THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING

 A description of the book:

Life is short, so make the best and the most out of it now! Live your life as if everything is a miracle. To do just that, you must know who you are and what life is all about. Most importantly, you must have the wisdom to live your life to the fullest. 

Living your life is a learning process. Real learning, however, is not just the acquisition of knowledge. True wisdom is the ability to penetrate deeply into the meaning behind superficial knowledge, to integrate related thoughts, facts, and experiences into a structural framework that reveals a deeper, more synthesized meaning than what an ordinary person perceives. 

Wisdom is internal; it comes from the inner self. Focusing on so-called goals in life, many of us lose our true selves in the pursuit of our dreams. If you are one of them, you must re-direct your life. If you wish to re-discover your "new" self, or never want to go back to your "old" life, THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING is right for you. Now is as good a time as any to live your life on your own terms, instead of someone else's terms. Now is the time not just to think out of the box, but to create your own box. THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING was written just for that specific purpose to inspire you with the wisdom in living, based on conventional wisdom, ancient wisdom of Tao, and spiritual wisdom. Have an empty mind, and rethink your mind! Albert Einstein once said: "A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison . . . . " 

One of the objectives of THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING is to free yourself from the self-imprisonment of self-delusions created by your self-consciousness, as pointed out by Albert Einstein. This book not only explains in simple terms and plain language how you may unconsciously create your self-limiting thoughts that prevent you from truly understanding who you are and what you really want from life, but also shows you how to create a substantially new manner of thinking through the integration of both conventional and ancient wisdom. In particular, this book is about the art of living well through understanding and embracing the wisdom of TAO—the wisdom of Lao Tzu succinctly expressed in TAO TE CHING, one of the most translated works in world literature. However, Tao wisdom is simple but difficult to understand. THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING explains in simple language with common everyday examples to illustrate the essence of Tao wisdom and how it may integrate with conventional wisdom to live a life of your choice. 

This 200-page book is full of wisdom based on the author’s extensive research and personal experience. In this book, you will learn the following: (1) Eliminating unproductive thoughts, and overcoming chaotic struggles in your inner world and outer life to enhance health and performance, master stress, and deepen appreciation of life. (2) Understanding the essentials of contemporary wisdom and ancient wisdom to help you contemplate and internalize their respective meanings and values in your daily life (3) Harnessing mind power to operate your mind to integrate the acquired knowledge into your daily activities THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING is the wisdom in the art of living well.

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A sample from the book:

Knowing the Differences Between Ancient and Conventional Wisdom

Philosophy is not wisdom: philosophy is a concept, and a philosopher is merely a lover of that concept.

What is true wisdom?

True wisdom is an understanding of the priorities of the important things in life, of how best to go about getting them, and in the process of how to be a better person with the right conduct.

Knowing wisdom and practicing wisdom are not the same. Nowadays, people are respected for their skills, knowledge, wealth, fame and power. They are seldom admired for being wise; wisdom has become an attribute of the old, the unfashionable, and the unrevered.

“True wisdom is different from much learning;

Much learning means little wisdom.”

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 81

Conventional wisdom is social-group-oriented. That is, it depends on the interrelationships with others. In modern China, for example, everything depends on guangxi (relationships in business and social network) to get things done. If you do not know anyone in your guangxi either directly or indirectly, you are nobody and will accomplish nothing in your life. Guangxi, unfortunately, is a form of intense attachment and control that rob many people of a meaningful life, although with guangxi they think they are getting some of the best things they want in life.

Conventional wisdom seeks solutions from others or other external sources. Ancient wisdom focuses on just the opposite—self, instead of from others. Happiness, for example, comes from self, and not at the mercy of others.

Compared to ancient wisdom, conventional wisdom is more externally focused, more vocalized, and, therefore, more reactive. Ancient wisdom is abstract, intuitive, not something concrete or tangible as expressed in conventional wisdom.

Conventional wisdom is fast-paced, instantaneous, and, therefore, consuming; intuition or enlightenment in ancient wisdom takes time and is spontaneous.

Conventional wisdom is derived from knowledge and appropriate application of knowledge. According to ancient wisdom, knowledge is always partial and incomplete, because the universe is always changing, and so is knowledge. Given that knowledge is infinite, and we are finite, true knowledge cannot be fully known—at best, it can only be understood; therefore, the application of knowledge is not the essence of wisdom.

In the American culture, people are forever busy. In particular, they strive to shape the world according to its own ends. Probably, this mentality had its origin from the Bible. In the Old Testament, God gave Adam “dominion” over the earth and its creatures. Through centuries of evolution, the external world has been looked upon as something to be mastered, controlled, and exploited.

Ancient wisdom does not strive to shape the world according to your desires, which is looked upon as control and tyranny. Instead, it focuses on the instinct to do the right things in any given situation. Concentration on controlling destiny makes it difficult to concentrate on doing the right things. Ancient wisdom looks upon the world as something to be accepted, and that involves invoking the wisdom of “action through inaction”—which is action modeled on acceptance of nature, or the natural turn of events in life.

“But that there can be teaching without words,

Value in action that is actionless,

Few indeed can understand.”

Tao Te Cing, Chapter 43

Conventional wisdom is based on logic, while ancient wisdom is all about imagination.

(“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Albert Einstein)

In summary, compared to conventional wisdom, ancient wisdom has been much better in seeing the external world as something to be accepted, rather than as something to be mastered and controlled.

THE BOOK OF LIFE AND LIVING