Tao Te Ching

By Victor M Fontane

What is the Tao?

The Tao, a word that seems far away and mysterious, but actually speaks from what is closest, your own life. In Chinese Tao means way, the natural flow of all things. The best-known Taoist master, Laozi, also romanized as Lao Tzu, wrote that the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. With this phrase we remember something essential. The Tao is not a fixed idea, it is an experience. Imagine a river as its water does not fight against stones, it simply goes around them and when finds an obstacle, flows around. It never stops, it never breaks. So, it is the Tao, a silent force that sustains everything that exists. Taoism teaches us that instead of resisting the stream of life, we can learn to move with it with lightness and confidence.

Many call him the path, others feel it as the force that sustains the universe. It can't be seen, you can't catch it, but when you learn to live in harmony with it, everything changes. Here you will discover practical teachings simple and profound to flow with the life and find calm in the midst of noise.

Applying the Tao does not mean giving up or be passive. It means recognizing that many times we waste our energy fighting against the inevitable, trying to control the uncontrollable. When we learn to let go and flow, we discover that life takes us just to where we need to be. The Tao also tells us about balance represented in the symbol of Yin and Yang, light and darkness, strength and softness, action and rest. It is not about to choose one side and reject the other, but to accept that everything complements and it transforms. When you understand this, you stop fighting with yourself and start living in harmony. In practice, living the Tao is as simple as observing. Take a deep breath, look at yourself, around, notice how nature never is in a hurry and yet everything is fulfills in due time. If you carry this attitude to your daily life, your relationships become lighter, clearer decisions and your mind more peaceful. The Tao is not a goal to achieve, it is a path that you are already traveling and the more you learn to trust him, the more you discover that it was always in you.

Wu-wei explained easily.

The Tao teaches us a principle that seems strange but at the same time tremendously liberating. Wei, the art of act without forcing. At prima facie it could sound like inactivity, as if it would mean standing idly by, but in reality it is quite the opposite. Wei is to move at the right moment, with fair energy, without waste and without strain. It is the action that is born from clarity, not anxiety. Imagine the water, never pushes, never fights but always finds a way. Surrounds obstacles, adapts to shapes, gently opens steps and at the end always reaches its destination. That is Wei, act like water, without violence without rigidity, without resistance. In our daily life we apply WuWei every time we stop wanting to control everything.

When we accept that people do not have to be how we want, that we cannot accelerate certain processes, that there are times that do not depend on us. By releasing that obsession of control, something changes. We stop wearing ourselves out and start flow. Wei is also lived in daily life. When you study ideas and they flow because you are calm, when you work without tension and enter a state in which everything seems to fit. When you listen instead of arguing conversations are transformed, it is that moment when you stop pushing and things start to happen by themselves. The key to Wei is to understand that forcing it almost always breaks. Forcing a relationship, a project, even an emotion, ends up exhausting you. But when you learn to respond instead to react, when you take a single step, when the path opens, life becomes lighter and your energy is multiply. Practice Wei is a constant reminder. You don't need to have everything under control so that things go well, many times the less force the better it turns out.

The balance of Yin and Yang.

The Tao reminds us that life always moves between two forces that seem opposite, but in reality they need each other.

The yin is the receptive, the soft, the calm. Yang is the active, the strong, the bright. Without day we would not know what night is. Without silence we would not appreciate music. Without rest there would be no energy to act. Yin Yang don't fight, they complement each other. The mistake we make often it”s wanting to live in extremes. We always seek to be happy, always strong, always safe, but that is exhausting and ultimately impossible, life doesn't work like that. The Tao teaches us that accepting our phases, Yin the rest, the pause, the doubt, the vulnerability is what allows our Yang  our action, our clarity and our strength to truly shine. Think about your day to day, how many times you have demanded to be active when your body asked to stop? How many times you tried to be animated when you needed to cry? That breaks the balance. On the other hand, when you allow yourself to hear both sides, your life softens and you recover your center. Living the Yin and Yang inside you is recognize that you don't need to be perfect, you need balance and that balance is what gives you peace. The Tao remind us  that there is no eternal darkness nor light that lasts forever. Everything changes, everything transforms and accepting that cycle is what that makes us free.

Closing.

The Tao is not a distant path, it is in every breath, in every pause, in every moment in which you choose to flow instead to force.