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for now let’s get on with how to be happy from the wisdom of Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu, was an ancient Chinese philosopher
and writer who is known to be the founder of Taoism. Taoism is a philosophy which emphasizes becoming
one with the rhythms of nature - is called “the way” or “tao”. He is also credited as the writer of Taoism’s
most sacred text, Tao Te Ching in which he associates the process of achieving real happiness
with managing the 4 fundamental areas of life: resources, relationships, self-development
and self-maintenance. The old master’s teachings, even after 2500
years, are world renowned, studied and practiced by millions around the world and so in this
video we are going to explore how to be happy by managing these 4 fundamental areas of life. 1. Resources
Lao Tzu says “Heaven’s Way is like stretching a bow. The high is lowered and the low is raised. Excess is reduced and deficiency is replenished. Heaven’s Way reduces excess and replenishes
deficiency. People’s Way is not so. They reduce the deficient and supply the excessive.” What Lao Tzu tries to tell us is that we have
to avoid excess and replenish deficiency, in other words, we need to take care of all
of our resources in an equal way. Resources doesn’t only mean money, it can
be anything which can be traded or it can be anything you use for your daily well-being. They typically are: money, your possessions
e.g. your house, your car, your brain power, your talents, and your physical prowess. In Taoism, there is the concept of Yin and
Yang, that says that each aspect of nature is dual and we need to balance the opposites
in order to live in harmony with nature. Yin is the passive and Yang is the active
principle of the duality and this duality can be seen in all patterns of nature, such
as in the annual cycle - winter and summer, the daily cycle of night and day. Yin and Yang are complementary parts of Qi,
which is the vital force driving us. If Tao is like an ocean, connecting everything,
Qi is an energy pattern, it is the wave. When our Qi is balanced between Yin and Yang
and is flowing smoothly, this leads to a fulfilled life. The concept of balancing the complementary
parts can be applied to the subject of resource management. We have to make sure we don’t use too much
of a resource at the expense of another. For example you use your talents in your job
to excess, you get promoted and you enjoy doing overtime at work, doing what you love. But you completely ignore your health, you
don’t take your time to replenish your physical power. In the long run, this can be very detrimental,
it can even shorten your life. If you use one resource to excess, you end
up creating disharmony in the universe, your vital force – your Qi will not be balanced
and, as a consequence, you can feel tired, irritable, stressed. You can even feel pain, actual muscle weakness. It can affect your health and you may underperform
in other areas of your life. Just like any structure or a building that
is supported by equal upright pillars, the resources you have are the pillars of your
well-being. You have to nurture and balance all of them. Managing resources in our everyday lives – be
it in what we eat, what we wear, how we live, how we work – might just be the antidote
to our stressful modern, consumption-led world as taoism embraces a more balanced approach,
that is to say having just enough to meet your needs, not your wants. This leads to living a sustainable lifestyle
that embraces the pleasures of existence rather than those of consumption and when you focus
on the pleasures of existence, you live the heaven’s way - a simple, happy life. 2. Relationships
In the words of Lao Tzu “The sage does not hoard. The more he does for others, the more he has. The more he thereby gives to others, the ever
more he gets.” To live according to Tao, you must live in
harmony with everything around you, your community, nature, and with the universe on a larger
scale. Living in harmony means to do no harm and,
moreover, to nurture, protect and contribute to the well-being of everything around you. As we all humans are part of this universe,
we have to see others as our extended family, we have to take care of each other. In Taoism, there is a karmic principle, which
says that everything you do, will eventually come back to you in one way or another. Thus, if we care about others, if we give
our help and support, these good deeds will come back to us in the end, we will receive
back even more care, love and support. On the contrary, if we hurt other people and
the environment, we are not acting in harmony with human society, with the universe and
the harm we did to others will harm us even more in the end. The moral is that everything you do to others
or to the environment is a seed of everything that will be done to you later. No person is an island and being happy has
much to do with the relationship between you and what surrounds you. There are many scientific studies proving
the importance of having a healthy social life for example – a Harvard study on adult
development found that good relationships are the key factors that matter the most for
long-lasting happiness. Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. One of the most important ways to achieve
a life long happiness is to focus on meaningful relationships and on trying to improve or
eliminate the bad relationships in our lives. To really start to implement this Taoist way
of living, as an exercise, make three lists: a list with your family members and close
friends, then another list with people you have hurt and finally a third list with people
who have hurt you. The first list is the list of people you should
take care of on a daily basis, give them comfort and support them always, in both the good
and bad times. The second list is the list of people you
should apologize to and try to repair the harm you caused them. The last list is the list of people you must
forgive, because resentment is a poison and it can cause more harm to you than to the
person who harmed you. All human beings are part of this cosmic force,
Tao, and the way we treat each other is basically the way we treat ourselves. Live in harmony with others, take care of
others as you take care of yourself or of a family member, take care of your environment
and your life will become harmonious and peaceful. 3. Self-development
To quote Lao Tsu “A great nation is like a great man:When he makes a mistake, he realizes
it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.” Striving for excellence should be a primary
focus in life. In Taoism, to achieve excellence means to
achieve an advanced level of self-mastery, to stop taking things personally, to think
before reacting, to know how to listen to criticism and learn from it. Mastering your fears and emotions are the
keys to achieving happiness. Taoist masters always talked about the importance
of the words you use and the things you do, because they become the “house you will
