I love classic brush paintings from the Taoist tradition. They beautifully and simply present the soaring majesty of mountains, rivers, and forests. Human beings are always depicted within such paintings as tiny, barely discernible figures seated by the riverside or moving along the path. This illustrates the Taoist perspective on the proper attitude to adopt regarding one’s relative place in the scheme of things.
My cultural mythology insists that I should be important and do important things. The Tao insists that importance is an illusion. In the flow of Tao, nothing is more significant than anything else and nothing “important” needs doing - it is all being done.
A single cell in my body functions by taking its humble place among millions of others and going about its little “cell business.” It doesn’t try to fix anything about me. It doesn’t concern itself with infections, viruses, or injuries. It simply remains itself and the mysterious system of which it is a small part is able to do its work. If it were to start agitating itself, worrying, searching about for something great to do, it would no longer be doing its part. It would begin to interfere with the process. It would begin to pressure other cells to behave as it thinks they should. It would actually begin to bring harm the body in its attempts to be important, big, and significant. (Think cancer cells.)
I am a tiny little puff of smoke, amounting to nothing. Yet I am part of an amazing, incomprehensible, Mystery. I find my place by the side of a stream with the mountains rising into the endless sky above me. None of it needs me, yet here I am, as much a part of the Mystery as the galaxies. It needs nothing from me because it is me; and I am it. Imagine the freedom that comes when we are released forever from the need to be “great and marvelous.” Why, it’s truly great and marvelous! ~ William Martin
My cultural mythology insists that I should be important and do important things. The Tao insists that importance is an illusion. In the flow of Tao, nothing is more significant than anything else and nothing “important” needs doing - it is all being done.
A single cell in my body functions by taking its humble place among millions of others and going about its little “cell business.” It doesn’t try to fix anything about me. It doesn’t concern itself with infections, viruses, or injuries. It simply remains itself and the mysterious system of which it is a small part is able to do its work. If it were to start agitating itself, worrying, searching about for something great to do, it would no longer be doing its part. It would begin to interfere with the process. It would begin to pressure other cells to behave as it thinks they should. It would actually begin to bring harm the body in its attempts to be important, big, and significant. (Think cancer cells.)
I am a tiny little puff of smoke, amounting to nothing. Yet I am part of an amazing, incomprehensible, Mystery. I find my place by the side of a stream with the mountains rising into the endless sky above me. None of it needs me, yet here I am, as much a part of the Mystery as the galaxies. It needs nothing from me because it is me; and I am it. Imagine the freedom that comes when we are released forever from the need to be “great and marvelous.” Why, it’s truly great and marvelous! ~ William Martin
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