The Way and the Power of Virtue

  Names and labels, they can be named, but they are not a constant, abiding name.  Without labels, anything and everything can begin; Labels are a mother that gives birth to all sorts of things. Chapter 1.2: What's In A Name? Liberate Yourself From Negative Names & Limiting Labels To walk the Way and experience life to the fullest, the first thing to address is the names or the labels that we place upon ourselves and others.  We all put labels on ourselves and each other.  Jock, stud, athlete, mathlete, beauty, beast, loser, failure, victim.  What are your labels?  Where did they come from?  Who gave them to you?   As the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) put simply, “Once you label me, you negate me.”  The worst labels of all, however, are the ones we place upon ourselves.  Any label that we allow to stick shapes our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world.  But they don’t have...

  The Way, it can be spoken of and pointed to, but that is not the constant, abiding Way. Chapter 1.1:  When You Find A Way, Seize The Day, Don’t Delay! The opening stanza of the The Way and the Power of Virtue  begins with a statement on the limitations of language in encapsulating human experience and in so doing offers an invitation to walk along the Way -- reading this text is more than just an intellectual exercise. The Way is be walked not just talked , to be traveled, not just discussed.   It is experiential not just exposition; it is intuitive not just intellectual.   It is  a course of action not just a class of study. A ctions speak louder than words.  Inherent in this simple statement is a call to action -- to learn and then act. Remember the 道 is the vision to see the way forward, upward, and out when standing at a crossroads and then acting upon it.  By doing so, you will discover a constant, abiding course for your life. So...

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  And sorry I could not travel both   And be one traveler, long I stood  And looked down one as far as I could   To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair,  And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   Though as for that the passing there   Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay   In leaves no step had trodden black.   Oh, I kept the first for another day!   Yet knowing how way leads on to way,  I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh   Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —   I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost (1874-1963) Introduction to the Way The Way, is the core tenant of philosophical Daoism (Older: Taoism...

Introduction The classic Chinese text, the Dao De Jing 道德经 (older Tao Te Ching ), variously translated as The Classic on the Way and its Power, the Way and Virtue, the Way of Virtue, the Way of Power, etc.  is the most translated text in the world next to the Bible.  Sometimes also called the Laozi 老子 (Lao Tzu) from the "Old Master" it is attributed to, it dates to the Warring States Period of ancient China (453-221BCE).  Its 81 chapters have been studied and translated by scholars and savants, politicians and poets, mystics and monks, and artists and archaeologists alike.  Multiple textual versions and commentaries have been transmitted down through time in tomes of text and treatise.  Over the past several decades, many more ancient manuscripts have been discovered in tombs and dug up in caches -- more than any other ancient Chinese text to date.  These discoveries have both shed light and cast controversy upon it and the search for meaning, purpose...