Episode 16: Chapters 84 - 89 (Audio Only)

Welcome to episode 16 of my Taoism Lessons series. Recorded January 7th, 2023, I continue to work through Ding Ming-Dao’s 365 Tao. In this episode, I cover chapters 84 through 89. Each episode is streamed live on YouTube on Sundays at 9 AM central time. Please join me in the chat, and let’s learn together!

The video of the stream is below!

https://www.youtube.com/live/wD3AfySTH_4?si=pRcluM493THPFvdy&t=366s

Chapters

• 5:04 Chapter 84
• 11:33 Chapter 85
• 20:19 Chapter 86
• 27:28 Chapter 87
• 41:50 Chapter 88
• 54:59 Chapter 89

Transcript

[Music]

hey everyone welcome to the DST Corner podcast I your host Patrick Stewart and I'll be here about the next hour going through 365 da by deing da which is a daily meditation guide uh by quite a wise gentleman uh who wanted to take ancient Dallas philosophies and ideas and apply them to our Modern Life uh today is January 7th 2024 our very first episode of 2024 of the year so if you made it congratulations uh there are lots of things to be thankful for um and one of them is that they're here because you know what some people some people didn't make it to 2024 um so yeah be thankful the sun came up today for for you so if you're not familiar uh dosm is an ancient Chinese philosophy and religion created about 2500 Years Ago by legendary figure named laa laa was a legend has it anyway was a librarian and he decided that he was going to give up his daily life and on the way out of the Kingdom on the back of a water buffalo a Border guard stopped him and asked him to write down uh a bunch of words of wisdom for him and he wrote this the dad Jing this is the Steven Mitchell English pocket translation uh even if laa didn't really exist uh it doesn't matter because the wisdom of then is still amazing and has survived thousands of years now what does it teach well bism teaches to live harmoniously with everyone around you with everything around you uh to live harmoniously within yourself uh and to live if you can do that then you can live live a happier um smoother life in existence and those around you too and what we do uh is we work through a chapter um every supposed to work through it every day I don't quite work through it every day I work through about five or six chapters uh a week and then I uh talk about them on the stream the streams happen every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. Central Time so if you're watching this on YouTube you can watch all of my audio fails live uh before I started this stream we didn't have any audio for about seven minutes so this is the second time I'm doing this all right uh but I am the founder and uh founder and uh Chief editor of the DST online where we publish articles not just about dosm uh but also philosophy religion spirituality mindfulness and kind of all the above at the d. online is a medium.com publication I am also uh starting on January 15th a second publication called project Jade think of project Jade as a curated selection of Articles from the DST online where I tip that writer a little bit extra uh to republish their articles on a non-m medium external website uh it's going really well I have a great slate of Articles um that's going to go live on January 15th so I hope you will tune in you can follow uh not only myself but the DST online and project Jade on Mastadon so if you happen to be a Mastadon user please follow us and we we'd love to have you we love to see you okay one more announcement before we jump into chapters for the day the Shameless plug my book was released this week uh I did yeah I wrote a book it's called The Beginner's Guide to dosm Shocker on the subject you know it's fits the brand right but uh this took me about a year to go through uh it is available on all uh ebook and print platforms the Amazon print version is coming soon hopefully today I can finish uploading that manuscript the ebook is available uh you can also go to my gumroad uh the DST online Gum Road and uh buy the PDF or ebook there as well print versions are $10 ebooks are $5 and maybe on gumroad maybe you can pick your own price yeah yeah that sounds good okie dokie let's get started now that we've done the inro twice here we go chapter 84 intellect uh for those of you who are new the first uh the chapters always start off with a little poem uh and then uh I'll read the entire chapter which is very short and then I'll talk about um talk about them for a little bit so in case you're not able to see the video right now and you're on Spotify that's that's what we do here we go 84 intellect Scholars drunk on Words and obscure meanings weave a tangled web of concordances simple practice never occurs to them give up education and the world will be better there are many who seek da through the intellect they reveal in thousands of concordances seek similarities in all the world's religions conduct learn learned discourses for enthralled audiences but they would reach the truth faster if they tied their thoughts to experience the intellect is inherently dualistic it makes distinctions and creates new connections between Concepts and calls that meaning quote unquote this type of analytical thinking is extremely Limited in the face of Da which is not fully rational not fully quantitive quantitative not fully describable though most followers of Dow are learned they also realize that the intellect is but one aspect in what must be multifaceted approach to Da it is said one must give up education not because we should be dumb but because we must seek a level of Consciousness beyond the intellect we must study but not to the point that emphasis on experience and meditation is lost if we combine the intellect and direct experience with our meditative mind then there will be no barrier to the worthless perception of reality so in dosm there really is a idea that you can be too knowledgeable you can be too educated um I hate to use this example but I use it all the time that is the space program um or like Academia just in general there's a lot of money and studying going on and it's very hard to see how that affects us right like what's the purpose behind it like if you're spending a million dollars to figure out that hey sleep is really good for you like yeah yeah I I I got it sleep is really good for me right like why why bother like why do those studies um like what's the purpose uh or looking at the stars for knowledge sake um that's I don't enjoy looking at stars but there is something to be said about burying yourself in academics when there's a lot to experience here on the ground and even in this chapter it talks about when you study the Dow study DSM you can read all the books you want and you can memorize each chapter word for word but if you don't spend time to really internalize what you're learning to try and feel Dow then you're you're not you're not getting it uh the very first chapter of dowy Jing is the you know the the da that can be named is not the internal da the the entire first chapter is essentially designed to tell you that you you cannot describe what Dow truly is through words you have to experience it you have to look within yourself to find and to learn Dow and how do you do that well through meditation uh through guidance through self-cultivation uh there are lots of ways but reading and watching videos online May may not be the best way right it's like trying to experience it's like trying to explain someone what love is like how do you know what love is well when you're in love then you'll know right you just something you just have to experience for yourself um like the Matrix no one can told you what the Matrix is have to experience it right one of those things uh by the way there's a lot of lot of Eastern philosophy and the Matrix just in case you're a fan of that movie but it's true uh it's I was told once that the most dowst thing you could do is uh is like memorize the DAT Jing and then forget all about it and then come back and ReDiscover it right like the yinyang where it turns where you have Yin and then it turns into Yang and it turns back into Yin again yeah how how DST is that and you'll find that with your life um sometimes you'll you can read a book and then come back to it two or three years later and you discover it all over again it feels new and you refresh yourself um yeah there's there's a lot that you uh can learn through your education and there's a lot that you can't learn through your educ ation and just be mindful of that especially when you start to learn about the Dow um just know that it takes time internally to really get to know yourself and get to know what's going on so DST don't want you to be stupid uh but we do want you to get your nose out of books and look inside yourself for a change experience the world from

