More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Love vanquishes all attackers, it is impregnable in defense. When heaven wants to protect someone, does it send an army? No, it protects him with love.
being satisfied with less rather than more results in great generosity.
So be willing to take only what you need, and don’t accumulate or hoard.
The less attached you are to your stuff, the easier it is to be generous; the more you cling to it, the more you feel you need, and the less conc...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
we’re all instruments for Tao or God or whatever you call the energy that writes the books, delivers the speeches, makes the lifesaving discoveries, and so on. Humility is akin to surrendering to a force greater than your ego, giving credit to that Source, and being grateful for any wisdom and influence that’s given to you by that power. Be humble; stay low; and be a generous, grateful leader.
You’re not in competition with anyone, so don’t feel as if you must defeat another person or compare yourself on any level.
stop yourself after a moment or so and use your talking time to listen.
Good employers serve their workers.
The Tao Te Ching teaches that all of the 10,000 things emerge from the same state of nonbeing. Here there’s only oneness, which implies complete collaboration, not competition.
if you see yourself in everyone? You’d be picking a fight with yourself! Lao-tzu asks that you follow his advice and choose to live by cooperating.
see them as a part of you that’s working to help you achieve excellence.
Without them, you couldn’t improve, get a good workout, or become victorious.
What you fight weakens you; what you cooperate with strengthens you.
So change your thinking about competing to cooperating in all areas of your life, including your work.
Declare that you’re not going to fight.
Don’t fight with family members, or against political opinions.
Don’t fight addictions, and most important, don’t fight yourself.
Instead, make the shift to living by...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“If you insist on living in my body, I wish to live in harmony, peace, and total health with you; otherwise, I invite you to take up residence elsewhere.” This may sound strange, but it puts you back in harmo...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Practice seeing yourself in everyone else.
Therefore, whenever you say or do something that’s harmful to someone you love, you’re doing something to harm yourself.
This is called going forward without advancing, pushing back without using weapons. There is no greater misfortune than feeling “I have an enemy”; for when “I” and “enemy” exist together, there is no room left for my treasure.
Christian members of this close-knit community grieved over their unspeakably horrific losses, they invited the family of the killer to mourn with them at the mass funeral and prayed for the killer as well.
“There is no greater misfortune than feeling ‘I have an enemy,’” and “when two opponents meet, the one without an enemy will surely triumph.”
other words, someone with a contrary point of view doesn’t have to be the enemy.
Lao-tzu advised that if war ever does become inevitable, one should practice defense rather than offense.
I have no enemies. There are people with whom I have strong disagreements. I may even be required to
defend myself and my way of life, but I will not think of them as adversaries. Recall Lao-tzu’s statement that the person “without an enemy will surely triumph.” Be that individual right now.
Anne Frank’s
in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. . . . I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right.”
This is oh-so easy, so simple to understand and to practice, yet so few are willing or
able to grasp the essence of heaven on earth.
Stop fighting, eschew violent thoughts and deeds, and give up trying to control others or the world.
mercy, frugality, and humility.
Dressing plainly keeps the sage in harmony with the simplicity of this message.
In the 14th century,
Meister Eckhart offered
“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘Thank You,’ that would suffice.”
“only when your sickness becomes sick will your sickness disappear.”
The sage in this verse has looked long and hard at illness, and has come to realize that it represents a physical manifestation of non-Tao thinking. A
“My life is my message. People today need to learn to give up body attachment and experience their divinity within. Pain is a natural phenomenon. But suffering is a ‘choice.’ I do not suffer, as I am not the body.”
saw my affliction not so much in the material world, but in the invisible world of my thoughts, which kept leading me back to the illness.
Have a happy mind.
Examine your habits.
a sense of awe and total acceptance.
The reason it’s crucial to have a sense of awe is because it helps loosen the ego’s hold on your thinking.
Lao-tzu tells you to avoid self-limits, accept your body as a perfect creation, and allow your life to unfold in accordance with its own nature.
John 15:4–5, the Bible advises you to “stay joined to me, and I will stay joined to you. Just as a branch cannot produce fruit unless it stays joined to the vine, you cannot produce fruit unless you stay joined to me. I am the vine, and you are the branches.”
neither bad fortune nor good fortune will alter what they are. We should be the same way.”
Listen more and speak less, trusting that your answers will come to you without any notice and most assuredly without any screaming.
