Living With Flexibility - Understanding the Tao

Excerpt from Wayne W. Dyer’s book,

Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life
pages 104 – 107

22^nd Verse of the Tao Te Ching

The flexible are preserved unbroken.
The bent become straight.
The empty are filled.
The exhausted become renewed.
The poor are enriched.
The rich are confounded.

Therefore the sage embraces the one.
Because he doesn’t display himself,
people can see his light.
Because he has nothing to prove,
people can trust his words.
Because he doesn’t know who he is,
people recognize themselves in him.
Because he has no good in mind,
everything he does succeeds.

The old saying that the flexible are preserved unbroken is surely right!
If you have truly attained wholeness,
everything will flock to you.

Living with Flexibility

Having lived by the ocean for many years, I’ve observed the beauty and majesty of the tall palm trees that grow at the water’s edge, often measuring 30 or 40 feet in height. These stately giants are able to withstand the enormous pressure the hurricane-force winds bring as they blow at speeds up to 200 miles per hour. Thousands of other trees in the huge storms’ paths are uprooted and destroyed, while the stately palms remain fixed in the rooted selves, proudly holding sway over their otherwise decimated domain. So what is the palm trees’ secret to staying in one piece? The answer is flexibility. They bend almost down to the ground at times, and it’s that very ability that allows them to remain unbroken.

In this 22verse of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu invites you to embrace a similar quality of elasticity. Begin to sense the oneness that is the Tao supplying your resiliency and grounding, helping you withstand the storms of your life as pliantly as the supple palm tree. When destructive energy comes along, allow yourself to resist brokenness by bending. Look for times you can make the choice to weather a storm by allowing it to blow through without resistance. By not fighting, but instead relaxing and going with all that confronts you, you enter, “the Tao time.”

This verse implies an added benefit of wholeness, which attracts everything to you. That is, if you want abundance, knowledge, health, love, and all the other attributes that personify the Tao, you need to be receptive to them, Lao-tzu instructs that you must be empty in order to become filled, for attachments keep you so restricted that nothing can enter your already-filled self. Being empty in this sense means not being full of beliefs, possessions, or ego-driven ideas, but rather remaining open to all possibilities. This is in keeping with the nameless Tao: It doesn’t restrict itself to a particular point of view or a singular way of doing things; it animates all. Similarly, the flexible person is open to all possibilities—there’s nothing for him or her to prove because the Tao, not ego, is in charge.

Awareness of the Tao nurtures flexibility, and removing your rigidity creates an atmosphere of trust. When you live from the perspective of being able to say, “I don’t know for certain, but I’m willing to listen,” you become a person whom others identify with. Why? Because your flexibility lets them see that their point of view is welcome. By being open to all possibilities, everyone who encounters you feels their ideas are valuable and there’s no need for conflict.

As you connect more and more to your Tao nature, you begin noticing that this principle is perpetually present, available in every moment. In other words, the Tao isn’t trying to get someplace other than where it is. It has no goals, no desire, no judgments; it flows everywhere because it is the energy of creation. To be in harmony with the Tao is to be free of goals, immersed in all that you’re doing without concern about the outcome—just noticing in each moment and allowing yourself to flow with the creative Source that’s energizing everything and everyone in the universe. When you live in this way, failure becomes an impossibility. How can you fail at being yourself and trusting completely in the wisdom of the Source of everything? With failure removed from your life, you understand what Lao-tzu means when he says that “everything he does succeeds.”

Following are the messages from Lao-tzu as he wrote out this 22^nd verse of the Tao Te Ching two-and-a-half millennia ago.

Change the way you see the storms in your life.

Work at removing ego as the dominant influence over you. Release the need for the attention of others and witness how people become drawn to you naturally. Let go of having to win an argument and being right by changing the atmosphere with a statement such as “You’re very likely correct. Thanks for giving me a new perspective.” This kind of proclamation gives everyone permission to relax their rigidity because you have no need to prove yourself or make others wrong. If you change the way you think, the life you’re living will change, so be willing to say, “I don’t know” or I’m uncertain as to why I even did what I did.” As Lao-tzu reminds you, when you suspend your pomposity and rigidity, others recognize themselves in your flexible nature, and they’ll trust you.

Imagine yourself as a tall, stately palm tree.

Be an organism without goals and objectives—instead, stand strong and successful, capable of adjusting to the forces of nature. Willing to adapt to whatever may come your way by initially allowing yourself to experience that energy, much like the bending tree in hurricane-force winds. When criticism comes, listen. When powerful forces push you in any direction, bow rather than fight, lean rather than break, and allow yourself to be free from a rigid set of rules—in so doing you’ll be preserved and unbroken. Keep an inner vision of the wind symbolizing difficult situations as you affirm: I have no rigidity within me. I can bend to any wind and remain unbroken. I will use the strength of the wind to make be even stronger and better preserved.

This simple teaching is so pleasant that you’ll wonder why you didn’t realize it before. In the Tao time, acknowledging the “storm” and then allow it to be felt in your body—observe it without judgment, just like the tree bends in the wind. As rigidity reappears, notice that as well, allowing the winds to blow as you exercise the Tao in place of ego! Seek to uncover the root of your stiffness and achieve greater flexibility in the storms of life. When seen as this kind of opportunity to open to the Tao energy, storminess can be transformed into exhilarating events that uncover more of your true nature of love.

Do the Tao Now

Listen to someone express an opinion that’s the opposite of yours today. It could be on any variety of topics, such as politics, the environment, religion, drugs, war, the death penalty, or what you have. Refuse to impose your position, and instead remark, “I’ve never considered that point of view. Thank you for sharing your ideas with me.” By allowing a contrary position to be heard, you’ll dismiss ego’s attitude and welcome the flexibility of the Tao.