The Beatles put this verse into a song, which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swT6YTPYwgM. Verse 47 has a mystical teaching, one claiming that we can sense the entire universe from our tiny rooms or spaces in which we live. How does one even begin to explain this unitary, unified, worldview where all creation intermixes, interpenetrates, and intermingles in one unified vision or field? So, we talk about developing spiritual literacy. Thanks to Chris Haynes for his...

Knowing when enough is enough is a choice, of quality over quantity, a free determination and conclusion of the wise mind, a free choice made by free persons; “enough” is not an amount or quantity, it is a learned attitude that helps us merge more quickly and easily into the way of the universe. Eric Cain (https://www.christschool.org/node/290008) is our reader and question-asker. May your days begin in the awareness of what is Enough, to become wombs for radical sufficiency and...

Much of Tao te Ching teaches us how to hear and experience Tao. To this end, we need to remove our mental interferences and filters that act to weaken or neutralize the experiencing of Tao. This Verse 45 teaches such removal, by helping us to embrace the Paradoxical and the Ambiguous. We start with the Rolling Stones and end with guest Mattie Miller-Decker's beautifully phrased question on how Taoist paradox and Buddhist Original Mind are complements. Mattie is at...

Taoism joins most faith traditions that cast doubt on the ability of "things" and other items we can hoard (but not use) ... to satisfy our deepest selves. Rangsey Chang is our voice for quotations and two great questions on the hope and spirituality of the "things" in our lives. I mentioned a book in the podcast: The Ego Tunnel: the Science of the Mind and the Myth of Self. He gave a TedTalk on his ideas: https://youtu.be/5ZsDDseI5QI. May your days begin in peace, and become...

We cannot make the entire world into a garden free of hard things. However, we can make our corner of the world a joyful place. There is then, an art to living softly, as soft beings, living patiently. The wisdom of Verse 43's “the soft overcomes the hard” invites us to pause, and reevaluate our cultural notions of strength and power. May your days begin in peace, to become wombs for radical hope! Marc Mullinax --- Send in a voice message:...

Verse 42 is the one and only place where Yin and Yang (阴 and 阳) show up in the ENTIRE Tao te Ching. They show up to help us understand the larger creation process (or story, or mythic representation) of how the Universe got here and is sustained, even to this day. My guest, Rebecca Askew, asks a question about Minimalism, and we discover just how widespread Minimalism is spread across the world's spiritual traditions. May your days arise (YANG) in peace, and your nights fall (YIN) into...

Verse 41: Lao Tzu’s Smile. Today’s verse 41 is to be taken as a whole; it is an attitude to embrace, to further deepen into Tao. Tao, as we have seen recently, is mysterious, seems to go in reverse, and remain hidden. Verse 41 reminds one how an attitude of expecting the unexpected is one way for Tao to find you. Receptive, open, becoming strange to one’s normal world, to re-engage with Tao’s norms. There is a picture referenced: The Vinegar Tasters, which can be seen here:...

The key Chinese word I refer to often in this episode is "Fan" or 反. "Fan" is the word for "return" or "retire". "Fan" is everywhere in the world's spiritualities, and we explore, through "Fan," how things emerge and grow, and then return or retire to their being No-thing. Being and Non-Being. While I do not have a reader, I have some singers! Hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

This is one of those several times Tao te Ching slows down, so mayhaps we can hear and get in touch with our original nature, a nature deeply rooted in Earth, soil, clay, mud. We are humus ... humus beings. We stay wise when we stay in touch with our humus/humble origins. Stan Wilson (https://www.circleofmercy.org/content.cfm?id=149&pid=67) is our reader and questionS-Asker. Thank you. May your days begin rooted in Earth’s peace, and grow the fruits of radical hope. --Marc...

This LONG verse starts a conversation or teaching about Te (as in Tao TE Ching), a conversation that will run through the rest of the verses in Tao te Ching. Because Tao and Te are separate, but share one root, their message remains consistent: No compromise! The person grounded in the depths of Tao does not drink from second-best opinions. S/He stays centered at the root and lets the unrooted take care of itself. S/He avoids the outer to live in the inner root. UNC/A philosophy student...

Once our ego-stroked schemes calm and quieten, there is Something Else. That Something Else is Tao, Tao at the Root of all. Always been there, always "is" everywhere, always will be there. When we rest in our roots, the world not only makes better sense, we are also physically, mentally, and psychically healthy. Verse 37 is a quietly radical teaching verse, a reminder that beneath all noise, commotion, chaos, and other crap, there is another place ... the place we are rooted. Our reader...

This verse teaches an expansive view of how to become an integrated, peaceful being. Instead of hardening one's categories with dualistic absolutes, it is more wholesome to integrate 'apparent opposites' into a unified view, that one is a mixture of what a dualist culture would label good/bad, ugly/beautiful, and so on. It's ONLY when we allow each energy of yin and each energy of yang to co-exist one with the other, we achieve union, unity, and wholeness. Otherwise, we are at war with...

