Post by Kivawolfspeaker on May 9, 2006 13:01:13 GMT -5
Tao Living
The Best Meal
by Derek Lin
A hundred years ago, toward the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty, China found itself in discord and turmoil. European countries had made their entrance. They easily dominated the scene with their superior technology and firepower. Anti-foreign Chinese militants fought back, even though they were hopelessly outgunned.
The conflict escalated until Beijing itself turned into the battlegrounds. The situation became more and more dangerous until it was no longer prudent for Empress Tz'u-hsi to remain in the palace. Escorted by imperial guards and personal servants, she fled into the countryside.
Fear and uncertainty gripped the dowager empress. What was happening to her palace? Her city? Her country? Never in her 65 years had Tz'u-hsi felt so vulnerable. It seemed as if the violence they left behind in Beijing might pounce on them at any moment, threatening even her personal safety.
Days later, they came upon a farming village, and decided to get some much-needed rest. After her seemingly endless, fearful flight, Tz'u-hsi was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and ravenously hungry. She ordered that food be brought forth at once.
The farmers prepared a meal with the best they had, which wasn't much. They were much too poor to have anything beyond the bare necessities. After much scrounging, they came up with rice porridge and a dish of preserved snails.
To Tz'u-hsi, the meal was incredibly delicious. She went for seconds, and then thirds. She had never tasted such delicacy all her life. Curious, she asked: "What do you call these marvelous dishes?"
The farmers knew the meal was the most common imaginable, without any class or artistic distinctions. But even in times of distress, anything the empress touched had to be appropriate to her exalted station.
"Um... Your Majesty had pearl soup and stewed phoenix eyes," they told her.
Empress Tz'u-hsi thought of the cuisine at the palace. Every meal was an elaborate banquet, featuring a hundred and twenty entrées, all painstakingly prepared by imperial chefs. Even though these chefs were the best in all of China, none of their culinary creations satisfied her appetite like this remarkable meal she just had.
Later, after the fighting subsided, Tz'u-hsi was finally able to return to the palace. Safely ensconced in opulent seclusion, she reflected upon her ordeal. She recalled the pearl soup and the stewed phoenix eyes and wanted to have them again, but much to her annoyance, the imperial chefs swore they had never heard of such things.
The dowager empress never figured out the secret. Her chefs were peerless in terms skills and talent, but even they could not give her the one crucial element she needed: hunger. She was the only one who could create for herself this magical ingredient, this ultimate sauce that made any food incredibly delicious.
This is a good illustration of p'u, the Tao principle of simplicity. Just like the empress in the palace, you and I live in a world of elaborate complexities. The one hundred and twenty entrées are the numerous materialistic attractions, distractions and temptations offered to us every day. As we partake in these intricately prepared delights, our senses become increasingly numb. Our appetites become jaded, and we wonder: Whatever happened to the joie de vivre? Where is that old zest for life?
This is exactly what Lao Tzu was talking about in chapter 12 of Tao Te Ching:
The five colors make one blind in the eyes
The five sounds make one deaf in the ears
The five flavors make one tasteless in the mouth
The five colors, sounds, and flavors are not positive or negative in themselves. They can quickly become negative, though, if we pursue them blindly and neglect the important basics of life. When that happens, we stray from the path of moderation and move against the flow of Tao.
This seems to happen quite a bit in this day and age, perhaps because the modern world bombards us with so many sensory stimuli. It becomes easy for us to forget about the joys of simplicity. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of our fundamental, simplistic nature through a number of examples.
Consider the fact that we are surrounded by an incredible variety of beverages. At any given moment we can be drinking wine, beer, juice, soda, punch, tea, milk, coffee, hot cocoa... the list goes on. Each type of beverage contains its own bewildering array of flavors and variations. Put them all together, and you've got hundreds of different drinks, all designed to appeal to the taste buds.
Despite all that, when you really need liquid, when you're hot and thirsty - perhaps after jogging or working out - nothing beats water, the most delicious beverage of all. We can all remember a time, probably not long ago, when we drank plain water deeply and felt absolutely amazing and totally invigorated.
Water can do that to us without anything being added to it. There is no sugar, caffeine, or flavoring in it. It is not made from concentrates; there's no powder to mix; you don't need to carbonate it with compressed gas. It doesn't need to be homogenized, pasteurized, or fermented. In order to get it, we don't need oak barrels, bottling plants, breweries, or stills. It is just water, the essence of simplicity and the ultimate drink.
Let's also consider the way we take ourselves places. We all enjoy the convenience of ubiquitous transportation in the modern world. Whether you drive your own car, take the bus, or ride the train, the fact is human beings can get around more easily and quickly than at any time in history.
