Tao 33/Day 189 “Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

I’ve been tricked. The sun bouncing off the garage door had me believing it was warmer.  Now I’ve barely begun my run, and already my hands and ears are numb. What was I thinking leaving my cap and gloves at home?  Several ‘real runners’ are out today though.  Two guys from the opposite direction zip past while casually discussing “thirty-one minutes”.  I sense they’re referring to their own 10K training times.  Even though such strength is impressive, their ability to leave me in the dust somehow doesn’t leave me particularly inspired to go and do likewise.

Then, on the backside of the lake, past a maple sapling anonymously decorated with purple garlands and gold-covered Christmas ornaments, I see another real runner coming toward me.  This solitary young man looks to be around six feet six inches tall.  He’s decked out in runner’s gear from head to toe, and appears to be almost lazy as he pads forward – even though his soft stride and perfect form are propelling him around the lakes much faster than I’m traveling right now.  As we exchange a smile and a nod of solidarity, I instantly start adjusting my stride.  Then, as we continue in opposite directions, I unconsciously begin to make subtle changes in how my feet are hitting the ground.  I bring my elbows in ever-so-slightly closer to my ribcage, and start propelling myself forward with less effort and more enjoyment.  To top it off, my mood suddenly feels strangely elevated.  In other words, just a few seconds in the presence of a real master – in this case, of running – has an immediate, transforming, and lasting effect on my own efforts around the magic path.

What a perfect example of ‘true power’!  Without ‘doing’ anything except mastering himself in a particular arena, this fellow made me better in that same arena. The same happens in other endeavors.  Truly great ballplayers are often said to ‘make their teammates better’.  Great teachers evoke a thirst for knowledge in their students.  Great leaders of all stripes inspire a level of commitment and achievement that goes beyond just their own exhortations and instructions.  This phenomenon is also occurs in the presence of a ‘spiritual master’.   Something is transferred just by being in the presence of an authentic, masterful spirit.  We’ve historically downplayed this reality in the West – partly because we are soaked in a religious tradition that insists such power is unique and ‘other-worldly’ – belonging only to a god…‘our’ god.  But in fact such mastery is latent and available in varying degrees to all of us.  Recent research has confirmed that laughter is ‘infectious’, and that enthusiasm, love, and other states can be activated in a person just by being in the presence of someone else exuding such energy.  What other power could be ‘truer’ than this?  To be able to awaken and transform the consciousness of another person without forcing or ‘doing’ a thing!   I contemplate how much time and effort I’ve expended in my life either directly or indirectly trying to alter my circumstances, or the behavior of those around me, with all the good intentions in the world (the road to hell being paved with such good intentions).  And, to be sure, I’ve been ‘strong enough’ in many instances to prevail.  But now, as I finish feeling better than when I started, I resolve to let go of such strength, and rely instead on cultivating true power – the only kind that doesn’t corrupt.

Tao 25/Day 187 “For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao.”

My nephew is a freshman at a prestigious liberal arts university.  He is currently studying Eastern Religions.  Last time I communicated with my sister, she told me that Jonas – having become aware of my writings – had asked her if I was now a ‘Taoist’.  – This question returns to me now as I layer up, brave the cold, and see if I can run my way to an answer for him before my view of the sun is eclipsed by the earth once more.

What do I (or any of us) call “It”?  “God”?  “Allah”?  “Jehovah”?  “Brahman”?  “Great Spirit”?  “Source”?  “Divine Mystery”?  “Higher Power”?  “The Big Empty”?  “The Great Hoax”?  Regardless, the writer of the Tao te Ching demonstrates a phenomenal humility by prefacing what he calls “It” with, “For lack of a better name”.  Here is a man (Lao Tzu) whose spiritual insight has served as a touchstone for untold millions over the past twenty-five hundred years – yet he refuses to even assert that he knows with certainty what the subject of his understanding is to be called.  Wow.

There’s actually ice on the magic path this late Sunday afternoon, as well as numerous tree limbs blown down by the howling wind.  Yet it doesn’t seem to bother anybody very much.  Couples with their hardy kids, fishermen, lake-frolicking dogs, and more than one female runner either older, bare-headed, or in shorts(!) keep me from thinking I’m doing anything particularly noteworthy (or nuts) by being out here.  I pass a photographer – oblivious to everything but the tiny fungus he focuses his lens upon that clings to a fallen, rotting log by the path.  – “There”, I realize out of nowhere.  “That guy is experiencing “It!”  Wow!  – A deeper question now gushes up to occupy my awareness as I run.  “When or where was the last time I EXPERIENCED “It”?

