Verse 3 - Living Contentment

[Eva Libre]

3rd Verse

Putting a value on status
will create contentiousness.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.
By not displaying what is desirable, you will
cause the people's hearts to remain undisturbed.

The sage governs
by emptying minds and hearts,
by weakening ambitions and strenghtening bones.

Practice not doing …
When action is pure and selfless,
everything settles into its own perfect place.

Contemplation/Meditation Verse

I know that there is

          no way to happiness.

Happiness is the way.


Do The Tao Now

Watch for an opportunity today to notice that you're planning on buying something.  Choose to do the Tao and listen for guidance.  Be grateful that you have the choice to make the purchase, then practice listening to yourself and not doing.  Through your feelings, the Tao will reveal the way for you in that moment.  Trust it.  You might be guided to buy the item and savor it with gratitude, donate it, procure one for you and one for someone else, give the money to a charity instead of getting the item, or refrain from obtaining it altogether.

Practice doing the Tao in everyday situations and you'll know contentment in a deeper sense.  As this verse says, “When action is pure and selfless, everything settles into its own perfect place.”  Now that's my definition of contentment!

Source - Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao)

by Dr Wayne W Dyer

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer

 

Remind yourself daily 

that there is no way to happiness;

rather, happiness is the way.

 

You may have a long list of goals that you believe will provide you with contentment when they're achieved, yet if you examine your state of happiness in this moment, you'll notice that the fulfillment of some previous ambitions didn't create an enduring sense of joy.  Desires can produce anxiety, stress, and competitiveness, and you need to recognize those that do.  Bring happiness to every encounter in life, instead of expecting external events to produce joy.  By staying in harmony on the path of the Tao, all the contentment you could ever dream of will begin to flow into your life - the right people, the means to finance where you're headed, and the necessary factors will come together.  "Stop pushing yourself", Lao-tzu would say, "and feel gratitude and awe for what is.  Your life is controlled by something far bigger and more significant than the petty details of your lofty aspirations."

[Eva Libre]

Advice from Dr Dyer

 

Trust the perfection of the eternal Tao,

for it is the ultimate Source of the 10,000 things.

 

The Tao is working for and with you, so you needn't remind it of what you crave or what you think it has forgotten on your behalf.  Trust the harmony of the Tao.  It took care of everything that you needed in your creation as well as your first nine months of life without any assistance from you, and totally independent of any desires you may have had.  The Tao will continue to do so if you just trust it and practice not doing.

 

Inventory your desires and then turn them over to the unnameable.  Yes, turn them over and do nothing but trust.  At the same time, listen and watch for guidance, and then connect yourself to the perfect energy that sends whatever is necessary into your life.  You (meaning your ego) don't need to do anything.  Instead, allow the eternal perfection of the Tao to work through you.  This is Lao-tzu's message for our world now.

 

Henry David Thoreau made the following observation in the middle of the 19th century as he wrote at Walden Pond, and I feel that it personifies this 3rd verse of the Tao Te Ching:

 

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails . . . . If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains.  If the bell rings, why should we run ? . . . I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

 

Trust in your essential sageness.  Don't let desires obscure your eternal connection to the Tao.

[Eva Libre]

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

 

Putting a value on status

          will cause people to compete

Hoarding treasure

          will turn them into thieves

Showing off possessions

          will disturb their daily lives

 

Thus the Sage rules

          by stilling minds and opening hearts

          by filling bellies and strengthening bones

He shows people how to be simple

          and live without desires

To be content

          and not look for other ways

With the people so pure

Who could trick them ?

What clever ideas could lead them astray ?

 

When action is pure and selfless

          everything settles into its own perfect place

[Eva Libre]

From Vimala McClure - The Tao of Motherhood

3

RESPONSE

 

Right mothering meets the

child's need.

 

Focusing on what the child should

not be draws resistant energy.

Pointing out what the child should

be feeds self-hatred and struggle.

 

Ask yourself, "What is my child

telling me about his needs at this

moment ?"  This is not always easy.

One child's needs may be more

obvious - or more acceptable -

than another's.

 

Meeting needs and obeying

commands are not the same.

The wise obey the Divine Law

and thus fulfill the need of the

moment through action or

non-action.  They are responsive,

not tyrannized.

