I want to start with the last paragraph. I really had to understand that before the rest of the day’s lesson made sense. I must stop thinking of myself as separate from the world.
It is the common thinking that the world is this Huge thing and I am just this little old me, a nobody, a small insufficient tiny Peon that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. The world is going crazy and what I do won’t really make a difference. BUT that is not what the Tao is teaching me. I am not separate from the world. What happened if my perspective changes. I start to see the world as self. What will happen if I stop seeing myself as separate and alone but choose to see the whole world as connected. It is like making a shift and seeing the universe in me rather than me in the universe.
How does this relate to my hopes and fears? This chapter says they are both phantoms, meaning they are not real. When I think of myself as separate, I have all these voices in my head telling me things. Some good and hopeful, sometimes bad and fearful. But if I quite those voices and connect to the part of me that is the whole world and trust that what happens is what is suppose to happen.
I need to keep both feet on the ground. Not climbing a ladder, worried about the next step ( is the next step going up into success or going down into failure?).
I must keep my balance.
I must remember that I am not separate from the world.
I must love the world
Great interpretation!
I’ve seen chapter 13 open for a while now, I was wondering what you would come up with…
Realizing and internalizing the incorrectness of the old definition of the self as whatever is inside our skin — well, that’s on the short list of Life’s Big Lessons.