live in”, which means they have great consequences for your life, they can affect your relationships,
your career and your well-being. To live happily, you have to build a beautiful
house from your words and actions and self-mastery plays a major key in this. People who spend enough time to work on self-development
and self-mastery understand themselves in a better way, they can control their thoughts,
they know how to avoid negative thinking and they know how to learn from their mistakes. Growing personally leads to more happiness. The first test of self-mastery is to be able
to realize, then admit your mistakes and then correct them. Oftentimes, this can prove to be very difficult:
we are blinded by pride and by the fear to lower ourselves in the eyes of others, so
we cover up our mistakes with lame excuses. However, by passing this simple but important
test, you can prove to be a mature person, capable of recognizing and indeed correcting
your mistakes. The second test is to be able to listen to
and learn from the people who criticize you, who point out your faults. It takes strength and discipline to be able
to hide your anger and embarrassment while listening to hard criticism, but this is what
you should do if you want to learn from your mistakes and polish your character. Moreover, Lao Tzu suggests that you also have
to be grateful when somebody points out your mistakes, as it is a great opportunity for
you to become aware of your faults and to improve yourself. To pass these two tests, you firstly need
the right mental attitude. You need to understand that your mistakes
are not statements about who you truly are, but are indicators of where you are at the
moment. To go further, you need to know where you
are - what kind of mistakes you are still making and you need a proper map, the “teachers”
– the people who point out your defects. As a useful practice, stop for a few minutes
every evening and write down the mistakes you made and think about what criticism you
received that day. Make a plan to correct the mistakes and character
defects that have been pointed out to you. Follow it, and keep a record of your improvements. In Taoism, discipline is not based on self-motivation,
but on mastering your energies. If you are able to master your energies, then
you will have the maturity to correct your mistakes and learn from the criticism you
receive. 4) Self-maintenance
As we learn from Lao Tzu “He who treasures his body as much as the world can care for
the world. He who loves his body as much as the world
can be entrusted with the world.” Self-maintenance in Taoism means respecting
your body. The human body is said to have its own energy
pattern, which is known as Zang-Fu. The Zang-Fu model has particular organs that
correspond to the Five Elements - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. The organs have Yin and Yang properties assigned,
which, if not balanced, will result in particular illnesses. To keep the Yin and Yang energies in balance,
Taoism recommends the practice of Wu-Wei, which means doing “action through non-action”,
in other words, to be in a “flow state”, to do things effortlessly. By practicing Wu-Wei, we can reach a state
of complete spontaneity and happiness, the state of “Ziran”. In Taoism, you are happy when you are able
to follow the spontaneous course of things and, to achieve the state of happiness, you
have to know how to balance the Yin-Yang energies in your body. Sometimes our body has too much Yin, sometimes
too much Yang. Yin regulates the parasympathetic nervous
system - rest and digest state, Yang the sympathetic nervous system - “flight or fight” state,
which is most typically activated by danger. If we have too much Yin, we become demotivated,
lazy, we miss out on the joy which new adventures can bring. On the other hand, if we have too much Yang,
we become over-stressed, we don’t relax enough, we don’t recuperate enough, and
this can be extremely damaging to our health. We need to make sure that we balance the Yin
and Yang in our bodies. Each of our organs has to be in balance. For example, our brain: scientists proved
that our brain functions best when it has medium levels of stress or, in other words,
when Yin and Yang are at an equilibrium. We need both rest and stimulation in our lives. Taoism glorifies the human body, comparing
it sometimes with a country, the spirit being the king and the other viscera being the officials. As a country must be administered and led
very well, so too the body. Before somebody tries to take leadership of
anything in this world, they have to first be able to take leadership of their own body
and they have to be able to administer it with excellence. To implement the taoist wisdom of the body
in our lives, we need to apply practices like meditation, qigong, and mindfulness. This will help us to slow down in our fast
paced modern world. This way we can learn to respect our body
more, taking care of it in a more serious way. To balance the Yin and Yang energies, we need
to organize our schedule in such a way that we alternate intense periods of activity – your
Yang with relaxing periods of your Yin. We need to sleep enough, to eat and have a
satisfying sexual relationship, but we also need to put ourselves out of our comfort zone,
by doing intense mental work at our job or by performing intense physical activity or
by facing the inconvenience of speaking in public for example. There is a great link between our body and
our mental state and spirit. To take care of our body means to know how
to balance our energy, our Yin and Yang and this balance leads to Ziran, a state of naturalness
and happiness. Developing all of these 4 fundamental areas
is mandatory if we want to have a happy life and ignoring even one of them can lead to
unhappiness. In other words, when a person is unhappy,
this means that there is a dramatic lack in at least one of those 4 fundamental life areas. For example, if we ignore an area like self-development,
our relationships can start to suffer, because we are not capable of learning from our mistakes
and we continuously hurt other people. As a consequence, we will become unhappy in
time. The wise thing to do is to schedule our week
in such a way that we allocate enough time to reflect and work on each of the 4 areas
in order to live a happy and fulfilling life. As we said at the beginning, this video is
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This video gets things wrong in the first ten seconds. The 道德經 Daodejing isn't about becoming one with the rhythms of nature (pre-Qin 文言文 didn't even have a single term corresponding to our contemporary understanding of 'Nature'), Laozi isn't the founder (although as a Deity he is worshipped as such; there is Daoist material that preceded the 莊子 Zhuangzi and was preserved later), and the Daodejing isn't the most sacred text of Daoism.
The DDJ was mostly concerned with statecraft as well as meditative/mystical practice, often with an anarchist, quietist, and antinomianism spin.
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