Lisa Hood

Wayne Dyer has a new book and PBS special called “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life” based on his year long study of the Dao De Jing.  The Dao De Jing is a compilation of simple versus full of spiritual wisdom, attributed to Lao Zi (Old Man). Dao is another world for God or Creator or Source.  “The Dao that can be named, is not the Dao”

Here are few notes I took from the show. 

“Returning is the motion of the Dao.”  All of us came from a divine spiritual essence, so the Dao suggests we return to our origin of being. 

No where to Now here back to No where.

Trust your nature and the nature of the universe to provide everything necessary to be.  Once we stop interfering with our nature or allowing others to interfere, we find out spiritual compass.  Otherwise we live with EGO and define ourselves with what we have or how people think of us. “The great master follows his own nature and not the trapping of life. A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, and so he is good.”  Retrain EGO to shift from fear to curiosity and take everything you’re attached to and start letting it go. Because things do not define us!  I am not my clothing, my photos, my furniture, my books.  I am my nature.  I came into this world with NO Thing and I will leave with NO Thing. 

Shift from Control to Trust, letting go and letting GOD. Shift my sense of entitlement to just being and being humble.  The EGO says we are separate, but we’re all one, connected by a single source.  We are all just branches on one tree, so it’s ridiculous for one branch to feel superior to another, or to feel hatred for another. The person of Dao will eliminate pain, hatred, hurt by ending conflict with love. 

 ”Be wise and help all beings impartially, abandoning none.” If your nature is to be kind, you will be kind to the kind and kind to the unkind equally, because you are being true to your nature and you won’t allow others to interfere with that nature.

More is the mantra of the Ego, always trying to collect more stuff to reinforce the Ego.

“Sages do not accumulate anything but give everything to others, having more the more they give.” 80/20 rule applied to everything I own says that 80% of what I have, I don’t use.  Take the 80% I don’t use and give it away. “When your cup is full, stop pouring.”  When you realize you have enough, you are truly rich. Live in a state of contentment.  Start every morning saying ‘Thank You’.

Shift from rigid thinking to softness and flexibility.  Like water, it flows and moves around obstacles, if fills every opening. It is consistent and patient.  A soft thought doesn’t limit possibilities with narrow definitions. “Nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water, but for attacking the hard, the unyielding, nothing can surpass it. There is nothing.”  The more you grasp, the harder you hold on, the less control you have, but the more flexible you are the more you can accomplish. Be strong by bending, just like a tree that can sway with the wind, it will survive where the rigid tree will snap. The wind is going to happen, it can’t be avoided.

“The supreme good is water, which nourishes all things without trying to.” 

You’re doing nothing, you’re just being done.  We’re racing to accomplish tasks, chores, to run errands, but it’s really doing nothing.  Live by not interfering. Children have the anchor of the universe w/in them. They come through you but not for you, they are not belongings that can be moved or placed according to your wants and needs. “Everything under Heaven is a sacred vessel and can not be controlled.  Trying to control leads to ruin.” Trust in others to know what is best for them.

There’s a time for all things, “Hidden in misfortune is good fortune”.  We must accept all parts of our life, rather than resisting.  Flow with it, ride it out and there will be time for rest and peace.  Find the good hidden in every circumstance and know that this too will pass.  Because nothing in life or nature is permanent, everything changes and evolves. “Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything. Between the two is when life happens.”

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one first step.”  Changes don’t happen big, changes happen small, just one day at a time.  Just commit to taking the first step, everyday. Look within to find the way.  The harder you try the more difficult it is to achieve, rather just do it with ease and don’t try.