The essential Taoist guide to living with simplicity, compassion, and integrityThis is a book that draws on ancient Chinese wisdom to explore the critical life issues: What is our place in nature? How do we make right decisions? How do we respect the earth? How are we to view life and death? What is the path we should live to truly achieve a good and meaningful life?For Deng Ming-Dao, the two entry points for this exploration are two words: The first is the Chinese word for "heart"â which means heart, mind, intention, center, core intelligence, and soul. And the second is the word beautyâwhich connotes the pleasure we take in art, design, fashion, and music. Our hearts love beauty, and beauty opens our hearts.In this profound collection of fresh and contemporary translations of ancient texts, Deng Ming-Dao gathers over 220 selections that deal with the essence of heart and beauty. Topics include: how to be great, how long it takes to follow your heart, how to bring order to the world, how to know everything, how to pacify the heart, and much more. Here are stories, fables, poems, and epigrams that delight, inspire, and inform.Those who would subdue people through their own "excellence"Have yet to subdue anyone.But if you used excellence to nurture people instead,The whole world would be subdued.No one has become ruler of all under heavenWithout subdued hearts.It has never happened.
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all their organs are complete and their vigor is full.
Crying all day without becoming hoarse
shows full harmony.
Knowing harmony is constancy.
Knowing constancy is clarity.
But trying to improve upon life is a bad sign.
The heart uses the body's energy, and that's called strength.
Whatever grows strong grows old;
we call that going against Tao.
Whatever goes against Tao
comes to an early end.
Daodejing, 55
3 | For the heart that won't do what's natural
Confucius reached the age of fifty-one, but he had still not fully learned of Tao. He went south to the land of Pei to see Lao Dan.
âYou've come, haven't you?â Lao Dan asked. âI have heard that you are the most capable person in the north. Have you realized Tao?â
âNot yet.â
âHow have you sought it?â
âAt first, I sought it through measures and numbers. After five years, I still hadn't realized it.â
âThen how did you seek it again?â
âI then sought it through yin and yang, but still did not find it after twelve years.â
âOf course. If Tao could be presented, then subjects would give Tao to their rulers. If Tao could be given, then people would give it to their parents. If Tao could be told to others, then all people would tell it to their siblings. If Tao could be bequeathed to others, then people would give it to their children and grandchildren.
âThe reason for this is nothing other than:
âInwardly, there is no one to direct it; and so it is unstoppable. Outwardly, it does not conform to our rules, and so it seems to us as if no one moves it. Tao emerges from the center and cannot be taken by what is outside. Similarly, the sage does not go out, does not enter into externals, and so the external cannot enter the center. The sage does not need to hide.â
Fame is in the realm of the public. We shouldn't seek it much. Benevolence and righteousness are like the thatched huts of the ancients: we can stay in them overnight, but we can't dwell there for long. We can meet there, but we can't station ourselves there.
The realized people in the past used benevolence as they traveled the Tao. They used benevolence like someone staying in a hut overnight. That's how they wandered and roamed in emptiness, found sustenance in the fields of carefree simplicity, and stood in gardens without debt.
To ramble far, use nonaction. For carefree simplicity, look for easy nurturing. To be debt-free, don't spend. The ancients called this âwandering to collect the true.â
Those who exist for wealth cannot give up their incomes. Those who exist for distinction cannot give up their fame. Those who crave power cannot delegate it to others. While they hold these things, they are unstable. As they live with them, they are melancholy. Yet they won't even look once in the mirror, or even consider resting for a moment. They are heaven's cursed people.
Hatred and kindness; taking and giving; admonishment and teaching; life and death. These are the eight standards. Can you comply with them and yet go through all the great changes of life without sinking? You have to be able to use them. The ancients say: âTo rectify is to be correct.â
For the heart that won't do what's natural, heaven's gate will never open.
Zhuangzi, âThe Movement of Heavenâ
4 | How long it takes to follow your heart
At fifteen, I set my will on learning.
At thirty, I was independent.
At forty, I had no doubts.
At fifty, I knew heaven's commands.
At sixty, my ears obeyed.
At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired
and not exceed the right measure.
