Years ago I marked the following as background to learning how to live my life. As a beginning student of Taoism, and also ignorant of any anchoring spirituality – I knew I had a long way to go. So I marked things to remember. And since I grew up on a big farm in rural Alabama, I could easily identify with Farmers:
“The struggle against selfish and unprincipled social forces can be likened to the farmer’s struggle against weeds. Neither struggle ever ends.
In the same way that weeds are a product of non-cultivated soil, evil activity is the product of nonprincipled social standards. The farmer’s major effort is the cultivation of vegetables, not the destruction of weeds. He destroys weeds incidentally, only where they inhibit cultivation.
Be like a farmer. Learn to live with the weeds; learn to live with evil—don’t waste your psyche and strength in attacking it directly. Instead, immerse yourself in the growth and development of positive social principles. As these take hold they will isolate, overwhelm, and finally replace the evil,” p 194.
Sam Reifler, I Ching: A New Interpretation For Modern Times, Bantam, 1974.More words of encouragement as I wish us all a Happy, Healthy, New Year:
“Accept Yourself, and Expect More From Yourself. Or as writer Flannery O’Connor put it, ‘Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better,'” p 131.Gretchen Rubin, Outer Order Inner Calm: Declutter, Organize to Make More Room for Happiness, Harmony Books, 2019.
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