Taoist Thoughts for Christmas Morning

Force begets force.

One whose needs are simple can fulfill them easily.

Material wealth does not enrich the spirit.

Self-absorption and self-importance are vain and self-destructive.

Victory in war is not glorious and not to be celebrated, but stems from devastation, and is to be mourned.

The harder one tries, the more resistance one creates for oneself.

The more one acts in harmony with the universe (the Mother of the ten thousand things), the more one will achieve, with less effort.

The truly wise make little of their own wisdom for the more they know, the more they realize how little they know.

When we lose the fundamentals, we supplant them with increasingly inferior values which we pretend are the true values.

Glorification of wealth, power and beauty beget crime, envy and shame.

The qualities of flexibility and suppleness are superior to rigidity and strength.

Everything is in its own time and place.

Duality of nature that complements each other instead of competing with each other — the two faces of the same coin — one cannot exist without the other.

The differences of opposite polarities — i.e. the differences between male and female, light and dark, strong and weak, etc. — helps us understand and appreciate the universe.

Humility is the highest virtue.

Knowing oneself is a virtue.

Envy is our calamity; overindulgence is our plight.

The more you go in search of an answer, the less you will understand.

Know when it's time to stop.


And here's some Christian thoughts for Christmas morning, from whom I somewhat ironically refer to as "my first openly Christian friend," Scott Ott of Scrappleface.com. Enjoy.



Trivia: that's Scott singing in the background, not Neil Diamond.