The Tao of Daily Life
Publisher: Hampton Roads, 2019
ISBN: 978-1571748393
Synopsis
This book draws on ancient Chinese wisdom to explore the critical life issues: What is our place in nature? How do we make right decisions? How do we respect the earth? How are we to view life and death? What is the path we should live to truly achieve a good and meaningful life?
Two words are the entry points for this wisdom: The first is the Chinese word for “heart,” which means heart, mind, intention, center, core intelligence, and soul. The second is the word beauty, which connotes the pleasure we take in art, design, fashion, and music. Our hearts love beauty, and beauty opens our hearts.
This profound collection of fresh and contemporary translations of ancient texts gathers over 220 selections that deal with the essence of heart and beauty. Topics include: how to be great, how long it takes to follow your heart, how to bring order to the world, how to know everything, how to pacify the heart, and much more. Here are stories, fables, poems, and epigrams that delight, inspire, and inform.
Those who would subdue people through their own “excellence”
Have yet to subdue anyone.
But if you used excellence to nurture people instead,
The whole world would be subdued.
No one has become ruler of all under heaven
Without subdued hearts.
It has never happened.
Advance Praise for The Way of Heart & Beauty
The Way of Heart & Beauty weaves together the three great philosophical and spiritual traditions of Chinese culture—Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism—into a seamless, brilliant tapestry for the modern reader to better investigate and understand the self and the world. Through its collection of stories, poetry, and ancient teachings, Deng Ming-Dao’s book should be read and studied and cherished for its rich insights into the heart and mind of being human in the most complete sense of the word.
—Dr. David Clippinger, author of Cultivating Qi, owner of Still Mountain T’ai Chi and Chi Kung, and executive director of the One Pine Institute
Deng Ming-Dao’s The Way of Heart & Beauty brings us a variety of flavors for a book. It can be treated as a reference book, or a story book, or a philosophical work. For the novice, the book serves as a lively and enjoyable introduction to Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The moral of each of these stories is as relevant to readers now as it ever was to any generation of readers because every human being needs a heart and a sense of beauty to live a good life.
—Aimin Shen, author of The Limits of Language