To Get Everything from Nothing...If You Want It
3 ageless guideposts for today’s healing habits
1-Minute Tip Sheet
Pointers from a 6-century-old wisdom text, Laozi, in today’s speak:
1. When you have nothing, you have no barrier to getting anything.
This is not philosophical; it’s pragmatical.2. Everything comes from nothing. There’s more to what we see as nothing than everything we know.
This is no religion; it’s a scientific reality.3. Choosing to do it the optimal way, “The Way,” by way of your way, you can accomplish everything as if there’s nothing to it.
There’s no mandatory pre-set; it only takes a mindset re-set.
My Story
Arriving in the U.S. as a teenage international student with nothing other than my dream to become a doctor, I had no life experience, no language skills, no family support, no one I knew, no place to live, and no money.
I should have been totally petrified and desperate. And I was. Yet, from the perspective of an ancient sage, Laozi ( 老子 ), I had everything. And he would be proven right.
Universal Story
Laozi’s only writing is a thin pamphlet of 5000 words in 81 short chapters. This book, ‘Dao De Jing’ ( 道德經 ), also known as ‘Laozi’, has been revered by great thinkers and scholars worldwide for centuries as one of the most valuable words of wisdom in human history.
The most learned Dao researchers find no religion, philosophy, thesis, or instruction in this masterpiece. Yet, millions have been endlessly enlightened by its illuminating worldview from a mind-opening perspective.
The central theme throughout Laozi is ‘The Way’ of how reality is. He calls it “The Dao” (older English scholars spelled it “Tao” ( 道 ) even though the sound is a D in all Chinese dialects). No matter. Lao Tzu was reluctant to write any words down because he insisted it’s the knowing put into action that counts.
“The Way that can be told in any way
is not the eternal way.The Word that can be put in words
is not the eternal word.”Opening Verse, Laozi
Your Story
So, to find your way, you must look past Laozi’s words. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck at the road signs, missing the wellsprings of wisdom they point to. These guideposts are not answers. They are merely pointers for you to find The Dao (the way). That way, you must find your own way, usable to you in your life and under varying circumstances.
To get it, you must resonate with it, even without verbalizing it. If it doesn’t sit well with you after road-testing, then it’s not ‘The Way’ for you. Move on, but come back to it in another, maybe even tougher situation, and test it again. I had done it whenever I had close to nothing and even less prospect.
I sometimes share my experiences only as real-life examples for these guideposts. Then, we’ll use the wellsprings we find to irrigate life and wellness for a more universal exercise that may apply to you.
Guidepost #1: NOTHING Underrated
Starting out with nothing as an international student, I found work-study jobs, student loans, and later, salaries, credit cards, mortgages, bonuses…the Dow, and, most dependably, ‘The Dao’.
I am no “crazy rich Asian”, not even close. Yet, I have gotten more than I ever imagined. All paid off. Everything from nothing.
When you’re already at maximum,
there’s nowhere else to go.When you’re close to nothing,
the sky is no limit.Metacardio©
It’s really not hard to do better since I started with nothing. And everything that came after that has been so wonderful—even not by comparing it with nothing but with very good things.
With this experience, I know I can rise from nothing. I have no fear or worry about losing it all. I did it then. I can do it again, this time better prepared.
I know people who possess way more than I, and all their lives. Yet, many are under constant stress of getting more or endless fear of having less. By contrast, the nothing I had was a blessing in disguise.
There’s more to life than having everything, for good.
There’s much more to life by having nothing, for now.Metacardio©
Guidepost #2: NOTHING Overlooked
“Nothing is the mother of Everything.”
Laozi
Advanced physics has proven that even ‘everything’ is finite, whereas ‘nothing’ is infinite. Yet, our common worldview is focused mostly on the limited “every-thing”, overlooking the limitless “no-thing”. And in trying to get everything, we suffer.
Over 99% of the Universe looks like “empty space”. Yet, hi-tech instruments keep detecting that it is loaded with energies and entities constantly blinking in and out of existence, with everything linked together, like a borderless embroidery.
This ‘nothingness’ makes up almost all of our Universe, including the newly discovered Dark Matter and Dark Energy. And that’s just what we know so far. The more we discover, the more we realize we know next to nothing.
It is the dark sky that lets stars twinkle in our eyes.
Metacardio©
Back on earth, there is boundless evidence for NOTHING hiding in everything. Nothing can materialize without it. For example:
These words on the page are readable because of the blank space surrounding them.
Musicians say the notes in a melody only sound good because of the proper pauses of silence in between them.
A cup can’t hold much unless it’s been emptied. (Our brain also.)
There is much, much more to “nothing”
than there is in everything that we see.Metacardio©
Guidepost #3: NOTHING Undone
One of Laozi’s central teachings, “wu-wei”, is often mistaken to mean ‘do nothing’. It means nothing of the kind.
