to what extent does lao tzu concern himself with individual hapiness
Mainstream psychology is non concerned with greed, or excessive desires, as a morbidity that can lead to emotive disorders and mental suffering. Instead, information technology hypothesizes that the gratification of desires and wants is a necessary condition for mental health and happiness. Logotherapy has offered an insightful challenge to this Freudian view, arguing that the key to happiness lies in the discovery of significant of life, not in the pursuit of gratification of desires. Simply this is a topic to be discussed in a divide commodity. Here I only need to indicate out that ancient Greek philosophers and Christian saints taught differently from Freudian psychology. The Bible also emphatically exhorts near the harmfulness of greed and craving. One important reason for this cognitive gap between mod psychology and ancient wisdom seems to rest with the acquisitive nature of a socioeconomic system that depends on the desire for gains as a motive force.
Oriental philosophies echo Christian ethics in this regard. Rather than seek the gratification of desires, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism all espouse its antithesis – contentment – equally the source of happiness. Contentment in this context refers to a state of heed in which the potential psychic energy (known every bit libido in Western psychology) is transformed into a serene mental quality, rather than actualized as a desire that needs to be "gratified" or repressed.
Taoist sages Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu inculcated that craving for fame and wealth often resulted in moral depravity, and in many cases personal destruction. As Lao-tzu warned, "The greatest of woes comes from not knowing contentment; the greatest of faults comes from peckish for gains."1 He argued that the nature of humanity and, for that matter, of all creatures, was to live in a simple and plain way, no more than what was needed to maintain the salubrious growth of the organism. Beyond that limit were "selfish peckish" and "extravagance" that caused human to lose his genuine simplicity and spontaneity. Therefore, "A sage is complimentary from excessive pursuit, enjoyment and expectation."2 From Lao-tzu's perspective, a sage is non the production of moral cultivation, but simply someone who lives according to his authentic nature – simplicity and spontaneity. This is an integral part of Tao – the groovy Way of nature. Alienation from Tao is seen as the root cause of all man problems.
Chuang-tzu picked upwards the same theme and used a brilliant analogy to go beyond the bulletin that contentment was in the very nature of all living beings. "Amid the exuberance of forest, a bird needs but ane co-operative to build its nest," he wrote. "And from the broad expanse of a deep river, a mouse drinks merely enough to fill its breadbasket."3 So, why do humans have more than they need? Chuang-tzu suggested that a human existence could be happy with just a minimum of material means.
What are the implications of this Taoist thinking for mod people? Kickoff of all, ane may raise the question that, unlike animals, human needs extend far across the physiological realm to cover psychological, emotive and spiritual needs. Even physiological needs modify as civilization progresses. For example, people several decades agone were content with riding on a bicycle, but today driving a car has get a necessity. Does information technology brand sense to compare human needs to the needs of a bird and a mouse? Do we take to surrender the material amenities and comforts of modern culture if we take the Taoist didactics seriously?
To be sure, aboriginal Taoists believed that simplicity of the heed could not be separated from simplicity of the life style. Just the essence of the Taoist education is probably non that homo needs are comparable to the needs of animals, but that we humans, like animals, can and should live a simple, spontaneous way of life by freeing ourselves from greed and craving for more than we demand, regardless of how we ascertain "need" in different social and cultural contexts. In their writings, the Taoist sages dwelt upon the harmfulness of greed as it could impoverish people morally and spiritually. On the other mitt, "those who know delectation are enriched," and "a contented person always lives in abundance."4
While Buddhism also emphasizes contentment, it does non see material simplicity as a necessary status. The Buddhist insight into simplicity and spontaneity centers around the transcendental quality of not-attachment and non-reactivity. Buddhist psychology has discovered a human potential for self-appearing neglected by Western psychology, that is, the potential to free the heed from its habitual blueprint of grasping and rejecting, and of craving and aversion — a psychological machinery seen as the root of mental suffering. A well-attained Buddhist tin can live in material abundance and however go on his/her mind "detached," i.e., free from the said mechanism. This means that he/she will exist happy also if he/she has to alive in poverty. From the Buddhist perspective, this insight of non-zipper and non-reactivity is the source of blissful contentment. It besides suggests that the Western concept of "gratification of desires" can comprehend upwards the subtle psychological machinery of attachment to what is desired, and it is precisely this emotive attachment that causes unhappiness and mental suffering. In Buddhism as in Taoism, the energy of desire can be "transformed" so that neither "gratification" nor repression is necessary.
