Category: Taoism

Once upon a time, a novice farmer indulged himself in motivational videos. He became familiar with ideas like the importance of ‘effort,’ the ‘hustle culture,’ and ‘work hard, play hard.’ After binge-watching for days, he walked onto his farm, fired up, and determined to make it a great success.  He started pulling one of the […]

The philosophy of Taoism revolves around letting go, accepting, yielding, and going with the flow. All Taoist sages seem to agree that it’s better to be detached and indifferent, allow change to happen, and move along with life’s constant transformations than to resist change and cling to what’s already in the past. When we are […]

The ancient Taoist text Zhuangzi describes Lieh Tzu as the sage who rode the wind with an admirable indifference to external things, and thus, in his lightness he was free from all desires to pursue the things that supposedly make us happy. Lieh Yokuo, also known as Lieh Tzu or Master Lie, is attributed as […]

Have you ever reflected on the word ‘doing’? ‘Doing’ points to performance, achievement, effort. It also implies that there’s a ‘doer’ who engages in ‘doing something’, and that there’s a passive element or ‘the thing that’s being done’. But does it work that way? Is there a separation between the thing that ‘does’ and the […]

Can you celebrate life and not cling to it? Can you give up control and still get things done? Can you achieve your goals without forcing? These are all themes we find in the ancient Taoist key work called the Tao Te Ching, which was written by a mysterious sage named Lao Tzu. Not much […]

Water is the softest and most yielding substance. Yet nothing is better than water, for overcoming the hard and rigid, because nothing can compete with it. Lao Tzu Many people are hijacked by the rigidity of their minds. Thinking in categories and fixed ideas can be a great crutch for survival, as it creates clarity […]