Nothing -- not time, not distance, not circumstance, not geography -- NOTHING weakens or diminishes Tao's power for peace. If we experience any weakening, diminishing, or forgetfulness of Tao, that's on us, and ways we have constructed our lives through thinking, culture, and habit. This episode is dedicated to re-understanding and re-discovery (or remembering) Tao in the normal, the everyday, and in the moment. No reader today; it's a vacation week for many. --- Send in a voice...

Critical teaching here. Tao is already within, working, subtly and invisibly the air all around us, but which we forget we breathe and move in. Joe Bennett supplies energy and his voice to this episode's effort. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: As described at the top of this Bonus Episode, the podcast will slow down for the rest of this (2023) year, releasing every SECOND Thursday. In this Bonus Episode, I look at the poverty of thinking, and the enriching ways we can train the brain not to think, analyze, categorize, and take us places we don't need to go ... ever. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

Simple, but profound verse. Don't let its simplicity lure you into a false sense of security. For it speaks about how to become wise. 1. Take on wisdom, and leave off ego-managed actions. 2. Understanding self as more important than understanding others (while both are good; one of these is better). 3. Being content with sufficiency - knowing when "enough" IS enough. 4. Regular meditation on death. I was alone today on the episode. Back next week with a guest! May your days begin in...

Today's verse 32 is great for review. It contains many through-lines of themes we have seen so far in our long march through these 81 verses in Tao Te Ching: -Inscrutability -Nothing is alien; all is one -Forgetfulness -Three practices of Silence, Darkness, and Emptiness -The Feminine, and -Water ... ... Several of which themes re-emerge today. So while there may not be that much "new," the way Lao Tzu frames and phrases this verse will provide necessary reminders about what Tao is,...

I am joined at the mic today by Dr. Charles Pannell, a professor in Chinese Medicine practice at the Daoist School of Chinese Medicine in Asheville, NC. (https://daoisttraditions.edu/). Dr. Pannell's bio is here: https://daoisttraditions.edu/our-college/our-faculty-2/. We talk about the shared worldview of Tao, Taoism, and Classical Chinese Medicine. My great thanks to him!! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

Verse 31 is a strong declaration against a Taoist "making peace" with war or aggression. This is a tough verse, and is easily misunderstood, partly because we tend to normalize our violent ways both within ourselves and in our culture. To be a peace-wager in a society so normalized toward war may mean you are misunderstood, fired from a job, or denounced. Gabrielle Guiliano - a Taoist practitioner, is our guest voice today. And during the Question time, I ask HER the questions! ---...

Verses 30 this week, and 31 next week, are of a unit, and make the central argument for Taoist anti-war, anti-violence positions. While I am no gatekeeper of Taoist orthodoxy, it is clear that Tao's worldview never promotes or abides by violence or war-like ways, whether these ways are by the state, or in one's own life. I'll continue this theme in next week's Verse 31 treatment. Kimberly Gilliam is our voice today. May you begin your days waging peace, days which become wombs for more...

With Tao, there is an underlying rhythm, described as right action at the right time and the right place. Get off this rhythm and one starts having strange ideas that one (one's ego) can actually change reality, or improve this rhythm. Nah. So this verse investigates spiritual rhythm and spiritual arrhythmia. WE touch on past themes like Yin-Yang and Wu-Wei, but in ways that expand our understanding of these teachings. Helping me out today is Dr. Serena McMillan, a Hebrew Bible scholar who...

Verse 28 does not mention Yin or Yang, but these two concepts have their fingerprints in every line. It's a verse that teaches to combine the unlikely pairs of seemingly opposites, not just in order to integrate one's psyche with Tao, but also to become a grounded, peaceful, and useful Tao practitioner. This week's quote reader and question-asker is Dr. Laurel Reinhardt, "a therapist in recovery", whose work can be found at these two sites: www.innerlandscaping.com; and...

Verse 27 is full of Wu-Wei insights. Rather than thumb-nailing them here, let's let the Verse speak in its myriad ways. Audrey Davis, our artist, returns for another appearance with the quotes, and asks about how Taoism might enable us to face our own deaths (We recorded her words in Asheville's Riverside Cemetery). Mary your days begin in peace, and become wombs for the radical hope growing in you. Marc --- Send in a voice message:...

What do we allow to disturb our peace, equilibrium, and equanimity? Verse 26 reminds us that we do - already - before we get into touchy or tough situations - that we are already: grounded, peaceful, balanced. So why and how do we get off-balance? How do we re-find our balance? This is the teaching of Verse 26. Along the way in this episode, we'll hear from a family deep in this verse's practice, and we'll hear two Buddhist stories on equanimity and peaceful acceptance. The trailer to my...