A New and Ancient Way

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.
The words above are from the ancient Chinese text Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell.  I recently "discovered" this venerable poem and now carry it with me everywhere I go.  For many years I'd occasionally pick up a copy and read a little, but it was always too obscure and inaccessible for me.  Then I found Mitchell's beautiful version of it and was hooked.

Tao Te Ching means The Book of the Way, and was probably written contemporaneously with  Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.).  It's a poetic treatise on the art of living, and a precursor to Zen.  Perhaps Mitchell's translation made sense to me when all the others didn't is because as well as being a scholar and a poet, he's practised Zen for many years.
So now I have a new book from which to practise my bibliomancy.  Every morning I randomly open the slim volume and read the verse that lands before me, and invariably feel as if The Tao was written just for me.
The words from The Tao at the beginning of this blurb have become a mantra of mine.  They help me with my OCD (obsessive comparison disorder).  Still, I find it very hard to be content simply being myself, because it simply means to be.  Easier said than done.
The Tao is about loving what is.  (Stephen Mitchell also co-wrote the book Loving What Is with his wife, Byron Katie.)  Sure, sometimes what is isn't pleasant or good, but non-judgement and surrendering to the present is a better and stronger place from which to deal with any situation, no matter how difficult.  It's called going with the flow, an aphorism derived from The Tao, which was   popularised during the cultural revolution of the sixties.  I admit that I've been using that phrase a lot lately, almost to the point of cliché, but it's because now I truly appreciate it.

There are many verses in The Tao that give me pause while exciting me at the same time.  As I sit very still and ponder the words of The Tao I can literally feel myself vibrating with the thrill of new knowledge.  The most exciting thing I've discovered from The Tao is that no one or nothing is ordinary.  It simply is, and that alone is a miracle.  Such is the magic of following The Way.
- G. P.