Out of context, the character “wu” ( 無 ) means ‘nothing’ and “wei” (為 ) means ‘to do’. The complete verse is actually “wu-wei…wu-bu-wei” ( 無為無不為 ), with “bu”( 不 ) meaning ‘not’. Partially translated, it says: ‘In not doing anything, nothing is left undone.’ But, hold on.
In total, it means that if you don’t do things for ulterior motives or against the way of Nature (that includes your nature), everything readily gets done. For example, torrents of water can come down the waterfall until it runs dry, as if nothing is being done.
Put another way, if you force ‘The Way’ of reality (“The Dao”) to go your way, nothing will get done. Want to try pushing all that water back up the falls?
“Wu-wei” ( 無為 ) seems to be the exact way things in reality come into being so perfectly, abundantly, and seemingly effortlessly.
A flower blossoms, just to fulfill its existential nature. No motive, really. The result is fantastic. A newborn baby is the same way.
The cosmos also. What an unimaginable undertaking! What is the purpose of all the billions and billions of star-studded galaxies in space? What did it all take? Nothing we know of.
Follow the flow of water and get everywhere, as if you’re trying to do nothing, is one of Laozi’s favorite metaphors.
This teaching is NOT ‘do nothing’ or ‘not try’ to accomplish anything, as commonly misunderstood. Quite the opposite. It is nurturing the desired outcome to come into being as if naturally on its own. Like planting a flower or raising a child.
Road Test for The Healing Habit from NOTHING
Let’s test these signposts out…in our own body, health, and life. Such as building our Healing Habits of choice, in good times and bad.
Sometimes, what Laozi advocates doing can seem counter-intuitive, even odd, standing the mind on its head. An example for today would be to make healthy choices now when you’re not sick, so you won’t have to heal your sickness later. That’s generally not the American way.
Without forcing your way against the flow, he advocates leaving nothing that’s right undone,“wu-bu-wei” ( 無不為 ), early on, so you need to do nothing, “wu-wei” ( 無為 ), later on to correct everything that’s gone wrong.
Today, we call that preemptive prevention.
EATING
Too much sugar gives the body a jolt of energy, then drags it way down soon after and in the long run. Sometimes, it’s worse than eating NOTHING.
Generations of people in many Mediterranean regions have much lower incidences of our common chronic diseases. If you ask them what’s in their Mediterranean Diet, they’ll say, “We know nothing about no diet.”
People in the 7 Blue Zones in the world easily live beyond 100 years in good health and active lifestyle. If you ask them what special things they eat every day, they’ll answer, “NOTHING.”
MOVING
MINDSET RESET
The wisdom of “wu-wei” (not doing) allows the body enough sleep, breaks for relaxation, rests for enjoyment, fun, and laughter. And some tears when they flow naturally.
Regular intervals of “wu-bu-wei” (nothing left undone), such as hard work and labor, actually animate the body better than anything else. As long as you don’t neglect the resting intervals of doing nothing.
Master the art of creating enough “wu” (empty space) in your day. Making time for doing nothing is healing. Leaving no time for anything is dis-ease, a disease.
1-Minute Tip Sheet for
Healing Habits with NOTHING
If you are at a low point in your health or even life, it’s a good place to come back up from. You have the most to gain, and your uptake curve from here rises the fastest before it plateaus (everybody and every body plateau).
When you have/are nothing, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.In health and in life, people perform their best on their way up to the top, then it often goes downhill from there. But the journey is nothing you should overlook. It’s the bulk of your life, where all but everything is.
When you’re at max, there’s no higher place to go. When you’re at the bottom, there’s no place else to go but up.One often takes a one-dimensional drug to overcome an illness. Success is if it works, with or without side effects. In contrast, the multi-dimensional preventive healing habits we suggest are different.
Success here is rewarded with the kind of ‘nothing’ that’s better than anything: no disease, no disability, no stress, no strain, no bad side effects, no unnatural or self-created drama, conflict, or suffering, only reality’s nothing-to-it variety of ups and downs. Life flows on, blossoming in its nature, as if without motive or effort—“wu-wei”.
NOTHING.
Wait, if that’s nothing, isn’t it everything we want?
. . .
Bonus Video on Everything About You
(Each 2-3 minutes).
(1) Heavenly bodies, bodily heavens.
(2) Up where? Who cares? Time’s up.
(4) Packed empty space, so kin only.
(6) Sky’s no limit. Heaven shouldn’t wait.
This eleventh stand-alone post is of a series, Healing Habits, based on the successful solutions of some 2000 patients and coworkers in a lifestyle clinical program. 2024
The images are curated from iStock with subscription, and NASA.