"Green and Lean": notes on a Taoist approach to living in these times

31 August 08. Here's my very first blog post: a few stream of consciousness "notes" on a Taoist approach to living in times like this. Three themes come to mind, at least initially: (1) minimalism, (2) nonattachment, and (3) readiness.

Minimalism: Chuang Tzu (the Richard Pryor of Taoism) once said, "Our needs are few; our wants are endless." (rf. Peter Wygoth's book, American Mania: When More is Not Enough.) At an organizational consultation gig some years ago, I once recommended to a group of stressed-out, overworked young, ambitious, high-ranking U.S. Air Force officers that they might take one of their acronyms, D.E.W. (in reference to their "Defense Early Warning System"), and convert it to mean "Do less; eat less; want less." A simple proposition, but simple, to be sure, is not the same as "easy."

Nonattachment: As I do not have the exact quote on hand, allow me to paraphrase something that F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. He said that the artist or writer exists within the tension between two fundamentally unresolvable convictions. One, "What I write will make a difference in the world, if not, indeed, tilt the axis of human history." The other:"What I write will not ever be taken seriously, if it is even read at all." Within that tension, creativity might occur or, as often as not, the artist is driven to drink. One way out of this bind is to engage in guided Taoist disciplines that ultimately eliminate attachment to outcome. The resultant sensibility is known as "wu wei." More on this in another blog.

Readiness: Consistent with the thought of Western existentialists, Taoists subscribe to the notion that life is radically contingent: I can cease to be at any moment. A foundation-shaking idea if one were to dwell on it 24/7. Be it earthquakes (I live in San Francisco), 9/11-type terrorist attacks, collapse of the American economy, global warming cooking us to burnt ground round (rf. Al Gore), or sudden head-on car crashes, the "threat of nonbeing" is ever present. A Taoist master once said to me, "The most important line in 'Hamlet' is 'The readiness is all.'" That is to say, the ability to let go of anything at any moment, including earthly existence itself. An intuitive given in animals, this readiness has to be cultivated in human beings.

For further elaboration, please go to my website (DrBenjaminRTong.com) and consider the essay entitled "Taoism: Concerned About Wellness, and Then Again Not" (1999).

Also, view online (free) a 28-minute TV interview program that I was on in 2005, "Lunch with Bokara: the Taoist and the Activist":
http://www.linktv.org/video/1631 Please note that I was mistakenly billed as a "Taoist" and "Professor of Taoism." I am neither: I am but a student of Taoism and Taoist disciplines.