365 Tao: Daily Meditations

by Ming-Dao Deng

All life is a dream, not because it isn’t there, but because we all project different meanings upon it. We must cleanse away this habit.

Make the crooked straight, Make the straight to flow. Gather water, fire, and light. Bring the world to a single point.

silence.

Middah sh'tikah

patiently

Middah of salvanut + histapkut

Followers of Tao assert that we know no absolute truth in the world, only varying degrees of ambiguity. Some call this poetry; some call this art.

middah of histapkut. Nothing is useless to haShem

middah of yirah

Those who follow Tao understand that a diverse personality is problematic only if some aspects dominate to the exclusion of the others. This is unbalanced.

concerns. Taking care of yourself and doing something good for those whom you meet is enough. That is compassion, and we must exercise it even in the face of the overwhelming odds.

adversity frequently forces one to consolidate one’s resources.

Don’t be overcome by fear.

yirah is solely for haShem

order to solve problems, it is helpful to first understand whether they are puzzle, obstacle, or entanglement. A puzzle need only be analyzed carefully: It is like unraveling a ball of yarn and requires patience more than anything else. An obstacle must be overcome: We must use force and perseverance to either destroy or move away from what is blocking us. An entanglement mires us in a maze of limitations: This most dangerous of situations requires that we use all our resources to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible.

We cannot say that a person will become enlightened solely by virtue of having tapped this source of power; energy is neutral.

Overindulgence is to waste one’s resources. Suppression kills the body on its most basic level. Find the proper balance, and you will have a happy life and full spirituality.

The sages say that life is illusion, but does that change its poignancy? Let us be sad; it is feeling that makes us human. If we gain enlightenment, understanding all life to be a dream, sadness and happiness will fall away soon enough.

Acknowledge and appreciate.

The followers of Tao compare the void to a valley. A valley is void, yet it is productive and positive.

fate is nothing more than the consequence of our own actions.

They obliterate all regard to past, present, and future as definitions in order to negate the concept of fate.

True equanimity

Don’t wait for death to solve your difficulties. Do what you must while you are alive.

The higher one’s skills, the more precarious one’s road. The most powerful followers of Tao are also among the most humble.

encouragement is the way to be compassionate.

There are not two ways. There is only one. It is so vast that we can experience widely diverging aspects of it and imagine that we are in different realities. This is a misconception. We cannot outrun Tao, cannot be outside of it. It

This is why followers of Tao always use the word returning.

cf Teshuva

Hold no expectations.

If one strives for power and gifts, no true results will come, and one will become lost in lust.

Acceptance does not mean fatalism.

Faith

Middah of emunah

If we believe in the divine as cosmic family, we relegate ourselves to perpetual adolescence. If we regard the divine as supreme government, we are forever victims of unfathomable officialdom.

Causality is from the past, and nothing is acting from the future. There is no script, no pattern to walk into. Everything

Chesed as potential

If you endure a crisis in your life, it may well challenge your faith. Perhaps you will even respond bitterly to your gods and cry out: How could anything holy permit this atrocity to happen to me? But gods are not our parents or protectors. They are there only to inspire us to be better people. They symbolize the inherent choice of this existence. It is secondary whether we choose belief or defiance. What is precious is that we are always able to choose.

Spirituality is Applied poetry. Metaphysics is Applied metaphor.

Knowledge and skill are neutral. They are meant to be used. That is all. Mastery should not be used to bolster self-image. We

Life acquires meaning When we face the conflict Between our desires And reality.

circumstances? Goals are important. Forbearance is also important.

Middah of salvanut

What we do only has meaning in the here and now.

Truth

Middah of emet

There are three levels of truth: Experience, reasoning, and knowing.

Note that it culminates in da'at

rejected.

Acknowledged but not taken as truth

No person can persuade you otherwise.

But realize the truth of your own sensory inputs and attendant perceptions

So there are two extremes. The desires of the powerful, who feel that censorship is a just tool, and the tendencies of the creative, who feel that they should have no limits to their freedom. Those who follow Tao avoid these extremes. They avoid becoming the ruler, for such a position is fraught with danger, hypocrisy, and disappointment. Neither will they become the grandstanding artist; to arouse others is likewise dangerous. If they must rule, they use compassion as their standard. If they do create, they find satisfaction in self-expression. Above all, they avoid any extreme that will take them from Tao.

The more knowledge that you give away, the more will come to you.

awareness of Tao is not something they have cleverly formulated, nor is it something that they possess.

Worship by cultivating nine fields: Diet. Herbs. Clothing. Recitation. Movement. Meditation. Creativity. Teaching. And most important: Compassion.

Once you reach such a plateau, you will be able to relax a bit

Spirituality, except in its highest stages, has a definite cultural context.

Patience

Middah of salvanut

spiritual initiate should not feel smug. They have no greater chance of enlightenment than ordinary people. An ordinary person shouldn’t look down on the holy aspirant; everyday life is so full of distractions that finding spirituality is not easy.

Middah of Anavah

When people start on a spiritual path, they are anxious to learn all the rules. This is understandable, even necessary. Often we need stern measures to set ourselves right. But dogmatism is not spirituality. Sometimes, it is necessary to break rules.

Depending on divination means giving up control over your own life. It’s also avoiding responsibility—

If we accept that the present age is one where the mystical no longer holds sway, can we still be spiritual? It is possible for us to be even more spiritual than ever. Freed of the thought that spirituality is something extraordinary, something possible only for spectacular yogis and immortals, we can finally consider that we ourselves can reach out and be just as spiritual.