centered within
“Search the light within your souls, for there will you find the reality of all things.”
Jesus of Nazareth
Know the Self
Listen to the Self
Love the Self
Although most of the world exists outside of our self, we experience the world entirely from the vantage point of that self. Our self is the Tao's expression of life through us as individuals. As part of the Tao, each self is perfect and full of beautiful complexity, rich emotion and limitless potential for experiencing the fullness of life. So it makes sense that the self is at the center of Lao Tzu's teachings. And though in life we are in constant interchange with other people, with things, and with nature, it is through the self that our journey with the Tao begins. The natural way of being a human is to love our self, to know our self, and to listen to our self as we navigate through life.
It's important to note here that although we experience life as individual selves, we really are all part of one whole, the Tao. Some Taoists choose to focus on being part of the great whole rather than being an individual. It's true it can be helpful to see other people (and all things in the world, really) as essentially a part of yourself, you being the great whole. But most Western philosophies treat the individual as the basic unit of life and the opportunity to choose your path and become the best self you can be as one of life's main purposes. Having come from that tradition, and having felt joy and fulfillment in viewing myself as an individual capable of growth and choice, I have a hard time letting go of that and instead saying, "I'm just a part of one big generic glob of life." Haha. But hopefully you see what I'm saying. So I've chosen to let my Western concept of self spill into my Taoism practice. And it feels right to me. I just can't let go of the idea that each of us was given a small portion of the Tao to tend, and that through that tending we can experience deep joy and fulfillment.
So where does "tending our portion of the Tao" begin? With self-love.
It Starts With Compassion
In Verse 67, Lao Tzu says he has just three things to teach. Another version says they are treasures to share (FE). They are simplicity, patience and compassion (SM). When we hear the word compassion, we typically think of having compassion for other people or being soft, caring and understanding in how we deal with them. But Stephen Mitchell interprets this compassion as compassion for self. Why? Because all compassion begins with compassion for self. If we don't love ourselves, we are constantly seeking to protect the self. We care less about others because our primary concern is to somehow make up for the lack of love we have for ourselves. The success of others makes us feel even more diminished, so we resent those successes. But when we have compassion for ourselves, we naturally have compassion for others. We are still at our center and have nothing to prove or defend. We don't feel threatened by offering kindness to others. Compassion becomes a way of living.
Unlearning
Though self-love is at the core of living a happy life, modern society has a way of making us feel like our self is deficient. Society is so focused on accomplishment, and this focus infiltrates our lives through the media. Every second of every day we are bombarded with images and words that show us usually staged images of people who have attained high degrees of success or who are unnaturally good looking. And then we go to church so we can learn to be good enough to qualify to get into heaven. And we go to school so we can earn degrees so we can be good enough to earn enough money to live a respectable life. In so many ways we are told we have to work to become good enough. But the truth is we are born good enough. Everything in the Tao is good enough and capable of living a perfect life.
But because of this strong negative self socialization, before we can truly learn to love our self, we need to unlearn the destructive messaging that has programmed our minds. And it can take much effort to erase years and even decades of hearing over and over again that we are not good enough. The author of "Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It" feels the only way he was able to overcome his self-hate and go on living was to begin to tell himself over and over again: "I love myself." The affirmation may seem simple or childish, but it works. I also add "I am loved" to what I say to myself over and over before going to bed. It has made a world of difference in my life. Making lists of your positive qualities and reviewing them often can also help, as can making a daily list of why you are grateful for YOU. If you have been bombarded with negative self-talk for years, to rewire your brain to love yourself (which would have been your natural inclination if you had been given all you needed as you grew up, by the way), will take concerted effort. Decide on a plan to train yourself to love yourself, and make the plan a priority. With self-love, you will begin to live the life you were meant to live. Without self-love, you will be forever mired in a solitary life of regret and emptiness.
And remember the purpose of allowing yourself to love yourself is so that you can hear the Tao in your life and so you can live life as you were meant to live it. Animals are living their lives perfectly. Imagine an animal thinking it is not good enough. It seems so unnatural and sad. You can imagine that animal not feeling free to follow its instincts and run and enjoy its life. That's what happens to us when we lose sight of our inherent goodness and purpose. It blocks life from coming through us and it prevents us from experiencing peace and joy.
Looking Out Rather Than In
Another problem that arises when we don't have compassion for ourselves is that we will look to external sources to give us a feeling of security or peace. One way we look to external sources is by comparing ourselves to others. The premise of comparing seems to make sense: I can measure my own worth or progress by comparing where I am or how I am to where or how you are. If we sense we are ahead, our sense of worth is validated, we are "winning"! But if on the other hand we somehow fall short, our sense of self-worth takes a blow. If over time we feel we fall short over and over again, our feelings of self-worth can be completely destroyed.
