Kindness
I have had a long discussion over a series of months with one seeker about how to find the path of the Tao.
The path is hard... becuase a person often cannot forgive or find personal peace with past actions..
A simple solution:
Even if you don't feel "kind" be kind and in time you will become kind...
In this way it will become possible to discover personal forgiveness and discover the Tao.
Many would be surprised that it can be this simple... but this does work. While I can explain in great detail why people make the path harder, that isn't the point: The true heart to many of the successful practices is this simple core action of kindness.
Discover that Taoism is all about Heart.
Peace
3 comments:
This is what I teach my kids each day. And what I teach my students each day. "Remember to be kind." "Always be kind." Everyday kids come into my office for water, "The cost is kindness." They learn. And they teach me the power of it.
When the great Tao is forgotten,
Kindness and morality arise....
If you know that you and the other are simply one, there is no need to attempt to be kind, you simply will be. Lack of forgiveness is simply cruelty to one's self if the other is also you. And it is anyway, since bitterness and anger over what is past only hurt you, not the other. The desire for forgiveness is a desire of the ego, wanting to feel justified for whatever is did. The withholding of forgiveness is also from ego, wanting to be proud and angry at the actions of another. The self knows already that it forgives and is forgiven. Learn to listen to the soft words of the self, not the angry words of ego.
For me, it was always more the need to be forgiven, to have others forgive me. Once I realized that their lack of forgiveness hurt only themselves, it no longer bothered me. I grew beyond the need for their approval, having already stepped into their space and knowing how they saw me, knowing it did not reflect who I was, or who they truly were.
One way to think of it is to realize that as we are all one, at some point, you will experience the world through their viewpoint. This goes beyond simply imagining it to actually knowing their experience of you. So to try to "be kind", you simply see the other as yourself, and act as you would want to be treated if you were that person.
Kindness is a sympathetic act, Tao is empathic. Kindness can definitely lead towards Tao, but is not itself Tao. Tao is Heart, but Kindness is Mind.
http://www.woodka.com/2004/09/18/kindness/
:) awesome replies
Many levels of kindness exist
I agree initially Kindness is a sympathetic act
later kindness evolves, and shifts
into oneness Kind - ness
to be of kind...
and then it evolves further into heart
of the celestial spirit into release
there are many paths to the Tao
Kindness is merely one of many levels
which opens up the heart for release into the Tao...
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