within okay chapter 85

retrospective you could hear labor 10 years under a master trying to discern whether the teachings are true but all you might learn is this one must live in one's own life when one starts out learning a spiritual system there may be there are there are many absolute assertions that the Masters make there must be these must be accepted with a provisional Faith each must be tested and proved to yourself before you can believe in them you will be exposed to all types of esoteric knowledge but you need only be concerned with whether or not you can make them work for yourself there will come an intermediate joyous point where you find that certain techniques work even better than the script claim in the wake of these discoveries you will also find that life continues to be just as thorning and problematic as ever does this mean the study of th is useless no does it only it only means that you have been laboring to equip yourself with skill you must still go out and live your life to the end when you look back and realize that you have absorbed the teachings so thoroughly that they have become routine it is not the time to reject the system you have learned it is the time to utilize what you have learned you must express yourself take action in the world create new circumstances for yourself and others only then does the long acquisition of skill become worthwhile indeed so my interpretation of this is what we were just talking about where you have to inter things um you know Michael Jordan gave this interview uh back in the early 90s back when he was just winning NBA titles over and over and over again and they asked him how do you do the things you do how are you so good like what do you like do you plan like what is going on and he said I'm going to summarize that he just does it it just happens that he he just somehow manages to make these crazy insane basketball shots it just came here's the key it came naturally to him right he had trained his whole life and learned all the skills and had all the knowledge but at the moment at the spur of the moment he could just do things and so too is our own study of philosophy or religion or really anything but we're here about the doubt we can read these scriptures until our faces are blue until we have we know everything and if you study and study and study and study and study eventually what will happen is you'll know these so much that you'll find your practice