This push towards competition is the opposite of compassion. The lack of compassion first for ourselves and then for others leads us to see others as threats, enemies. And thus the great battle begins, and only because of lack of self-love.
This isn't to say all competition is bad. If we compete for fun and to challenge ourselves, it's a natural, enjoyable part of life. Professional athletes know this. Although competing is their life, they realize the competition is separate from who they are as people. They can experience a loss, see where they made mistakes and the changes they will make next time, but walk away without internal diminishment. We should all be able to do this whenever we make a misstep, which is an inevitable part of life.
Comparing ourselves to others is unwise in countless ways. First, the concept behind not comparing apples to oranges is simple, but it's true. Often when we compare ourselves to others, we compare ourselves to people who may have had extremely different life experiences than we had. And of course each of us was born with unique personalities, talents, physical abilities, and more. We wouldn't compare a house to a car, but when we compare ourselves to another person we are almost always attempting to compare two very different things. If we are truly seeing things as they are and seeing ourselves as we are, we realize the comparison and competition makes no sense. And of course, it is a compassionless act in the first place.
Wu Wei and the Return to Self
Though our self is at the center of our experience in the world, often we feel out of touch with that self. After years of living a life set out by others' expectations for us or one where we've been so ashamed of our self that we've hidden it behind a facade of trying to fit in, we might one day wake up and feel like we don't know who we are at all. How do we come to know ourselves again and start living more authentically? Although that in large measure is the entire point of Taoism, after we have reestablished compassion for ourself, a specific way we can better understand who we are and what we want to do in life is through Wu Wei. By removing expectations on the self and letting it find delight in whatever it wants to, we can begin to see and understand our self again.
A book that transformed my understanding of how the self is healed is titled Dibs: In Search of Self. It is the story of a young boy whose antisocial behavior and lack of communication skills put him on the brink of being expelled from kindergarten. He didn't speak, and he refused to listen to any direction or instruction and instead would crawl around his school room, disturbing the other children and the teacher the entire day with his outbursts and poking around. The school was at its end when it called in a psychologist to work with the boy. She decided to take the approach of not attempting to fix the boy, but of giving the boy an opportunity to simply be. When he arrived at her office she provided art supplies and toys and told him he could spend the time doing whatever he wanted to. At first he d
Quotes
Doubt everything; find your own light. - Buddha
Become what you are by learning who you are. - Pindar
“I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.”
- Epicurus
“Sages understand other individuals by understanding themselves. They understand other families by understanding their own family and therefor understand the whole world.” Heshang Gong
“The person who knows not himself, is poor in Spirit, for he is his own poverty.” Jesus
"[The self is] the only place where our physical reality and social reality cohere to pull the universe into focus, into meaning. It is the crucible of our qualia. It is the tightrope between the mind and the world, woven of consciousness." - Maria Popova
Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. (34)
“One’s own true nature cannot be explained by another.” - Sahara
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” - Rumi
“The things that we love tell us what we are.” — Thomas Aquinas
“All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are”
“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”
“Unless you realize your own mind—no matter which spiritual practices you perform—you're like a beggar who dosn't know
that a stone in his fireplace is made of gold and goes around begging” — Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol
“Become who you are!” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”
“Who you are is life itself. The knowing and understanding that comes out of that recognition can hold a lot.”
“You change the world by being yourself.” — Yoko Ono
“Most people are so occupied by the external world that they don’t realize that
there is a very rich world within themselves.” — Eva Wong
“The only difference between meditation and ordinary social interaction is that
the friend you're gradually coming to know is yourself.” — Mingyur Rinpoche
Questions
Do you consider yourself your own best friend? If not, how could you foster that relationship?
Affirmations
As great as the Tao is, I am great, because the Tao is in me and I am in the Tao.
Other
Child of the Universe
Increasing Our Value or Meaningfulness
The Perfection in Imperfection - Wabi Sabi
The Value of Being Alive (vs self-improvement)
- cats in the cradle - Indian - White man is always trying
Know Yourself -
Your Self - The Observer
No Competition
Answers With
interact with others and with and it is also s to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not." The Tao Te Ching tells us that everything we need is inside of us right now if we can only see and hear it. Having a Taoist practice involves shutting out the noise of the world and listening more closely to your inner voice as it guides you through life's twists and turns. The Tao Te Ching also reminds us that we don't need to be overly concerned about things that are going on outside of our immediate circle of influence, as they are out of our control and worrying about them will only rob us of peace and our ability to focus on the present moment in our own lives. In the modern world it is so easy to be tempted to not look at our own lives at all and instead spend endless hours comparing our lives to those of others or thinking about how we "should" be. But it is only when we are centered in our quiet self that we are truly living. By trusting ourselves and embracing our inner voice, we naturally validate ourselves and experience healthy doses of self-confidence and self-assurance.
The Answers Lie Within