Tao Te Ching Chapter 34

Life presents us with a series of events. We develop thoughts around how we perceive our life’s events. These thoughts become stored as memories in our bodies.

The body represents the most physical form of identification of who we think ourselves to be. We could suppose that our bodies are the manifested and the thoughts are the unmanifested actions that make up who we are. Through our body is where we are allowed to take external action of the internal thoughts that run through us.

Our body being a reflection of thought, when we look in a mirror or observe how our bodies feel, can tell us a story about the thoughts that reside inside of us. The reflection may be one which you are satisfied with or one you are not. By the way society is so image conscious could be a good representation that we are not very satisfied with what we see or really what we think.

As a society we are in a constant continuum to change our outside, the body. We rarely spend the same effort to change the inside, the thoughts of our mind. I would ask you to consider the idea, if you worked to change the thoughts inside, that it could have a tremendous affect on how the body will change on the outside.

The Tao Te Ching is a manual that attempts to provide guidance on a way of living that is harmoniously beneficial to you, your loved ones, your enemies and the entire community as a whole. A document that expresses a manner which we can all have without wanting more or taking from another to have it. This is a confusing concept since we live in a society where we are taught that I need more to be better and in order for me to have, someone else can’t have.

As the Tao Te Ching contains many antidotes to personal and societal life challenges summed up in eighty-one very short chapters, I would like to explore Chapter 34 to bring awareness to some of the great words of its teachings:

The great Tao flows everywhere.
All things are born from it, yet it doesn’t create them.
It pours itself into its work, yet it makes no claim.
It nourishes infinite worlds, yet it doesn’t hold on to them.
Since it is merged with all things and hidden in their hearts, it can be called humble.
Since all things vanish into it and it alone endures, it can be called great.
It isn’t aware of its greatness; thus it is truly great.

We can spend a good eighteen or more years of our lives learning reading, writing and arithmetic. While this is definitely useful information, what if the skill of living were taught to us, how much better could we be? Liv your truth!