becomes effortless your routine will begin to incorporate these practices now for me my example was breathing practices uh I developed ttis which is a severe ringing in ears about two years ago now and in order to not drive myself crazy I learned how to lower my heart rate through slow breathing uh I use the 478 technique which is where you breathe in for four you hold for seven and you br it out for eight and if you're going to try that remember it's not seconds it's counts which are a little faster than seconds uh if you hold your breath for seven seconds you may start to panic but yeah there counts uh but the point is is it worked and I began to put myself to sleep every night by uh lowering my heart rate and what I noticed after about a year of this is when I would get stressed it happens very naturally now I don't think about it I just take breaths and then breathe out slowly a quick deep breath and then slow exhales um exhaling and that's it that's the practice that's what daily conscious practice eventually becomes is intuitive spur the moment spontanous realization of what you've been practicing so take meditation for example when you meditate every day every day all as as often as you can your conscious practice becomes unconscious behavior and that's just how practicing works if you go back to Michael Jordan practicing basketball every day for your life he's able to unconsciously use these skills when needed think of a soldier we put them through training and training and training and training and that way when they go to war when they go to battle those skills can come out without them thinking about

them yeah one of the uh listeners in our chat just now as that they also have sleeping problems it is rough I have never been a good sleeper um I spent I'm 41 years old I spent probably the last 15 years of my life just sitting there in bed and waiting 20 minutes 25 minutes and eventually you just get so tired you black out that that has been me for a really really long time and the force of eight technique uh or box breathing is a different one uh yeah it just comes very very naturally now and it helps uh hopefully it helps you too but yeah to get back to the chapter um when you learn a spiritual system you're going to learn all these practices and ideas and circumstances and some of them you're going to agree with and some of them you're not going to agree with but when you internalize these practices when you are able to really combine your life with these things that you're doing and learning that's where that key that golden moment lies is in the internalization of it and that doesn't mean that everything is going to work out for you all the time you're not always going to be happy that's an unnatural occurrence um we're not we did not evolve to be robots Okay I know some practices would have you just push all the emotions down and if you ever watched Star Trek you know you become Vulcans and you're all logic based you never have emotions maybe that works for some people I just I there's no way that's going to happen I get mad I've got three kids I've got two jobs I don't know how people do it but I get mad I get tired I am happy right I'm angry I'm sad I'm frustrated and the the coal the goal for you know DST isn't to bury these emotions through our training it's through it's it's to use these emotions and to explore them and express them in a harmonious and healthy way uh and that's I mean that's the goal right I mean to to live a healthier happier existence just to get through it to the end right um and we can do it we can do it through studying practice cultivation internalizing habit forming we can do it we can get there all right let's move

on chapter 86 images sound smell taste image touch sleep can you think without clinging to these forms a thought without shape is rare knowledge of Da rarer still our mind needs to cling to some object in order to function in its usual modes if you look at your memories you will find that most are tied to some sensur image the thought of being in the country brings up a certain fragrance fragrance you quote see relationships in a certain way we may do math problems or compose something to say to our companions but we will still think in numbers and words some people make the mistake of rejecting this type of thinking but we need to use these modes in order to function in the everyday world when it comes to knowing Dao thought tied to sensory images is not enough to bring complete realization dualistic thinking cannot be used to No Doubt but don't discard it as long as ordinary functioning in the world is necessary when one meditates one must use an aspect of Consciousness that does not cling to external forms this type of Consciousness is beyond the senses some call these states of Mind superc Consciousness samadi Nirvana or Enlightenment these are mere names all that matters is getting to these states then all labels Fall Away h this kind of hints at the point of meditation doesn't it like what's the goal right what's all this practice for [Music] and when if you've ever meditated for a really long time um like 30 minutes or Beyond an hour at some point you reach this place mentally physically where things start to change

