Knowing the Basics in Life

In addition to the basic human need for food, clothing, and shelter, there are some basics in life, which are fundamental to the art of living well.

Feeling Good About Oneself

In life, there are generally three things that most people want and desire: abundant wealth; good health; happy relationships.

Indeed, they become the life goals of many. Success in their pursuit of these goals makes them feel good about themselves, not to mention satisfying their basic need to feel self-important.

Ask yourself these questions: What are the things you desire most in your life? Why are they important to you?

Forming Good Life Habits

Living is about processing experiences in life. Living life to the fullest is contingent on how you process your experiences, which are the consequences of your choices in life, rather than due to your circumstances. Good life choices stem from good life habits. Your habits, good or bad, control you more than anything else does, in particular, your thinking mind. Given that your life is the sum of your thoughts, forming good life habits is critical because you tend to become a slave to your habits, once they are formed.

Ask yourself this question: What are some of the life habits that you must form in order to help you process your experiences in life?

Good life habits include: living in the present moment; developing body and mind awareness; embracing right conduct and positive thinking.

According to Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do; therefore, excellence is also a habit that can be cultivated.

Being Who You Are

If you wish to create a better life for yourself, you must do it all by yourself; after all, it is your life and you must live it yourself. In other words, it is all up to you.

Be yourself: who you are, and not who you want to become. Being who you are means you must stop blaming others, who have nothing to do with who you are or what you have become for that matter.

Remember, no one else is to blame for your experiences, which are uniquely and totally yours.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Tao Wisdom Opens the Door to Biblical Wisdom

Biblical wisdom is the wisdom that comes from God. Understanding Biblical wisdom may not be easy: it requires human wisdom to seek knowledge to understand the role of man in this world, such as finding out his self-worth, as well as his role and contributions to humanity and the world he is living in.  Jesus said: "Seek and you shall find." But, without human wisdom, man may seek other things in the material world he is living in, instead of God's wisdom.

Human wisdom does not come from knowledge alone. As a matter of fact, a knowledgeable person may not necessarily be wise. Human wisdom has to do with asking questions and seeking answers from the questions asked throughout one’s life journey. Reading the Bible may not lead you anywhere unless you have an open mind with spirituality to believe. Reading Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, the immortal ancient classic from China on human wisdom, may help you have an empty mind to find your way to Biblical wisdom.

Both Tao Te Ching and the Bible are among the most translated and extensively read books in the world. There is a fundamental connection between the two books, though some critics may disagree. Tao Te Ching is about human wisdom, and the Bible is about the wisdom of God. The former was written hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ and the New Testament was even conceived. Because both books are about wisdom and true wisdom is universal and timeless, often sharing some common attributes, there are similarities in the Biblical truths expressed in the Bible and the profound truths of human wisdom in Tao Te Ching.

Given that Tao Te Ching is a difficult book with its multiple paradoxes and deliberate perplexities, I have provided everyday examples to illustrate the "reverse" thinking of Lao Tzu. Without understanding the "reverse" mindset of Lao Tzu, understanding the wisdom of God in the Bible is even more difficult.

TAO: The Way to Biblical Wisdom by Stephen Lau

My own translation of "Tao Te Ching" is based on my belief that Lao Tzu's masterpiece is about the Creator of the universe, and that with true human wisdom man sees not only the manifestations but also the mysteries of His creation.

The book is about true human wisdom without the "conditioned" thinking of contemporary wisdom. Without the "reverse" mindset of Lao Tzu, man may have difficulties in understanding the wisdom of God expressed in the Bible.

My book is divided into four parts.

Part One is about tmy reasons for writing the book, and also why Tao Te Ching is a "must read" for anyone who seeks real human wisdom.

Part Two is my own translation of the 81 short chapters of Tao Te Ching with respect to the Bible; each chapter is followed by some selected Bible verses for further reflection on what Lao Tzu has said.

Part Three is about the essentials of Tao wisdom with detailed explanation in plain English and with everyday life examples to help the reader understand the profound wisdom of Lao Tzu.

Part Four is an explanation of how Tao wisdom may help the reader understand God's wisdom in the Bible. TAO -- the wisdom of Lao Tzu expressed in his immortal classic Tao Te Ching --  is the way to Biblical wisdom.

To get the digital copy, click here; to get the paperback, click here.

