Tao Te Ching

"Flow around obstacles, don't confront them.
Don't struggle to succeed.
Wait for the right moment."
"Trying to understand
is like straining to see through muddy water.
Be still, and allow the mud to settle.
Remain still, until it is the time to act."
"Stop clinging to your personality,
and see all beings as yourself.
Such a person could be entrusted with the whole world."
"Whether faced with friend or enemy,
loss or gain,
fame or shame,
the Wise remain equanimous.
This is what makes them so extraordinary."

The Tao Te Ching is one of the world's great philosophical and
spiritual classics, revered by millions. The oldest scripture of
Taoism and a meditational text, it is also a timeless philosophy of
power based on harmony with nature. It has been adopted as a modern
leadership manual and is well suited to contemporary life.
The title means "The Way of Power" or "The Classic (Ching) of the
Way (Tao) and Virtue (Te)." The tao determines the te, or the manner
in which a person might act who is attuned to the tao. Whatever can
be defined is not tao—it is the timeless spirit that runs through all life,
creating the essential oneness of the universe. The tao is not even
"god," god being an entity that has sprung from the tao.
The Tao Te Ching paints a picture of a person in full attunement with
the tao, and therefore with the universe. Martin Palmer, in his introduction
to Timothy Freke's excellent translation, says that it represents "a
world of order that we must work with, not a world where we must just
fend for ourselves." In this world we no longer struggle, finding that it is
attunement, rather than mindless striving, that delivers us what we need.
The idea of the tao is that as you get in harmony with it, your
actions cease to seem like "action." Csikszentmihalyi has documented
this feeling as "flow" and the physicist Bohm talks of it as being part of
"the unfolding." In contrast, regular action involves an effort of will to
accomplish something, usually involving manipulation or even exploitation.
While tao action makes whole, its alternative fragments.
Tao leadership
Lao Tzu saw two types of leader: the conventional one, a warrior who
uses force to achieve his ends, symbolized by the yang or masculine
aspect; and the healer-leader, symbolized by the feminine yin. The latter
is the concept of "servant leadership," in which the leader blends into
the background so that their people can star.

Some in the business world say that the more power a boss has, the
less they should use. This is borne out by the teamwork, synergy, and
flat hierarchies of today's best-run companies, which aim to increase
effectiveness by sharing power; these organizations have a better chance
of creating ideas or products that genuinely improve life.
By 2020 the ideal leader may be very hard to spot, position or
wealth no longer being good guides to impact or influence. In Lao
Tzu's words:
"The wise stand out,
because they see themselves as part of the Whole.
They shine,
because they don't want to impress.
They achieve great things,
because they don't look for recognition.
Their wisdom is contained in what they are,
not their opinions.
They refuse to argue,
so no-one argues with them."
Listening, yielding, cooperating, being open, seeking the best possible
outcomes—these yin aspects must balance the go-getting yang force
that has given us civilization as we know it. The integration of the two
will be a mark of the new leader, whose credibility rests not on what
they say or even what they have so far achieved: "Their wisdom is contained
in what they are."
Tao success
For a book essentially about leading a successful life, the Tao Te Ching
offers what seems to be very strange advice. Consider: "Give up, and
you will succeed."
How can we reconcile such a statement with so many other messages
in self-help about the active steps one must take for success? Take
Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within, the archetypal modern personal
development book. Subtitled "How to take control of your mental,
emotional, physical, and financial destiny!" it encapsulates the ethic of
total self-creation, based on the belief that we know what we want,
what will make us happy, and our limitless potential.
The Tao Te Ching, on the other hand, is about how to lead a very
simple life, not seeking power, fame, or riches. There is a quiet ecstasy
to living in the moment, not trying to force anything to happen or get
others to do things our way. This is a book about the power of timing:
"Be still, and allow the mud to settle.
Remain still, until it is the time to act."
Which way is better? Using focus and never-give-up intensity to achieve
something, or going with the flow and "allowing" something to manifest
itself? Ultimately, it boils down to where one's faith lies: either in
ourselves (reasonable enough), or in the intelligence governing the universe
(tao). In Lao Tzu's mind, the tao that created everything is capable
of giving us peace, joy, and personal power. The compulsion to
strive surely arises out of a perception that we must gain mastery of the
world, or a little section of it, in order to feel whole. It is therefore
more probable that striving, while a natural way to express our identity
through creating something, is not actually the best path to success.
Instead, the goal for which we strive should be readily admitted to be
only a symbol of the greater unity that the Tao Te Ching suggests. This
unity is described as "the way of heaven."
Final comments
At first the Tao Te Ching seems a strange voice, but it will change and
probably enlarge your current ideas of life and success. You may find
yourself needing to incorporate your world view into its, rather than
the other way around.
Don't read it from start to finish. There is no narrative, just meditations
broken up into short chapters of a few lines, which don't seem to
relate to each other. Its hypnotic power is summed up in one of its own
stanzas:
"A traveler may stop for nice food and good music,
but a description of Tao seems bland and tasteless.
It looks like nothing special.
It sounds like nothing special.
But live by it, and you will never tire of it."