Taoism

The 12-Steps as applied in Christianity

1. Powerlessness
2. Belief
3. Surrender
4. Moral Inventory
5. Confession
6. Willingness
7. Fellowship
8. Forgiveness
9. Amends
10. Daily Examination
11. Prayer Meditation
12. Service

Step 1: The chase and the hunt craze people's minds.

Principle: Honesty

The focus of the 12th Verse of the Tao Te Ching reminds us that allowing the desires of our senses to drive our actions results in excesses and a loss of connection with our inner truth. Because everything in our world is transitory, it is easy to chase appearances and illusions and be distracted from what has meaning and purpose. Dr. Dyer in Change your Thoughts, Change your Life, translates this simply to mean, "We cannot know the creator if we're focused exclusively on what is created." The Tao provides a clear description of the power of addiction, "the chase and the hunt craze people's minds." It goes on to affirm that it is a waste of energy which in the end impedes our emotional and spiritual development. If we live according to the Tao we learn to live in the world, but not to be solely of the world because we no longer allow it to be the master of our choices. Our senses become instruments through which we experience the world, broadening and deepening our appreciation and gratitude for its diversity and abundance.

Text or Verse

The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
The chase and the hunt craze people's minds.

Wasting energy to obtain rare objects
only impedes one's growth.

The master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
He prefers what is within to what is without.
12th Verse
Tao Te Ching

Why scurry about looking for the truth?
...Can you be still and see it in the mountain? the pine tree? yourself?
Hua Hu Ching
Lao Tzu

Practice

1. During your next walk outdoors, find a seed from a local flower, vegetable, plant or tree. Hold it in your hand.
2. Examine it.
3. Appreciate what is unique and beautiful.
4. Direct your awareness to the realization that within it is the the form and the potentiality for it to become a fully-mature flower, vegetable, plant or tree.
5. Think about the emergent process of creativity and its connection to the creative power of the universe.
6. Spend some time realizing that the same emergent creative process has been at your inner core since your conception. This is the power of the Tao.

Resources

Dyer, Dr. Wayne. Change your Thoughts, Change your Life. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2007.

Lao Tzu. trans. by Stephen Mitchell. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version.