Well over 2500 years ago, the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu decided
to leave the province where he had lived because he had become disillusioned
with the corrupt and decaying government that ruled there. When he arrived at
the border, however, a guard asked the wise old man if he would write a book
before he left of instructions in the art of living. To this, Lao-Tzu agreed and he called this
book the Tao Te Ching. When it was
completed, Lao-Tzu departed that country never to be seen or heard from again.
As some may know that Tao Te Ching became the sacred text
Taoism and one of the most widely translated books of all time. Its followers strive to live according to the
principles of the Tao which they believe governs the order of the
Universe. Like Zen, Tao (or “the Way”),
is a spiritual path which must be intimately experienced; not intellectually
understood. One of its main themes is
unity, based on YIELDING rather than resisting.
When a seeker commits to the Way her or she sheds their expectations,
becoming an empty vessel to be filled to the brim with both the yin and yang,
the opposite male and female energies of life – career/home, light/dark,
sorrow/joy, intimacy/solitude, aggression/passivity, pain/pleasure and health/illness.
If our souls are so preoccupied with undoing, how does
anything ever truly get done? Inexplicably it gets done by pausing…
Pausing…
Reflecting on the way in which our life proceeds day in and
day out; what works and what does not work.
As we pause to reflect before doing, we become aware of how
the nature of things, even the minutiae of the domestic sphere, contributes to
the harmony of the Universe… the Whole. One of Lao-Tzus lessons is “that naming
is the origin of all particular things” and that “mystery and manifestation
arise from the same source.”
I have, as my battle with cancer rages on, taken this wisdom
to heart in all aspects of my life and in particularly, since buying my new
home, in how I perceive the work I do in it and for it.
Strange as it may sound to some… working FOR my home (in
other words my place of employment) and in and around my home is not drudgery
but a labor of love.
I do not see any of the work I do as “chores” but as
tasks. Yes, the housework has to be done
but to me it is NOT work but caring… caring for the walls that now protect me
and my shepherds.
You see, redefining our work can and does cast a powerful
spell over the subconscious mind. After
all, caring – for yourself, your loved ones, your work associates, your pets,
and your home – is truly what you are doing as you commute to work, labor in
the office, sort the laundry, bathe the pets, dust, do the dishes and work in
the garden.
Our daily tasks are visible manifestations of the spirit of
God in the work place, in the grocery store, at the doctors office,
Lao-Tzu urged seekers to “regard the small as important”
and “to make much of the little” Today
join me in trying to do every task you undertake today, no matter how in
insignificant it may seem, as part of the path to Wholeness… oneness with the
Universe… working through God and it shall become so.
