In the darkness, light a candle

Over the past month, I've been rather busy - family events to organise and deal with, everyday life, job, etc.

It's at times like this that we can sometimes feel everything getting on top of us; it's all getting too much, the world seems to be closing in and everything is getting darker and we can't see our way clear. When we're busy, and the task that we're dealing with now is merely a foothill in mountain range of tasks still to be completed, it can often appear that everything is dark, that there is no light at the end of the tunnel; and even if there was a light, it's merely the headlight of an oncoming train!

And so we need to train ourselves, force ourselves to take a step back from our tasks and this reminded me of a chinese proverb: "In the darkness, light a candle".
Here in the west, we sometimes need to force ourselves to find an opportunity to light a candle in our own personal darkness.

There are many different ways we can do this: meditation in a formal way, perhaps lighting candles and incense; taking a long hot bath and listening to some calming music; or even easier, taking a walk amongst nature and tuning ourselves in to the rhythm of the natural world. There are as many different methods of relaxation as there are people, and I'm sure that you can think of other ways that you enjoy relaxing.

But as I was thinking about this topic, it struck me that we don't just need to light candles in our own personal darkness, but we also need to light 'candles' in the darkness of the world. It is at times of difficulty in the world around us, in our own small local communities where taoism and taoists, by embracing balance and losing sense of self can, without making a song and dance about it, show others how much easier it is on everyone, if we live in harmony and balance with each other.

And if we consider it this way, then the ripples of our actions/example will eventually brush against other 'objects' which will in their turn set up ripples of their own.

Lighting a candle in the darkness has the potential to spread the light a very long way. So go ahead, light those candles!

Tag Taoism candles despair