55th verse Tao Te Ching

55th Verse

He who is in harmony with the Tao
Is like a newborn child.
Deadly insects will not sting him.
Wild beasts will not attack him.
Birds of prey will not strike him.
Bones are weak, muscles are soft,
Yet his grasp is firm.

He has not experienced the union of man and woman,
But is whole.
His manhood is strong.
He screams all day without becoming hoarse.
This is perfect harmony.

To know harmony is to know the changeless;
To know the changeless is to have insight.
Things in harmony with Tao remain;
But then wither away.
This is not the Tao.
And whatever is against the Tao soon ceases to be.

“Verse 55 of the Tao Te Ching invites you to realize that what you call luck isn’t something that randomly happens—it’s yours for life when you decide to live by letting go. You attract the cooperative power of the Tao when you release the need to control your life. So change your thoughts and see how your life changes to a very fortunate one indeed.

Let go and exist in harmony with the Tao in order to build up your immune system and be “lucky” about resisting disease and illness. I know that letting go for protection sounds paradoxical, and I suppose you could think of it like that. But try seeing it as a way of allowing life’s natural rhythm to flow unimpeded through you. Living by letting go means releasing worry, stress, and fear. When you promote your sense of well-being in the face of what appears as danger to others, your alignment with your Source frees you from pushing yourself to act in a forceful manner. Lao-tzu reminds you here that “things that are forced grow for a while, but then wither away.”

Attain the protective nature that’s alluded to in this powerful verse, and realize that changeless with these insights for the world you’re living in today:

Visualize yourself as indestructible

Activate an inner picture that will carry you through perceived dangers. In this visualization, remove that image of your physical body and instead see the part of you that’s as constant as a spirit or a thought. This is your essence, and it’s incapable of being harmed in any way. From this perspective, you’re not threatened by anything, from criminals to cancer, from a common cold to a wild beast. When you live in harmony with the enduring part of yourself, it will contribute to an overall sense of being indestructible. Declare yourself to be that lucky person who goes through life unscathed by freeing yourself from trying to control your perception of looming danger.

Change the way you look at your potential for becoming a lucky person.

Rather than telling yourself: With my luck things aren’t going to work out for me, affirm: I am open to allowing what needs to happen. I trust luck to guide me. This change in your thinking will serve you by guiding you to live in the flow with the Tao. Peace will replace stress, harmony will replace effort, acceptance will replace interference and force, and good luck will replace fear. You’ll become what you think about, so even things that you previously believed were evidence of bad luck will now be viewed as what helps you move toward greater harmony.

Living by letting go will allow you to appreciate Lin Yutang’s wry observation in The Importance of Living: “If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”

Do the Tao Now

Dedicate a week to charting incidents of “things working out” without your having to control or “make” them happen. This will mean consciously choosing situations where you curb your automatic impulse to control the outcome. Relax when you want to tense up, and trust in as many situations as you can. At the end of the week, notice how changing the way you think has changed your life. ”

 

Thoughts on smoking marijuana for TMS? I haven't smoked in forever. Then I did on Saturday night and I tell you what....it sure helped with saying "fuck TMS". Just a thought.

 

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)