Verse 54 - Living as If Your Life Makes a Difference

54th Verse

Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.

Generations honor generations endlessly.
Cultivated in the self, virtue is realized;
cultivated in the family, virtue overflows;
cultivated in the community, virtue increases;
cultivated in the state, virtue abounds.

The Tao is everywhere;
it has become everything.
To truly see it, see it as it is.
In a person, see it as a person;
in a family, see it as a family;
in a country, see it as a country;
in the world, see it as the world.

How do I know this is true?
By looking inside myself.
 

Contemplation/Meditation Verse
 
I am like a great wave of energy
           that illuminates a room,
Everyone will see the light
           and become affected.
          
 
Do The Tao Now
 
Dedicate a day to extending kind thoughts and acts toward your family, your community, your country, and the world.  In your family, encourage someone who’s struggling with low self-esteem.  In your community, pick up litter and recycle it without judgment.  In your country, spend a few moments in silent prayer, sending loving energy to those who are in positions of power - then do the same for the world, including any so-called enemies.
 
Source -
Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life (Living the Wisdom of the Tao) by Dr Wayne W Dyer

Re: Verse 54 - Living as If Your Life Makes a Difference

Do the Tao Now, that sounds like a good idea.

Why do I see things this way?
Because this is the way things are. ~(Lao Tzu)

Thanks Deb, balancing my chi…

Re: Verse 54 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Choose an area to concentrate on making a difference.
 

Don’t entertain doubt about your impact on the world; instead, develop a vision for Earth and convince yourself that you are perfectly capable of contributing to this vision, whether it’s grandiose or small.  See a world without hatred, disrepect, or violence; where the environment is respected and cared for; and where cancer, AIDS, starvation, child abuse, weapons of all kinds, or any other detrimental or demeaning scenarios disappear.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead addressed this idea in the following observation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Re: Verse 54 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Realize how much your life matters.
 

It’s said that when a butterfly flaps its wings, that energy flows thousands of miles away.  Therefore, everything you think and do extends outward and multiplies.  Live your life knowing that the difference you choose to make is toward wholeness, not destructiveness.  Even if no one sees or acknowledges it, an act of unkindness contains energy that impacts our entire universe.  And a silent blessing or thought of love toward others contains a vibration that will be felt throughout the cosmos.

William Blake’s vision expresses this idea:
 

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of yur hand

And Eternity in an hour.
 

Be conscious of how very much you matter to all of creation.

Re: Verse 54 - The Tao of Emerson

From The Tao of Emerson by Richard Grossman
 
From James Legge - The Texts of Taoism, 1891
 
What Tao’s skillful planter plants
          Can never be uptorn;
What his skillful arms enfold,
          From him can ne’er be borne.
Sons shall bring in lengthening line,
Sacrifices to his shrine.
 
Tao, when nursed within one’s self,
          His vigor will make true;
And where the family it rules
          What riches will accrue !
The neighborhood where it prevails
          In thriving will abound;
And when ‘tis seen throughout the state,
          Good fortune will be found.
Employ it in the kingdom o’er
          And men thrive all around.
 
From Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essays ”Power”, Journals 1841, ”The Progress of Culture”
 
What a man does, that he has.
Let him regard no good as solid,
          but that which is in his nature.
The goods of fortune may come and go
          like summer leaves;
Let him scatter them on every wind
          as momentary signs.
 
Virtue is the adherence in action
          to the nature of things,
And the nature of things makes it prevalent.
It consists in a perpetual substition
          of being for seeming.
 
Why need you choose so painfully your place,
          and occupation, and association and modes of action?
For you, there is a reality, a fit place
          and congenial duties.

Re: Verse 54 - Jonathan Star

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star
 
Truth, once established, can never be uprooted
Goodness, once imbibed, can never be stripped away
          A sacrifice to a higher cause is never lost
          An offering to an ancestor never goes to waste
 
When a person embodies Tao
          his heart becomes true
When a family embodies Tao
          it thrives
When a village embodies Tao
          it is protected
When a country embodies Tao
          it prospers
When the world embodies Tao
          it reveals its perfection
 
Tao is everywhere
          it has become everything
To truly see it, see it as it is
In a person, see it as a person
In a family, see it as a family
In a country, see it as a country
In the world, see it as the world
 
How have I come to know all this ?
Tao has shown me -
          Tao as all this !

Re: Verse 54 - Stephen Mitchell & Bryon Katie

From Stephen Mitchell - tao te ching - A New English Version
 
Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.
Her name will be held in honor
from generation to generation.
 
Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.
Let it be present in your family
and your family will flourish.
Let it be present in your country
and your country will be an example
to all countries in the world.
Let it be present in the universe
and the universe will sing.
 
How do I know this is true ?
By looking inside myself.
 
From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy - Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are
 
                                                                  Whoever is planted in the Tao
                                                                  will not be rooted up.
 
We do only three things in life: we sit, we stand, and we lie horizontal.  That’s about it.  Everything else is a story.  Life is not difficult; it’s your thinking that makes it difficult.  That’s where your happiness or misery comes from.  There are two ways to sit or stand or lie horizontal: you can do it comfortably, or you can do it with stress.  If you don’t love where you are, I invite you to question your beliefs.
 
