“Focusing on status gives us
pride, and not humility.
Hoarding worldly riches
deprives us of heavenly assets.
An empty mind with no craving
and no expectation helps us let go of everything.
Being in the world and not of
the world, we attain heavenly grace.
With heavenly grace, we become
pure and selfless.
And everything settles into its
own perfect place.”
(Lao
Tzu, Tao
Te Ching, chapter 3)
You are in the
world, but not of the world.
So, do not identify
yourself with anything and everything in the world—the car you are driving, the
neighborhood you are living in, the name-brand dress you are wearing, and among
many others.
What is wrong with them? You become attached to them; they only enhance and inflate your ego, making
you shackled to the material world.
With a deflated ego, on the other hand, you may become
enlightened and see who you really
are, and not what people think you are. Enlightenment opens the door to the TAO
of living for life.
The reality is that many of us are not only in the world, but also of the world; so, we are living not for life, but for the world.
We are all somehow connected with one another, so focusing
on yourself is not the Way of TAO, and not the TAO of living for life.
Human wisdom requires only an
empty mind, not necessarily acquisition of knowledge. As a matter of fact, the
more you know, the less wise you may become. The explanation is that knowledge
previously acquired and accumulated often pre-conditions
your thinking mind, and thus distorting your perceptions.
Human wisdom is already inside you. What you need to do is to
search for it with self-intuitive questions.
Stephen
Lau
Copyright© by
Stephen Lau
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