Spirit of Emptiness: Now Is the Tao

Chapter 6 — Tao Te Ching

The spirit of emptiness is immortal.
It is called the Great Mother
because it gives birth to Heaven and Earth.

It is like a vapor,
barely seen but always present.
Use it effortlessly.

Spirit of Emptiness: Textย From:

Microsoft Word โ€“ Tao Te Ching โ€“ trans. by J.H.. McDonald

Ancient Wisdom | Modern Images & Music

Spirit of Emptiness: Feature Archetypal Animation Images

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Spirit of Emptiness: Other Things to Wonder & Ponder

Throughline’s award winning episode on Afghanistan is well worth listening to and perfectly aligns with the sentiments of Chapter 6 of the Tao Te Ching.

pirit of Emptiness: Now Is the Tao explores Chapter 6 of the Tao Te Ching through archetypal imagery.
Spirit of Emptiness: Afghanistan: The Center of the World (2021)

Afghanistan: The Center of the World (2021)

Description: This episode was published days before the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and just weeks after U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. It is the first part in Afghanistan: The Center of the World, our Peabody Award-winning series about Afghanistan, focused on the country and its people.

Afghanistan has, for centuries, been at the center of the world. Long before the U.S. invasion โ€” before the U.S. was even a nation โ€” countless civilizations intersected there, weaving together a colorful tapestry of foods, languages, ethnicities and visions of what Afghanistan was and could be. The story of Afghanistan is too often told from the perspective of outsiders who tried to invade it (and always failed) earning it the nickname “Graveyard of Empires.” In this episode, we’re shifting the perspective. We’ll journey through the centuries alongside Afghan mystical poets. We’ll turn the radio dial to hear songs of love and liberation. We’ll meet the queen who built the first primary school for girls in the country. And we’ll take a closer look at Afghanistan’s centuries-long experiment to create a unified nation.

Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban (2021)

Description: This episode was published days before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and just weeks after U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. It is the first part in Afghanistan: The Center of the World, our 2022 Peabody Award-winning series about Afghanistan, focused on the country and its people.

How did a small group of Islamic students go from local vigilantes to one of the most infamous and enigmatic forces in the world? The Taliban is a name that has haunted the American imagination since 2001. The scenes of the group’s brutality repeatedly played in the Western media, while true, perhaps obscure our ability to see the complex origins of the Taliban and how they impact the lives of Afghans. It’s a shadow that reaches across the vast ancient Afghan homeland, the reputation of the modern state, and throughout global politics. At the end of the US war in Afghanistan we go back to the end of the Soviet Occupation and the start of the Afghan civil war to look at the rise of the Taliban.


Images for Afghanistan Animation

As Trump doubles down on Afghanistan, Russians shake their heads — The US president’s decision to extend the war, reversing his campaign pledges to withdraw from it, stand in sharp contrast to the lessons that Mikhail Gorbachev and the USSR took from the conflict almost 30 years ago.

Music: A Gift of Love – Music Inspired by the Love Poems of Rumi | Deepak Chopra [1] Valetine To Rumi ย ย ย 0:57 [2] My Burning Heart ย ย ย 1:00

Treat all life and everyone with dignity, kindness, and respect. It is the only way we move forward.

Unites All of Creation with Dust: Now Is the Tao

Tao Te Ching, Koans, Haikus, Enlightenment, Peace, Being

Lesson from the Tao Te Ching

Microsoft Word – Tao Te Ching – trans. by J.H.. McDonald

Ancient Wisdom | Modern Images & Music

Unites All of Creation with Dust: Chapter 4 | Tao Te Ching

The Tao is like an empty container:
it can never be emptied and can never be filled.
Infinitely deep, it is the source of all things.
It dulls the sharp, unties the knotted,
shades the lighted, and unites all of creation with dust.

It is hidden but always present.
I don’t know who gave birth to it .
It is older than the concept of God.

Unites All of Creation with Dust: Previous Chapters | Tao Te Ching

https://www.sapience2112.com/emptying-minds-filling-bellies
The blog is about Chapter 3 of the Tao Te Ching | Emptying Minds…Filling Bellies
Unites All of Creation with Dust: The blog is about Chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching | Acting Without Doing Anything
https://www.sapience2112.com/what-is-your-source-of-energy
The blog is about Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching | What Is Your Source of Engery?
https://www.sapience2112.com/hate-arises-rainbows-become
This blog is about Pratฤซtyasamutpฤda, which states that all dharmas (phenomena) arise in dependence upon other dharmas: “if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist” …

Unites All of Creation with Dust: Relevant Topics & Events to the Tao\Now

Reproductive Coercion is an American Cornerstone

Unites All of Creation with Dust:
Slaves, J. J. Smith’s Plantation, South Carolina, 1862
(ย The J. Paul Getty Museumย /ย Wikimedia Commonsย )
Conservatives have long invoked the specter of the 1857 Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott vs. Sandford in their fight against abortion rights, likening embryos and fetuses to slaves with no due process. Progressives now, too, are drawing parallels between the stripping of rights from people who may get pregnant and the infamous majority opinion penned by then-Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote, "a Black man has no rights which the white man was bound to respect." 
Missing from this historic analogy, however, are the experiences of Black women, whose enslavement and forced reproduction was fundamental to America's rise. We speak with Dr. Deborah Gray White, Distinguished Professor of History and Womenโ€™s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, about this not-so-distant history and the possibilities it holds for all American women. 

My take away: In the wake of Roe vs Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, Deborah Gray White was watching the dystopian story the Handmaid’s Tale with her daughter who said, “Oh my God, we’re becoming this!” Deborah replied, “We already are this. America has used black and brown women as reproductive commodities since its founding. What’s changing is now white women are getting closer to becoming commodities again.”


Alok Vaid-Menon Defies Definition

Unites All of Creation with Dust:
Portrait of Alok Vaid-Menon
(ย Celeste Slomanย ) | From The Take Away
Alok Vaid-Menon is a gender non-conforming writer and performer who grew up in Texas to Indian immigrant parents. They use their creativity and platform to explore themes of gender, race, trauma and belonging, advocating and bringing visibility to the trans community. We speak with Alok about their work and advocacy, and what they learned from their aunt, Urvashi Vaid, the beloved LGBTQ rights activist who spent more than a decade working for equality at the National LGBTQ Task Force.

My take away from this amazing interview: The gender non-conforming community is showing the world how to love during a time of great division, growing hate, tremendous suffering, and huge oceans of human anxiety.


The definition of a constitutional right

Unites All of Creation with Dust: SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images | From 1A
The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that established a constitutional right to abortion. The decision could lead to abortion bans in half of U.S. states.
In response, states like California are moving to amend their constitutions to include abortion rights. Now, citizens and lawmakers are thinking about what defines a constitutional right and how different interpretations of the constitutions affect those rights.
We talk about changing the Constitution and what comes next after the reversal of Roe.
This conversation is part of our Remaking America collaboration with six public radio stations around the country. Remaking America is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

My take away: I loved listening to Olatunde Johnson, professor at Columbia University School of Law | The United States Constitution was made by a bunch of slave owning, patriarchal, misogynistic pale males. It is ludicrous to think we cannot update or change it as our society changes and grows. This is what overturning Roe vs Wade is about. This is what Jan. 6, 2021 is about. It is about a bunch of people who want to live 18th Century lives in the 21st Century.

Unites All of Creation with Dust: Sources of Feature Image

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Music: Remixes, Vol. 2 | Various Artists [1] Wenkweur – Advanced Suite Remix ย ย ย 5:04 [2] Multidimensional Bong – Advanced Suite Remix ย ย ย 7:45