May 21st

Wrinkles


Lines on the face, tattoos of aging.
Life is proved upon the body
Like needle-jabs from a blind machine.

The older one gets, the more one is conscious of aging. We can barely remember childhood innocence and exuberance. We are surprised by the youthful vitality and unmarked face when we see earlier photos of ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we reluctantly acknowledge the aging mask. It seems that there is no escaping the marks of life.Every experience that we have, everything that we do and think is registered upon us as surely as the steady embroidery of a tattoo artist. But to a large degree, the pattern and picture that will emerge is up to us. If we go to a tattoo artist, it is we who select the picture. In life, it is we who select what we will become by the actions we perform. There is no reason to go through life thoughtlessly, to let accident shape us. That is like allowing oneself to be tattooed by a blind man. How can you help but turn out old and ugly?
Whether we emerge beautiful or ugly is our sole responsibility.

Personal Interpretation


Wrinkles are an indication of the passage of time. We bear the marks of life, but which marks we bear is up to us. If we proceed thoughtlessly through life, we make no effort to shape what we are becoming. Would we allow a blind tattoo artist to apply ink in random patterns to our skin? Or would we spend a great deal of time creating the design that we want to greet us for years later? The choices we make now are as permanent as ink injected beneath the skin. It is up to us to choose wisely now. If we can do this, then the marks of aging we bear can be worn with pride, for they will come to indicate joy, laughter, and purpose.

May 20th

Dissent

Old man : Dissent is not disloyalty.
Be careful before you retaliate.
Your steel wrapped in cotton
May only be brittle bone wrapped in fat.

No one is a supreme authority. People seek leaders, priests, gurus, and hermits thinking that someone has a precise formula for living correctly. No one does. No one can know you as well as you can know yourself. All that you can gain from a wise person is the assurance of some initial guidance. You may even spend decades studying under such an extraordinary person, but you should never surrender your dignity, independence, and personality.There is no single way to do things in life. There are valid paths, even though they may differ from the ways of respected elders. Diversity is good for tradition. Too often, elders confuse dissent with disloyalty and punish people for the crime of having a different view. They are no longer in touch with Tao but instead mouth self-serving convention. Perhaps the panic of their own impending death makes them clutch. When the leaders become repressive, it is a sign that their time is drawing to a close.
A saying about old masters was that they were like steel wrapped in cotton : They appeared soft on the outside but still held great power on the inside. We all hope for elders like that. But oftentimes, the old masters have lost their mandate of Tao. Then, when tested, they are merely brittle bone and fat. How can we respect such people?

Personal Interpretation 

Even the greatest authorities are not infalliable. We must make our own way through life. No one has all the answers, and no one knows us better than we know ourselves. It is not disloyal to disagree with another, and the perceived wisdom of the other should not be used as a shield against difference in opinion or interpretation  of evidence. We should seek out leaders in the beginning, when we are new to the path and in need of initial guidance. But  let us all be careful that we do not come to rely overly much on wisdom that may not be applicable to our own lives and situations.

May 19th

Marriage


Wall of flames, bridge of tears.
Snowflake on newly forged links.

For a marriage to last, a couple must go through great travails and hardships. It is like a process of forging steel links together. The iron must be heated to a high degree and then plunged into cold water. A marriage alternates between the heat of passion and love and the chilling times of tragedy, conflict, and adversity. An enduring marriage becomes like tempered steel.It is difficult to go through life alone. We all need support and the sense of belonging that comes from working toward goals shared with another. For such a relationship to work, there must be a basic compatibility of values, outlook, and purpose. It is an inadequate cliché that husband and wife must be friends as well as lovers. Two mates can know a loyalty found in no other type of relationship. Yet even in the face of such strength, Tao reminds us of the need for moderation.
Ultimately, all relationships are temporary. False attachment to another can become an addiction, a voluntary bondage detrimental to clear perception. We should not bind another to ourselves, should not define ourselves by our marriage, should not force another to stay with us. But if chance allows us to walk together, who is anyone to challenge our choice of walking companions?
When it is time to part, then it is time to part. There should be no regrets. The beauty of marriage is like the fleeting perfection of a snowflake.