 

This has nothing to do with what

society says is proper.  It has

everything to do with the Infinite

Good as it flows through the

here and now.

 

Do not reward performance.

Rather, respond to Spirit

expressing the Way.  You are a

mirror with which your child

sees - and corrects - himself.

[Eva Libre]

From Richard Grossman - The Tao of Emerson

From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891

 

Not to employ men of superior ability

     is the way to keep the people from rivalry among themselves;

Not to prize articles which are difficult to procure

     is the way to keep them from becoming thieves;

Not to show them what is likely to excite their desires

     is the way to keep their minds from disorder.

 

Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government,

     empties their minds, fills their bellies,

     weakens their wills and strengthens their bones.

 

He constantly tries to keep them without knowledge

     and without desire,

And where there are those who have knowledge,

     to keep them from presuming to act on it.

When there is this abstinence from action

                    good order is universal.

 

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Circles"

 

Nothing is secure but life, transition,

     the energizing spirit.

The one thing which we seek

     with insatiable desire

Is to forget ourselves, to be surprised

     out of our propriety,

To lose our sempiternal memory

And do something without knowing

                   how or why.

 

No truth is so sublime but it may be

      trivial tomorrow.

People wish to be settled;

Only as far as they are unsettled

     is there any hope for them.

 

The poor and the low have their way

     of expressing the last facts of philosophy:

"Blessed be nothing.  The worse things are

                  the better they are."

[Eva Libre]

Tao Te Ching - The Classic Book of Integrity and The Way by Lao-Tzu
A New Translation by Victor H Mair
based on the recently discovered Ma-Wang-Tui Manuscripts

3
(47)

 

Not exalting men of worth

          prevents the people from competing;

Not putting high value on rare goods

          prevents the people from being bandits;

Not displaying objects of desire

          prevents the people from being disorderly.

 

For these reasons,

          The sage, in ruling,

               hollows their hearts,

               stuffs their stomachs,

               weakens their wills,

               builds up their bones,

          Always causing the people

               to be without knowledge and desire.

          He ensures that

               the knowledgeable dare not be hostile,

                         and that is all.

 

Thus,

          His rule is universal.

[Eva Libre]

Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

 

Do not exalt the worthy [xian], and so keep the common folk from contention.  Do not value goods hard to get, and so stop the common folk from becoming thieves.  Do not let them see desirable things, and so spare the hearts/minds of the common folk from disorder. (1)

 

"The worth" [xian] is like saying "the resourceful" [neng].  "Exalt" is a name by which we recognize excellence, and "value" is a term for assigning high worth.  If only the resourceful were given office, what would be the point of exalting them ?  If things were used only because they were useful, what would be the point of valuing them ?  However, because we exalt the worthy and make their names illustrious, giving more honor than their offices deserve, people act as if they are always in shooting contests, trying to determine who is the more able, and, because we put more value on goods than their use warrants, those who covet such things compete to rush after them, even digging through or climbing over walls (2) to ransack chests, (3) risking their lives in thievery.  Therefore, if desirable things are not seen, hearts/minds will not be subject to such disorder.

 

Therefore the way the sage governs is to keep their hearts/minds empty and their bellies full.

 

The heart/mind cherish knowledge and the belly cherishes food, so he keeps that which has the capacity for knowledge empty and that which lacks the capacity for knowing filled.

 

He keeps their will weak and their bones strong.

 

Their bones, lacking the capacity for knowing, provide the means for them to stand trunklike; their wills, prone to stir things up, are the agents of disorder.  (If the heart/mind is empty, the will is weak.) (4)

 

He always keeps the common folk free from the capacity for knowing and from feeling desire.

 

He preserves their authenticity [zhen].

 

And prevents the knowledgeable form every daring to act.

 

The knowledgeable [zhi] referes to those who know how to act.

 

Because he acts without conscious effort, nothing remains ungoverned.

 

Text, in Italics above, is Wang Bi's commentary]

The notes below, are from the translator, Richard John Lynn -

 

(1)  Cf. section 12, second passage; section 27, fifth passage; section 49, fifth passage, paragraph 1; and section 64, seventh passage.

 

(2)  Cf. Lunya (Analects), 17:12.