To date, I have published several books based on the wisdom expressed in Tao Te Ching: Books by Stephen Lau.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Clarity of Thinking

Tao wisdom is human wisdom, and Biblical wisdom is spiritual wisdom. The art of living well in this contemporary world requires both.  But neither is easy to come by. Why? Because Tao wisdom requires an empty mind with no preconditioned thinking of conventional wisdom, while Biblical wisdom requires the suspension of disbelief. That is to say, both require clarity of thinking, which is not easy to attain, except through meditation and concentration, that is, focusing the mind on the present moment.

Your mind is incessantly alternating between the past and the future, going back and forth without consciously knowing it.

Say, if you are watching TV at the present moment, your compulsive mind is continually retrieving both conscious and subconscious thoughts and memories from the past directly or indirectly related to what you are now watching on the television screen, as well as projecting them into the future. Your mind never really stays in the present moment, although you think it does because you are watching the TV.

To illustrate, you are watching a CNN report on an accident on the freeway involving many cars due to poor visibility. A subconscious thought from your own past experience of driving under similar poor visibility immediately comes up and is projected into the future, to be stored in your subconscious mind to warn you in the future to drive more carefully if a similar situation occurs. Your body is presently watching the television screen, but your mind does not stay in the present moment. That is the reality. It is only a mental illusion that your mind is staying presently on the TV screen. Other subconscious thoughts may also occur at the back of your mind: “I am a more careful driver than those people”, “I hope that will never happen to me” or “I would not know what to do in a similar situation.” All these thoughts are stored in your subconscious mind.

Remember, you compulsive mind is thinking non-stop without your conscious awareness.

Because your mind does not voluntarily stay in the present moment, constantly shuffling back and forth between the past and the future, the only way to stop the thinking mind is to direct it to the present moment. When your mind stays in the present moment, it stops its thinking process of the past or the future—at least for the time being. To make your mind remain in the present moment—even though for just a short moment—you need acute awareness and deep concentration. To do that, you need constant and regular practice to focus or re-focus your mind on the present moment.

Once you can stop, at will, your mind from thinking, you have control over your thinking process, you are no longer a slave to your thoughts, and your mind becomes once again your friend, instead of your enemy. Learn to switch your mind on and off, just as you do with your computer.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

TAO Wisdom to Let Go

Letting go is the natural surrender of the human mind to any involuntary reactivity aimed at removing anything that might threaten or undermine the comfort zones in our lives . Letting go should be a natural instinct, and not a technique that one has to learn and master; it is simply a spontaneous human ability to give up all human attachments that create the unreal world.

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” Thich Nhat Hanh

It is letting go, and not holding on, that makes us strong because it overcomes the fear of the unknown and the unpredictable. Let go of yesterday to live in today as if everything is amiracle; let go of the world to have the universe.

Tao wisdom is profound human wisdom that requires self-intuition to have greater understanding of the Creator, who is in control of everything created by Him; this further understanding may be instrumental in enhancing human wisdom.

Tao wisdom begins with having an empty mind that may help you let go of all attachments to the material world.. 

"An empty mind with no craving and no expectation helps us letting go.

Being in the world and not of the world, we attain heavenly grace.

With heavenly grace, we become pure and selfless.

And everything settles into its own perfect place."

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 3) 

“Letting go is emptying the mundane,

to be filled with heavenly grace.

Blessed is he who has an empty mind.

He will be filled with knowledge and wisdom from the Creator.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 9)

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Tao Wisdom to Understand Biblical Wisdom

Why Biblical wisdom?

The Bible is the Word of God. Through the Bible, God speaks to each and every one of us, if we are willing. In other words, the wisdom expressed in the Bible is God’s divine wisdom to man.

The Authenticity of Biblical Truths

According to Guinness Book of Records, the Bible is the all-time best-selling book, as well as the most translated work in world literature. This indicates that many people do believe that the Bible is a book of absolute truths and divine wisdom from God.

The Bible is a book of wisdom based on Biblical truths that require faith to believe in the authenticity of historical manuscripts reporting those events that had already taken place.

”Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,” (Luke 3:1)

This Biblical faith is further attested to by human historical time scale: BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini—"in the year of our Lord"). Jesus Christ is a real historical figure, and His birth is a very solid historical fact reported by many historians.

Biblical wisdom is not just for the Israelites; it is for all believers and non-believers alike because it is the only way to salvation, which is the ultimate conquest of human mortality.

Why Tao wisdom?

