{"id":1047,"date":"2008-11-04T11:24:40","date_gmt":"2008-11-04T18:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/11\/you-must-read-this\/"},"modified":"2008-11-04T11:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-04T18:44:00","slug":"you-must-read-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/04\/you-must-read-this\/","title":{"rendered":"You Must Read Tao"},"content":{"rendered":"

from National Public Radio<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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You Must Read This<\/h1>\n

<\/a>by Henry Alford<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Wisdom For The Ages In ‘Tao Te Ching’<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"tao.png\"<\/p>\n

All Things Considered<\/a>,<\/span>November 3, 2008 \u00b7\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>When I tell people that I like to read theTao Te Ching,<\/em>\u00a0they start staring at the floor, as if looking for a dog to pet. It’s like I’ve suddenly produced, and then struck, a 4,000-pound gong.<\/p>\n

But the thing is, the\u00a0Tao Te Ching<\/em>\u00a0is one of the least ooey-wooey books about religion or philosophy I’ve ever read. And what this collection of aphorisms probably written in the 6th century B.C. has to offer is a series of useful and penetrating thoughts on a wide range of topics.<\/p>\n

Of government, the\u00a0Tao Te Ching<\/em>\u00a0says: “To rule a country, one must act with care, as when frying a small fish.”<\/p>\n

Of humility, it says: “He who is noncompetitive invites no competition.”<\/p>\n

Of leadership, it says: “The existence of the leader who is wise is barely known to those he leads.”<\/p>\n

Fairly straightforward, right? I mean, it’s not like its predecessor the\u00a0I Ching,<\/em>\u00a0which at one point counsels, “Deliver yourself from your great toe.” There are no great toes in theTao Te Ching,<\/em>\u00a0only great thoughts.<\/p>\n

Which is why, despite the fact that I’m agnostic, suspicious of New Age claptrap and, yes, vaguely embarrassed by my pronunciation of this book’s title, I find myself returning to the\u00a0Tao Te Ching<\/em>\u00a0time after time.<\/p>\n

Part of what fuels me here is what I’ll call the book’s problem \u2014 namely, some readers think the\u00a0Tao Te Ching<\/em>\u00a0promotes passivity. When the book states, “The greatest carver does the least carving,” maybe it’s just advocating something along the lines of “Less is more.”<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at NPR.org<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from National Public Radio You Must Read This by Henry Alford Wisdom For The Ages In ‘Tao Te Ching’\u00a0 All Things Considered,November 3, 2008 \u00b7\u00a0 When I tell people that I like to read theTao Te Ching,\u00a0they start staring at the floor, as if looking for a dog to pet. It’s like I’ve suddenly produced, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}