The TAO to Biblical Wisdom

TAO: The Way to Biblical Wisdom

The Background

Lao Tzu was an ancient sage from China more than 2,600 years ago. According to the legend, he was born with all white hair—a sign of experience and wisdom. Unlike his contemporary philosopher, Confucius, who had many publications, as well as many disciples and followers, Lao Tzu’s only publication was Tao Te Ching,written in only 5,000 words. According to the legend, Lao Tzu was detained at the city gate and was told that he could not leave China for Tibet until he had put down his words of wisdom. Reluctantly, he put down his wisdom in 81 short  chapters of exactly 5,000 words without any punctuation mark (all the punctuation marks in the text were subsequently added by scholars over the centuries). 

Tao Te Ching has become one of the most translated works in world literature, probably ranking with the Bible as one the top ten in popularity. The explanation is that the content is not not only controversial but also intriguing. The interpretation of Tao Te Ching are as many as its translations . Each author is looking at Lao Tzu's immortal classic from his or her own perspective, and this also one of the many reasons why Tao Te Ching is eye-opening and thought-provoking. The Bible and Tao Te Ching are among the most translated and extensively rad books of all time and for a good reason: one is about God's wisdom, and the other is about human wisdom.

The Book

The author's own translation of Tao Te Ching is based on his 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.

The book is divided into four parts.

Part One is about the author’s 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 the author’s own translation of the 81 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 language 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 is the Way to Biblical wisdom.

To get your copy, click here. 

Stephen Lau has published several books based on TAO wisdom expressed in Tao Te Ching. Go and visit his site: Books by Stephen Lau.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Life and Living Basics

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

Mind-Body-Soul Alignment

Wellness wisdom begins with the mind, and not the body.

Mind wellness

Overall wellness starts with the intent of the mind to be well and to stay well.

How well you are living your life right now is based on your past and present life experiences, as well as your projections of those experiences into the future. In other words, your thoughts of those experiences with their respective future projections become the raw materials and resources with which you are going to weave the fabric of your life.

Therefore, to live well, you have to know how to think right, and then act accordingly. That's not easy, and that's why Albert Einstein once said, "Thinking is hard; that's why so few do it."

Learn to empower your mind with knowledge and wisdom and live your life to the best you can.

Body wellness

Body wellness is more than just an absence of illness or ache and pain.

Body wellness means the body is capable of detecting signs and symptoms, as well as deciphering messages, from different organs and tissue of the body, giving warnings of any imminent disorder and disease.

The body is connected with the mind in the form of biochemical reactions in the body and nerve impulses in the brain. This invisible communication is responsible for the alignment or misalignment of the flow of energy between the body and the mind, and hence their overall wellness. The body is a product of both the mind and the soul.

There is much to know and learn about body wellness, just as Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once said: "The life so short, the craft so long to learn."

Learn the craft and get the wisdom!

Soul wellness

The mind controls the body, and the soul oversees the mind and the body.

Wellness wisdom connects the body with the mind and the soul for optimum state of being.

The soul specifically connects the mind to a greater intellect that has the infinite power to connect with everyone and everything in the world.

The body, the mind, and the soul work as a system of energy. The state of being is the overall feeling of health and wellness. This state of being is dependent on the intricate connection of the body, the mind, and the soul.

Soul wellness plays a pivotal role in guiding and directing behaviors and actions in the physical form.

Cherish and nourish your soul. The mind is the map, the soul is the compass; without both, the body goes nowhere.

Body-Mind-Soul Alignment  

To live well, you must have body-mind-soul alignment in order to live as if everythinge is a miracle, just as Albert Einstein said.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Anti-Depression Love Recipes

Love Recipes

“Love” is a big word in all human civilizations. For all religious disparities, love still plays an essential role in all the world’s religions. Love plays an important role in human lives, especially living in a world of conflicts and aggression.

What is the real meaning of “love”? Love involves our emotions and feelings. We all love some things and some people. Love, ironically enough, gives us both happiness and unhappiness. When the love is fulfilled, we feel happy; when the love is rejected or unrequited, we then feel pain, which becomes the unhappiness. This, unfortunately, is the reality of love.

Loving others is not that easy, and loving yourself is sometimes even more difficulty. This is also the reality of life.