around you your body begins to feel a little differently you begin to hear a little differently it's it's something that is rather difficult to put into words if you haven't experienced it right me getting back to the couple of chapters ago like you really need to experience these things to know what they mean and what they are and there's a lot of different words um you can say in light you can say Nirvana you can say whatever the culture whatever the word is but remember that words things are not words right and and emotions are not words right like this isn't a book and it's not inherently a book I if I go to France and I say book they'll have a different word for it and if I go to China and I say book they won't know what that means because they have a different word for it uh so too are the states of our mind and our emotions and our feelings there's nothing inherently inherent about the word sad or touch it's just sounds we made up to describe a thing or a state so when you meditate and you get to that point where you begin to notice changes going on you can call it whatever you want to but DS believe that you can live live your whole life there um you don't have to sit with your eyes closed you don't have to put put on soft music or black candles or whatever you can live your day-to-day life in this state of being where everything just flows out from you naturally so that that feeling you get when you meditate for a long time uh try to hang on to it for as long as you can bring your out of that state very slowly and in fact I would ask you not to meditate by sitting still uh in a quiet room I know there are some practices that oh you have to sit the certain way and you have to be in a closed room and the lights have to be off I I you know the Dallas teachers I've learned from would not agree with that really at all I mean you can but walking around can be meditation um doing dishes can be meditation cleaning your room can be meditation uh it's all a form of just how you're working with your body and with your mind and your physical actions and those connections can be maintained through all things through all types of services um it's it takes a lot of practice I'm not saying I'm there or or anywhere close uh but you can get there that's the idea is that if you take the time and you dedicate your life and you dedicate yourself to your practice you can just hang out in this really cool fun State Forever Until the End uh in the chapter it says when one meditates one must use an aspect of consciousness that does not cling to external forms so so that's pretty close um you will begin to feel it's almost like you're you're floating like you don't Fe obviously you're not floating but you feel very light uh you begin to feel it's not laded it's not dizzy um like I said it's hard to to describe um to try it sometime try to sit there and not do anything and close your eyes and just focus on your breathing for 20 minutes right and when you get there you'll know it we'll definitely feel it um and that's that's what we should do that's uh that's the key

here Greetings From Snowy Finland whoa wow someone in chat that's amazing yeah where are you guys if you're watching this live uh watching this stream it's cool it's cool to see everyone uh kind of show up and and learn from learn from learn more about you that's why I do this all

right let's move on chapter 87

integration be still to know the absolute be active to know the outer the two spring from the same Source all of life is one whole in Stillness one seeks the absolute D there is neither Beauty nor ugliness in it because it has no opposite it is called absolute by contrast nothing of this world is absolute because all things that we experience are relative seeking the absolute way may be amongst the greatest goals but you cannot remain on your meditation cushion forever you must go out and explore life as well this is the investigation of the outer da that aspect of Da that flows through all existence you must not fail to explore anything that interests you any skill you want to master should be learned learned any subject that arouses curiosity should be examined every insecurity should be overcome every question should be answered if you do not do this then you cannot freely flow with the outer da everyone of your uncertainties will be an obstacle initially it will seem as if there is no connection between your time meditating and the outer things in your life after all the Masters themselves constantly stress the difference between between the spiritual and the social but eventually you will reach a point where the

