Tao Te Ching Chapter 46-6 Content x 3

Today's Tao

Therefore, if you know the contentment of being content, you are always content. (Ch.46)


Please don't think that the truth has to be beyond our comprehension.

On the contrary, the truth is simple.

"The contentment of being content" means "accepting the world happily and love it dearly".

At the moment of their final teachings before they left this world, Buddha and Dogen talked about 八大人覚 [hachi dainin gaku] / Eight Satori of great men.

The second of them is 知足 [chi soku] "Know contentment." and the last 不戯論 [fu ke ron] "Don't argue casually".

"Don't argue casually" means "to learn to completely accept everything as it is 究尽実相", said Dogen. (Hachidainingaku 八大人覚, «Shobogenzo»)


«Related Articles»
-Sowing 46-1
-Arms / Joshu 46-2
-Greed / Shoaku makusa 46-3
-Not content? 46-4
-Want no gain 46-5
-Content x 3 46-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 46


Tao answers your question!



☞When you swim, do you jump straight into the cold water without any warm-ups? Well, it is not recommendable, is it? When you try to understand Eastern philosophies, it is not recommendable to start reading Tao Te Ching or Master Dogen's Shobogenzo right away, either. You will simply be lost in their contradiction and frustrated by the incoherence. To depart for a spiritual adventure, why don't you begin with «LOL2A-Principle, or the perfectness of the world» and Hermann Hesse's «Siddhartha: An Indian Tale» and warm yourself up a bit?

Tao Te Ching Chapter 46-5 Want no gain

Today's Tao

No fault is more miserable than wanting to gain. (Ch.46)


Learn that gain and loss are the same.

If you want to only gain, you will be lost in Mayoi.

But, please remember there is nothing wrong with Mayoi.

You may feel frustrated, but that's all.

You don't have to detest the state of Mayoi.


Dogen thinks:

"You get lost by prayers. Prayers never make you get lost."

なんぢ経にまどふ、経なんぢをまよはさず

(Bukkyo 仏経, «Shobogenzo»)


As for gain, if you cannot help wanting it, try to gain as much as possible.

Your desire is a prayer.


«Related Articles»
-Sowing 46-1
-Arms / Joshu 46-2
-Greed / Shoaku makusa 46-3
-Not content? 46-4
-Want no gain 46-5
-Content x 3 46-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 46


Tao answers your question!



☞Mr Kawabata, I hope you didn't do it in reality. You only did it in your own imagination or creation. «The lake» is about a man who follows and observes the woman he adores. The act has a undesirable chance of being considered as "stalking" in the current social and political climate where everyone has to be "correct". When you read Yasunari Kawabata's works from this point of view, well, in most of his books, the acts described there are not really recommendable to imitate. You are risking too much.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 46-4 Not content?

Today's Tao

No calamity is bigger than not knowing contentment. (Ch.46)


A: "Master Bonbon, I want to be happy? What should I do?"

B: "Be content, and you will be happy."

A: "But, Master Bonbon, tell me how I can be content."

B: "Pay your annual income, and you can buy contentment from our organization."


What is contentment, really?

It is the same as doing nothing.

All of us are here to sustain the system, which is the cycle of the fundamental energy with many different names.

But our task is very simple.

We accept and love what we experience, with contentment, by doing nothing.


«Related Articles»
-Sowing 46-1
-Arms / Joshu 46-2
-Greed / Shoaku makusa 46-3
-Not content? 46-4
-Want no gain 46-5
-Content x 3 46-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 46


Tao answers your question!



☞Some colors are forbidden to wear. The color Korozen (#d99502) is the color that only the emperor of Japan can wear. It is reddish yellow, which is very difficult to dye. No korozen color is identical to another, they say. As for Yukio Mishima's «Forbidden Colors», its impression seems to vary as much as the korozen. Color implies desire in Japan. Some adore Mishima's audacity to write about the forbidden desire. Others simply try to deny the existence of the forbidden practice in many established institutes in the land of Samurai.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 46-3 Greed / Shoaku makusa

Today's Tao

No crime is bigger than greed. (Ch.46)


Stop wanting too much.

