Verse 72 - Living with Awe and Acceptance

Re: Verse 72 - Living with Awe and Acceptance

Let things be and notice the beauty of the world as it is. Receive the beauty of the world.

Re: Verse 72 - Living with Awe and Acceptance

Ken,

Oh, this is so beautiful and simple.  Thank you.

The beauty is already there.  We do not put it in.  We simply need to be willing to recognize it's presence.

Peace & Blessings -
Deb

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

This was a little synchronicity, once again.  I had just read a chapter in Sue Monk Kidd's early inspirational writings called Firstlight and she was talking about being amazed at everything.  “So.  That's how I resolved the question about what I wished to become notorious for at fifty.  Let it be for nothing more than harboring a wild amazement at life.  Let it be for choking up at poetry and the sight of human faces.  For falling into easy rapture over lilies and all the other run-of-the-mill marvels that make up life.  Let me become notorious for going around with my bridal veil tossed back and my mouth saying I do.  Renewing my vows with life.  Every day.  A hundred times a day.”

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Kathy [Centria in case anyone's wondering! ] I came to this thread through hyour post–the words 'amazed at everything', specially! Like your writer, I too, even now, at 50+ am just amazed at everything as if I have never seen it before. My children often look at me with a benign gaze, exclaiming over ducks crossing the road [naturally!] or a sunrise [every morning!!!!]

I'm even smiling a bit at the advice that I now read from Wayne Dyer, because I wonder —can this attitude actually be cultivated? I guess so, or he wouldn't say it, right?

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Meenakshi,  how wonderful that you are so amazed by life.  What a gift!  How much you teach your children simply be sharing that ability to be amazed.  It makes me want to be even more attentive, even more able to recognize the preciousness of life revealing itself in the simple every day.

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Deb,

This is so profound yet difficult (for those like me who have difficulty accepting things as they are). But our inner voice should always be open.

Peace,
Ken

Re: Verse 72 - Advice from Dr Dyer

Have been listening to Adyashanti's CD's this past week or two and he again reiterated how important the body is in our awakening.  He shared about how the body speaks to us and is our greatest teacher.  And that after awakening it is really the kinesthetic sense of the body that we follow rather than our thoughts or feelings.  After hearing this yesterday, fell into a deeper listening to the wordless words of the body's knowing.  Thanks, Deb.

Re: Verse 72 - Ma-Wang-Tui Manuscripts

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

72
(37)

When the people do not fear the majestic,
Great majesty will soon visit them.

Do not limit their dwellings,
Do not suppress their livelihood.
Simply because you do not suppress them,
         they will not grow weary of you.

For this reason,
         The sage is self-aware,
                  but does not flaunt himself;
         He is self-devoted,
                  but does not glorify himself.

Therefore,
         He rejects the one and adopts the other.

Re: Verse 72 - The Tao of Motherhood

From The Tao of Motherhood by Vimala McClure

72

WONDER

Children who grow up with no
spirituality - with no sense of
wonder - will struggle with
depression as adults.

Do not impose rational thinking
on your children too early.
Do not oppress them with
adult reality.

Because you don't pressure
them to grow up, they can
grow naturally and keep their
sweetness.

The wise parent can be childlike
but is not irresponsible,
loves herself but is not selfish.
She is spiritual but not dogmatic.

Re: Verse 72 - The Tao of Emerson

From The Tao of Emerson by Richard Grossman

From The Texts of Taoism, 1891 by James Legge

When the people do not fear what
           they ought to fear,
That which is their greatest dread
           will come to them.

Let them not thoughtlessly indulge themselves
           in their ordinary life;
Let them not act as if weary of what
           life depends on.

It is by avoiding such indulgence that
          such weariness does not arise.

Therefore the sage knows these things,
          but does not parade his knowledge;
Loves, but does not appear to set a value
          on himself.
And thus he puts the latter alternative away
          and makes a choice of the former.

From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson - ”Education”

The use of the world is that man may
         learn its laws.
When a man stupid becomes a man inspired,
When one and the same man
Passes out of the torpid into the perceiving state,
Leaves the din of trifles, the stupor of the senses,
          to enter into the quasi-omniscience of higher thought -
Up and down, all around go,
All limits disappear,
No horizon shuts down.
He sees things in their causes,
          all facts in their connection.

