jump to navigation

The Tao Te Ching and the futility of naming March 1, 2013

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Tao Te Ching.
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

One of the tendencies of the ego (the mind, the voice in our heads) is the propensity to apply labels to everything in life.

Perhaps this is a manifestation of our subconscious desire to feel a measure of control and understanding — a way to intellectually manage or make sense of the universe by categorizing all elements as we perceive them. But the “control” afforded by labelling can be illusory because many of the components underlying the real world cannot accurately be named universally.

By placing labels on phenomena, we are coloring everything with our own brush, which in many cases is not a reflection of the true colors of reality.

There is an interesting reflection on labelling or naming which I found when reading a passage in the Tao Te Ching (composed by Lao-tzu, in perhaps the 400-500 BC period)  as interpreted/translated  by Stephen Mitchell.*

In Chapter 1 Lao-tzu writes:

The tao that can be told

is not the eternal tao.

The name that can be named

is not the eternal Name.

The unamable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin

 of all particular things.

 

If we can resist the temptation to label, if we can accept things as they are, if we make a decision to try to not judge, then perhaps we can then better see reality.

 

*Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching, A new English Version, HarperPerennial edition, 1991, paperback.

Ego management: Trying to control the future April 2, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
Tags: , , , , , , ,
add a comment

Ego management or controlling our thinking is often difficult when it comes to the past and the future; and probably, controlling our ego in thinking about the future is the toughest.

The future, at least to the ego and our mind, is often filled with “what if’s” and “if only I could…” or less tentatively,  we engage in writing, saying aloud,  or thinking affirmations and make other efforts involving the Law of Attraction which usually are focused on specific outcomes that we desire for the future.

However, there is a big difference on thinking about the future positively, or planning our lives to influence a future with positive possibilities, compared with an attempt by the ego to think that we can actually control the future. We can try but such efforts will more than likely result in disappointment, and possibly psychic harm.

There is an interesting passage in the Tao Te Ching that illustrates this in a few words: “Trying to control the future Is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place. When you handle the master carpenter’s tools, Chances are you’ll hurt your hand.” *

I am not presenting this passage from the Tao from a religious perspective or saying that there is a grand deity controlling our lives and Rather, I am suggesting that if we give in to the ego’s desire to try to over-manage the future we are bound to become frustrated.

There are simply too many variables in the universe in terms of influences and events that can have an effect on our future to think that we can control the future. To appease the ego in its desire to control the future is to give in to delusion.

Planning, goal setting, efforts towards a positive approach to life, and other components of a personal development program, however, are ways to exert influence over our own future without allowing the ego to over-manage our thinking as to what we can realistically control in the future.

To paraphrase a familiar prayer, we need to develop acceptance of the things we cannot change; develop courage to change the things we can; and also develop the wisdom to know the difference between these two sets of circumstances.

* The Tao Te Ching, as interpreted/translated by Stephen Mitchell, published by HarperPerennial, A division of HarperCollins Publishers.