I instantly recall that I was jolted awake a little before six this morning by my three year old son Logan.  He’s finally caught the virus that has been holding his Mommy and older brother hostage.  In bed with him to monitor his fever, I’d felt him heating up, so I got the bubblegum-flavored children’s Motrin and some water.  The medicine went down, the water went down, and the vomit came roaring back up – soaking both of us, as well as the bed sheets.  Though he cried with gusto at first, it wasn’t long before his fever broke.  I dozed on the couch while he and Liam watched early morning t.v., then made breakfast before taking Liam for a swim while Maureen monitored our brave little man.

Upon returning from the Commonwealth Community Center, it was immediately apparent that Logan had again taken a turn for the worse.  More meds had not stopped his fever this time, which was pegging 103.5 degrees.  Maureen dashed upstairs to fill a bath tub with tepid water while I prepped to hop in with Logan…The insight in this entire recollection is not how brave he was to stay in that bath with me til his fever broke, even as he cried how cold he was the entire time.  The insight is that I experienced “It” as I was carrying his hot body up those stairs when – feeling miserable – he nevertheless leaned in and gave me the sweetest kiss, as if to let me know that no amount of illness was capable of dimming his love for me or his light in this world. WOW.  – As I finish another amazing run in this cold, beautiful darkness, I realize my answer to my nephew’s question.  From now on, if anyone insists on labeling me, they can do so, with my permission, by calling me not a Taoist but a Wow-ist.  For — for lack of a better word, that’s the best way to describe how I now experience “It”, more and more, every day.

Tao 29/Day 184 “There is a time for being ahead, a time for being behind.”

Bounceback.  The temperature has dropped drastically, and I’m off to a late start.  This far north, we’re already losing sight of the sun well before five p.m.  Since circumstances have eliminated the chance of going long on the path today, I’m naturally able to stay away from all my recent ego-thoughts concerning such possibilities.  I don’t have the time to over-ponder my pace.  I don’t have to conserve energy or do anything right now but run with the Tao.  As I adjust my cap, rub my heart, and take off in the opposite direction I usually travel, I hear a new mantra – see not how far but how fast you can go.

The cold soon becomes a strange ally.  The ache in my chest as I breathe it in deeply feels oddly exhilarating.  The trail is much drier.  My footing is surer.  My lungs are a freight train as I run through these woods.  There’s less pain in my body – it must like this freedom.  – Either that, or I’ll never make it if I keep up this pace…I cannot believe that just two days ago I ended up faring so much worse in so much warmer conditions.  – It must be much more than my own puny ego that was holding me back from a great run that day… It must be that sometimes it just happens – the planets align, the moon gets full, and forces far greater than those I can personally muster come tell me to hang on and enjoy a great ride…Or else the opposite…Sometimes there’s just a time for being ahead, and, sometimes, a time for being behind.  Today’s Tao-couplet could’ve come from any tradition.  It’s almost verbatim Old Testament wisdom, Ecclesiastes-style.  The fact that it’s both so widespread and so ancient does not necessarily make it pertinent today.  The fact that it resonates so strongly inside me right now as I run is a better barometer.  The Buddha is said to have told his disciples not to believe anything they were told that did not accord with their own reason and experience.  We’re told in our culture we can do or be anything.  Nothing’s off-limits, everyone is a star.  And yet, as I look (in my mind’s eye) all around me now, I see so many examples still so far from that ideal.  And many of these examples have almost nothing to do with how in synch someone is with the ‘law of attraction’.  Now, to be fair, to be sure, there are many as well who are in fact ‘living the beautiful dream’.  Just today, as example, it was announced that an old roommate of mine has been nominated for a Grammy award as writer for best country song.  Such an honor will certainly put his career in the stratosphere.  But, again, you’ll just have to take my word for it that, at least in his case, the honors haven’t come from banishing self-doubt, or constructing vision boards, or mastering forgiveness, or dedicating his career to the glory of God, or anything else we’re sold in today’s spiritual marketplace as the reason why everyone else is successful while we’ve yet to heal ourselves of our debts, or our diseases, or our poor relationship choices, or any other external malady that seems to have befallen us and won’t go away.  My friend has worked, and he’s worked, and when no one believed in him and he didn’t believe in himself and his bills started piling up and his family responsibilities kept growing – he kept showing up and kept working.  – And, oh yeah, he’s got a great God-given talent, and he was born thirty miles from Nashville.  As I finish my run feeling wondrously high, I realize anew that I am a co-creator at best.  There is a life that I’m living, and a life that is living me.  If I can make peace with that fact, I can experience life’s riches regardless of whether I’m running ahead or behind.