uh yes quence I can't pronounce that word of contemplation and the activeness of living are integrated then there is no anxiety about whether one is living a spiritual life or not you realize that it is all part of the same seamless whole h deep deep thoughts for this one all right so let's use words for just a second and try to Define Dow okay so dowo is everything Everything is dowo Everything flows from dowo but Dow does not control anything Dow does what it does it allows things things to occur inside of it uh think of Da as a river okay uh a river flows in One Direction uh maybe it curves but it flows Downstream if you're in a boat and you capsize right you fall out of the boat you are floating down this River now sometimes that River could be raging could be calm and you have choices you can swim against the current you can float and lie still uh with the current you can swim down current a little faster you can swim to the side so the existence of Dao does not take away your free will but you cannot be without you cannot be outside of Dao now in this chapter it's talking specifically the outward Dow right the water now we're all if we're all Dow how is there inner and outer well we need to explain things somehow so try and let go of the understanding of everything is Dow for just a second just so we can explore the two areas now we've talked about internal which is meditation practice breathing but there's also a world around you there's the you know classic you'll find classic DST who you know run out and they live in the woods and they just stay there and they just kind of shut Society off from them uh and they only come in they like beg for food or they live off the land and eat grass and their teeth has fallen out and they haven't showered in like five years like those are like the classic DST like the Hermits who go live in a cave um but you know what I live in Texas in the United States and there are no caves here uh there's also no forests anywhere near me so I don't get that choice um I have a family I have two jobs I I can't cut myself off guys so like then what right yeah cool I can meditate yeah cool I can self- cultivate but what about all the crazy [ __ ] going around me well that needs to be explored as well and how do you do that well you allow things to happen and flow around you so this gets really specific in this chapter uh here in the middle section any skill you want to master should be learned any subject that arouses curiosity should be examined every insecurity should be overcome every question should be answered there you go that's it how do you let me put you this way uh you have a pet you have a dog I just got a cat like a week ago and those animals just kind of do what they want I mean you can call them especially my cat like you can call her she's not going to come over here unless she really wants to and like yeah you can walk over there and pet her but I mean if she doesn't want to be pet she'll she's going to run off she just does what she wants if she's curious about something she walks over there and smells it if she wants to taste it she'll go over there and lick it I mean don't okay as a human don't lick everything like don't don't just go licking things that's bad that that might be dangerous uh but if you're curious about something go learn about it if you have always wanted to learn how to paint go buy paints if you've always wanted to learn how to play piano go find a keyboard right go learn study explore uh the world is is here for a you know is is here for us to explore uh you should not hide yourself away in fear and then be like well I'm just going to focus on internal Dow and I'll be fine because that's not living in harmony with the world around you you're leave you're you're cutting out such a huge part of life that it's it's just not going to go well humans are social animals I I don't know what to say um humans need that type of interaction we're curious right we have ideas and thoughts to help us survive and you know living in harmony with yourself and with the world around you means that we do explore these things curiosity is a natural feeling and as I said earlier being a doist or studying about dosm doesn't mean you cut off these natural emotions it means you Embrace these natural emotions but you focus them appropriately so that when they do arise they don't own you right you use them for your benefit to live that harmonious lifestyle so I wanted to start a podcast three months ago so I did who's going to listen I don't know maybe nobody but I did and here we are and now you know I have this crazy screen behind me which you can tell is very green by the lines around my head um but I have it and uh it's it's going I five years ago I wanted to learn more about dosm and I did I started reading about it I joined some classes learned how to do some chong started meditating started breathing and here I am if I had been afraid I i' look at everything I wouldn't have got or I look at everything I wouldn't have earned or all the friends I wouldn't have or all the people I've been able to uh you know share my story with it you have to follow your curiosity you have to follow your dreams to put it in a more Western phrase right follow your dreams the American dream do what you want be who you can be be the best you can all those all those saying uh really get at the truth of you can't you can't just sit still I mean the if we go back to the river example it's the river is going to push you Downstream so even if you think you're sitting still you're not and even if you try and swim up the [Music] Stream it's still in the river right it's still pushing you around so you can either struggle with it or you can just let it ride and as dsts we choose to let it ride we choose to explore we think that's more