We're not limited to the ground either. Nowadays we can fly to business conferences or take a cruise to exotic destinations for a vacation. We can go farther and cover larger areas; we can travel to almost any spot in the world if we really want to.
At the same time that we zip from one place to another at high speeds, simple, everyday walking is becoming a lost art. We no longer recall what a subtle yet enduring pleasure walking can be, so we do it less and less.
That's a pity, because there is nothing quite like walking to harmonize the flow of energy throughout your entire being. Walking moves you closer to optimal health like no other exercise.
You can prove this to yourself simply by taking a walk outside for half an hour. When you get back in the house, pay attention to exactly how you feel. You will find yourself in a pleasant and renewed mental state, and you will sense a force circulating inside and outside of your body.
If you start out the walk tense and stressed, you will be relaxed by the end of it - try closing and opening your hands to check your state of relaxation. If you start out in a blue mood, by the end of the walk your outlook will be much brighter. If you start out with an incipient headache, by the end of the walk it will have disappeared. Compare these feelings to the way you feel when you come home after fighting through traffic.
The feeling of well-being and optimal health that walking gives you has been confirmed by medical science. Several studies have shown that walking cuts down one's risk of cancer and heart disease dramatically. Walking even lowers the risk of diabetes by half. That's something no known medicine can do. Euphoric medical researchers have taken to calling walking "the miracle cure."
Note that walking delivers these benefits without requiring anything except your own two feet. You don't need a license, a ticket, insurance, or gasoline. You won't get cut off when attempting to change lanes or get pulled over for speeding. When you re-connect with the simple pleasure of walking, you'll wonder how you ever managed to neglect this fundamental, essential aspect of life.
When we discuss p'u, you know we have to touch on the colorful sights and sounds of the modern world. We are blessed with an astounding variety of entertainment. At any given moment we can choose to listen to the radio, music CDs or cassette tapes. If we want visuals, we can watch TV, DVDs, or video tapes.
With TV, we may decide to view a news broadcast, a sitcom, a game show, a police drama, a soap opera, a documentary, sports... the list goes on. If there's nothing good on TV (as often seems to be the case), we can go out to see a play, attend a concert, or perhaps catch a movie.
We have so many options, it is mind-boggling. As a result, people seem to overdose on entertainment. I know a fellow who used to spend his entire weekend in the movie cinema at a local mall. He would get in on the early show and then sneak from one theater to the next, eventually seeing all the movies for the price of one. He did this because he was lonesome and miserable.
Not all of us have done the above, but many of us have done something similar. Think of the last time you vegetated on the couch, flipping from one channel to the next, feeling profoundly bored and yet unable to break away. In more ways than one, the couch potato is but a smaller version of the lonely figure moving furtively from one movie to another.
Consider the amount of work and technology that go into the production of entertainment today, and it seems incredible that all the dazzling cinematography and high-fidelity digital sound serve only to numb us even more. And yet, it is precisely because we have become jaded that the entertainment industry cranks up the violence and gore, just to give us a stronger dose of excitement and stimulation.
Again, all of this happens because we tend to disconnect ourselves from simplicity. We forget all about the wonder and beauty of the basic things in life.
We forget about the spectacular sunset, the glorious full moon, the angelic smile of an infant, or the glimmer of a soul when you look deeply into your lover's eyes. These are the simplest things imaginable, and yet beautiful beyond description. No Hollywood special effects will ever be able to replace them.
We forget about golden, blessed silence. We forget about the treasured moments when you can hear yourself think, or quiet your thoughts and relax into wordless communion with the Tao.
Silence plays for you the song of serenity and the sounds of stillness without speakers or subwoofers, CD players or cassette decks, microphones or musical instruments. What is melody after all, but a series of notes framing the space between them? Perhaps it is as rock star Sting says: silence may well be the ultimate music.
When you think about it this way, and reflect back on water and walking, you begin to see that the basic things in life can indeed be more powerful than the most elaborate human constructs. This is the principle of p'u.
We have also seen that the power of simplicity can be greater than the will of the empress. Even though Tz'u-hsi wielded absolute power, she could not bend the laws of nature. If she wished to experience the joy of simplicity, she had to reduce complexity in her life. Because she could not do that, the pearl soup and stewed phoenix eyes would be forever lost to her. No imperial decree could ever change that.