Tao 12/Day 182 “Thoughts weaken the mind. Desires weaken the heart.”

Sometimes life really is just about continuing to put one foot in front of the other.  The flu bug (or one of his relatives) has flown back for a follow-up, making himself at home despite my protests and precautions.  Liam has had the worst of it with a four-day fever, but Maureen is also battling both a relapse and the exhaustion brought on by her round-the-clock care of our precious four year old.  I’ve again stayed in the thick of the action without falling prey to our unseen guests, but don’t know if the reason is miso, ume plum vinegar (both macrobiotic staples), hand washing, good genes, dumb luck or all/none of the above.  When things start to stabilize, in conjunction with the appearance of a little much-needed sunshine, I step away to the path – hoping the mini-layoff will help and not hinder getting in a long run.

Things start off well enough.  I feel strong, in no pain, and the day is almost balmy in a chilly sort of way.  As I coast along, I start thinking again about that elusive ‘longer than ever’ attempt, and then about several different unrelated scenarios.  One in particular involves a friend I have not seen since high school.  Chase was/is two years my senior, a basketball teammate, and I’ve recently learned he still trains for triathlons.  I start imagining conversations we might have today.  Maybe he could give me some tips on why I’m still such a slug in the water.  Maybe I could actually do one of those swim-bike-run events myself.  – Hey, maybe the Ironman in Hawaii is still in my future!

As I wind my way further and further around the lakes, my mind grows further and further enamoured by such thoughts and desires – and further and further away from the present moment.  Such daydreams are pleasant, but thinking like this is unwittingly fueling my ego – which takes energy and attention away from my run.  As is often the case when ego is active, it takes pain to return me to the here and the now.  Whether from negligence or (more likely) the week’s lack of sleep, I start feeling fresh pangs of pain in new places, and must become present to even have a chance of making it around once without slowing to a walk.  As I allow this reality to sink all the way in, I find today’s insight waiting patiently for me there.  All the way in…About twenty years or so ago I was introduced to the writings of Buckminster Fuller.  A design science genius, he often used wonderfully descriptive imagery to illuminate some of our species’ most wasteful practices.  One such image concerned the automobile, which has its engine capacity measured to this day in terms of ‘horsepower’. Fuller got me to see all the world’s cars stuck at traffic lights as akin to all the ‘horses’ under their metal hoods simply jumping up and down, running in place, waiting for the light to change.  As silly as it might sound, I suddenly understand that an “idling” mind is not the same as “no mind”.  Like that horsepower from a combustion engine, just because I’m not ‘racing’ somewhere with my desires doesn’t mean that I’m not still jumping up and down with them, siphoning off awareness-energy in the process.  I’ve got to turn the starter switch off, and step back from my ego-vehicle, if I truly want to give my full attention to the moment-at-hand.  – I now realize how many times I’ve mistakenly assumed I was present just because I wasn’t ‘actively’ thinking about something, and I resolve to reduce my moments of mental ‘idling’.  All they are doing is keeping me wasting the wonderful (horse)power of now.

Tao 39/Day 177 “The Master views the parts with compassion, because he understands the whole.”

Note to self – Call Noah and book a reservation on the ark.  It’s pouring rain for about the tenth day in a row, and I’m sitting in the park parking lot deciding if I’m crazy enough to hop out of the car and onto the trail.  Just as I’m about to head home, a young couple and their chocolate Labrador retriever come happily sloshing back to their Subaru.  I get out and announce, “Well, I guess you guys have talked me into it!” and the guy calls after me with a, “Yeah, not bad – It’s not like it’s minus twenty or thirty or anything!”