If the Bible is about God’s wisdom, then why should we read Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, which is, at best, only about human wisdom? Why don’t we just read the Bible instead, and forget about Tao Te Ching? Why should we settle more for less?

Why Less for More?

According to Lao Tzu, less is more.

“To guide a great country, we need a great ruler.

To wage a successful war, we need good strategies.

To live a life of harmony, we need letting life live by itself.

That essentially means:

the more efforts we exert, the more failure we experience;

the more weapons we make, the more danger we encounter;

the more laws we enact, the more law-breakers we produce.”

(Lao Tzu, Chapter 57, Tao Te Ching)

“Living our lives is like frying a small fish;

we neither over-season nor over-cook it.”

(Lao Tzu, Chapter 60, Tao Te Ching)

Understanding human wisdom is the first step in the journey of a thousand miles towards understanding God’s wisdom. Without human wisdom, God’s wisdom is even more unfathomable and forever unintelligible to many.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Wisdom of Now

One of the attributes of true human wisdom is its focus on the now or the present moment. Why is the present instant so important? Because it is the total sum of what has happened to you up to that very instant; it  is all your life experiences up until now. Fighting against the now is tantamount to fighting against everything that happened to you in the past. True human wisdom is living in the present, instead of combating the past, or looking into the future. 

Living in the present is not easy. It requires profound human wisdom—the wisdom of Tao, or the wisdom of Lao Tzu that was expressed in his book Tao Te Ching, the immortal classic which has been extensively translated worldwide.

To truly understand and fully appreciate Tao wisdom, mindfulness is indispensable. What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is acute awareness of the present moment; specifically, what is happening in the now. In this day and age, there are too many distractions that prevent us from focusing on the present moment. For example, when we are eating, we are frequently distracted by many things around us, such as the cell phone, the radio, or the television, among others. Mindfulness means we should be focusing on what we are doing right now—that is, eating. Mindfulness requires deliberate practice. Focusing on our breaths is an excellent way to practice mindfulness. We can be mindful of our inhalation and exhalation, noticing how the air fills up our lungs as we breathe in and how our diaphragms deflate as we breathe out. Mindfulness of our breaths trains our minds to concentrate, and thus instrumental in making our minds stay in the present moment.

We are not living in the present if we focus too much on speed. Focusing on speed means we are constantly projecting our thoughts onto what is going to happen to us next. One of the reasons why many of us subconsciously crave speed in our lives is that hurry numbs our senses. To illustrate, when we slow down, we may easily succumb to fear and doubt about what we are going to do, so we conveniently and subconsciously choose addiction to speed to numb ourselves in order to avoid anything unpleasant: we just don't want to give ourselves the present moment to worry about the future.

But the present moment is the only reality in life: the past was gone, and the future is yet to come. The good news is that we can all receive the gift of the present moment to live our lives as if everything is a miracle. The wisdom in living is to live in the present moment.

Learn to appreciate and receive the gift of the present moment is To do that, practice the following:

(1)  Indulge yourself in silence. Silence is a way of slowing down and stopping yourself as well as your thoughts. For centuries, sages worldwide have used meditation, which is conscious stillness of the mind, for inspiration and enlightenment. Once the thinking mind remains at the present moment, it begins to slow down, and sees the reality of everything with greater clarity and deeper insight. Therefore, to slow down, embrace silence deliberately. Do not be afraid of silence. Many people are afraid of quietude or complete silence because they have become so used to sounds and noises, which symbolize motion and speed. Even if you do not meditate, spend some time everyday to sit in silence, without turning on the music or the television. Enjoy your silence to help you be mindful of the present moment. 

(2)  Concentration is another way to receive the gift of the present moment. Because of our addiction to speed, many of us do not pay full attention to what we are doing at the present moment, especially when we think what we are doing is irrelevant or unimportant. The classic example is talking on the cell phone while driving; the conscious mind is talking, while the subconscious mind is driving. Engaging your full attention on doing your daily chores is also good practice of focusing the mind on the present moment. Try to concentrate on what you are doing, instead of doing something else to distract yourself from the mundane task. Say, when you doing your dishes, focus your full attention on the foam and the running water, instead of listening to the radio or watching the television; you will be surprised that your mind becomes very relaxed because it stays in the present moment. 

