Tao Te Ching Part Fourteen “Look, it cannot be seen – it is beyond form.Listen, it cannot be heard – it is beyond sound.Grasp, it cannot be held – it is intangible.These three are indefinable;Therefore they are joined in one.” This is the essence of the Tao, it can’t be seen, heard or touched, it’s beyond the normal senses, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be directly experienced and grasped with a different part of the mind. “From above it is not bright;From below it is not dark:An unbroken thread beyond description.It returns to nothingness.The form of the formless,The … Continue reading It Cannot Be Seen, Heard Or Held

Tao Te Ching Part Twelve  “The five colors blind the eye.The five tones deafen the ear.The five flavors dull the taste.” The excitement and distraction of the senses outward creates the desires that solidifies the identity that society gives us. It’s important to be able to ‘seal the senses’ and turn them inward to understand who and what we really are. This is an important part of our mindfulness training. “Racing and hunting madden the mind.Precious things lead one astray.” ‘Racing and hunting” stimulate our survival instincts and base energies. The ‘fight or flight’ instinct is powered by adrenaline short … Continue reading Power Of The Senses

Tao Te Ching Part Eleven “Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;It is the center hole that makes it useful.Shape clay into a vessel;It is the space within that makes it useful.Cut doors and windows for a room;It is the holes which make it useful.Therefore benefit comes from what is there;Usefulness from what is not there.” ‘Some thing’ can only exist by the grace of ‘no thing’. Space, apart from filling the void is 99.9999999% of an atom. If the space was removed from a human body the remaining matter would be as big as a speck of dust. It pervades … Continue reading Space – The Final Frontier

Tao Te Ching Part Nine “Better to stop short than fill to the brim.Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.” A lot of modern stress, anxiety and illness is the result of our modern stressful living. We seem to have lost the art of pacing ourselves, we are constantly pressured to do more, to become more and push ourselves beyond our limits. To not ‘fill to the brim or oversharpen the blade’ is good advice to stop at the point that where we can improve but not go too far. “Amass a store of gold and jade, and … Continue reading Don’t Fill To The Brim