Starting from simplicity, the Fashion of nature embraces the unabridged catholic complication in smashing harmony -in the integrated One. The two opposites of a dualistic pair are seen equally balancing and complementing each other. Thus to the Taoist, the wheel of life and death is as natural as the cycle of day and dark, and fortune and misfortune embrace each other. With this insight in view, delectation is possible even under extreme adversity. When Chuang Tzu's wife died, he was grieved at first, but then beat a drum in joyous commemoration. He explained that death was merely an extension of life, with each complementing the other; and if life was worth celebrating, then was death.
When the negative and the positive are seen as an integrated whole in harmony, life has no trouble at all. All problems are created past man out of ignorance of the Way of nature. So we need not worry about anything. "Has a bird always worried about its nutrient for tomorrow?" the Taoist asks. Just relax and permit get, and things will have care of themselves. Lao-tzu'southward motto of "practise nothing" (wu-wei in Chinese) means that a wise person knows how to give up his/her impulse to strive for gain, be information technology skillful health or good fortune, and permit nature to take its own grade.
The importance of this teaching on "surrender" for spiritual cultivation and personal development cannot exist exaggerated. For what tin spiritual liberation mean if not the liberation from our bio-psychological impulse to strive to be different from what we are, or from the aforesaid mechanism of grasping and rejecting? Furthermore, information technology also has invaluable implications for mod psychotherapy, first considering we know that emotive disorders such as neurotic anxiety, depression, insomnia, etc., are closely related to the impulse of striving, and secondly because the art of "practise nothing" has proved efficacious in treating not simply emotive disorders, merely too concrete illnesses. In fact, the therapeutic technique of "paradoxical intention" developed by logotherapy is a clinical application of the principle of "exercise nothing."
To sum up, contentment as taught by Taoism has the following implications for mod society:
- Luxury and extravagant consumption not only waste product money, but also tin be harmful to our wellness and mental well-beingness.
- Peckish for wealth and fabric possessions impoverishes united states of america morally and spiritually, and freedom from such craving enriches us by enhancing our chapters for beloved, mental repose, wellness and happiness.
- Learning to develop a new insight that fortune and misfortune contain each other tin can help us avoid mental frustrations when misfortune strikes. The same insight applies to other dualities such as success and failure, health and affliction, praise and blame, etc.
- The impulse of striving to be different from what nosotros are causes tension and stress, contributing to emotive disorders. Learning to master the fine art of "exercise zero" or "let go" has enormous benefits for our mental and concrete health.
- In the Taoist philosophy, "practise nothing" besides means that nosotros take activity in a spontaneous, effortless way, and avoid imposing our subjective thinking and behavior on others, especially when we are in a leading position. A successful leader is someone who can keep his/her mind open to all ideas and delegate authority and duty properly to those working under him/her. Co-ordinate to Taoism, dictatorship is doomed to failure because it violates the principle of "exercise nothing" and causes disharmony (though often disguised as "harmony") inside the group.
- Meditation in "passive relaxation" not only helps better our concrete and mental health; it is also a good way to cultivate the art of "do zip" likewise.
- Tao reveals that all is in flux. Nosotros invite trouble if nosotros deed against this catholic principle by sticking to a rigid, cocky-righteous way of thinking.
- Taoism teaches that Tao, the dandy Way of nature, has no selfish motives, that Mother Nature gives and nourishes without claiming anything in return. Learning from this catholic virtue is the ultimate guarantee for contentment. So, the Taoist message of contentment does non imply a passive resignation to fate, simply rather a selfless devotion and commitment to the well-being of humanity.
1. Quoted from Lao-tzu,, chap. 46.
2. Quoted from Lao-tzu,, chap. nineteen and 29.
3. Quoted from Chuang-tzu, Hsiao-yao-yu (Carefree Roaming).
4. Quoted from Lao-tzu, chap. 33 and 46.
Source: https://www.meaning.ca/article/contentment-as-the-way-of-nature-insights-from-taoism/
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