Tao Te Ching
Change
We all know that everything changes but most of us, most of the time act and think like nothing or very little will ever change. The idea of change can stir up fear and anxiety but is also a doorway into the realization of the sacredness at the heart of our experience. We all struggle with an intrinsic quality of change, the contradictory attachments to peacefulness and to improvement. We all want things to get better but we’re attached to the peace and calm of things staying the same. And most fail to see the obvious, double-binding contradiction between wanting things to change for the better but not wanting the stress and anxiety inevitably liked with change. Conservative vs. Progressive political stands represent this dichotomy in bureaucratic realms. Discussion on Impermanence exemplify the futility of fighting against the inevitable onrush of evolution in every field of thought and action. Topics like Idiot Compassion, Revolution, and Less is More exemplify pitfalls in the other direction, embracing change to enthusiastically.
In nature's natural effort to keep the human species alive, two contradictory imperatives compete and balance each other: the need to keep things the same and the need to change. During times of stability, when most major survival problems became secure; change and ideas that encouraged change became a threat—"If not broken, don't try to fix it." However, when environmental, social, political, and/or technological circumstances disrupt this status quo, that same survival can depend on an innovative response, a radical change. For most of human history, these change agents—philosophical, religious, political, or human—were not frequently needed and often detrimental. Change agents were denigrated, persecuted, jailed, and often killed. In times of rapid societal disruption though (like our own times), this creative openness and courage to take unproven directions.
Quotes (111)
“change is not only possible but inevitable—Being connected means we change one another,,, We can direct that change in positive, productive ways.”
“Each moment is completely new. To be wise is to accept change. To be enlightened is to love change.”
“When yang has reached its greatest strength, the dark power of yin is born within its depths; night begins at midday when yang breaks up and begins to change into yin.”
“The law of yin and yang is the natural order of the universe, the foundation of all things, the mother of all changes, the root of life and death.”
“Focused on uncontrived awareness, not seduced by hope and fear, grasping and fixation; they are not swayed by a desire for change.”
“Prosperity never stays long in the same place: cities once great are now small and ones great now were small.”
“There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.”
“The wise take Heaven as their ancestor, virtue as their home, and the Tao as their door and escape change.”
“They change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.”
“If you completely understand the nature of mind, you can say it changes, and you can say it doesn’t change.”
“This spiritual state by which foreknowledge is attained can hardly be sought through changes.”
“Clear out obsessive thinking and distraction, see the vast radiance without barriers, the genuine awakened field, and immediately respond to the ten thousand changes”
“If rulers could uphold this Tao of effortlessness, without consciously thinking about changing others, others would change by themselves”
“Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.”
“All bodies are in perpetual flux like rivers, and parts are passing in and out of them continually”
“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in changing others.”
“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.”
“Incessant change, everlasting innovation seem to be dictated by the true interests of mankind. But government is the perpetual enemy of change.”
“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mid.”
“Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?… we’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.”
“Our existence has no foundation on which to rest except the transient present. Thus its form is essentially unceasing motion, without any possibility of that repose which we continually strive after... existence is typified by unrest.”
“We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon...
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Naught may endure but Mutability.”
“Today is not yesterday: we change. How can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed is painful; yet ever needful”
“We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire.”
“ideas that revolutionize society keep an even pace with external conditions as they change and become obsolete”
“religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed, and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.”
“People become uneasy, the face of society changes, old beliefs are destroyed before new ones can be created… these are the symptoms and precursors of revolution that have preceded all the world’s great changes.”
“Let's trace the birth of an idea. It's born as rampant radicalism, then it becomes progressivism, then liberalism, then it becomes moderated conservative, outmoded, and gone.”
“There is an everlasting struggle in every mind between the tendency to keep unchanged, and the tendency to renovate... Our education is a ceaseless compromise between the conservative and the progressive”
“I have convinced myself (for the moment) that we had better leave these great changes to what we call great blind forces: their blindness being so much more perspicacious than the little, peering, partial eyesight of men.”
“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world… as in being able to remake ourselves.”
“Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.”
“Many of the new ideas can be expressed in non-mathematical language, but they are none the less difficult... What is demanded is a change in our imaginative picture of the world”
“Change is one thing, progress is another. Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is indubitable, progress is a matter of controversy.”
“What subsequent philosophy, down to quite modern times, accepted from Parmenides, was not the impossibility of all change, which was too violent a paradox, but the indestructibility of substance.”
“It is perfectly true that I have thought and felt this way at some time or other, but I don't have to think and feel that way now.”
“Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?”
“Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?”
“The opposition of religion to folklore is often a kind of rivalry set up as between a new dispensation and an older tradition, the gods of the older cult becoming the evil spirits of the newer”
“When the tenant wanted the rent reduced, you said it couldn’t be done… You should change, change from the bottom of your hearts! If you don’t change, you may all be eaten by each other.”
