary readers of RT will immediately think, "See. This proves it. This guy is so anti-American. He's happy the home team lost!" If you are thinking this right now, you are partially right. I am rather tickled that the home team lost, but not because they are fellow Americans.

I'm not anti-American; I'm anti-arrogance. And US sports teams have become rather arrogant these days.

One of my all-time favorite sports moments is when the US hockey team defeated the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Dubbed the "Miracle on Ice", I remember exactly where I was and how I ran around like an idiot whooping and shouting as the final second ticked off.

The reason I was so elated is that the overconfident Russian team -- guys who scoffed at the notion that a bunch of former college players could even skate with them -- had so underestimated the Americans lads that they were beaten soundly.

If the American team had faced off against the Russians another 99 times, the Russians would probably have not lost to us ever again. But that doesn't matter. When it counted most, they DID lose.

American teams are now falling victim to this same air of overconfidence. Both our athletes and the general public have a misguided belief that, even on an off-day, our men and women can defeat any other team playing to their utmost potential. It's as if American teams merely need to go through the motions and that's enough to insure victory.

Well, it hasn't been working out that way lately. When our teams and individual athletes don't put their best foot forward, they tend to lose.

In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu warned against the feelings of arrogance and overconfidence. From a Taoist perspective, it's not a case where either of these sentiments are deemed to be evil or sinful. No, it's far more pragmatic than that. Simply put, arrogance and overconfidence set the stage for defeat.

The Russians proved this point in 1980 and the US baseball team proved it again today. Underestimate your adversary and you overestimate your own prowess. Get too big of a head and it will fall that much harder when it invariably gets knocked off.

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Straying From the Path

When I was a young lad, I was a certified sports fanatic. It didn't matter what time of year it was or what sport was featured on the TV -- if they broadcast it, I watched it! As I've grown older though, sports no longer seems all that important. I rarely watch or attend games and my main form of sports news is watching the highlights on ESPN. (I offer this solely as a backdrop to today's topic.)

While my wife & I worked on rearranging the living room this morning, I flipped the TV on to ESPN. There, in living color, professional boxer Mike Tyson was plying his trade. The show featured a bevy of clips of Tyson during the early portion of his professional career.

Most people are familiar with the name Mike Tyson, even those who know little about the sport or who detest it. Tyson is infamous for biting off a chunk of an opponent's ear during a fight, being married to Robin Givens and for being convicted of a raping a woman. He has become the poster child for all that's wrong with boxing.

But that's not the person my wife & I saw during his early career as shown in this television program. We saw an individual who seemed to be following a Taoist-like path. His assorted problems seem to have afflicted him once he left that path.

In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu talks about the art of war. While war should always be the last option chosen -- because, in war, there really are no winners -- if one must fight, there are certain principles one should adhere to.

A good soldier is not violent.
A good fighter is not angry.
A good winner is not vengeful.
from #Sixty-Eight

Mercy brings victory in battle and strength in defense.
from #Sixty-Seven

The early Mike Tyson exemplified all of these ideals. He entered the ring with little bravado. He didn't taunt his opponents. When he knocked out his ring adversary, he went to help him up and to check that he was okay. In fact, in several of these fights, as Tyson was pummeling away, he would look to the referee as if to say, "Please. Stop the fight. I don't want to hurt this guy." When the fight ended and his victory was secure, he walked away quietly.

Had Tyson remained on this path, he might have become not only the greatest boxing champ in history, but a quality human being as well. Unfortunately, as most of us know, Tyson lost sight of the path. He has stumbled and bumbled his way toward oblivion. And, try as he might, he just can't seem to find his way again.

What a pity!

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A Launch onto a Path

I'm always trying to discover new Taoist blogs and websites with Taoist content. As we each walk along our own paths to Tao, the experience can be greatly enriched by sharing our experiences with others who are walking on their paths. To this end, I will frequently attempt to draw the attention of RT readers toward these types of blogs and/or websites.

A young man in Marquette, MI has launched two blogs today, Beginning Taoism and Beyond Religion.

The initial entry of the former states,

Well here's my new blog about my journey through the beginnings of Philosophical Taoism, because i'm not big into 'religions.' If anyone has any advice they'd like to share, I'm all ears! Time to start analyzing the Tao Te Ching. I recently bought Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star, it includes his rendering of the book and a verbatium version.

