“. . . Can you love people and lead them without imposing your will?” Stephen Mitchell
Now isn’t that a question we should all ponder and take into our being? Isn’t the inability to live without imposing our will the cause of all disturbance? Not only can we not do that with those we love. We then try to impose our will on every and all other beings whether friend or foe.
From a personal perspective this clobbered me over the head on the day after Christmas. All that love and peace has been whirling around almost making us believe we live in a state of love and peace. Then the advertisements on TV remind us that we’re really about spending money.
There is no peace in that. Ooo, I sound a little sarcastic. I suppose I should figure why. Later!
As I read #10 in the Tao te Ching translated by Stephen Mitchell I can’t help but see how simple the concept yet how difficult the task. So far for me while reading from his translation, this passage is the essence of how I should live. It is what I am striving for. It is also the same thing that makes me crazy because I can’t and don’t live by that belief all the time. It messes with me. I want to be good, non-judgemental, peaceful, open, and uncontrolling. Yet I battle myself so many times because now and then I just want to wallow in anger, or self pity or in my rightness. Sometimes I just don’t want to work so hard. However, once I get over that, I come to my senses and realize that this imperfection of not meeting an expectation is actually our perfection and our goal is to become not necessarily get there. So here I go again – one foot in front of the other!