natural uh pixel Floyd in chat says I feel like it's so empowering to be able to meditate amidst the chaos of family life work and societal pressures cool story okay side track I was in a a private lesson with my DS teacher who uh his name is George Thompson he's got a YouTube channel you should check him out uh he's back in China so we had to stop our lessons together but he told me a story of the emperor and the three paintings which really gets at the heart of the matter where uh you meditate within the midst of your chaotic life or family all right I'm going to tell the best I can here we go once upon a time there was an emperor and he wanted a painting that expressed true Tranquility peaceful Tranquility so he went to his servant and he ordered him to find the three best painters in all the land to come and paint this painting So a week later the servant comes back and says Emperor I have gathered the three best painters in all of our kingdom who promise that they can paint true tranquility and they have their paintings the emperor said great so he went out to inspect him and he looked at the first painting and the first painting was of a beautiful Forest um lush green grass and animals you know all around and you know not a cloud in the sky just a beautiful nature scene and the emperor said H so he moved to the second painting the second painting was of a snowy ice covered mountain right I mean just the purest most beautiful snow you've ever seen not a not a single foot Trail or uh you know it's freshly fallen powdered snow and the emperor looked at it and said H yes so then he got to the third painter and the third painter painted this insane waterfall crashing on the rocks and you know spraying everywhere and you know smashing breaking things down at the bottom and and the the the servant was like oh my gosh I'm so sorry you know I I I will get this out of your way right now Emperor and I apologize he swore he could paint you know paint Tranquility for you and I I'll do away with this right now I'm so sorry and the emperor said wait look closer look at underneath the waterfall besides the waterfall and the servant looked and a tree beside the waterfall was in nest and in this Nest a bird slept soundly and the emperor looked at the painter of number three and said indeed this is true peaceful

Tranquility so what is in rep peace his inner peace the being able to control contr everything outwardly no it's in here so even though the world around you rages on and you remain calm and you remain steadfast in who you are when the rest of the world is like a waterfall crashing into the

Rocks

indeed yeah I love that story uh pixel Floyd it is is a great story I've never heard it before until just a few weeks ago um I love it yeah it's super

cool okay let's move on chapter 88 interpretation the sage whose words are ambiguous you call Great those who Advocate discipline you shun with one you treat words the way you want with the other you resent having no quarter it is unfortunate that we need the words of the wise though they are essential to our beginnings on our spiritual path they can cause problems because they must be interpreted to be understood because words are imperfect every generation rewrites itself people love ambiguity especially when it comes to religion they can interpret things any way they want if they are unhappy with the cast given to a particular teaching they invent ways to circumvent it which is why we have so many authorities schools and sects it is no accident that the most re revered sages are dead they aren't around to correct our misguided Notions to change their teachings or even to make mistakes that might mitigate or reverence Christ Muhammad Buddha laa how many of us are actually devoted to the wisdom that they embody or have we made them mere screens upon which we project our own ideas it is important to spend time with a living teacher one who can correct mistakes and discipline you but the object of such studies should not be the creation of a new Orthodoxy rather your goal should be to bring yourself to a state of Independence all teachings are mere references the true experience is living your own life but even the holiest of words are only

[Music] words all right back to the words oh the words can't get enough

words you ever watch the news and you hear about a new people group

it's amazing how many there are um there's always a new one uh people seem to love to subdivide themselves into just an unlimited number of categories right oh I am from this country but really you know maybe I'm an American but you know maybe I'm a you my ancestors were from this and so maybe I should be this or you know maybe I you know even to move off just who we are like what about like musical genres I do remember being like so I'm 41 and I remember when I was a kid there were like four genres there was like rock uh there was classic rock it was classical and eventually when I was like 10 there was rap and that was it right there were four genres there was like old rock current Rock oh and pop okay so maybe that was five um but now there's like a million genres there's indie rock and there's pop rock and there's Punk and there's pop punk and there's emo and there's rap and hip hop or you can just have rap or just have hip-hop and then you have all the million kinds of electronic music but it's just in never ends right never ever ever ends and the the division the words that we use to constantly describe ourselves impacts our spirituality too have you ever looked up the like the tree of life for religions so it takes every school of thought for every major world religion and branches them like a tree back to some of their original sources and there are hundreds of them I mean let's just take a look at Christianity which is the one I know best that's how I was raised I mean you've got the Catholics and you've got Protestants and that breaks down to Baptists or methodists and then you've got you know your kind of Fringe Christians like the Mormons or you've got I mean it just goes on and on the Lutheran and it just never never ends and it's non- denominational like that was a big thing when I was a teenager you know we had Bible churches and we had I mean just and you have like even the Jews you have Orthodox Judaism and you have you know the Russian Orthodox church and it just it's crazy like it's it just and even in DSM you have several different schools of thought Buddhism has the same thing every religion you just you just have to keep dividing don't there's something about it to where you you're like nope I disagree with this so I'm not I'm not that school of thought I'm more important my my train of thought is way better than this Thousand-Year old school of teaching I know better um so that's really what this chapter is getting at right like when you study religion or you study spirituality right yes everything is open for interpretation and these Old Masters are all dead so they can't they can't combat you when you misinterpret something um if you misinterpret it and it's not what they meant well it's not like they're here to tell you no so we just interpret things the way we are and we go about our day and we find people who agree with us and we group ourselves together I mean just take just take the d Jing like the D Jing was written in ancient Chinese so if you go to a bookstore and you find a copy of the D Jing that was published in the anytime in the last 2,000 years that's not that's a translation that's from ancient Chinese to Mandarin that's not the same those those those characters don't look the same the meanings have changed over time so even right there even before you leave the country you're already into a translation and an interpretation and then you take the modern translation and move to English or French or German who knows right who knows what they originally meant it's all it's all up for interpretation it's all it's all Up For Debate but to but to prove the point just because we disagree does not mean we aren't together

