Top 12 of the Tao Te Ching
The Path of Well Being

The world “under heaven” is the world of form, of opposites. It’s the world of yin (feminine principle of energy) and yang (male principle of energy). Yin and Yang are in a constant dance, a shifting back and forth, a weaving of our manifest world. In meditation, we can observe the dance of our thoughts and emotions, the constant shifting of our minds. We think and want the world to be constant. But it never will be. Change is always occurring. To attain peace within this constant change is to remain in the present moment, where “this” work is done, then forgotten, as we move on to the next “work”. In the forgetting, the non-attachment, our work lasts forever. Forever is the present moment, again and again, the present moment.

To “play” with these ideas further, reflect on the following questions:

1.     List everything you have in your life that you don’t want, and then next to each item, list its opposite.

2.     List everything you want in your life that you don’t have, and then next to each item, list its opposite.

3.     Look at your two lists and “see” the dance of opposites that are now occurring in your life.

Sometime during this month, do the following:

4.     Sit quietly and feel your breath, going in and out of your nostrils. Just feel the breath. From this point of feeling, observe the constant change going on in our mind. Just observe, without judgment. Practice this mindfulness technique for 5 minutes a day, for at least 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks, you will want to continue!

5.     Spend one day moving from project to project without thinking back on what you just did, or thinking forward to what the results of what you did will be. Move forward with each thing you do like a baby, first playing with his toes, then moving to fingers while toes are forgotten. Spend you day in innocence and peace.

The Tao Te Ching (pronounced Dow de ching) was written around 6th century BC  by the Taoist sage Lao Tzu, "Old Master", a record-keeper at the Zhou Dynasty court, by whose name the text is known in China. The text's true authorship and date of composition or compilation has not ever been verified. According to legend, Lao Tzu wrote the Tao as an old man, and then walked off into the hills, never to be seen again.

Tao means "way", "road", "path", or "route," but was extended to mean "path ahead", "way forward", "method", "principle", "doctrine", or simply "the Way".  Te means "virtue" in the sense of "personal character", "inner strength", or "integrity".  Ching originally meant "norm", "rule", "plan".

©September 2004 by Jill N. Henry, Mountain Valley Center, Otto NC. All rights reserved.

Dr. Jill Henry is the author of Energy SourceBook – The Fundamentals of Personal Energy (Llewellyn, 2004) and webmaster for www.mountainvalleycenter.com. She is founder, with her husband Charlie, of Mountain Valley Center metastore  and the Otto Labyrinth Park in Otto, NC. Jill is an Associate Polarity Practitioner, an Independent Distributor of the RichWay Amethyst Biomat, and developer and presenter of CEU workshops for nurses, physical therapists and massage therapists  http://www.mountainvalleycenter.com/flow.htm