Now that you understand this, you can see that what you have grasped - spiritual truth - is at a level beyond the absolute power of an absolute ruler. If you hold on to this simple truth and apply it, you will capture without effort something beyond value, something that eluded the empress a hundred years ago:
The ability to truly savor life... with relish and gusto!
from www.truetao.org
The Best Meal
by Derek Lin
A hundred years ago, toward the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty, China found itself in discord and turmoil. European countries had made their entrance. They easily dominated the scene with their superior technology and firepower. Anti-foreign Chinese militants fought back, even though they were hopelessly outgunned.
The conflict escalated until Beijing itself turned into the battlegrounds. The situation became more and more dangerous until it was no longer prudent for Empress Tz'u-hsi to remain in the palace. Escorted by imperial guards and personal servants, she fled into the countryside.
Fear and uncertainty gripped the dowager empress. What was happening to her palace? Her city? Her country? Never in her 65 years had Tz'u-hsi felt so vulnerable. It seemed as if the violence they left behind in Beijing might pounce on them at any moment, threatening even her personal safety.
Days later, they came upon a farming village, and decided to get some much-needed rest. After her seemingly endless, fearful flight, Tz'u-hsi was physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and ravenously hungry. She ordered that food be brought forth at once.
The farmers prepared a meal with the best they had, which wasn't much. They were much too poor to have anything beyond the bare necessities. After much scrounging, they came up with rice porridge and a dish of preserved snails.
To Tz'u-hsi, the meal was incredibly delicious. She went for seconds, and then thirds. She had never tasted such delicacy all her life. Curious, she asked: "What do you call these marvelous dishes?"
The farmers knew the meal was the most common imaginable, without any class or artistic distinctions. But even in times of distress, anything the empress touched had to be appropriate to her exalted station.
"Um... Your Majesty had pearl soup and stewed phoenix eyes," they told her.
Empress Tz'u-hsi thought of the cuisine at the palace. Every meal was an elaborate banquet, featuring a hundred and twenty entrées, all painstakingly prepared by imperial chefs. Even though these chefs were the best in all of China, none of their culinary creations satisfied her appetite like this remarkable meal she just had.
Later, after the fighting subsided, Tz'u-hsi was finally able to return to the palace. Safely ensconced in opulent seclusion, she reflected upon her ordeal. She recalled the pearl soup and the stewed phoenix eyes and wanted to have them again, but much to her annoyance, the imperial chefs swore they had never heard of such things.
The dowager empress never figured out the secret. Her chefs were peerless in terms skills and talent, but even they could not give her the one crucial element she needed: hunger. She was the only one who could create for herself this magical ingredient, this ultimate sauce that made any food incredibly delicious.
This is a good illustration of p'u, the Tao principle of simplicity. Just like the empress in the palace, you and I live in a world of elaborate complexities. The one hundred and twenty entrées are the numerous materialistic attractions, distractions and temptations offered to us every day. As we partake in these intricately prepared delights, our senses become increasingly numb. Our appetites become jaded, and we wonder: Whatever happened to the joie de vivre? Where is that old zest for life?
This is exactly what Lao Tzu was talking about in chapter 12 of Tao Te Ching:
The five colors make one blind in the eyes
The five sounds make one deaf in the ears
The five flavors make one tasteless in the mouth
The five colors, sounds, and flavors are not positive or negative in themselves. They can quickly become negative, though, if we pursue them blindly and neglect the important basics of life. When that happens, we stray from the path of moderation and move against the flow of Tao.
This seems to happen quite a bit in this day and age, perhaps because the modern world bombards us with so many sensory stimuli. It becomes easy for us to forget about the joys of simplicity. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of our fundamental, simplistic nature through a number of examples.
Consider the fact that we are surrounded by an incredible variety of beverages. At any given moment we can be drinking wine, beer, juice, soda, punch, tea, milk, coffee, hot cocoa... the list goes on. Each type of beverage contains its own bewildering array of flavors and variations. Put them all together, and you've got hundreds of different drinks, all designed to appeal to the taste buds.
Despite all that, when you really need liquid, when you're hot and thirsty - perhaps after jogging or working out - nothing beats water, the most delicious beverage of all. We can all remember a time, probably not long ago, when we drank plain water deeply and felt absolutely amazing and totally invigorated.
Water can do that to us without anything being added to it. There is no sugar, caffeine, or flavoring in it. It is not made from concentrates; there's no powder to mix; you don't need to carbonate it with compressed gas. It doesn't need to be homogenized, pasteurized, or fermented. In order to get it, we don't need oak barrels, bottling plants, breweries, or stills. It is just water, the essence of simplicity and the ultimate drink.
Let's also consider the way we take ourselves places. We all enjoy the convenience of ubiquitous transportation in the modern world. Whether you drive your own car, take the bus, or ride the train, the fact is human beings can get around more easily and quickly than at any time in history.
