Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life Read online

  While gentry wear embroideries

  Hiding sharpened arms.

  And the more they have the more they seize,

  How can there be such men as these

  Who never hunger, never thirst,

  Yet eat and drink until they burst!

  You can see that these conditions still exist today: Whole continents of people experience starvation, while a few in positions of power live in opulence and grandeur. Weapons of destruction receive funding, while millions live in poverty. Leaders sit down to overflowing plenitude, while the masses scrounge around for ways to feed their families and heat their homes. We have a long way to go before traversing that smooth and straight Way of the Tao, for we still take “devious paths” and see the all-too-painful results of this choice every day. But I’m not writing these words to try to change the world in one fell swoop; rather, I’m doing so to encourage you to change the way you see your world. If you make that modification, others will gravitate toward living honorably as well. When enough of us do this, we’ll reach a critical mass that will eliminate “the boasting of thieves after a looting.”

  Begin by seeing yourself as the environment, rather than as an organism within it. I’ve even coined a word to describe when life-forms are whole, rather than separate: environorganisms. Understand that you can’t survive apart from what it seems isn’t part of you—for you absolutely are the air, the water, the plants, the animals, and everyone else on the planet. Change your worldview to one that completely understands that when anyone else is starving or living in poverty, so are you. See yourself in all others and you’ll find the compassion, love, and willingness that replaces your belief in your uniqueness and differentness.

  Lao-tzu was obviously distressed by the conditions of hardheartedness and indifference that he observed in ancient China, so he appealed to all to live honorably through the emulation of the Tao rather than from the ego perspective of separateness. And now he asks you to change the way you look at the blatant imbalances in 53rd Verse your world, noting how your world changes to align with the Tao when you live honorably.

  Here are his suggestions, which you can apply to your life today:

  Make compassion the essential foundation of your personal philosophy.

  Feeling guilty about what you’ve amassed or wallowing in sadness over the plight of the starving won’t change things, but making compassion the essential foundation of your philosophy will. This is one of the most significant ways of initiating the growth of a critical mass. As that mass grows, kind hearts and actions will realign our planet: Like-minded leaders will emerge, and gross inconsistencies will be reduced and eventually eliminated. Mother Teresa was an outstanding example of how one person’s way of seeing the world can change the world itself: “[I]n each [person I see],” she said, “I see the face of Christ in one of his more distressing disguises.”

  “Walk in the Great Way” by doing charity work or supporting candidates for public office who embody compassionate action. And vow to make a difference on a daily basis throughout your life, which might be as simple as refusing to join in denouncing others or categorizing them as “evil” or “defective.” After all, so many of the wars that currently rage on our planet are rooted in religious hatred that perpetuates the imbalances pointed out in this verse of the Tao Te Ching.

  In the following excerpt from the Koran, the great prophet Mohammed tells the followers of Islam to practice compassionate action. You can use his teaching to make a daily difference during your own life:

  Behave beneficently toward the neighbor

  that is a kinsman and the neighbor that is

  a stranger and the companion by your side.

  He who behaves ill toward his neighbor is not

  a believer, nor can ever be one.

  One who eats his fill while his neighbor

  is hungry by his side is not a believer.

  Do the Tao Now

  Make a daily practice of opening your heart in compassion when you see someone less fortunate than yourself. Give him or her a silent blessing rather than a thought of scorn, ridicule, blame, or indifference. Do the same when you learn how many of “them” were killed in any skirmish—rather than rejoicing about the dead enemies, say a silent prayer of love and compassion.

  Live honorably; it “just [takes] a little sense.”

  54th Verse

  Whoever is planted in the Tao

  will not be rooted up.

  Whoever embraces the Tao

  will not slip away.

  Generations honor generations endlessly.

  Cultivated in the self, virtue is realized;

  cultivated in the family, virtue overflows;

  cultivated in the community, virtue increases; cultivated in the state, virtue abounds.

  The Tao is everywhere;

  it has become everything.

  To truly see it, see it as it is.

  In a person, see it as a person;

  in a family, see it as a family;

  in a country, see it as a country;

  in the world, see it as the world.

  How do I know this is true?

  By looking inside myself.

  Living as If Your Life

  Makes a Difference

  In this verse of the Tao Te Ching, you’re invited to see your role in the transformation of the planet. Instead of perceiving yourself as one insignificant individual among billions of people, you’re urged to see yourself as the Tao itself. “We Are the World” is everybody’s theme song. You do make a difference!