The truth of the matter is that to truly love someone is very difficult, if not impossible, unless you love yourself first.

Self-acceptance

In a general sense, self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluative perception of self.  It is a rating of self based on a partial assessment of current and/or past traits. Many mental health professionals claim that achieving higher self-esteem is the keystone of good mental health, in particular, in avoiding depression; such claims, however, are dubious at best.

Low self-esteem is self-doubt, often expressed in not asserting oneself in public or workplace, and not pushing past one’s comfort zones.

To love yourself is self-acceptance, which is accepting who and what you really are—and not who and what you wish you were (that is, your ego-self). It should also be pointed out that “loving yourself” and “loving your ego-self” are not quite the same. The former is loving yourself for who you really are despite all your imperfections; the latter involves loving or craving to be the person you wish you were. “Loving yourself” means you can love others as well because they are not very different from you in that they, too, are as imperfect as you are. On the other hand, “loving your ego-self” means it is very difficult to love others because you want to distinguish and separate yourself from others; accordingly, others must somehow satisfy your ego first before you can love them. That explains why if you have a big ego-self, you cannot easily and readily love others.

The bottom line: if you can accept yourself as who and what you are, then it may become much easier for you to accept and love others as who and what they are.

Oneness with all life

Accepting and loving others implies having mindfulness of the inter-connection between people; that is to say, no man is an island, according to the poet John Donne. This mindfulness leads to love, and then to the awareness of the presence of God or that of a Higher Being. Love is the first step towards spirituality.

The oneness with all life is one of the basic laws of Nature: that is, we are all inter-connected with one another. This universal moral principle holds the key to true and lasting freedom in living. Without that freedom, we are forever living in human bondage that inhibits further development of the wellness of the body, the mind, and the soul. Without this wellness alignment, there is no wellness wisdom.

An illustration

A pastor from Hong Kong was invited to give a sermon in China. A woman from the congregation asked the pastor if it was right to give money to get her son into an elite school. The pastor replied by saying: “Your son getting into that elite school would also imply depriving another child of that same opportunity you are seeking for your child.”

A year later, the pastor met the same woman, who told him that her son had got into that elite school but without using her kwanxi or connection. The pastor then said to her: “See, God is in control; if you would just let Him.”

Thinking question

If you were the woman with the money and the kwanxi, would you have done differently?

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Why Do You Wish to Live Longer?

There is an old proverb that says: “He who cannot ask cannot live.” Life is all about asking questions and seeking answers from the questions asked. If you wish to live longer or to a ripe old age, you must ask yourself many questions along your life journey.

Living for life in this contemporary world may never be easy because it requires wisdom, which is essentially finding answers to the questions asked, and then applying those answers to everyday living in the material world.

Have you ever wondered: there has to be much more to life than this—the kind of life that you are living right now? If you have, then maybe you should, first and foremost, ask yourself the question: “Why do I want to live longer?” Your reasons could be any one or some of the following:

You desire to live a better life than the one that you're currently living.

You want to see your children or grandchildren grow up and mature into adults.

You have your life passions, some of which might already have been accomplished, while others are being pursued but still remaining unfulfilled.

You are experiencing some core values, which are not just your life goals but rather your beliefs in humanity that have to be lived in order to fully experience the meaning of existence as well as the innate happiness in humanity.

 You still like to enjoy some of the mundane pleasures of life and living that have satisfied your five senses.

You love to maintain good relationships and true friendships with those who are close and dear to you.

You may be fighting some life challenges or health issues—just like Alex Trebek, the 77-year-old TV celebrity famous for hosting NBC's “Jeopardy”, who openly declared in 2019 that he had to live longer in order to fight his pancreatic cancer because of his still-standing three-year contract with NBC. 

Asking the question “Why do I want to live longer?” may initiate many other why questions specifically related to you, to others close to you, and to the world around you. Living is all about asking the many why and how questions in your everyday life and living.

In the Bible, Jesus said: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find” (Matthew 7:7) In real life, we must always ask ourselves many thought-provoking questions at all times. Asking questions is self-introspection, which is a process of self-intuition and self-reflection, without which there is no self-awareness and therefore no personal growth and development. A static life is never a life well lived and worth living. Therefore, asking questions is self-empowering wisdom—a life tool necessary for living longer.

