If you overly esteem talented individuals,people will become overly competitive.If you overvalue possessions,people will begin to steal.Do not display your treasuresor people will become envious.The Master leads byemptying people’s minds,filling their bellies,weakening their ambitions,and making them become strong.Preferring simplicity and freedom from desires,avoiding the pitfalls of knowledge and wrong action.For those who practice not-doing,everything will …
Author Archives: hermitalex
Meditations on the Tao Te Ching: Chapter 2
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other: High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one …
Meditations on the Tao Te Ching: Chapter 1
I start this blog with the first in a series of meditations on the Tao Te Ching (or Dao De Jing) because so many of my ideas are, if not derived from this text, at least reflected in it. I am no expert in this text–I’ve only read it in its entirety a few times–so …
Under the Spell of Words 