His first entry for Beyond Religion says,

In all World Religions, various parts of the "truth" can be found. The problem is, every religion believes that their religion holds the whole truth. This belief in their path as "the only path," leads to major confrontations. Wars are fought, people are slaughtered over their beliefs. In reality though, none of these religions contain the whole truth, just bits and pieces of it. And the infalliable scriptures? How can they be infalliable if they are written by man? Man makes many errors. Man puts his own opinions in it, puts his own desires in it.

I invite RT readers to consider going along on the ride with him.

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Oh, Those "Dangerous" Pacifists!

We've all heard the rationale. The defenders of domestic spying tell us that no American not collaborating with the enemy should be worried. They've told us that our government is only trying to protect us from violent terrorists bent on destroying America. They've scoffed at the notion that our government would spy on people who simply disagree with the Bush agenda.

For all those people who said these sorts of things and more, I wonder how you feel now that you have egg all over your so-called patriotic face!

Yesterday the ACLU released documents which clearly show that the FBI is keeping files on some groups SOLELY because they oppose the war in Iraq. The FBI isn't claiming that such groups are aiding and abetting the enemy. They aren't claiming that these pacificists are in communications with any known terrorists or terrorist organizations. They aren't claiming that these organizations are funneling money to unsavory individuals.

No, the SOLE criteria that has landed these folks on the FBI watch list and has led to an investigation is that they oppose this stupid war!!

Two documents released today reveal that the FBI investigated gatherings of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice just because the organization opposed the war in Iraq. Although previously disclosed documents show that the FBI is retaining files on anti-war groups, these documents are the first to show conclusively that the rationale for FBI targeting is the group's opposition to the war.

“It makes no sense that the FBI would be spying on peace activists handing out flyers,” said Jim Kleissler, Executive Director of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice. “Our members were simply offering leaflets to passersby, legally and peacefully, and now they’re being investigated by a counter–terrorism unit. Something is seriously wrong in how our government determines who and what constitutes terrorism when peace activists find themselves targeted.”

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A Well Needed Chuckle

Are you having a rough day or week or year? Are the pressures of the world weighing down on you? Are you at the point where you feel you just want to throw up your hands and scream at this crazy world? If so, I'm going to write you a simple prescription: Laugh a little!

You can fill your prescription over at Ron's Journal. Simply hand the pharmacist a note that reads, "Guidelines for Millenium Enlightenment….". He will provide you with a six step remedy for what ails you.

To give you an idea of the healing power of this wonderous elixir, take a gander at step #4:

If we want world peace, we must let go of our attachments and truly live like nomads. That’s where I no mad at you, you no mad at me. That way, there’ll surely be nomadness on the planet. And peace begins with each of us. A little peace here, a little piece there, pretty soon all the pieces will fit together to make one big peace everywhere.

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Flow Like a River

One of the many RSS feeds I subscribe to is Technorati:Taoism. As the philosophy of Taoism continues to gain traction in western circles, it provides me with the opportunity to discover more blogs authored by Taoists or that deal with Taoist themes.

Today I discovered a relatively new blog, A Tedious Existence. I'll check it out for several days to see if the author publishes frequently enough for me to add it to Taoist Links in the right sidebar.

Yesterday a entry entitled Wu Wei was posted. I think it offers a most beautiful and poetic explanation of the concept. It is provided below. I encourage folks to check out more of what's written at A Tedious Existence.

Wu Wei is a Taoist term meaning, "without action." It also is said to be, "action without action." Our closest term would probably be "go with the flow." In Taoism, the goal is to achive perfect equilibrium, or alignment with the Tao. To "become like flowing water" seems to be the essence of this idea.

Each human being is a river. All are unique with their own set of subtle fluctuations. These are caused by the distinct psychic topographies inherent in each one, just as each river has varying topographies that effect its flow. The water needs to flow unimpeded. When it becomes dammed up, there is the potential for disaster.

There will always be subtle fluctuations, but these are good. They make life interesting, give it character. But the energy needs to flow. The meandering stream must continue to wind its way through the land, unhindered.

I must become as water, which follows the path of least resistance.