That's for sure.

Then, why don't we go a step farther?

Is greed a crime?

Is crime something evil?

Can we really commit anything evil?


Zen master Dogen spots a light on this issue.


諸 悪 莫 作 [sho aku maku sa] each / evil / no / make


These words of Old Buddha are often interpreted as something like "Don't do anything evil".

Dogen laughs at this interpretation and reads the same sentence as this:

"No one can ever do anything evil".

(Shoakumakusa 諸悪莫作, «Shobogenzo»)

「つくられざりけるをつくりける」（諸悪莫作,『正法眼蔵』）


Besides, he says:


"Even if all the evils had covered the whole world in many layers and swallowed all, you could emancipate yourself by doing nothing."

(Shoakumakusa 諸悪莫作, «Shobogenzo»)

「諸悪たとひいくかさなりの尽界に弥綸（みりん）し、いくかさなりの尽法を呑却せりとも、これ莫作の解脱なり。」（同上）


«Related Articles»
-Sowing 46-1
-Arms / Joshu 46-2
-Greed / Shoaku makusa 46-3
-Not content? 46-4
-Want no gain 46-5
-Content x 3 46-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 46


Tao answers your question!



☞«Kusa makura». It literally means "grass pillow". Somehow the words provoke the feeling of traveling and drifting in most Japanese. You use grasses as your pillow when you travel around without money. «Makura no soshi» can be read "pillow grass child". Of course, it doesn't make sense at all and should be read as «The Pillow Book». But those kanji / Chinese characters 草 and 枕 still remain there, reminding us that life is ephemeral.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 46-2 Arms / Joshu

Today's Tao

If the world under the sky has no Tao, arms and horses appear just outside the capital. (Ch.46)


"If your hologram has no Tao"?

This is a strange conditional clause because you are always one with Tao.


It seems that Lao Tzu are saying:

"If you forget that you are Tao, you may foolishly project such an image as armed horses and soldiers running around in your town".


Wars and disasters on TV test you.


They are a modern day equivalent to Joushu's 趙州 Koan:

"What is the intention of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?".

如何是祖師西来意


The answer is:

"Accept and love your hologram".


«Related Articles»
-Sowing 46-1
-Arms / Joshu 46-2
-Greed / Shoaku makusa 46-3
-Not content? 46-4
-Want no gain 46-5
-Content x 3 46-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 46


Tao answers your question!



☞Kendo, Tao of the sword. In fact, the usage of the word does not have so long a history as we think it may. The Japanese started using the word Kendo about 1919, according to Wikipedia in Japanese. On the other hand, that of a shinai has a long one. What is a shinai? A shinai is a fake sword made of bamboo for practice. We have been using it for about four hundred years. Thanks to the invention, we don't have to worry about ending your friend's life while practicing. Its quality varies enormously, according to who manufactures it. We need the soul of the sword maker in our shinai though it is not a real katana.

Tao Te Ching Chapter 46-1 Sowing

Today's Tao

If the world under the sky has Tao, horses carrying messengers are demoted to sowing. (Ch.46)


"The world under the sky" means your hologram.

"Horses carrying messengers" are working for the army.

Therefore, if you are one with Tao, there are no message about war declaration.

The horses can be used to cultivate the fields peacefully.

Wars excite people.

These are a test you create in your mind.

Please be courageous enough to say they are happening only in your hologram.


«Related Articles»
-Sowing 46-1
-Arms / Joshu 46-2
-Greed / Shoaku makusa 46-3
-Not content? 46-4
-Want no gain 46-5
-Content x 3 46-6
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 46


Tao answers your question!



☞When you sell a book, what do you have to do? At least, you have to tell potential buyers what the book is about. It is a pity that the publicity on the left does not tell us anything about the subject of the book, not to mention, why we have to buy it. The book is about Konparu Zenchiku, an "avant-garde" Noh theater-maker in the fifteenth century and a supposedly close friend of the Zen master Ikkyu Sojun. Some believe that he was the true author of the Noh play Yama Uba. Isn't it a reason good enough to buy a book, or at least to check the content on Amazon?