Power for the Peaceful: A Course in Tao

We pause every 10 verses to enrich and provide more info than one may find in Tao te Ching text itself. More history, more practices, more background. This episode covers the kind of embarrassing dilemma we in the West have: Our 100+ versions of Tao te Ching in English are separated from Taoism as it has been generated and practiced by actual Taoists in Taoism's home: China. Thus, this episode makes a plea for us to become more educated and conversant about an ENTIRE culture, history, and tradition that gave us this one sliver of Taoism - this Tao te Ching text. If you know only Tao te Ching but not Taoism itself as a living culture, this episode introduces Taoism's practices. I make reference in the episode to (1) my "spiritual terrorism" blog, when Japan weaponized a Taoist practice (http://allkoreaconsidered.blogspot.com/2017/07/spiritual-terrorism.html) and (2) and to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism-religion/) May your days begin in peace, and become practices with which you weave radical hope, for you, and your communities. Marc Mullinax - mmullinax@mhu.edu --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

This is an episode devoted to the all-important Verse #1 of Tao te Ching. Its very first out-of-the-block teaching is for us to rely on silence and awe, not words, to discern Tao.  Chad Holt is our quote reader and question-asker.  I welcome you to contact me at https://www.marcmullinax.com/.  May your days begin in peace, and become laboratories for radical hope! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

This episode gives some background of the context in which Taoism emerged, and some of the claims, such as Tao being the first philosophical attempt at a "Theory of Everything." --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

This is a trailer for a new podcast on Taoism and Tao te Ching --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 voice and timely question, that links this verse with climate change. May your days begin in peace and become wombs for radical hope! Marc --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 gratitude. Marc Mullinax --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 https://www.hidasta.com/. May your days begin in peace, and become wombs for radical hope! Marc Mullinax - mmullinax@mhu.edu --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 thirstless fields in which we sow the seeds of radical hope. Marc Mullinax --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/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 radical hope. Marc Mullinax --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_tasters. May your days begin with peace, and our lives become poetic places for the strange and the true safely to land. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 Mullinax --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 Ethan Colon delivers the quotes AND, a most decisive and challenging question. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 today is Michelle Miller, whom you can find out more about here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/259687/michelle-miller/. May your days begin in peace, and become THE ROOTING OF your radical hope. -Marc - mmullinax (AT) mhu.edu --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 ourselves. Tebbe Davis (https://faso.com/artists/tebbedavis.html) lent his wonderful voice to this episode. Thank you. May your days begin in peace, and become wombs for radical hope! Marc Mullinax - mmullinax [at] mhu.edu --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message

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 peace, to become laboratories of radical hope! mmullinax@mhu.edu --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marc-mullinax/message