"Be quiet, be pure; toil not your body, perturb not your vital essence, and you will live for ever.
"For if the eye sees nothing, and the ear hears nothing, and the mind thinks nothing,
your spirit will stay in your body, and the body will thereby live for ever. "
-The Chuang Tzu, On Tolerance
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Your Own Temple
If you haven't noticed by now, your body is a very important vehicle. Since staggering around and making a fool of yourself isn't a natural state of being, Taoism abashes alcohol and any other drugs. This links to the concept of T'ai Hsu, or Great nothing (see Mind Section). If our bodies are filled with foreign poisons, they can't work in conjunction with the Tao. Caffeine and Nicotine are also harmful to the way we think and live. Though many teens live off the stuff, it can help increase your well being deeply to moderate the use of cigarettes, coffee, and soda.
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The Taoists and Ancient Chinese believe that the body has a flow of energy called Qi (pronounced Chi). The natural flow of this energy is blocked by gates in the body that are closed by stress, hate, disease, drugs, doubt, and laziness. When we open the gates and let the energy flow, euphoria, happiness, and health occur.
Observe and Solve
To relieve stress, we can take a step back from the chaos. Here is a situation:
Your family is getting ready for a party. Your mom is frantically running around looking for things, your dad is swearing because the Bar-B-Que isn't working right, and your little sister is whining because she can't find anything cute to wear. Everyone one is talking to you at once, running around the house, expecting you to pull some miracle out of no where and solve everyone's problems. If you are the kind of person that would go crazy in a situation like this, just relax. Literally, take a step back. Sit on the couch and watch them freak out. Laugh. If you look back on a situation like this you have experienced, you most likely find it very humourous. Let them act like chickens with their heads cut off, let them swim against the flow of the Tao. They will learn themselves that they are getting nowhere.
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Reguarding your own problems, it can be handled much the same. You have term papers to write, three finals to study for, a final project, and a job shift to do all in one night. You have many options: One is to sit and think about how terrible everything is and how you will never get it done in time. This usually results in nothing getting done because you spent all of your time worrying about it. Option two is to try really hard to finish everything, fall asleep on your keyboard midway through, and wake up the next morning in a deep pool of regret, not to mention your own drool. |
| Another option is to not think about it, or even try. Have you ever seen the movie trilogy "Star Wars?" Yoda (A Taoist/Jedi Master) says, "No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try." .... I couldn't have said it better myself. Even Nike knows what's up: "Just Do It." If we go into our task with our mind full of doubt and our body full of stress, we will certainly fail (T'ai Hsu - see Mind Section). The best thing is to start with what you feel comfortable with. If you start by writing a paper, about ten minutes into it you feel like working on your project, go ahead. None of this, "Well, the paper is worth 100 points, and the projects is worth.... if I work this long on this and this long on that.... I can turn it in during first period, and the other after school...." (Admit it, you done this before!) The point: never push your body or mind to perform tasks it cannot do! When we let our bodies and minds flow with what comes natural, everything can get done.
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