 

(3)  Cf.  Zhuangzi yinde, 23/10/1.

 

(4)  Although many editions of Wang's commentary include the sentence in parentheses, it actually is an interpolation from Lu Deming's (556-627) gloss on this passage in his Laozi yinyi (Pronunciation and meaning of terms in the Laozi), included in the Jingdian shiwen(Explication of the texts of the classics), 25:1404.  See Hatano, Roshi Dotokukyo kenkyu, 54, and Lou, Wang Bi ji jiaoshi, 10 n. 8.

[Eva Libre]

From Stephen Mitchell - tao te ching - A New English Version

 

If you overesteem great men,

people become powerless.

If you overvalue possessisons,

people begin to steal.

 

The Master leads

by emptying people's minds

and filling their cores,

by weakening their ambition

and toughening their resolve.

He helps people lose everything

they know, everything they desire,

and creates confusion

in those who think that they know.

 

Practice not-doing,

and everything will fall into place.

 

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy 

- Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

 

Practice not-doing,

and everything will fall into place.

 

If you overesteem great men, you can't recognize the greatness within yourself.  Any quality that you esteem in others is what you see, after all, and what you see comes from you.  You undervalue yourself when you displace it and separate it from its origin.  Admire Jesus' compassion or the Buddha's wisdom all you want, but what good can their qualities do you until you find them in yourself ?

 

The mind is always looking for value.  When it projects qualities away from itself, it robs itself of its own value.  It starts traveling out of itself to find what it thinks it lacks, and its travels are endless, and it can never find its home.

 

The Master leads simply by being.  "Being" looks like doing the dishes, answering the phone and the e-mail, shopping, going to work, driving the kids to school, feeding the dog, doing one thing at a time, without a past or future.  She doesn't empty people's minds.  She doesn't have to (even if that were possible).  The way she helps people is by living out of don't-know, can't-know, no-need-to-know, not-possible-to-know, nothing-to-know.  People are attracted to a life lived with such weightlessness, such lightness of heart.  They begin to notice where they are, who they are, looking into the living mirror without their stressful thoughts.

 

I'm preparing a salad.  I see flashes of colors.  My hands begin to reach for what calls out to me.  Red ! and I reach for the beets.  Orange ! and I reach for the carrots.  Green !and my hands move to the spinach.  I feel the textures, I feel the dirt.  Purple ! and I move to the cabbage.  All of life is in my hands.  There's nothing lovelier than preparing a salad, its greens, reds, oranges, purples, crisp and juicy, rich as blood and fragrant as the earth.  I move to the countertop.  I begin to slice.

 

Just when I think that life is so good that it can't get any better, the phone rings and life gets better.  I love that music.  As I walk toward the phone, there's a knock at the door.  Who could it be ?  I walk toward the door, filled with the given, the fragrance of the vegetables, the sound of the phone, and I have done nothing for any of it.  I trip and fall.  The floor is so unfailingly there.  I experience its texture, its security, its lack of complaint.  In fact, the opposite: it gives its entire self to me.  I feel its coolness as I lie on it.  Obviously it was time for a little rest.  The floor accepts me unconditionally and holds me without impatience.  As I get up, it doesn't say, "Come back, come back, you're deserting me, you owe me, you didn't thank me, you're ungrateful".  No, it's just like me.  It does its job.  It is what it is.  The fist knocks, the phone rings, the salad waits, the floor lets go of me - life is good.

 

Reality unfolds without desire, bringing with it more beauty, more luxury, more exquisite surprises than the imagination could ever devise.  The mind, as it lives through its desires, demands that the body follow after it.  How else can it mirror back original cause ?  Anger, sadness, or frustration lets us know that we're at war with the way of it.  Even when we get what we wanted, we want it to last, and it doesn't, it can't.  And because life is projected and mind is so full of confusion, there is no peace.  But when you allow life to flow like water, you become that water.  And you watch life lived to the ultimate, always giving you more than you need.