In fact, there are lots of runners out today.  We share a strange camaraderie as we jog past each other in smiling solitude.  – I suddenly feel liberated from yet another subtle set of adult fears (“No running in the rain – especially when it’s November – or you’ll catch your death of cold!”).  I’m immediately transported back to my garage after a Junior Pro football game as an eleven year old, with my mom literally peeling my freezing, mud-soaked uniform off me as I shiver happily and recount the big plays in our victory… The freedom I feel being out here right now brings a tear to my eye, and I release, with compassion, the me that got lost in so many meaningless rules for so long.

Joseph Campbell once wrote of an interview he’d come across about Igjugarjuk, an Eskimo shaman sent deep in the wilderness to fast til he’d seen a great vision.  Two lines attributed to the holy man have stuck with me ever since I read Campbell’s account. “You die a little out there”, and what the shaman heard the spirits of the icy wilderness say to him after he’d gotten his vision:  “Be not afraid of this universe.”  What an unbelievable understanding.  If I can understand the whole – the universe – as something to ‘be not afraid of”, then compassion for the parts of that whole will naturally arise.  The ‘parts’ of society, the ‘parts’ of a family, the ‘parts’ of my body – I run with them now with compassion – even the parts that seem the most incomprehensible or uncooperative.

As I continue to run, I become aware of how honestly average I actually am in almost every area of my life.   Even as an actor, there are so many others with so much more to bring to any given role.  Certainly as a singer, and a runner — there’s nothing particularly ‘unique’.  – But there is one thing I have come to understand – over and above the necessity of not comparing and competing but rather simply being myself.              Many reading this will know of singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman.  Some months ago she uttered a simple sentence to my sister that has stuck with me ever since I heard it.  They were talking about music and writing and singing and performing, and Marshall said, “It’s a great way to love people.”  Wow.  How ‘bout that?  What if that were the metric for assessing the validity of our individual (and international) enterprises?  “It’s a great way to love people.”  The one thing I have come to understand is that I don’t have to be afraid of the universe because love IS this universe.  I now know that ANY way of being authentically in the world is a great way to love people. Since all of us want and need love, there will always be room for my presence and my efforts, no matter how average they may be in any comparative sense.  As I head for the shower after running through these showers, may the compassion I feel right now for my own limitations be transformed into a love for other people with every ounce of those same limitations.  – What a great way to live as I go through this life…What a great WAY…

Tao 68/Day 175 “Not that they don’t love to compete, but they do it in the spirit of play.”

I’m positively giddy. Today’s meditation has me buzzing.  ‘Play’ is my favorite topic – the key to inner fitness and a spirit “in harmony with the Tao.”  Just silently repeating the word as a mantra works wonders as I start to play in this mid-morning rain.  Play adjusts my stride, my lean, play minimizes the jolt to my joints and maximizes my joy to the world.  When I pass a kilometer sign with the number ‘7’ on it, I play with it in my mind – turning it upside down and backward to make an ‘L’ that stands for nothing at all. Mud puddles morph from obstacles into temptations as I play past their edges.  I play with my awareness as well as my breath.  Each moment I play, my steps are lighter, my heart is fuller, and my energy greater.  I compete with my knees and my notions of limitation – playfully testing both without fear of failure.  The spirit of play is in harmony with the Tao.  The spirit of play is in harmony with the Tao.  – Hey did I mention that the spirit of play is in harmony with the Tao?!?  – The boys’ favorite superhero is currently Sportacus, an icon from Iceland and star of the kids’ program ‘Lazytown’.  His mission is to keep the town’s children happily active and eating their vegetables instead of opting for the candy and sloth offered by his nemesis Robby Rotten.  He accomplishes this via dazzling displays of gymnastic acrobatics – singing and smiling while saving the day.  His flips and his feats are the stuff of child-legend, and Liam and Logan like to instantly imitate his daring-do by diving off the nearest piece of furniture.  This has resulted in a couple of bumps and bruises, but mostly a lot of joy and self-discovery as they see who can somersault and eat their broccoli and brush their teeth with that certain je ne sais quoi.  They’re not imitating their hero when they do these things, they’re PLAYING the hero AS IF THEY WERE ALREADY THE HERO THEMSELVES.  I suddenly remember some of my happiest days as a six or seven year old, standing in the back yard and smacking a whiffle ball over the roof of our house.  Back and forth, over and over  — I WAS Willie Mays, and each time that ball felt the sweet spot of my whiffle-bat, I’d sing at the top of my lungs, “Oh the farthest hit today has been made!”  – When I ended up devoting my adult life to what a wonderful acting teacher termed ‘sophisticated, adult PLAY’, I know the choice was influenced by times like that one in the backyard and a thousand more besides.  – According to the Vedic tradition, the very structure of our existence is ‘Lila’ – a divine ‘PLAY.  So often the word is taken in our culture to belong only to the nurture of children, yet here it bespeaks the very nature of divinity in our midst.  Play can be deadly serious, up to and including the games of war.  The Tao doesn’t judge which games we play.  It allows any and all illusions to ‘play out’ based on our own (individual and collective) (un)consciousness.  All that is lacking to turn our nightmares into new visions is the light-heartedness, and the humble-headedness, and the lack of ego that flows from the spirit of play.  – May each of us find a way to get off the sidelines and into the game of our life!  More ‘knowing’ and less ‘knowing about’!  More playing the hero and less listening to the inner critic!  More time surfing and less time cursing the waves of our circumstances!  The gap between the novice and the master is less than that between the beginner and one who has yet to dive in.  Dive in!  The water is fine.  I oughta know – I just finished this run and I’m soaked to the bone!