  When you live with the joyful awareness that you potentially have an infinite effect on the universe, you’ll radiate Tao consciousness. You’ll be like a wave of energy that illuminates a room—everyone will see the light and become affected. Those who were unaware of their Tao nature will notice the difference, and those who were aware—but not living as if their lives mattered—will be attracted and begin changing. So recognize and live your life as part of the Great Way, and help bring balance into the world.

  In this 54th passage, Lao-tzu is advising you to see your divinity and revel in your magnificence. Know that in the silent space within you, where the Tao animates every breath and thought, your life makes a difference. The following is what he advises in the language of the 21st century:

  Choose an area to concentrate on making a difference.

  Don’t entertain doubt about your impact on the world; instead, develop a vision for Earth and convince yourself that you are perfectly capable of contributing to this vision, whether it’s grandiose or small. See a world without hatred, disrespect, or violence; where the environment is respected and cared for; and where cancer, AIDS, starvation, child abuse, weapons of all kinds, or any other detrimental or demeaning scenarios disappear.

  The anthropologist Margaret Mead addressed this idea in the following observation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

  Realize how much your life matters.

  It’s said that when a butterfly flaps its wings, that energy flows thousands of miles away. Therefore, everything you think and do extends outward and multiplies. Live your life knowing that the difference you choose to make is toward wholeness, not destructiveness. Even if no one sees or acknowledges it, an act of unkindness contains energy that impacts our entire universe. And a silent blessing or thought of love toward others contains a vibration that will be felt throughout the cosmos.

  William Blake’s vision expresses this idea:

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand

  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

  And Eternity in an hour.

  Be conscious of how very much you matter to all of creation.

  Do the Tao Now

  Dedicate a day to extending kind thoughts and acts toward your family, your community, your country, and the world. In your family, encou
rage someone who’s struggling with low self-esteem. In 54th Verse your community, pick up litter and recycle it without judgment. In your country, spend a few moments in silent prayer, sending loving energy to those who are in positions of power—then do the same for the world, including any so-called enemies.

  55th Verse

  He who is in harmony with the Tao

  is like a newborn child.

  Deadly insects will not sting him.

  Wild beasts will not attack him.

  Birds of prey will not strike him.

  Bones are weak, muscles are soft,

  yet his grasp is firm.

  He has not experienced the union of man and woman, but is whole.

  His manhood is strong.

  He screams all day without becoming hoarse.

  This is perfect harmony.

  To know harmony is to know the changeless;

  to know the changeless is to have insight.

  Things in harmony with the Tao remain;

  things that are forced grow for a while,

  but then wither away.

  This is not the Tao.

  And whatever is against the Tao soon ceases to be.

  Living by

  Letting Go

  Perhaps you’ve observed people who seem to get all the breaks, appearing to be impervious to the onslaughts that wreak havoc in many lives. For example, do you know someone who seldom if ever gets sick, in spite of spending the flu season in close contact with people who are coughing and sneezing? How about those who emerge unscathed in the middle of a crime spree? You might say that these lucky few seem to have guardian angels that protect them from the provocations of the symbolic “deadly insects,” “wild beasts,” and “birds of prey” mentioned in the opening lines of this passage. But Lao-tzu knows that these men and women are simply in harmony with the Tao, just as some individuals appear to have the right people show up in their lives at the right time, while others seem to have a knack for making money materialize just when it’s needed most.

  Lao-tzu says that we should look to infants, who haven’t yet taken on the ego belief that they’re separate from their originating Source. Consequently, they have what could be considered “magical” powers: They can scream all day and never lose their voice like a screeching adult would. Even with undeveloped muscles, they can fashion a firm grip. Furthermore, babies are pliable and virtually immune to harm from a fall that would break the bones of a grown-up. All of this is called “perfect harmony” by Lao-tzu.

  Verse 55 of the Tao Te Ching invites you to realize that what you call luck isn’t something that randomly happens—it’s yours for life when you decide to live by letting go. You attract the cooperative power of the Tao when you release the need to control your life. So change your thoughts and see how your life changes to a very fortunate one indeed.

  Let go and exist in harmony with the Tao in order to build up your immune system and be “lucky” about resisting disease and illness. I know that letting go for protection sounds paradoxical, and I suppose you could think of it like that. But try seeing it as a way of allowing life’s natural rhythm to flow unimpeded through you. Living by letting go means releasing worry, stress, and fear. When you promote your sense of well-being in the face of what appears as danger to others, your alignment with your Source frees you from pushing yourself to act in a forceful manner. Lao-tzu reminds you here that “things that are forced grow for a while, but then wither away.”

  Attain the protective nature that’s alluded to in this powerful verse, and realize the changeless with these insights for the world you’re living in today:

  Visualize yourself as indestructible.