The truth is that the kind of questions you ask determines the kind of life you are going to live. Your questions often trigger a set of mental answers, which may lead to actions or inactions, based on the choices you make from the answers you have obtained. Remember, your life is always the sum of all the choices you have made in the process. No matter what, life is a journey of self-discovery, a continuous process of asking questions and seeking self-awakening answers from them. It should be noted that the answer to every question you ask may change over time, because life is forever changing, and changes are often transformative. The more questions you ask, the clearer your mind will become, and the more ready you will be to receive the answers.

Living by faith: God is in control of your life, including how long you're going to live. So, live it in the now, and tomorrow is another day. 

Stephen Lau                  

Copyright© by Stephen Lau      

The Meaning and the Purpose of Your Life

 Life must have a meaning, and living must have a purpose.

     Why do people want to live and to survive in this world?

   Not just because their parents gave birth to them, but because many want to enjoy life and expand their enjoyment throughout their living on this earth. And that is what living life is all about—enjoyment.

     In life, there’re certain things that some people love to do, such as playing music, running, swimming, and teaching others to pursue their dreams and endeavors. Yes, wanting to do what they love, while enjoying the doing—that is the meaning and the purpose of life and living for those people.

   But, for other people, they may find themselves not having anything else they love to do other than eating, playing video games, or socializing on the Internet. Engaging in these meaningless and purposeless activities may only make them become obese, self-obsessive, and misinformed. They simply don’t have a meaning or a purpose for their life and living.

     So, everyone needs creating a meaning and a purpose in life and living by doing some of the following:

 

·  Aligning with a cause, such as helping handicapped children, or taking care of sheltered animals.

·     Joining a church or religious service to know more about faith in God.

·       Mentoring someone in need of help or support from others.

·   Spending time in nature to expand the vision in life and living.

 

The Bottom Line

 

     Find a meaning and a purpose in something in life and living. A life without any meaning or a purpose is often a reckless and dangerous life, such as doing dirt biking, car speeding, engaging in dangerous sports, and even committing crimes and violence.

     Living by faith, you know the meaning and the purpose of your life that God has destined for you.

 

Living By Faith will give you not only a life purpose destined for you, but also how to live your life with a meaning.

 

Stephen Lau

Sources of Stress

Stress originates from the mind. It is all in the mind. The intensity of stress is a perception of the mind. Stress is no more than your own perceptions of it. That is to say, it is your own attitude or personal reaction to certain events and experiences in your life. In other words, what is stress to you may not be stress to another person.

William Shakespeare once said: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” John Milton, the famous English poet, also had this to say: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” Both spoke volumes of the perceptions of stress.

Therefore, subconscious energies of the mind play a pivotal role in stress management.

Causes of Stress

Emotional Factors

Anger, bitterness, disappointment, and envy are some of the human emotions that often lead to anxiety, distress, and even depression. 

Environmental and Eventful Factors

A dangerous environment, such as walking alone in the dark or in an unsafe neighborhood, can be stressful.

A work environment with racial discrimination or sexual harassment can be stressful too. According to the American Institute of Stress, up to one million employees’ absence per day are stress related. In addition, work environment may create stress due to feeling unproductive, inability to concentrate on work, unrealistic and unreasonable demands from employers or co-workers.

Stressful life events may also lead to elevated stress levels. Special life events—whether they are positive or negative—can be stressful, such as getting married or planning a wedding, graduation, starting a new job, buying a home, or even going on a vacation.

Financial Factors

Finance is one of the main stress factors in contemporary life and living due to rampant unemployment, not having enough money to make both ends meet, debt from credit cards or reckless over-spending, bankruptcy, and home foreclosure, among other financial problems.

Health Factors

The American Academy of Family Physicians once estimated that two-thirds of all family doctor visits are stress related.

Health problems can be triggered by alcohol, sugar, and tobacco addiction. Chronic health problems, such as autoimmune diseases, cancers and heart-related health issues, are particularly stressful after diagnoses and during treatments..

Relationship Factors

Relationships are often a source of emotional and psychological problems, such as break-up in a love relationship, separation and divorce, dealing with teenager problems, and coping with aging parents.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau