dao breakthrough

Lake shadows color of cold, Willow branches weep ice, Swan rises dazzling in the sunlight. After long self-cultivation, one’s accumulated energy reaches a threshold and then bursts out full, breathing, and vibrant. Without the careful building of momentum, this moment of release would never have been possible. With long years of preparation and experience, the freeing of the soul will not be mere dissipation but will be so strongly focused that it lifts one into a higher state of awareness. When one’s spiritual energy emerges, it feels like a swan rising from the water. Once you have reached this level of stored energy, you will be a different person. One one hand, you may take genuine comfort in the point of attainment that you have made. On the other hand, you now see all the other possibilities that remain for you to explore. With the emergence of great possibilities comes the need for responsibility. If you diverge from your life’s path in order to explore new vistas, remember how far you are flying, and remember to return at the proper times. Only you can decide how to arrange your life. Once you are a strong flier, you must still use wisdom to direct your flight. breakthrough 365 Tao daily meditations Deng Ming-Dao (author) ISBN 0-06-250223-9 Still life with a rose oil on canvas, 46 x 65 cm, 1955 signed lower left Exhibitions: Monaco 96/97, Taipei97 & reproduced He continues to pursue his training as an artist. First, he adopts the objective proposal of the impressionists to describe an instant in Nature, then, Cézanne's subjective principle to show the instant in the eye of the painter. Cézanne's idea, a foundation for modern art, brings him closer to the Chinese theory that painting is an expression of the thoughts and feelings of its creator. The Still Life With Rose (above) painted around 1955, is characteristic of the evolution of his art. His integration of texture, color, and principles of physical reality, challenges the line, the essential means of description and expression in Chinese painting. Three methods are being used here: The pure color defines the physical reality of the fruits on the table. The line shapes the persimmons and the foliage located in the center. Finally, the rose is constructed in a combination of lines and colors that render reality. An oblique shift occurs between the rose and the center where the persimmons and the foliage compose an ink painting, a picture within the picture that translates the reflection of the painter. In 1964, in his Homage to Cézanne (6), T'ang imitates part of the composition of the Large Bathers from the collections of the Philadelphia Museum. However, the eroticism that transpires from it is closer to the Bacchanale, from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The inspiration found by Cézanne in Rubens or Poussin matches his desire to create a type of art "as solid as the one found in museums" just as Manet before him, found the source of his Olympia in the Venus of Urbino by the Titian. T'ang himself plays the game of interpretation, or rather hijacking. Even though he adopts the pyramidal grouping of the figures, the slant of the trees and the game of transparencies, he parts the composition through its middle, unbalancing it, so setting it in motion. (continued tomorrow) T A O t e C H I N G f o r t y - f o u r Fame or self: Which matters more? Self or wealth: Which is more precious? Gain or loss: Which is more painful? He who is attached to things will suffer much. He who saves will suffer heavy loss. A contented man is never disappointed. He who knows when to stop does not find himself in trouble. He will stay forever safe. — translation by GIA-FU FENG Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success of failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. — translation by STEVEN MITCHELL A contented man knows himself to be more precious even than fame, and so, obscure, remains. He who is more attached to wealth than to himself suffers more heavily from loss. He who knows when to stop might lose, but in safety stays. — translation by STAN ROSENTHAL a reading list of books and interpretations of the Daodejing is available at http://wwww.duckdaotsu.org/dao_books.html for a meditation sent to your email address each day, please write ’subscribe tao’ in the subject line and send to lisbeth at duckdaotsu