Pooh and Professor Bowers (Willamette University) introduced me to some simple, yet provacative thought. Taoism has allowed me, during the emotional time of my sister's death, to find peace. While I am not a Taoist, I think we all benefit from taking a moment to allow their teachings to touch us.

Tao Teachings

Life is simultaneously one.

(excuse my drawing skills) by making any line you disturb the flow of things...tai chi-the ridgepole- supports the cosmos and creates direction.

The tai chi thus divides reality into opposites; the yin and yang. The yin and yang are complimentary and interpenetrating.

The small circles inside represent how at the heart of yin, is the beginning of yang; and at the heart of yang, is the beginning of yin.

What this means to me- I feel that the Tao is an appropriate symbol. I believe it represents a world where we are all one. Each of us contain within ourselves a bit of everyone, and therefore our actions and the consequences contain both the positive and the negative. We cannot hurt another without hurting ourselves, we cannot experience defeat without also experiences the other's success.

However, Taoism does not teach action. Rather, Taoist's believe that one must be like water.

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? (ch.15)Tao Te Ching

The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. (ch.8)

Nothing in this world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this to be true, but few can put it into practice. (ch.78)

Despite the allowances water makes, it is also a powerful force. "In a stream it follows the stone's sharp edges only to turn them into pebbles". (Houston Smith)

This then is the Taoist way, to "work without working".

A leader is best When people barely know that he exists. Of a good leader, who talks little, When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, They will say, "We did it ourselves." (ch.17)