(3) Good listening also facilitates your receipt of the gift of the present moment. Again, very often many of us are hearing, without listening, because our minds are somewhere else. Learn to listen to relay, listen to communicate, and learn to listen to the sound of silence. Next time, when someone is speaking to you, try to focus your attention on the eyes, the lips of that person, thereby helping your mind stay in the present moment; in that way, you are listening, not just hearing; you are also learning to speak more deliberately and carefully.

Living in the present moment slows down your pace of life, and thus relieves yourself of time-stress, which is detrimental to physical and mental health. Once you have overcome your addiction to speed, you will have a new perspective of how you should live your life, and that is the beginning of wisdom in living.

To find out more about Tao wisdom, read my most book Be A Better And Happier You With Tao Wisdom. The wisdom of Tao begins with the power of intent in your mind to know and to learn more about your true “self.” Human wisdom begins with knowing the self: understand how and why it reacts with everyone and everything around. According to Lao Tzu, the absence of the ego-self is the turning point, where you may begin to embark on a different life journey with a different mission. Your “pre-conditioned” mind thus begins the journey of “reverse thinking” which will ultimately transform your life, making you become a better and happier individual.

Part One of my book explains the prerequisites of human wisdom. Without true human wisdom, it is almost impossible to perceive the innate human goodness in self, as well as in others. Human goodness leads to the attributes of genuine human happiness.

Part Two is the complete translation of the 81 short chapters of Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" in simple English for readers to understand the complex and controversial wisdom of “Tao Te Ching.”

Part Three highlights the essentials of Tao wisdom, and shows how it can be applied to contemporary living so that you may live as if everything is a miracle to be a better and happier you.

To download the digital copy of Be A Better And Healthier You With Tao Wisdom, click here; to get the paperback edition, click here.

All in all, living in the now gives you clarity of mind, which is awareness or mindfulness, and that holds the key to understanding the ultimate truths of self, of others, and of things -- which is the essence of human wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

TAO Wisdom in Aging

There is much wisdom in aging. Wisdom may not make you live longer, but it may make you live better as you age. Aging is difficult to define, but you will know it when you see it or experience it yourself. In brief, aging is a steady decline in health, which is instrumental in shortening lifespan; and the aging process is the duration during which such changes occur. Aging occurs throughout most of lifespan. Such a process is an accumulation of changes, which may be subtle or even drastic, that progressively lead to disease, degeneration, and, ultimately, death.

Whether you like it or not, your biological clock is ticking, and this will happen to various systems in your body: your heart will pump less blood, with your arteries becoming stiffer and less flexible, resulting in high blood pressure; with less oxygen and nutrients from the heart, your lungs will become less efficient in distributing oxygen to different organs and membranes of your body; your brain size will gradually reduce by approximately 10 percent between the age of 30 and 70, often resulting in loss of short-term memory; your bone mass will reduce, making it more brittle and fragile; your body size will shrink with your loss of muscle mass.

Wisdom may slow down your biological clock, although your mortality has been pre-programmed into your biological organisms and you body cells by your genes. Yes, you can still slow down the speed of aging—if you have wisdom to live your life. Tao wisdom may play a pivotal role in how you age, as well as the speed of your aging process.

Tao wisdom—the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu, the author of the Chinese classic “Tao Te Ching” on human wisdom—may show you how to live a stress-free life with no expectation, no over-doing, focusing on the present moment, instead of the past or the future. More importantly, Tao wisdom helps you let go of control of the self, others, as well as the world around; what goes up must also come down, and everything follows a natural cycle.

Living with Tao wisdom is anti-aging. Live your life as if everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Noble Truths and the Noble Paths

TAO has always been considered the Way. But the Way to what? TAO has no destination, because it is eternal and infinite. TAO is the Way neither to avoid or to get out of something, nor to get or accomplish something. TAO is the Way through anything and everything in life. TAO is inexplicable and inexpressible in words. TAO is the profound human wisdom that has to be self-intuited.

The following may shed some light on TAO wisdom:

The Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are the backbone of the Buddha’s teachings that may help you understand TAO better.

The First Noble Truth is about human suffering.

The Second Noble Truth is about ignorance—not knowing why there is suffering.

The Third Noble Truth is about the healing process of human suffering, which involves giving up the desire that causes the suffering.

The Fourth Noble Truth is about embodying the reality of suffering in your everyday life.

The Noble Paths

Right view: keep your perceptions from becoming cloudy.

Right thinking: develop a road map for right view.

Right speech: be aware of suffering caused by unmindful speech.

