Tao Te Ching, Chapter 9
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
The beauty of the Tao Te Ching is its simplicity, its succinctness. The Tao, after 2,500 years still nails things. No baloney, no hyperbole, no santimonious nonsense. The tao just comes straight out and lays it on you.
The problem which human beings have to stuggle with is a sense of deprivation and inadequacy. It's the original sin. This sense of deprivation and inadequacy leads us to greediness, and the attempt to fill the hole in our souls, and as the Tao so simply points out, it doesn't work. We are bottomless pits.
The Tao's advice?
Very simple: step back. Step back. Step back.
Lighten up.
Let it go.
Detach.
Take it easy.
Laugh it off.
Rise above it.
One day at a time.
Slow down.
Less is more.
Moderation.
Unitarian Universalists believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This includes ourselves.
I'm OK and you're OK.
Or perhaps better put: "I'm not OK and you're not OK, but that's OK.
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