Tao 16/Day 173 “When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant.”

The ground is wetter than ever.  Last night’s winds have blown a couple of trees over.  One obstructs the trail, forcing a detour into tougher terrain.  A decent number of walkers are out to exercise their canine companions, but no more than four or five other runners currently care to brave these elements.  Nevertheless, the resulting silence and solitude serve me well, and — after another false start due to my still-tricky left knee – I find a good groove, without and within, and rejoice as I run with the Tao.  – I’ve recently viewed several stimulating conversations online via posts I’ve received from my Facebook community.  In them, scientists, artists, spiritual leaders and others discuss the cutting edges of music, neuroscience, ethics, religion and more.  Most are enlightening, some are electrifying, and all are contributing to the advancement of human understanding.  Yet today, in addition to the light they shed, I run with the realization that they are all swallowed up by the same silence that envelops me now on this magic path.  I realize anew that Life is indeed a reality that precedes all language, and I know that — no matter how astute our species becomes at equationing existence — such symbols can only point toward the final mystery, not encompass it.  By definition, it is as impossible for humans to stand outside Reality yet somehow language a ‘complete’ description of it as it is for humans to retain a God standing outside Reality yet somehow languaging that same description for us. – This “Life before Language” realization sheds some additional light on a related stanza (#4) of the Tao te Ching for my still-westernized mind.  “It (the Tao) is older than God.”  If I can just understand that the moment I give language to my Ultimate Reality is the moment I am dealing with something less than that Ultimate Reality, I can begin to taste the truth of this seemingly radical statement.  The notion of ‘God’ or ‘Ultimate Reality’ is bigger than my language, and concepts — even the most detailed and/or accurate ones.  As a human being I am still forced to settle – as demonstrated by quantum physics — for observations that alter what I’m observing by my very act of observing them.  Even my notion of ‘now’ is more to assist the subjective quality of my conciousness than to accurately describe the phenomenal world, because there is always a lag time, however slight, between what happens and my awareness of it as ‘now’ (as, for example, in the time it takes me to ‘realize’ that I’ve touched a hot stove and shout the consequences).  In other words, even the most present-minded of us, the moment we begin to experience and language a description of ‘now’, is living ever-so-slightly in the past.  – This is what we are.  This is where we ‘come from’.  What need then for arrogance simply because I may be a little farther down the path than my brother or sister in some regard?  Tolerance does not mean I become a doormat to bullies with narrow ideas and hearts open only to a particular tribe.  It does mean humility and compassion in all my interactions because I now know that no one can ever totally ‘know’ – at least not in the way we have previously languaged the word.  The Tao te Ching states that a person armed with such a loving embrace of uncertainty also becomes “disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king”.  – As I finish another run “immersed in the wonder of the Tao”, may this wisdom produce an affirmation of a life – and a world – more tolerant than any I’ve ever known.

Tao 54/Day 170 “Let the Tao be present in your life and you will become genuine.”