Personal Interpretation


Iron must be heated and then plunged into water in order to make steel, and romantic relationships are no different. When choosing to share one's life with another, one should be ready for good times and bad. Partners will endure hardship as well as marvel at their love. They will be tested. Adversity will rear its ugly head. Not all such arrangements will endure, but those that do will be all the stronger for it.

Life is a difficult thing to go through without companionship and the wisest practitioners of Tao see marriage as a potentially beautiful bond between two people who come to care very deeply for one another. Even as we unite our lives with another though, we should be careful to maintain ourselves. As with everything else in this world, our relationships are transient and doomed to end. We should not seek to define ourselves by them, nor should we force our will upon our partners. Equally important is the cultivation of sufficient strength to resist the efforts of our partners to control us. The best relationship consists of two whole people.

When the relationship is brought to an end by a change in circumstances or sentiment, or the arrival of death, we should not resist the end. The wise know how to embrace endings as well as beginnings. We must strive to rejoice in memory rather than lose ourselves in lamentation when what we love is taken from us.

May 18th

Scholasticism


Ocean inside a skull-cup,
Seeking the universal code in letters.
The mind is like a flower on icy water :
An eye within the petals.

The intellect is one of the thorniest problems for a spiritual aspirant. One cannot do without it -- indeed, it is essential -- and yet one cannot allow it to remain totally dominant. The intellect must be fully developed before it is brought to a point of neutrality. Unless this is done, it will act as a block, and there will not be any ultimate spiritual success.Scholarship is thus an important first step. Education is a means of gaining access to the conventional world, of satisfying our curiosity, and of avoiding superstitious tendencies. There can be no talk of delving into philosophical mysteries if one has not even satisfied one's curiosity about nature, civilization, mathematics, and language. But once mental cultivation is achieved, one must focus increasingly on a part of the mind that is far beyond the scholarly.
The intellect uses discrimination, categorization, and dualistic distinctions in highly sophisticated ways. By contrast, spiritual contemplation involves no discrimination, no categorization, and no dualism, so it has very little need for scholasticism. It is pure action that requires the totality of our inner beings. It needs pure involvement, no mere study. The proper use of the intellect is to give it free play, develop it to an extraordinary degree, and yet to leave it behind when spiritual action is required. A sage knows how to balance and combine both.

Personal Interpretation

The intellect is a fundamental aspect of ourselves, but it can also be a barrier to spiritual enlightenment if we give it too much priority in our lives. We should satisfy our innate curiosities, but then we should resolve to turn to Tao. Balance in all things should be our top priority. The true sage knows how to balance intellect and spiritual awareness and action.

May 17th

Vulnerabilities


A warrior takes every person as an adversary.
He sees all their vulnerable points,
And trains to eliminate his own.
A sage has no vulnerable points.

A warrior takes everyone as a potential adversary. He assesses each person that he meets for their strengths and weaknesses, and he places himself strategically. No confrontation is ever a surprise. Protection, competition, honor, and righteousness are his principles.He is the weapon. Therefore, a warrior trains body and mind to perfection. He knows that the average person has hundreds of points where death can enter. For himself, he seeks to eliminate as many of his own vulnerabilities as possible. In combat, he defends one or two points, and the rest of his attention is devoted to strategy and offense. Yet no warrior can eliminate all vulnerable points. Even for a champion, there is always at least one. Only the way of the sage eliminates all weaknesses.
It is said that the sage has no points for death to enter. This makes the sage, who is perfect in Tao, superior to the warrior, who is merely skilled in Tao. The warrior accepts death, but does not go beyond it. The sage goes beyond concepts of protection, competition, honor, and righteousness, and has no fear of death. The sage knows that nothing dies, that life is mere illusion : Life is but one dream flowing into another.

