Rory B. Mackay's Blog, page 7

Imperfect person – perfect awareness

I’m not an asshole. I don’t suppose anyone ever thinks they are, even if by all accounts they’re a textbook case. If you want to meet an asshole, there are plenty of them out there to choose from; sadly one never has to look that far.

I’m not perfect either. As a person I’m as flawed as anyone. I have my strengths, but I also have areas in which I’m not as proficient as I might like. I’m one of those creative people who’s always been highly sensitive — at times almost too much so. As a kid I r...

Tao Te Ching 37: The Tao does nothing, yet leaves nothing undone

37.

The Tao does nothing,

yet leaves nothing undone.

~

If rulers could centre themselves in it,

the whole world would be transformed.

People would be content

with their lives and free of desire.

When life is simple,

pretenses fall away;

our essential nature shines through.

~

When there is no desire,

all things are at peace.

When there is silence,

one finds the anchor of the universe

within oneself.

Commentary

This verse is especially noteworthy for the famous phrase “the Tao does nothing, yet leaves nothing un...

Tao Te Ching 36: The gentle outlasts the strong

- 36 -

Should you want to contain something,

you must first let it expand.

Should you want to weaken something,

you must first let it grow strong.

Should you want to take something,

you must first allow it to be given.

~

The lesson here is called

the wisdom of obscurity.

The gentle outlasts the strong.

The obscure outlasts the obvious.

The soft overcomes the hard.

The slow overcomes the fast.

Let your workings remain a mystery.

Just allow people to see the results.

~

Commentary

The Tao Te Ching is filled with...

Why do you do what you do?

I hold my hand up, I’ve been struggling to blog lately.

I’m hard at work doing an extensive rewrite of my second novel,THE KEY OF ALANAR, which will be published next year. I love writing, it’s one of the things I’ve never questioned doing in life, but it can be pretty tough going. I think when it comes to writing, any measure of success is not so much down to talent as it is to blood, sweat and occasional tears — specifically, being willing to spend hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours working...

Tao Te Ching 35: Equanimity

- 35 -

All come to he

who keeps to the one.

He who stays centred in the Tao

can go without fear of danger,

because he has found peace in his heart.

~

Music and dining are passing pleasures,

that may make people stop and enjoy.

But words spoken of the Tao

seem to them boring and stale.

When you look for it, there is nothing to see.

When you listen for it, there is nothing to hear.

~

Commentary

Most people relate to life only on the level of form and sense perception. You might say that’s the norm, the way th...

Tao Te Ching 34: Make no claims

- 34 -

The great Tao is universal.

All beings depend on it for life;

even so, it does not take possession of them.

It accomplishes its purpose,

but makes no claims for itself.

It nourishes infinite worlds,

yet it doesn’t seek to dominate

even the smallest creature.

Since it is without wants and desires,

it can be called humble.

All of creation returns to it as to their home,

but it does not seek to master or control;

thus, it may be called great.

The Sage imitates this conduct:

by not claiming greatness,

she...

Tao Te Ching 33: Self knowledge

- 33 -

Those who know others are intelligent;

those who know themselves have true wisdom.

Those who master others have strength;

those who master themselves have true power.

~

To realise that you have enough

is true wealth.

~

One who keeps his course

surely lives long.

One who gives himself to the Tao

surely lives forever.

~

Commentary

This verse is quite well known, particularly for the first two sentences. In essence, the Tao Te Ching points us away from our complete focus on the outward, such as other pe...

The truth about human relationships

The truth about human relationships is:

People come and go.

Life is always chopping and changing, an interplay of billions of interrelated factors. Accordingly, there’s nothing solid about relationships. They don’t last forever and they’re not meant to last forever. A friendship or a romantic relationship — and in many cases even a family relationship — has a life cycle like anything else. Friendships can sometimes last the test of time, but in the chopping-changing nature of our society, that’...

Tao Te Ching 32: Nameless and unchanging

32.

The Tao is nameless and unchanging.

Although it appears insignificant,

nothing in the world can contain it.

Smaller than the smallest,

it contains uncountable galaxies.

~

If powerful kings and and lords

could remain rooted in the Tao,

all people would be at peace,

not by official decree,

but by their own goodness.

~

Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.

Naming is a necessity for order,

yet naming often makes things impersonal,

so know when naming should end.

~

All things end in the Tao

just as th...

Amazing 5 star review of ELADRIA by Adrian Lupsa

I’m pleased to share the review fellow blogger and author Adrian Lupsa has just posted of my novel ELADRIA!

Check out the review on Adrian’s writing blog here!

And that’s not the only great review I’ve had recently, they’re starting to build up — most of them are on Amazon UK as being from the UK I guess that’s where most of my readership has started off.

Seip Fine Art gave another great 5 star review:

Rory Mackay’s debut novel ‘Eladria’ is a tale that is …Timeless, Thought-Provoking, Brilliant,...