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A Sage's Advice to Mr. Bush

At the outset, the voices against war in Iraq were few and muffled by the overall support of the American public. It seemed that only Leftists (my camp) and Libertarians had the nerve to state publicly that the pretexts for this war were built on lies and gross miscalculations. However, as we've all witnessed as of late, more and more conservatives are daring to join the bandwagon of criticism.

When a notable conservative like William F. Buckley, Jr. starts criticizing the president on the conduct of the war, people start to take notice. However, one of the most outspoken conservatives on the topic has been Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.

In an article released today on antiwar.com, "Why Did Bush Destroy Iraq?", Roberts writes,

President Bush's determination to remain in Iraq despite the obvious failure of the attempted occupation puts Bush at odds with the American public and with our troops. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and that our troops should be withdrawn. An even larger majority of the troops themselves believe they should be withdrawn.

Yet Bush, who is incapable of admitting a mistake, persists in a strategic blunder that is turning into a catastrophe.

All this has got me to thinking about who is providing counsel to the president. He tells us that he has been having conversations with God himself and that his God approves both of his decisions and his conduct of this so-called war.

But what if Bush had sought the counsel of someone different? What if Bush had sought the advice of Lao Tzu? I believe Lao Tzu would tell the president some of the following:

If men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death.
from #Seventy-Four

Why do the people think so little of death?
Because the rulers demand too much of life.
Therefore the people take death lightly.
from #Seventy-Five

A good soldier is not violent.
A good fighter is not angry.
A good winner is not vengeful.
from #Sixty-Eight

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.
from #Fifty-Six

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Growing in Tao

The Taoist Links in my right side bar have been growing lately. It's wonderful to see so many Taoists embracing the medium of blogging to help present a different and needed perspective on the world we live in. So many of our fellow citizens in the western world have grown to feel like something is missing in modern society -- an estrangement from themselves and nature -- that many actively are seeking a different way to approach our individual and collective lives.

Because Taoism stresses the inherency of each person following their own particular path -- that no one path is THE universal be-all path for anyone else -- I feel privileged to offer RT readers the opportunity to gain inspiration and insight from voices other than my own. My truth is no more true than any other.

If this is your first visit to The Rambling Taoist and you want to learn more about the philosophical Taoist perspective, I urge you to visit as many of the Taoist links listed in the right side bar as time permits. I visit most of them daily myself.

And I want to extend a warm invitation to anyone who knows of other Taoist-based blogs to please share them in the comments section. The more voices we can add, the richer the experience can be for all of us.

[Note: My general rule for adding blog links to the right side bar is that the blog be updated at least once or twice each week. I know that, for me, it's often frustrating to select a link that takes me to a blog that shows the same lead entry week after week.]

Making the Connection

You've just gotten off from work and decide to stop at the local market. After picking out a few items for dinner, you hurry to the express lane for checkout. As you stand in line waiting, you start humming a tune from an album cut of a music group from long ago. The sales clerk -- who you've seen countless times before, but have never spoken to -- looks at you and says, "Isn't that such and such a song from such and such an album?" Yes, you say. "Oh, I just love that song," the clerk beams.

In this brief exhange, you've established a connection with another person. Said connection can be short-term or lasting, but it is the kind of connection that holds meaning.

We make these kinds of connections frequently. We find out that someone knows a friend of a friend of a friend. We discover that someone else shares our love of cooking, hang gliding or botany. We delight in learning that a complete stranger loves the same restaurant we frequent or the same vacation destination we dream of.

More often than not, such occurrences happen completely by accident. There we are, minding our own business, when someone reaches out and a connection is made.

One of the themes I harp on here at RT is that we humans share far more in common than the so-called differences that we believe separate us. We too often view people by arbitrary labels and fail to look for the connections that bind us. Instead of seeing a fellow human being, we see gender, race, ethnicity, and a slew of other arbitrary distinctions.

Both Lao Tzu and Jesus urged people to experience life like a young baby. Babies do not see a Jewish man, an Arab woman, a tall white person or a short Latino. They see individual faces and reach out to try to make a connection with whomever crosses their path.

Unfortunately, as we grow to adulthood, we lose this ability. Instead of trying to connect with others, we erect walls to separate ourselves. In doing so, we lose the opportunity to forge lasting connections.

In essence, we create our own hostile world.