Personal Interpretation

We should seek the ways of the sage over those of the warrior. While warriors assess those they encounter for personal weaknesses, the sage sees beyond the illusion to what lies beyond it. He or she is perfect in Tao and as such, has no true vulnerabilities. The warrior can never eliminate all of his own weaknesses because he understands only the world of which he is a part. The sage sees that life is but one dream flowing into another and is thus, more adept at manipulating it. How can death defeat the sage who knows that life is a cycle rather than the end of a line of events? Let us all strive to be more like the sage. We should not be quick to conflict. Nor should we pass judgment too quickly. There will be times in life when it will be best for us to observe and other times when it will be best to act. In time, we can come to exercise good judgment.

May 16th

Judgment



The accused stands helpless before the judge.
Pen is poised to determine right from wrong.
In one arbitrary stroke,
Life is suddenly decided.

Do judges have Tao? Dispassionate to the point of cruelty, making distinctions on the basis of arbitrary rules, can they be a part of a humanistic view of Tao? The answer depends on the context. If you are speaking of the Tao of nature-loving hermits, the answer is no : No one has the right to pass judgment on another. If you are speaking of society, however, those who follow Tao accept the necessity of set rules.These laws are the Tao of the society. Once you are in the world of people and away from the world of nature, you are immersed in dualistic distinctions. Then concepts such as righteousness and mercy have meaning. Judgment is the process of comparing ideas in order to find agreement or disagreement with the Tao of society. The facts must be thoroughly examined. Judges must clearly and wisely apply distinctions. That which agrees is the truth.
In the same way, we are all compelled to examine the ongoing circumstances of our lives. That is part of the responsibility of being human. Embracing Tao will not exempt you from the need to render judgments and make decisions. We are both the ultimate judge and the accused. When your final day comes, you yourself must be the examiner. Did you do well? Or did you squander your precious existence? You must decide.

Personal Interpretation

We may sometimes be tempted to interpret tao as the ancients interpreted it, but we are not the ancients. Our lives are not theirs. We live in society, and there is no escaping that fact. We must act both as judge and accused. Dualism dominates that reality of our modern-day lives and we must operate within that framework while also recognizing that there is something beyond it, that the only reality we are capable of knowing right now is colored by our perceptions. But it is upon those perceptions that we must rely when we render the final verdict. Have we lived a good life or have we fallen short? We should be careful about the sort of judgments we make of ourselves and others. But we will always need to make those judgments. Let us be merciful. Let us also push ourselves when need be and surround ourselves with those who contribute something meaningful to our lives. Life is too short to live otherwise.

May 15th

Visions


Neither drug-induced
Nor self-induced visions :
Pierce all visions,
To see the void.

Tao is not to be found through drugs or any external means. While you most assuredly will have visions, how will you know what they mean? No matter how vivid, no matter how seemingly profound, they must be understood in order to be useful. By contrast, meditation also brings visions, voices, feelings, and absolute certainties. But prior philosophical inquiry is essential preparation for these experiences. The practitioner can instantly fit new experiences into a frame of reference. There is no confusion, and one can distinguish the true from the false. After all, even the perceptions of meditation may leave room for doubt.Not everything that one receives during spiritual inquiry is true. Some are deceptions, and one must be able to see through them. The form that visions take is a function of your own degree of mental sophistication. As such, they are still in the circumference of your mind. If you want to receive impulses from the true Tao, you should know that they do not come as visions. Receiving Tao is to enter into a state of consciousness. Followers of Tao may indulge in spiritual visions for a time, but they eventually learn that there is something more important than the endless exploration of visions. The eventual object is to transcend all enslavement to perception. Only in attaining that state can one adequately judge reality.

Personal Interpretation


Visions can help or hinder us-they are, after all, products of our own consciousness. In order to get in touch with the true Tao, we must move beyond them. Only when we transcend the subjective experience of this life can we know the absolute truth. Perhaps there is no ultimate truth. One thing is for certain. We should glean what wisdom we can from this world, and learn to discern between what seems to be true or false. Both will present themselves to our minds. When we can identify deception, it is an easier matter to avoid it. Let us stay to the road that feels truest to our hearts and seek respite from the world on occasion. And let us rejoice in those moments when we can glimpse Tao, for it has the power to restore our faith in our purpose.