Life and Death
I am often asked questions such as “Do you believe in the soul?” or “Do you believe in an afterlife?” First, I make it clear that Taoists as a whole do not all share the same views on this subject. Views can range from a type of reward or punishment existence to reincarnation. What follows are my own personal views:
Tao is the source of all things. What this means is that I consider all matter, all energy, all things and the emptiness between things to be part of the Tao. It’s similar to saying, “everything in the universe”.
To quote Carl Sagan, “We are made of star stuff.” We understand matter to the point where we can trace everything down to protons, neutrons and electrons. These same basic building blocks can be found in everything from a grain of sand to the brightest star.
Who We Were Vs. Who We Are
“Sometimes people think of themselves as who they have been and forget to keep being who they are.”
Life is a series of experiences. As we live, we make choices related to those experiences. Over time the choices we make become based on similar choices we made in the past instead of being a new choice based on the current situation. This is accompanied by sayings like “that’s how it’s always been done” and “I’ve grown up now” as justification.
Before our growing history of choices, as a child and even young adult, we were “carefree”. We lived for the moment. We took risks. We were ourselves. But with each new choice we made, we slowly covered our fluid motions with structure. Moment by moment we cemented ourselves into a statue-like shell.
There comes a point where we forget what it was like to be who we are, because all of our choices become based on who we have been through the years. Nothing is new. Colors are not as bright. We have it all figured out. We know how the world works.
So what’s the point? Existence for the sake of just existing is hollow.
The Three Energies
It has long been considered that we have within us three distinctive types of energy. The first is Shen, which represents our mental energies. It is the sculpting force of our thoughts, our personality and emotions. When shen is high, we are creative, happy, positive. When it is low, we feel mentally exhausted and can succumb to ailments such as depression.
Selling is Part of Life
Trying to live my life in balance, I encourage myself not to categorize my experiences. This is a difficult choice, especially since my career has been sales for over a decade. I have to keep in check the desire to press what I want others to buy from me and the impression that I can judge in advance what others want from me with being open and simply listening to them tell me what they want.
Blending and Life
One night I was practicing with acrylics on my sketch pad. I bought a bottle of blending gel and decided to see where things went. I made a large circle with the clear gel first. Next I put down a healthy amount of yellow. Ah, a nice bright sun. My daughter, who was playing a Jumpstart game on the computer nearby, looked over and offered me some artistic advice. I should put some big eyes and a smile on the sun!
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