“Man's soul seems to have grown bigger; it cannot fit any longer within the old molds. A pitiless civil war has broken out between the old, formerly omnipotent myth and the new myth which is battling to govern our souls.”
“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.”
“Following the suggestion of Plato, we may expect to find pagan and puritan periods follow in mutual reaction... Every age reacts against its predecessor... we should expect our present moral laxity to be followed by some return to moral restraint”
“If life becomes hard to bear, we think of a change in our circumstances. But the most important and effective change—a change in our own attitude—hardly even occurs to us”
“The religion of Buddha has the capacity to change according to times, a quality which no other religion can claim to have…”
“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”
“We always want to alter the outer hoping thereby to change the inner…I think we miss this basic thing, which is; the world is me and I am the world.”
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.”
“The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.”
“We want to hold on to life as it is is now; we want to eternalize our present state, our small ego, our limited individuality. Therefor we resist change instead of understanding the the necessity of growth, which is the very function of life.”
“Nothing is built on stone; All is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.”
“You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame… back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time”
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
“The world is going to change so fast that people and governments will not be prepared to be stewards of this change.”
“If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that change will ramify throughout his whole universe.”
“You can keep an old tradition going only by renewing it in terms of current circumstances… When the world changes, the religion has to be transformed.”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
“Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.”
“When a new technology strikes a society, the most natural reaction is to clutch at the immediately preceding period for familiar and comforting images.”
“The key to changing everything lies in philosophy... If one thing changes, everything changes. Unless all things change, nothing changes... In order to change the farming practices of a single farmer, the entire social fabric must first change.”
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
“An irresistible cycle seems to operate, repeating patterns of the ancient world where civil strife and war brought disaster... rooted in the very nature of civilization—itself a product and expression of rapid technological and social change.”
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
“It's that foolishness of wanting things to always stay the same, to stay good, that keeps our lives from being joyful.”
“No one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom.”
“When we are capable of loving ourselves, we are already protecting and nourishing society. When we are able to smile, when we are peaceful, at that moment there is a change in the world already.”
“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”
“Man is not a 'fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant'. He changed drastically when he developed 'divided consciousness' to cope with complexities of civilization, and has been changing steadily ever since.”
“It is always very difficult and painful to move from an old familiar place to a new unfamiliar place. It is very difficult to change... Habits follow wherever we go and changing our habits remains the greatest difficulty.”
“Change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons. Only that which can change can continue.”
“How can we ‘plan ahead’ when the the speed of change makes it almost completely impossible to have any clear idea about what the future will look like? The only reliable strategy may consist in developing mindful awareness, the ability to think for ourselves, and ripen innate wisdom.”
“In MacKay’s classic, The Madness of Crowds he points out that historically people more easily believe extreme views (tulip mania, the Crusades, the witch trials) when the society is experiencing abrupt and frequent change. Extreme views tend to be more clear and simple than the truth which is more messy, paradoxical, and multi-layered. So when populations struggle to deal with too much change, latching on to a foolish but strong and clear message becomes much more tempting.”
“Most of us don't realize the difference we could make… point fingers at others. ‘Surely,’ we say, ‘the pollution, waste, and other ills are not our fault. They are the fault of the industry, business, science. They are the fault of the politicians,’ This leads to a destructive and potentially deadly apathy.”
“Change the story and you change perception; change perception and you change the world.”
“A book is like a river (and Into the same river no man can step twice) because the intellectual context, like the reader, changes steadily… We have changed and the broad intellectual climate has changed.”
“I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.”
“My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It's the only thing I find interesting.”
“The first will be last and the last will be first; the times they are a changin’.”
“real social change comes from the ageless process of people thinking together in conversation”
“But tomorrow I’ll be a different person, never again the person I was. Not that anyone will notice... on the outside nothing will be different.”
“‘All you have to do is wait,’ I explained. ‘Sit tight and wait for the right moment, not try to change anything by force, just watch the drift of things… If you do that, you just naturally know what to do. But everyone’s always too busy. They’re too talented, their schedules are too full, they’re too interested in themselves…”
“Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.”
“there is no single pattern. The only consistent phenomenon is he very fact of alternation, and the consequent awareness of different social possibilities”
“The pursuit of erotic pleasure has been a powerful force for social equality and cultural transformation [and]—perhaps surprisingly— the place to begin exploring this neglected virtue of sexual hedonism is... in the apparently prim and proper Victorian era... We love to depict the Victorians as prudish moralists who would blanche at the mention of sexual pleasure... but it is far from the truth.”
“Because leaders fail to envision the future as the world rapidly changes around them, in the '60's, the average life of a company was 60 years; now it's only 20 years.”
“People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”
“small changes nobody notices accumulate over time and become big changes... That's how you grow up, that's how a small land animal became a huge whale, and that's how hunting a few mammoths every year caused the mammoths to die out.”
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