We're not limited to the ground either. Nowadays we can fly to business conferences or take a cruise to exotic destinations for a vacation. We can go farther and cover larger areas; we can travel to almost any spot in the world if we really want to.
At the same time that we zip from one place to another at high speeds, simple, everyday walking is becoming a lost art. We no longer recall what a subtle yet enduring pleasure walking can be, so we do it less and less.
That's a pity, because there is nothing quite like walking to harmonize the flow of energy throughout your entire being. Walking moves you closer to optimal health like no other exercise.
You can prove this to yourself simply by taking a walk outside for half an hour. When you get back in the house, pay attention to exactly how you feel. You will find yourself in a pleasant and renewed mental state, and you will sense a force circulating inside and outside of your body.
If you start out the walk tense and stressed, you will be relaxed by the end of it - try closing and opening your hands to check your state of relaxation. If you start out in a blue mood, by the end of the walk your outlook will be much brighter. If you start out with an incipient headache, by the end of the walk it will have disappeared. Compare these feelings to the way you feel when you come home after fighting through traffic.
The feeling of well-being and optimal health that walking gives you has been confirmed by medical science. Several studies have shown that walking cuts down one's risk of cancer and heart disease dramatically. Walking even lowers the risk of diabetes by half. That's something no known medicine can do. Euphoric medical researchers have taken to calling walking "the miracle cure."
Note that walking delivers these benefits without requiring anything except your own two feet. You don't need a license, a ticket, insurance, or gasoline. You won't get cut off when attempting to change lanes or get pulled over for speeding. When you re-connect with the simple pleasure of walking, you'll wonder how you ever managed to neglect this fundamental, essential aspect of life.
When we discuss p'u, you know we have to touch on the colorful sights and sounds of the modern world. We are blessed with an astounding variety of entertainment. At any given moment we can choose to listen to the radio, music CDs or cassette tapes. If we want visuals, we can watch TV, DVDs, or video tapes.
With TV, we may decide to view a news broadcast, a sitcom, a game show, a police drama, a soap opera, a documentary, sports... the list goes on. If there's nothing good on TV (as often seems to be the case), we can go out to see a play, attend a concert, or perhaps catch a movie.
We have so many options, it is mind-boggling. As a result, people seem to overdose on entertainment. I know a fellow who used to spend his entire weekend in the movie cinema at a local mall. He would get in on the early show and then sneak from one theater to the next, eventually seeing all the movies for the price of one. He did this because he was lonesome and miserable.
Not all of us have done the above, but many of us have done something similar. Think of the last time you vegetated on the couch, flipping from one channel to the next, feeling profoundly bored and yet unable to break away. In more ways than one, the couch potato is but a smaller version of the lonely figure moving furtively from one movie to another.
Consider the amount of work and technology that go into the production of entertainment today, and it seems incredible that all the dazzling cinematography and high-fidelity digital sound serve only to numb us even more. And yet, it is precisely because we have become jaded that the entertainment industry cranks up the violence and gore, just to give us a stronger dose of excitement and stimulation.
Again, all of this happens because we tend to disconnect ourselves from simplicity. We forget all about the wonder and beauty of the basic things in life.
We forget about the spectacular sunset, the glorious full moon, the angelic smile of an infant, or the glimmer of a soul when you look deeply into your lover's eyes. These are the simplest things imaginable, and yet beautiful beyond description. No Hollywood special effects will ever be able to replace them.
We forget about golden, blessed silence. We forget about the treasured moments when you can hear yourself think, or quiet your thoughts and relax into wordless communion with the Tao.
Silence plays for you the song of serenity and the sounds of stillness without speakers or subwoofers, CD players or cassette decks, microphones or musical instruments. What is melody after all, but a series of notes framing the space between them? Perhaps it is as rock star Sting says: silence may well be the ultimate music.
When you think about it this way, and reflect back on water and walking, you begin to see that the basic things in life can indeed be more powerful than the most elaborate human constructs. This is the principle of p'u.
We have also seen that the power of simplicity can be greater than the will of the empress. Even though Tz'u-hsi wielded absolute power, she could not bend the laws of nature. If she wished to experience the joy of simplicity, she had to reduce complexity in her life. Because she could not do that, the pearl soup and stewed phoenix eyes would be forever lost to her. No imperial decree could ever change that.
Now that you understand this, you can see that what you have grasped - spiritual truth - is at a level beyond the absolute power of an absolute ruler. If you hold on to this simple truth and apply it, you will capture without effort something beyond value, something that eluded the empress a hundred years ago:
The ability to truly savor life... with relish and gusto!
from www.truetao.org