Description
Tao Te Ching, which can be translated from the traditional chinese to The Book of the Way and its Virtue, is an important classic Chinese text.
Written around 600 bce by Taoist Lao Tzu (or Lao Tsu, Lauzi), who was a sage and keeper of records at the court of the Zhou Dynasty.
The Tao Te Ching is an important compilation of maxims from a significant period in the history of Taoist Chinese philosophy, and has strongly influenced Chinese Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism.
Tao Te Ching has often been used by Chinese poets, painters, and calligraphers as a major source of inspiration.
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In an earlier post entitled ‘The Simple Way of Living Towards Peace of Mind’, I shared my own thoughts on living with simplicity, something which walks hand in hand with contentedness on a merry journey towards peace of mind.
So let us call up a wise Chinese Sage of ancient times to start this lesson with a contentment quote or two,
“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
~ Lao Tzu
We are forever discontented in mind because of the need to complicate our lives with striving for external pleasures and vanities. We are like spoilt children who are given a large amount of toys to play with – we then eventually become bored with them, disposing of them one at a time until we become restless, and then want a particular toy another child has so to temporarily fill the unhappy void of discontentment.
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Why is it so difficult to live simply? Wouldn’t it save us a lot of time and effort if we took the simple course of action rather than choosing a more complex one?
What does living simply mean? Well to begin with, one must have the clarity of mind to live simply. Life can become more difficult than it already is once we start to complicate matters by accumulating convoluted knowledge which can obscure clarity and make us disorganised.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
~ Confucius
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