Maureen has gotten me a ‘runner’s outfit’ to cope with the continued cold and wet.  Black, stretchy sports shirt with matching skin-tight pants.  I look like an ultra-lean licorice stick topped by a large balding bobble-head.  I suit up, face the elements, and hit the trail.  Not fifty yards in front of me is an attractive young blonde standing knee-deep in the numbing lake wearing nothing but a summer dress.  If she’s willing to do that for a photo shoot, what kind of weather wimp have I become?  I laughingly exclaim, “With that kind of commitment, I hope you land the cover of a magazine!”, and she returns a teeth-chattering smile and a thank you.  – No excuses now, Greg.  Either turn around and go home or become fully present and accounted for.  I opt the latter, drop in to my breath, and slowly warm to the task at hand…Today’s lines inform the entire run.  Whether I’m drinking in the stillness that surrounds me, or pulling my left shoe out of some unseen, leaf-covered muck, the grace of becoming genuine is palpable.  The Tao is always present, but it is present to ME when I let it be present – with me becoming present too as a wonderful by-product.  – Isn’t it interesting that the quality mentioned in the Tao te Ching that comes from this process is ‘genuine-ness’.  Authenticity.  Not “Let the Tao be present in your life and you will become rich.”  Not “Let the Tao be present in your life and you will become famous.”  Not “Let the Tao be present in your life and you will become a high achiever”, or “an expert”, or “holy”, or “talented”, or “cured of all infirmities”.  Genuine.  Period.  Wow.  I realize anew that what most everyone is looking for, longing for, hoping for, praying for – more than security, more than wealth, more than recognition or religion or the rewards of relationship – is an experience born of a genuine and authentic life.  Whether my orientation is eastern, western, pre-rational, post-modern, pagan or pentecostal, a genuine life, by definition, cannot be faked.  It cannot be phoned in.  It cannot be approximated.  Or intellectualized.  Or sustained exclusively by emotion.  To become a genuinely authentic person is to experience all these qualities in an integrated and balanced way.  It has to be lived, and the suggestion here is that this can only occur when my personal ego (and that of the planet) is neither exalted, nor abased, but rather properly placed as a unique-but-connected part of the larger whole – a middle path, in other words, not of pride, or persecution of differences, but of presence.  -  I’m suddenly reminded of a story I read somewhere about a woman who went to visit the great Indian sage Ramakrishna.  Troubled that she could find no place in her heart for a love of God, he asked if there was anything in her life that she did love.  When she replied that she had a nephew for whom she felt total devotion, Ramakrishna is said to have comforted (and challenged) her by affirming that her love for her nephew was indeed her love for God.  – The insight here being that I’ve got to ‘connect it to my love’, whatever ‘it’ is and whatever my ‘love’ is, to be able to actually experience this notion of authenticity.  If ‘it’ is the Tao, and these lakes and these flights around this magic path are a legitimate ‘love’ of mine, and I can allow a connection between the two, I’ve got an entry point to becoming truly present…I finish this run intending that all who read these words will one day find where they too can connect their highest aspiration to their simplest love, and in so doing…become…authentic.  – Let the search begin!

Tao 73, Tao 19/Day 166 “The Tao is always at ease. It overcomes without competing.” “Throw away industry and profit, and there won’t be any thieves.”

I lope along now at a lazy pace while fellow mud-and-distance lovers – mostly ladies – take the lead.  The concept of overcoming, or ‘winning’ — with ease, without competing — goes against everything I was ever taught about how to be successful in life.  Yet my own journey on this path has confirmed its validity in a very visceral way.  I’m not competing with anybody out here, but that hasn’t prevented me from any number of ‘personal bests’.  On the contrary, it’s been the very means by which those ‘bests’ have become accessible (I put the word ‘bests’ in quotes because relishing in play rather than competition means not paying much attention to such things in the first place).  My breathing waltzes to longer rhythms, and I suddenly realize that I will cover the distance of a marathon one day soon.  This ‘realization’ is completely different from setting a goal of the same magnitude and then training or competing til it’s realized. As I reflect further, my awareness revisits a book I glanced at in a bookshop on my last trip to Vancouver called ‘Super Freakonomics’.  It’s a follow up to “Freakonomics”, an intriguing bestseller on why we people do what we do, from an economist’s perspective.  The authors boil down the essence of their work to one theme: People respond to incentives, but not in easily predictable or reliable ways.  This fact produces a tremendously powerful law of unintended consequences.  One example of this behavior they cite is the response to an explosion of horse traffic in urban centers in the late 1800’s.  Pollution, filth, and disease explode as well, and it’s not until the invention of the automobile (and the electric streetcar) that big cities see a marked improvement in these conditions.  Yet these same saviors eventually produced their own unintended consequences, of which we are all well aware.  As I continue to run with this reflection, I gain an additional insight.  Unintended consequences do not mean that it’s ‘wrong’ to have the incentives that produce them in the first place, just that it’s mistaken to ‘judge’ such consequences as anything other than the natural outgrowth of the previous incentives.  Any one ‘savior’ will eventually lead to the need for the next. – Which leads me to the last leg of today’s run and straight into today’s second couplet.  Western civilization is built on the ideal of progress.  Eastern wisdom says each ‘progression’ creates as many problems as it solves.  Modern science appears to be validating the Eastern perspective, at least when it comes to this ‘law of unintended consequences’.  – But is the Tao saying in Stanza 19 that humanity should therefore unequivocally reject industry and profit (and holiness and wisdom and morality and justice), because of their unintended consequences, or could it be that any and all of these pursuits can also be enobled if they are engaged in in a spirit of play rather than competition?  In other words, can we humans ‘overcome’ the way the Tao ‘overcomes’ – always at ease, without dividing our world into ‘competing interests’?  It again occurs to me that our biggest ‘problems’ stem again and again from JUDGEMENT.  If we could ever just follow our own angels, without turning everyone elses into demons, we’d find our way.  That’s a progress that can only come from realizations, not goals.  I am finding my health and my sanity on this magic path not by waging ‘a war on marathons’, but by making peace – without judgement – with myself.  – Who knew it was always this easy?

