The essential Taoist guide to living with simplicity, compassion, and integrity

This is a book that draws on ancient Chinese wisdom to explore the critical life issues: What is our place in nature? How do we make right decisions? How do we respect the earth? How are we to view life and death? What is the path we should live to truly achieve a good and meaningful life?

For Deng Ming-Dao, the two entry points for this exploration are two words: The first is the Chinese word for “heart”— which means heart, mind, intention, center, core intelligence, and soul. And the second is the word beauty—which connotes the pleasure we take in art, design, fashion, and music. Our hearts love beauty, and beauty opens our hearts.

In this profound collection of fresh and contemporary translations of ancient texts, Deng Ming-Dao gathers over 220 selections that deal with the essence of heart and beauty. Topics include: how to be great, how long it takes to follow your heart, how to bring order to the world, how to know everything, how to pacify the heart, and much more. Here are stories, fables, poems, and epigrams that delight, inspire, and inform.

Those who would subdue people through their own “excellence”
Have yet to subdue anyone.
But if you used excellence to nurture people instead,
The whole world would be subdued.
No one has become ruler of all under heaven
Without subdued hearts.
It has never happened.