It takes a lot of courage to go inside yourself and find geniune answers to the four questions of The Work.  When you do, you lose all your stories about the world - you lose the whole world as you understood it to be.  Once you question what you believe, you begin to see clearly, because the mind is no longer at war with itself.  In fact, you become excited about reality, even about the worst that could happen.  You open your arms to reality.  Just show me a problem that doesn’t come from believing an untrue thought.
 
Whatever happens, I always look for the gift in it.  I don’t have eyes for anything else.  I know that if I lose anything or anyone, I’ve been spared.  If my husband left me, I’d think, How do I know that I don’t need him ?  He’s gone.  If I were to lose my legs, I’d think, How do I know that I don’t need legs ?  I don’t have them.  Of course, freedom doesn’t mean that you let unkind things happen - it doesn’t mean passivity or masochism.  If someone says he’s going to cut off your legs, run !
 
How do you know that you need cancer ?  You’ve got it.  but to accept cancer is not to lean back and do nothing; that’s denial.  You consult the best doctors you can afford, and you get the best treatment available.  Do you think your body is going to heal most efficiently when you’re tense and fearful and fighting cancer as an enemy?  Or when you’re loving what is and realizing all the ways in which your life is actually better because you have cancer, and from that calm center doing everything you can to heal?  There’s nothing more life-giving than inner peace.
 
The only time you suffer is when you believe a thought that argues with reality.  You are the cause of your own suffering - but only all of it.  There is no suffering in the world; there’s only an uninvestigated story that leads you to believe it.  There is no suffering in the world that’s real.  Isn’t that amazing !
 
Both pleasure and pain are projections, and it takes a clear mind to understand that.  After inquiry, the experience of pain changes.  The joy that was always beneath the surface of pain is primary now, and the pain is underneath it.  People who do The Work stop fearing pain.  They relax into it.  They watch it come and go, and they see that it always comes and goes at the perfect moment.
 
My eyes hurt this morning.  With Fuch’s dystrophy, there are blisters on the inside of the corneas, and sometimes the pain is intense.  In addition, my specialist asked me to put a drop of salt solution in, six to eight times a day; this dries the moisture that causes the cloudy vision, but it’s also literally salt in the wound - it adds to the pain of the lesions that form and burst and continue to create scar tissue on the cornea.  Still, even after a drop, when I look at my granddaughter’s face, all I see is a blur.  I notice the thought How beautiful Marley is ! and then it occurs to me that, given the progression of my disease, the time may come when I’ll never see her face again.  I understand that it’s unnecessary; I can’t find one place in me where it ultimately matters.  I may never see any of my grandchildren as they grow up, I may never see Stephen’s face again, or my children’s.  And as I realize that, I look for sadness, and I can find only joy.  An overwhelming sense of gratitude for life wells up in me, for how full life is and how nothing is ever missing, how everything is the way it’s supposed to be.  I continue to wait and see if I can find a need for something more, and it doesn’t appear.
 
Another day, sitting in the living room, I pour hot tea from a kettle into a cup, and I don’t see that the cup is cracked, and the hot tea spills out onto my left hand.  Ow !  What an adventure !  Even as my hand starts to throb, I’m aware that what I’m watching is absolute perfection.  How can I believe that my hand is not supposed to be scalded when it is ?  Why would I move from reality into a fantasy of what my hand should be ?  When inquiry is alive inside you, thoughts don’t pull you away from loving whatever happens, as it happens.  Pain is always on the way out; it’s the story of a past.  All the pain we have ever suffered, all the pain that any human being on this planet has ever suffered, is gone in this present moment.  We live in a state of grace.

Re: Verse 54 - Stephen Mitchell & Bryon Katie

My favorite line here is this -
 

Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.

 

To me this is the greatest blessing of discovering one’s spiritual aspect.

Re: Verse 54 - The Tao of Motherhood

From Vimala McClure - The Tao of Motherhood


54


INFLUENCE

Right mothering is honored from
generation to generation.  Like an
old tree with untold roots, it holds
firm through countless storms.

Behave toward yourself with
loving kindness, and serenity
will emante from you.

When you are serene,
your life is in order.

When your life is in order,
your family is harmonious.

Your family affects your
community.  Your community
influences your culture.
Your culture influences the world.

How do I know ?
Just by looking around.

Re: Verse 54 - Dr Dyer's Essay

This is the shortest one I’ve seen in his book but his points are well taken -

In this verse of the Tao Te Ching, you’re invited to see your role in the transformation of the planet.  Instead of perceiving yourself as one insignificant individual among billions of people, you’re urged to see yourself as the Tao itself.  ”We Are The World” is everybody’s theme song.  You do make a difference !

When you live with the joyful awareness that you potentially have an infinite effect on the universe, you’ll radiate Tao consciousness.  You’ll be like a wave of energy that illuminates a room - everyone will see the light and become affected.  Those who were unaware of their Tao nature will notice the difference, and those who were aware - but not living as if their lives mattered - will be attracted and begin changing.  So recognize and live your life as part of the Great Way, and help bring balance into the world.

In this 54th passage, Lao-tzu is advising you to see your divinity and revel in your magnificence.  Know that in the silent space within you, where the Tao animates every breath and thought, your life makes a difference.