just because I read chapter 2 of the daging and you have a different interpretation or different understanding does not make us at odds or against each other and fact dosm would tell us that that's intended these chapters are poems they're written specifically and intentionally as poetry it Rhymes in Chinese in some places

so to sit here on this stream and to try and tell you that everything I say is true and if you see it differently you're wrong would be a disaster not only because I'd be a hypocrite but it'd be a disaster for people listening my thoughts on this subject matter is simply my thoughts I would never call myself a master I would never call myself a wise man just ask my kids if you ever get an ego just have kids and man that'll fix you real quick they'll knock you right off your high horse um real quick

the Dow doing what comes naturally within that Dow you're you're never going to be 100% the same with anyone on anything and that's okay we just learned in the last chapter we're supposed to explore we're supposed to go out and feel new things and experience new things nobody's life is like yours so how can you how can any one text or ancient Master say that for thousands of years into the future you all have to be this way and it's always going to be this way no matter no matter what it just it doesn't make sense to me and in a Dallas philosophical perspective it's it doesn't make sense there either the world is too difficult to understand so that's why we experience it that's why sitting in our homes alone does not how to experience your life you have to go out you have to interpret you have to think and you're encouraged to do so if you if I read something in this chapter and you disagree with me that's great I would love to hear about it because I remember sitting in my first dosm class and people we would read uh text together we would read a chapter of the D Jing and someone would say what they thought it meant and I was like oh no that's not what I thought and I just would sit there and I thought it was stupid I just didn't say anything but you know what three years later I'm sitting with the same DS teacher in a private lesson and he told me once he he's like you know I remember when you got into those classes with me and you would say things and he agreed with my interpretation sometimes over the interpretation of other students so you never know right you never know if the interpretation you have is good or not good or bad or wrong because there is no good and there is no bad there is no right there is no wrong it's just you and your thoughts and how it affects you and how it affects those around you it's you can't put that into words so go live

it um pixel Floyd Gary lots of things are Lost in Translation indeed indeed I used to work for a Bible translation company uh we were a fundraising arm for Bible translation work uh mainly in Africa but man the translation work is intense I have seen it firsthand what translating religious text is like and it is complicated and stressful you want to see a bunch of people who are stressed out go look at people translating the Bible into a quote random African language in the middle of nowhere um yeah stressed people out but uh I don't know it's hard to say I know they do their best they're always doing their best it's not like they just sat there and made it up as they went along I didn't just go crazy with it but sometimes words don't exist in the other language or you know Eskimos have like a dozen words for

ice right it's crazy it's it's it's wild sometimes how different language can be languages can be so yeah it's it's Up For Debate everything is Up For Debate and I'd love to hear from you if you if you get to reading the D Jing or D text or you listening to this podcast absolutely let me know let me hear from you especially if you disagree okay we're going to do one more uh because technical difficulties at the beginning uh there was no audio for like 10 minutes so we're going to go ahead and do one more uh to try and stretch it out to that hour okay chapter 89 disengagement wearily I open my prayer book CPA photograph of sage on Amber page flaming Raven Sanskrit strange syllables in tone chant repeat number vows with beads every re resolution is inspiration