Right action: do everything in mindfulness: actions cause reactions.

Right livelihood: be concerned about how you earn your way through the world.

Right diligence: use consciousness to foster wholesomeness in your mind.

Right mindfulness: be fully present to the moment

Right concentration: cultivate over time full awareness of being present to self, world, and others.

Meditation 

Meditation is the way to understanding all of the above. It is not about striving to achieve ecstasy, spiritual bliss, or even tranquility of mind. It is not even about making you become a better person. Meditation is about creating a temporary state of mind, in which you clearly see your own self-deceptions, your hidden hopes and fears. Meditation makes you completely break away from how your mind ‘normally’ operates through a brief state of mind that frees you of all cares and concerns. Meditation gives you brief moments of acute awareness and deep discernment of what is real and what is pseudo-real.

Meditation quiets your mind; in your everyday life, consciousness is seldom, if ever, quiet. Therefore, it puts you on a journey of self-discovery and discovery of the true nature of existence. Through this discovery, you are able to communicate with the external or universal concept of God. This is how medication can bring about psychological and spiritual healing.

Meditation allows you to observe yourself without judgment; it is observation without struggling with right or wrong.

Meditation can be achieved through laborious training with perseverance, patience, and practice—just like training a puppy to sit.

Acceptance of suffering: To deny suffering is ignorance. Refusal to acknowledge and face pain only keeps you trapped in your own pain.

Courage to confront the truth of human suffering: It is easier to avoid suffering by denial than to face it. But feeling the pain is necessary for healing. Learn how to be fearless instead of fearful.

Enlightenment: The opposite of truth is illusion. Enlightenment is awakening to the need to be fearless to embrace the truth in order to dispel the self-illusions that perpetuate the suffering.

Compassion: Compassion and life are interrelated through suffering. Meditation can heal the mind, but not the heart, unless there is compassion. Only with compassion can one become a complete human being.

Attachments: Desires and the reluctance to relinquish the desires are obstacles to enlightenment. They not only cause human sufferings but also perpetuate them.

Letting go: Understanding the impermanence of all things enables the letting go of attachments, and hence the attainment of enlightenment. 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Tao Wisdom Is Profound Human Wisdom

Health has much to do with human happiness. If you are unhappy, it is difficult to be healthy; after all, there is much interconnection between the body and the mind. But true human happiness has much to do with the mind — how you perceive your life experiences — and that also has much to do with Tao wisdom.

Tao wisdom is the way of thinking based on the teachings of Lao Tzu, an ancient sage from China. According to Lao Tzu, true human wisdom comes from a composed or a quiet mind that focuses its attention on the present moment. But this is not what a contemporary mind is, far from it.

According to a CNN report on multitasking:

“(CNN) Our brains on multitasking aren’t nearly as good as we think they are. Let’s say you’re working on an activity over here, on the right side of the brain, and suddenly you’re trying to multitask another activity, like talking on the phone.

You’re not actually doing both activities at the same time, in fact, you’re now diverting your attention from one part of your brain to another part of your brain. That takes time, resources, that takes brain cells.

What happens on the other side of the brain is that you’re starting a brand new activity, so in fact you’re probably slower and not nearly as good at doing both activities at the same time.”

The bottom line: multitasking does not increase your mind power. Quite the contrary, multitasking can damage your brain cells. How? When you are multitasking, you are directly or indirectly creating undue stress for yourself, and stress causes hormonal dysfunction that impairs neurotransmitters in your brain. To enhance your mind power, do just the opposite — focusing your mind on the present, instead of projecting it into the future (which is what multitasking is all about).  Presence of mind gives clarity and relaxation to enhance your mind power.

Multitasking is certainly not the art of living well. Read my book THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING.

This 200-page book is full of wisdom based on my extensive research and personal experience. In this book, you will learn the following:

(1) Eliminating unproductive thoughts, and overcoming chaotic struggles in your inner world and outer life to enhance health and performance, master stress, and deepen appreciation of life.

(2) Understanding the essentials of contemporary wisdom and ancient wisdom to help you contemplate and internalize their respective meanings and values in your daily life

(3) Harnessing mind power to operate your mind to integrate the acquired knowledge into your daily activities.

THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING is the wisdom in the art of living well. Clarity of mind and living in the present holds the key to happiness, which is an important ingredient in a healthy mind and body.

Stephen Lau