Analects, âWei Zhengâ
5 | When Confucius reached the age of sixty
Zhuangzi said to Huizi: âWhen Confucius reached the age of sixty, he changed. What he first believed to be right he suddenly rejected as wrong. He hadn't realized that what he thought was true for fifty-nine years was no longer valid.â
Huizi said: âConfucius was earnest in pursuing the acquisition of knowledge.â
âConfucius rejected such a course; he never claimed to be doing such a thing. This is what he said: âPeople get their talents from the great root. They should return to the spiritual in this life.â Their singing should be in tune with pitch pipes. Their speech should be as suitable as the law. When gain and righteousness are set before them, others should remark on how they weigh good and bad, true and false, straight and bent. In order to make people use their hearts, they urge cooperation rather than obstinance. Ahh! I have not caught up to him!â
Zhuangzi, âFablesâ
6 | Human nature is good
When it comes to human nature, it is basically good.
That is what is meant by excellence.
If people act badly, it isn't a matter of t...
Table of contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
1 | The heart of a great person
2 | Not going against Tao
3 | For the heart that won't do what's natural
4 | How long it takes to follow your heart
5 | When Confucius reached the age of sixty
6 | Human nature is good
7 | When nothing is hidden
8 | What sages ponder
9 | Work as a compassionate person
10 | Truly study
11 | Free your heart, but don't lose it
12 | A good heart comes with depth
13 | Protect your true heart
14 | Live in your heart
15 | The sages ruled by opening hearts
16 | Keeping the natural beauty of the heart
17 | Use your heart as a mirror
18 | Cleave to beauty
19 | How to be great
20 | Autumn Floods
21 | What is, is-not
22 | Why beauty matters to hearts in grief
23 | Help everyone get their own strength
24 | Let people have steady hearts
25 | Take the world as one nation
26 | Crossing the Lingding Channel
27 | Paradise
28 | The power of accumulation
29 | The heart-way through no-gate
30 | The door to nothingness
31 | Like a binding around the heart
32 | The heart is like . . .
33 | It's best is to effect spiritual change
34 | My heart is not a stone
35 | What moves?
36 | The Tao of heaven and earth
37 | Could he see with his ears and hear with his eyes?
38 | Proper learning
39 | Base yourself in heaven's command
40 | Zhaozhou's Dog
41 | âI went today and arrived yesterdayâ
42 | One who desires good
43 | The joy of heaven
44 | In the heart of heaven
45 | Beautiful learning
46 | One of life's dilemmas
47 | If we didn't have two kinds of beauty
48 | Not recognizing what a sage is
49 | For the sake of self-sufficient people
50 | Fasting of the heart
51 | Cultivate yourself
52 | The four mistakes in learning
53 | The four faults of governance
54 | What a parent cannot teach a child
55 | Let music rule your heart
56 | The secret of music
57 | Why isn't following Tao easier?
58 | To know without knowing
59 | Buddha holds a flower
60 | Beautiful words are sold at market
61 | In beautiful solitude
62 | Virtue will be your beauty
63 | The art of nourishing the heart
64 | The way and advantage of emptiness
65 | What is Tao?
66 | Steady hearts
67 | As long as your heart is at peace
68 | What is Buddha?
69 | Subduing through excellence
70 | You and I are dreaming
71 | Your heart will be devoted and true
72 | Trying to see autumn fur
73 | Beauty to match heaven and earth
74 | Because he did not become a Buddha
75 | How to bring order to the world
76 | The greatest strength in the world
77 | He wanted to push all evil from his heart
78 | The teacher who had no feet
79 | Beauty is harmony
80 | The root is not beautiful
81 | Feeling each passing moment
82 | The âillnessâ of being a sage
83 | The noble ones and the inferior persons
84 | The leadership of enlightened kings
85 | A heart of integrity
86 | Every idea brings immediate response
87 | The method is concealment
88 | The teaching that has not yet been preached
89 | Comparing horses and people
90 | They are methodical
91 | How to know everything
92 | The heart knows beauty and truth
93 | Do we need anyone to rule the world?
94 | Everyone is angry with me
95 | How to make a general lose heart
96 | Once the heart sends out its feelings
97 | Wrap pure emptiness
98 | It's all natural
99 | You make yourself
100 | Cloud Commander and Vast Ignorance
101 | The Tao of the Early Kings
102 | What heart will you touch?
103 | True friendship
104 | Music is the root of action
105 | Tracing the source
106 | The relativity of beauty
107 | Becoming a great driver of the chariot
108 | Extending what humans can do
109 | Those who love others who are like themselves
110 | No desire but for the world to have enough
111 | The way to deliberate in your heart
112 | Without learning it can't be broken
113 | Keep your spirit in your heart
114 | Until I couldn't see anymore
115 | A heart that's always virtuous
116 | To see death and life together
117 | Not losing the root of one's heart
118 | However beautiful, weapons are ill omens
119 | The way to gain people is through their hearts