Tao 80/Day 164 “And even though the next country is so close that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking, they are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it.”

It is a beautiful Remembrance Day in Canada.  Lots of sunshine, and the crisp autumn air smells like it was made fresh this morning.  I have an earlier opportunity than usual to circle the waters, and the path is crowded with other pilgrims taking advantage of the national holiday.  Because of the length (and difficulties) of my last outing, I start pretty slow and stay that way, wanting to add distance without causing conflict with my body if possible.  The trail is still slick with wet and muddy leaves, and lots of holiday horse riders are leaving their marks on the path as well, if you know what I mean.  Yet the mood of most is positively euphoric.  Whether its freedom from work or freedom from rain, the hikers and bikers and rowers and dog-walkers and fishermen and nature-gazers I pass are unfailingly spirited and polite.  The feeling that best describes my own well-being is ‘ease’.  I’m not tight, I’m not forcing anything, my breathing is long and loose despite the first signs of a cough and cold, and I’m wearing an old pair of glasses that don’t slip when I sweat.  The sights and sounds that surround me seem so distinct and clear.  Birds I haven’t heard in awhile are calling once more.  The sky is clear and spacious and the hills and water are alive with activity.  I pass a family silently watching a dozen or more geese perched on fallen branches protruding from beneath the lake’s seamless surface.  A single rower is eclipsed by a team of eight – each craft barely disturbing the murky mirror they glide upon.  My feet skip past the same terrain they’ve known since late last spring, still marveling at how this same trail changes every single day.  For maybe the first time in my life, I taste an experience of the meaning of today’s Tao-words.  I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy, reading maps and loving to travel since I went on my first trip to the Florida Gulf Coast with my grandparents as a precocious four year old.  Since then I’ve had the good fortune, whether through study or work or wanderlust, to live and work and visit all over the world.  London, Madrid, Quebec City, Vancouver, Johannesburg, New York, Los Angeles, Maui, Fiji, Romania, Greece, Ghana and many more– all with the sense that I’d never left home.  This openness to various languages and cultures and cuisines and climates has provided a wonderful window into what unites us all as fellow travelers around the sun.  But it’s not because there are no more mountains to climb that I’m finding myself so content as I trek round this familiar path today.  Rather, it’s because I feel I’ve reached a place of endless exploration.  Not in this natural wonder around me but deep in my natural self.  It was Thoreau who – having spent two years at his beloved Walden Pond – found words to encourage the mining not of the hillsides for coal but the soul for the gold to be found waiting there.  Working out of such a rich vein of ore could not help, according to this singular individual, but produce a metal incorruptible and lasting, as well as a peace that passes understanding. Where I once would have seen today’s Tao-words as signaling a spirit uninterested in life at best and quite prejudiced by it at worst, I understand today as I run through these woods the contentment that comes from being truly present to where I am, wherever I am.  May this presence prevail whether or not I ever again set sail for lands and seas and spaces unknown – for each place that I am now is home…Each place that I AM, NOW…