Being The Future
28
Know the male,
yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you
and you will be like a little child.
Know the white,
yet keep to the black:
be a pattern for the world.
If you are a pattern for the world,
the Tao will be strong inside you
and there will be nothing you can’t do.
Know the personal,
yet keep to the impersonal:
accept the world as it is.
If you accept the world,
the Tao will be luminous inside you
and you will return to your primal self.
The world is formed from the void,
like utensils from a block of wood.
The Master knows the utensils,
yet keeps to the block:
thus she can use all things.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell
Not much to say this morning. The ‘shit-storm’ of events continues unabated. The American President invites Russia’s Putin to sit down with him in Alaska. A soulless liar to an international outlaw: what possibly could go wrong? The vacuous pubic relations show is scheduled for Friday. Ukraine will fight on nonetheless. Mother Russia, as per historical precedent offers up its males to the scythe of war. As for us, America, what does the Kabuki road show in Alaska say about us? Seems that our chief executive hopes attention will be deflected away from the Epstein files, that he (Trump) is listed with pedophiles in high places. So it goes with us…
I’ve had too much to say…
Concluding on a positive note for this Thursday: Lao Tsu instructs us to be example of the future that we’d like to see. Fair enough! Sure it is a ‘shit-show’ world at this point in space and time, but a world meriting our love nonetheless. It is our home, the only world that we have.
Here are some flower photos captured from the garden of Claude Monet in Givrney, France.
2 thoughts on “Being The Future”
I seem to regurgitate the same things over and over again (not a pleasant image). Those items being that “to accept the world as it is” does not appear to be in my lexicon. I wondered yesterday is my propensity is to be grim, to embrace the dystopian world I imagine we are immersed in at the moment. I wondered to a friend that if suddenly and magically all of the world’s woes were to disappear, would I somehow be disappointed. In other words, have I become so focused on trying to “fix” the problems we face that my mindset is how I define myself? This is a rhetorical (but interesting) question since some omniscient being with a magic wand is not going to appear out of thin air. It does have a bearing on who I am and how I approach issues but perhaps it’s all moot. I don’t want to change who I am regardless of how “letting go” might impact my longevity. So the real question is: Am I stuck or just stubborn?
We are “who we are” but, since there are many “selves” residual paradigms within us, our basic self continues to form, to become. At least that is how it seems to me. Some loose sight of the possibility of kindness, and double-down on expressing boorish, cruel behavior. Satisfied with what/who they have become. Nature, genes and nurture too. But with awareness, when there’s a modicum of love and consideration in one’s history, there’s material to be worked with. Change is a given. Why not nudge things in a positive direction?