  Activate an inner picture that will carry you through perceived dangers. In this visualization, remove the image of your physical body and instead see the part of you that’s as constant as a spirit or a thought. This is your essence, and it’s incapable of being harmed in any way. From this perspective, you’re not threatened by anything, from criminals to cancer, from a common cold to a wild beast. When you live in harmony with the enduring part of yourself, it will contribute to an overall sense of being indestructible. Declare yourself to be that lucky person who goes through life unscathed by freeing yourself from trying to control your perception of looming danger.

  Change the way you look at your potential for becoming a lucky person.

  Rather than telling yourself: With my luck, things aren’t going to work out for me, affirm: I am open to allowing what needs to happen. I trust luck to guide me. This change in your thinking will serve you by 55th Verse guiding you to live in the flow with the Tao. Peace will replace stress, harmony will replace effort, acceptance will replace interference and force, and good luck will replace fear. You’ll become what you think about, so even things that you previously believed were evidence of bad luck will now be viewed as what helps you move toward greater harmony.

  Living by letting go will allow you to appreciate Lin Yutang’s wry observation in The Importance of Living: “If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”

  Do the Tao Now

  Dedicate a week to charting incidents of “things working out” without your having to control or “make” them happen. This will mean consciously choosing situations where you curb your automatic impulse to control the outcome. Relax when you want to tense up, and trust in as many situations as you can. At the end of the week, notice how changing the way you think has changed your life.

  56th Verse

  Those who know do not talk.

  Those who talk do not know.

  Block all the passages!

  Close your mouth,

  cordon off your senses,

  blunt your sharpness,

  untie your knots,

  soften your glare,

  settle your dust.

  This is primal union or the secret embrace.

  One who knows this secret

  is not moved by attachment or aversion,

  swayed by profit or loss,

  nor touched by honor or disgrace.

  He is far beyond the cares of men

  yet comes to hold the dearest place in their hearts.

  This, therefore, is the highest state of man.

  Living by

  Silent Knowing

  This is probably the best-known verse of the Tao Te Ching. In fact, the opening two lines (“Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know”) are so popular that they’ve almost become a cliché. Nevertheless, the passage’s essential message is little understood and rarely practiced.

  Lao-tzu is calling you to live in the highest state of silent knowing, that place deep within you that can’t be communicated to any other. Consequently, you might want to change your thinking about whom you consider to be wise or learned. Persuasive speakers with a good command of the language, who are forceful in their pronouncements and confident in their point of view, are generally considered to have superior knowledge . . . but Lao-tzu suggests that precisely the opposite is true. Those who talk, he says, aren’t living from the place of silent knowing, so they do not know.

  As you modify the way you look at this presumption, you’ll see several differences in the way your world appears. First, you’ll note that those who are compelled to pontificate and persuade are almost always tied to an attachment of some kind—perhaps it’s to a point of view, to being right, to winning, or to profiting in some way. And the more talking they do, the more they appear to be swayed by such attachments.

  The second thing you’ll notice takes place within you: You begin to see your inclination and desire to persuade and convince others. Then you begin to listen more attentively, finding yourself in “the secret embrace” of the “primal union” that Lao-tzu describes. Your need to be knowledgeable or dominant is replaced by the deep realization that it’s all irrelevant, and you lose interest in seeking approval. Living in silent knowing becomes the process that casts
your existence in a different light—you have less of an edge and feel settled, softer, and more centered.

  As you change how you think about what it means to be intelligent and wise, you’ll come into contact with the irony that sums up this wonderfully paradoxical section of the Tao Te Ching. Lao-tzu says that the sage who lives by the Tao is “far beyond the cares of men,” yet holds “the dearest place” in his heart. I’d sum it up this way: Those who care the least about approval seem to receive it the most. Since such individuals aren’t concerned with how they’re perceived, either honorably or in disgrace, they don’t seek praise or run from it. While their calm wisdom may make them appear to be aloof, they actually end up gaining the respect of everyone.

  You have this place of silent knowing within you right now. And the following is what Lao-tzu suggests for adapting the paradoxical language of this verse of the Tao Te Ching to your world:

  Block all the passages!

  Get honest with yourself about wanting to win the favor of others. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, and you’ll never succeed by droning on and on. Remember that “those who talk do not know,” or as one translation of this verse simply states, “Shut your mouth.” Silence is your evidence of inner knowing. Talking to convince others actually says more about your need to be right than their need to hear what you have to say! So rather than trying to persuade others, keep quiet . . . just enjoy that deeply satisfying inner awareness.