Advice from Yang Chun

I was delving into the Taoist texts on the Sacred Texts website yesterday (Sacred Texts/Taoism) when I read the following section of text which appears in Ch. 4, The ideal life, of Yang Chun's Garden of Pleasure (translated by Anton Forke (1912):

"... enjoy life and take one's ease, for those who know how to enjoy life are not poor, and he that lives at ease requires no riches."

This text set me to thinking. We make a great deal about the pursuit of happiness (although no one seems to be able to give a uniform description of what this actually means) in our modern world; for our American friends it is actually enshrined in their Declaration of Independence as unalienable rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'.

But then I thought, if you chase/pursue something do you always catch it? Perhaps this pursuit of happiness is a bit like that mirage in the desert of an oasis; we can see it but we never seem to arrive. The phrase the 'pursuit of happiness' seems to imply that 'happiness' is 'out there', that it is outside of ourselves and that we require something extra in our lives before we can call ourselves happy. But happiness is fleeting - it is not something that we can have all the time; we have to have the downs so that we can recognise the ups. As the TTC says (Ch. 2):

"Recognise beauty and ugliness is born.
Recognise good and evil is born.

Is and Isn't produce each other.

Hard depends on easy,
Long is tested by short,
High is determined by low,
Sound is harmonised by voice,
After is followed by before."

So perhaps we need to recognise that our 'pursuit' of happiness should be an internal one; that we already have everything we need to be able to enjoy life, regardless of whether we are financially successful or not.

Finally, I will leave you with the poem, entitled Leisure, by William Henry Davies:

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

Perhaps we should all take the time to stand and stare - maybe we would enjoy life more and, who knows, find happiness right here.

Tag Taoism happiness Yang Chu

Just for today

Recently, after a long search on the internet, I finally found a quotation that I once had and had misplaced. It is entitled the 'Ideals of Emperor Meiji' and runs as follows:

"Just for today:
I will let go of anger.
I will let go of worry.
I will give thanks for my many blessings.
I will do my work honestly.
I will be kind to my neighbour and every living thing."

This sounds so simple; it's easy to remember (mostly :-)) ); it seems to state such obvious things and yet these things are perhaps some of the most difficult to accomplish.

I will let go of anger
How many times have we been irritated/frustrated/angry with someone in another car on our way to work? Or perhaps you have a difficult work colleague or an insanely irritating member of your own family, whose behaviour frequently leads you to mutter imprecations under your breath? Answer this question honestly, write it down, say it out loud (perhaps you should do this in private! (LOL))

I will let go of worry
We worry about so many things, often not fully conscious that we are worrying. Will that project be completed by the deadline; will we make it to the post office to buy a stamp; will we be in time for our important appointment? Worries can often be more metaphysical in nature - will our lives 'mean' anything? Are we a 'somebody' or a 'nobody'? Are we a success or a failure? And other similar questions. These worries often float around and sometimes form part of the foundations of who we are and how we behave, all without our being truly aware of them. Be honest; meditate on this question if you feel it will bring things out into the open.

I will give thanks for my many blessings
How often do we actually stop and consider all the plus points that our lives have? Our health, our children/spouses/friends, the current political climate in our countries that enable us to live out our lives in relative comfort and security (even if we think the current incumbents couldn't find their way out of a paperbag without instructions in words of one syllable!) Or do we prefer to moan and gripe, and think that what is happening is TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it)? Look at the TV news broadcasts - how often do they report something positive - a running total of little old ladies who've NOT been mugged, for example!

I will do my work honestly
Most people do this - but, if we are truly honest with ourselves, there have been occasions when we have not done so. This is not to suggest that we're stealing from our employers or anything like that; however, it may be that there have been times when we haven't put all our efforts into a project for someone we dislike; we've gone on a go slow, perhaps due to perceived overwork/stress etc.

I will be kind to my neighbour and to every living thing
Being kind to my neighbour can involve your next door neighbour, work colleagues, other road users, family members (the list could go on) and as these are sometimes the people that drive you crazy, this can be difficult. Being kind to every living thing can be interpreted in many ways - perhaps we should become vegetarians in order to avoid cruelty to animals; campaigning for organic farming (including livestock farming)so that meat can be sourced from humane circumstances; campaigning for action on global warming issues so that habitats that are relied upon don't disappear and speed the extinction of whole groups of animals; and there are many other ways of being kind to every living thing.

These are ideals - good ones - how close do you come to them? How close can we get to them in our modern society? How willing are we to try?

Tag Taoism Emperor Meiji