petrified there are some days when one is disen disengaged from Dow not interested in devotion and everything just becomes an empty form gone their spiritual Bliss deep insight and integration with the rhythm of the universe instead there is Duty form and stiff discipline one can try to remember the reasons for one's Quest think of the achievements of the past reaffirm one's goals and still not be inspired to do one's practice what do you do every once in a while it is permissible to skip things for a day if you are angry under great stress or ill then it is best simply to rest but if one has made vows it is only a matter of laziness or indifference then you must exert your discipline and practice even if it means that you are just going through the motions in at least half the cases something significant will happen the rest of the time going through your forms in itself a good practice it builds a tremendous momentum that will manifest itself in later

times okay disengagement so I don't have it on right now I should I should have put my necklace on the yinyang oh you know what I do have a copy of it um it is right here on the cover of this book I show you earlier yinyang is supposed to to be in motion now we always see the yinyang in you a picture but it doesn't it doesn't move there's always one color on top of the other but in reality the yin-yang turns black over white white over black a little bit of white inside the black and a little bit of black inside the White and then it changes forever and ever so on one hand some days you will work really hard we study you'll feel motivated you'll read and become you'll find some new understanding maybe you'll meditate and reach uh a new level of thought but sometimes you won't sometimes you'll be frustrated sometimes you'll feel bad sometimes you just don't want to do it you ever gotten out of bed and you're like damn I want to do this today like I'm just not motivated I want to go to work I want to deal with all this stuff I want to do the dishes you you know I do my laundry it's awful sometimes uh life is rough life is hard I get it right I've been there I'm still here I'm alive um you know I don't pretend to have it all figure it out or be some smart wise guy like I'm just a guy just a guy in Texas who's talking into a microphone into a camera once a week and I write sometimes

but that's okay the yunyang owsm teaches us that that is expected Behavior because we're human because that's how the universe works and we shouldn't beat ourselves up because we didn't want to do it today right we should allow that EB and flow to come and go naturally just like eh our emotions we're angry and and then we're not angry we're motivated and then we're not motivated so how can we stay motivated all the time how can we stay sad all the time we can't it's it's not Poss it's not natural it's not possible I don't believe it's possible so when you wake up that day and you think man I don't want to sit here and meditate for 20 minutes all right we don't feel good then don't do it however if you have set yourself a goal if you have said well I'm going to do this every day for 30 days now that's a little different because that's when you start to push yourself and it's in the struggle to push yourself that we overcome that we grow uh you ever seen a tree grow sideways usually those trees are really strong because they had to work at getting to the nutrients that they needed to survive right it made them Stronger by struggling and a lot of times those trees that grow with no struggle and they just grow straight will blow over faster and so too is our practice when we push ourselves to do something and it's hard then we gain more than had we not push ourselves so don't let laziness stand in your way of your growth um at the same time you know if you can't sit if you if you can't sit because you're sick and you're dizzy and you're going to barf don't do that either it's it's all bad right that's that's bad um so listen to your body listen to your mind uh listen to the world around you and be in Balance try [Music] to see the the signs and the goals that your body is telling you you know when you're sick you'll know you know when you're sick your body has mechanisms to uh alert you to pain and suffering and it's important to rest when you need to but when you're not sick it's important to strive it's important to make goals set those daily practices and to continue with them especially when they're difficult especially when they're hard so be the yyan engage disengage struggle don't struggle let all things come naturally and let everything have its own course in time okay well that's going to be it for this week I really appreciate you guys coming uh there were a number of you guys who decided to come to the live stream um next week things should look a little different on stream because I'll be using this I got myself a new camera uh I'm waiting unfortunately the cable didn't come in in time uh for this week but things are looking up so hopefully you'll join me next week uh live Sunday morning 9:00 a.m. Central Time and if not you can subscribe to this podcast on all major podcast networks Apple Spotify all the above the DS Corner podcast I'm your host Patrick Stewart I'll see you again next week thank you all so much for joining me

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