 

I wake up in the morning and see very little.  I was able to see last night, but now it's all a blur, like seeing through a smogged-up window.  (I was recently diagnosed with a degenerative condition of the cornea called Fuchs' dystrophy.  There's no cure, and it has gotten a lot more intense over the past year.)  I'm in a new hotel room, and i need to brush my teeth, shower, and pack.  Where's the suitcase ?  And it comes to me; my hands know.  The world is gray, but through the gray I can distinguish differences, and through these differences and the textures, I see everything I need to see in order to find my clothes.  I feel my way to the bathroom, find the toothpaste and toothbrush, and squeeze the tube.  Ooh ! I've squeezed a huge gob of toothpaste onto the bristles, which brings a smile to my face: it seems that my teeth needed some extra help this morning.  Then I step into the shower.  It's tricky to understand the differences in bathroom fixtures, where the hot water is, which direction to turn the lever, how to convert the water from the spigot to the showerhead.  Is the shower curtain tucked inside the tub so that the water won't run onto the floor ?  The lid to my bottle of soap is gone.  Is it sitting on the ledge ?  Did it flush down the drain ?  Was the drain open or closed ?  I feel along the ridges of the tub for the lid.  Do I have the right amount of shampoo in my hands ?  I'm sure it's fine, since not enough and too much are always the perfect amount.  The water is hot.  This is working.  I'm so grateful as I step out of the shower onto the . . . is it my robe or the bath mat ?

 

Makeup is interesting.  I use three items only: one for eyes, one for cheeks, one for lips.  I do my best with the woman thing, it feels right, it's over, for better or worse.  This face is the way of it.  It's prepared.  It will do its job.  "Sweetheart, do these things go together ?  Is this top brown or black or blue ?"  Through Stephen's eyes, my clothes seem to be coordinated, and that works for me.  I have an interview.  I'm glad he can show me the way, beyond what he can know.  Without words, through his actions, I know where the doorknobs are, where the stairs are, where the path is.  Eventually, in the afternoon, my eyes begin to clear up, and they begin to show me the way.  I love how it all works.  I love how the mornings prepare me for life, and how my afternoon vision gives me glimpses into what was only imagined in the first place.

[Eva Libre]

Dr Dyer's Essay on Verse 3 -

 

This 3rd verse of the Tao Te Ching advises rearranging priorities to ensure contentment.  Focusing on obtaining more objects of desire encourages external factors to have control over us.  Pursuit of status, be it monetary or a position of power, blinds us to our relationship to the eternal Tao, along with the contented life that is available.  Overvaluing possessions and accomplishments stems from our ego's fixation on getting more - wealth, belongings, status, power, or the like.  The Tao recommends refraining from this kind of discontented way of life, which leads to thievery, contentiousness, and confusion.  Rather than seeking more, the Tao practice of gratitude is what leads us to the contented life.  We must replace personal desires with the Tao-centered question: How may I serve ?  By simply changing these kinds of thoughts, we will begin to see major changes taking place in our lives.

 

The advice to practice "not doing" and trusting that all will settle into a perfect place may sound like a prescription for laziness and a failed society, yet I don't think that's what Lao-tzu is offering here.  He isn't saying to be slothful or inactive; rather, he's suggesting that trusting in the Tao is the way to be directed by the Source of your creation and to be guided by a higher principle than your ego-driven desires.

 

Ego-fixated wants can get in the way of Divine essence, so practice getting ego out of the way and be guided by the Tao in all that you do.  In a state of frenzy ?  Trust in the Tao.  Listen for what urges you onward, free from ego domination, and you'll paradoxically be more productive.  Allow what's within to come forward by suspending worldly determination.  In this way, it will no longer be just you who is conducting this orchestration that you call your life.

 

Much of this 3rd verse contains advice on how to govern.  I view this not as political or administrative advice, but as it pertains to our own personal lives and those we're entrusted to guide - that is, our immediate family, and in a larger sense, the human family that comprises all of those with whom we're in contact on a daily basis.

 

Encourage your relatives to empty their minds of thoughts about status and acquisitions, and think instead about serving others and contributing to the health and strength of all.  Model the harmony of this attitude; after all, everyone has a calling to be inspired.  The Source of creation is not interested in material possessions or status.  It will provide what is needed - it will guide, motivate, and influence you and everyone else.  Ego (and its incessant inventory of desires) probably needs to be weakened so that the beauty of the Tao can be sensed.  Demonstrate this to others by being a leader who removes the egocentric temptations that foster envy, anger, and competition.