Re: Verse 72 - Jonathan Star

From Tao Te Ching - The Definitive Edition by Jonathan Star

When the people do not fear worldly power
          a greater power will arrive

Don't limit the view of yourself
Don't despise the conditions of your birth
Don't resist the natural course of your life
          In this way you will never weary of this world

The Sage knows himself, but not as himself
          he loves himself, but not as himself
          he honors himself, but not as himself
Thus, he discards the view of his own self
          and chooses the view of the universe

Re: Verse 72 - Stephen Mitchell & Byron Katie

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

When they lose their sense of awe,
people turn to religion.
When they no longer trust themselves,
they begin to depend upon authority.

Therefore the Master steps back
so that people won't be confused.
He teaches without a teaching,
so that people will have nothing to learn.

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy - Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

                                                           When they lose their sense of awe,
                                                           people turn to religion.

A Christian asked me if I had ever met Jesus.  I'm a lover of God - in other words, a lover of reality.  I like to meet you there, which is here, now.

I don't know much about Jesus, except that he loved God.  He was a man with a wonderful way that worked for him - someone who truly lived it.  I know what that is.  I found a wonderful way, too, and I live it.  And, of course, that's not true.  “I” didn't find the way, it found me, when there wasn't even a me to find.  The way is simply what is.  It doesn't bend to what anyone thinks it should be, it is its own integrity, it is infinitely intelligent and kind.  To my mind, if Jesus is the way, I meet him in everyone, because the way is nothing more than a mirror image of my own thinking.

Christians say they love Jesus, but that's easy to believe when things are going your way.  If Jesus walked into this room, everyone would love him, some would even fall at his feet and worship him, until he said something that threatened their religion, which is the concept they're attached to in the moment.  Then he'd become an enemy.  “He's a radical.  He's not what I thought he'd be.  He hangs out with the wrong people.  A spiritual teacher shouldn't be political.  He's contradicting the scriptures.  His head's in the clouds.  He doesn't understand.”  People will write off even the clearest, most loving person in the world when he opposes their belief system.  They will invalidate him, negate him, obliterate him, prove that he's wrong, he's a fraud, he's dangerous to society, so that they can protect what they really believe is important.  They'd rather be right than free.

When you revere a spiritual teacher, it's yourself that you're revering, because you can't project anything but yourself.  And as long as there is something unhealed in you, you have to attach that to the teacher when you don't get your way or when your belief system is threatened.  He says something, you put meaning onto it, you think that he's wrong or lacking, and you move out of reverence.  What your reacting to is not what he said, but what you heard.  It's a fine thing to love Jesus, but until you can love the monster, the terrorist, the child molester, until you can meet your worst enemy without defense or justification, you reverence for Jesus isn't real, because each of these is just another of his forms.  That's how you know when you are truly revering your spiritual teacher: when your reverence goes across the board.

If you think you're devoted to a spiritual teacher, that's a wonderful beginning; you get to see how your devotion could look when it's directed to all of us.  Whatever disrespect, invalidation, or fear you project onto an enemy - sooner or later you'll project it onto your spiritual teacher.  Everyone is your teacher, and the most powerful spiritual practice is to hang out with the people who criticize you.  You don't even have to do that physically, since they live right here in your head.  And when you think that you've grown beyond all your defensiveness and justifications, then hang out with your enemies physically, and see how lighthearted you are when they trash you.  That's the real test.

To become aware without any spiritual teacher, without any scripture or tradition or authority, is to meet the teacher where you are.  For me, the truth was right under my nose.  Most amazing.  It was sweet and simple, with nothing complicated about it.  If it hadn't been so simple, I would never have found it.

Re: Verse 72 - Dr Dyer's Essay

This verse of the Tao Te Ching alerts you to two components that work together for a harmonious life: a sense of awe and total acceptance.  Without these combined forces, you're unlikely to see the presence of the Tao.

As I wrote about this verse, I found myself reading from Saint John of the Cross, a 16th-century mystical poet who lived a life of awe.  I've reproduced a few of his lines to give you an idea of how this feeling manifested in a Divinely spiritual man: