nurturing simplicity in oneself

michael maloney

 

Simplicity is something

that our fundamental nature inherently

possesses. If we prepare in advance and nurture it

within ourselves, then wherever we happen to be, whether in

wealth and high rank, or poverty and low status, in foreign lands,

or in difficult circumstances, we deal with whatever situation we

are in by retaining our simplicity there. It is not increased

when we do great deeds or reduced when we are

dwelling in obscurity. Wherever we go,

we are at peace, because we have

found simplicity.

 

Nie Bao 

 

beautiful things grow out of shit

“What would be really interesting for people to see is how beautiful things grow out of shit, because nobody ever believes that, you know. Everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head, they somehow appeared there and formed in his head, and all he had to do was write them down and they would be kind of manifest to the world.

“But what I think what’s so interesting, and what should be a lesson everybody should learn, is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed, in the wrong situation, turns into nothing.

“And I think that this would be important for people to understand because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that that’s how things work. If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, they have these wonderful things in their head, but you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that, then you live a different kind of life, you know.

“You could have another kind of life where you can say, where you say, ‘Well, I know that things comes from nothing very much and start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.'”

🌍

 

the sage has no set mind

melt and let go and rest

 

The sage has no set mind.

She adopts the concerns

of others as her own.

 

She is good to the good.

She is also good to the bad.

This is real goodness.

 

She trusts the trustworthy.

She also trusts the untrustworthy.

This is real trust.

 

The sage takes the minds

of the worldly and spins them around.

People drop their ideas and agendas,

and she guides them like

beloved children.

 

The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 49

 

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☯️

 

You

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tao doesn’t lord over anything

the highest good is like water

 

The great Tao

floods and flows in every direction.

Everything in existence depends on it, and it doesn’t deny them.

It accomplishes its work without naming or making claims for itself.

Everything in existence is clothed and nourished by it,

but it doesn’t strain over anything.

Aimless, ambitionless, it might

be called “small.”

 

Everything in

existence returns to it,

and still it doesn’t lord over anything.

Thus it might also be called

“great.”

 

Because it has no desire to

be great, it can achieve 

greatness.

 

Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 34

 

ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,

Hua hu Ching, and Art of War for

iPad, Phone, Kindle, Nook,

or Android

 

You

can now buy

Tao te Ching as part of a

five-app bundle of Taoist classics 

for iPhone or iPad for less than

the cost of one hardcover

book.

brian browne walker taoist app bundle ios ipad iphone