There are those lucky people who look forward to Christmas with the family. But for many, this is a time rife with conflict, expectations, and a lot of wishing things were different, and more importantly, wishing that our family members were different.
What if this desire to change them is the way of madness? What if there is something fundamentally wrong with our philosophy about how we see others that aggravates already difficult situations?
Perhaps the Taoists have something that can help us.
“If the gentleman measures man by the absolute standard of righteousness, then it is difficult to be a true man. But if he measures by the standard of man, then the better people will have some standard to go by… the superior man does not try to criticize people for what he himself fails in, and he does not put people to shame for what they fail in…
“The superior man goes through his life without any one preconceived course of action or any taboo. He merely decides for the moment what is the right thing to do… The goody-goodies are the thieves of virtue.” Lin Yutang's translation of Li Chi, in “The Wisdom of China & India”
Taoism guides us to live with “what is” without fighting with reality. On a deep level, we have been cultured to believe in conflict and warfare. We believe that this is the way of the world. We’ve seen it in Disney movies as children and then things just got more violent as we moved into Hollywood.
And perhaps we consider ourselves peaceful people. But are we peaceful in our minds? Are we gentle with ourselves? Are we gentle with others - especially those who drive us crazy? Although we may not physically harm them, are we violent with what we say about them to our friends? Do we have a program inside that says that we must judge them? Do we judge them as being faulty and then discuss and talk about it, and if we know them well enough, even give them some unsolicited advice to make them better people?
The other challenge is that we also have this program within ourselves - beating ourselves up for whatever “fault” we may see within us. In fact, our inner critic may be even worse than the one we use against others. Either way, this is a form of warfare within us. It is our “good and acceptable” side picking on and shaming our “bad and unacceptable” side, creating a lifetime of self-improvement programs that never allow us to just relax, enjoy life, and be ourselves.
Strange Standards of Righteousness
If the gentleman measures man by the absolute standard of righteousness,
then it is difficult to be a true man.
Where does this standard of righteousness come from? Perhaps it came from the church. We were told that we should always aim to be perfect and “without sin”. This teaches us to be constantly judging ourselves - questioning our thoughts and actions and deciding whether they are good or bad.
In theory, some amount of self-reflection is important in our life’s journey, but this is seldom how it turns out. Instead, we have a perpetual judge and jury within us telling us that we aren’t good enough, which then leads to how we see others. How can we not see others with the same lens of judgment that we have for ourselves? If we feel good about being critical of ourselves, then the obvious twin to this is being critical of others.
But if he measures by the standard of man,
then the better people will have some standard to go by
Instead, imagine that we lose the perfection/righteousness standard and allow us all to be “flawed”, human, different, working out karmic patterns, living with unhealed trauma, etc. We would no longer judge them for how wrong they are. We would simply understand that they are different and going through difficult soul times themselves.
Human “Failings” are Natural
I found our quote in Alan Watt’s book “The Watercourse Way”. His comment on this passage is as follows:
“In other words, a true human is not a model of righteousness, a prig or a prude, but recognizes that some failings are as necessary to genuine human nature as salt to stew. Merely righteous people are impossible to live with because they have no humour, do not allow the true human nature to be, and are dangerously unconscious of their own shadows.”
“Some failings are as necessary to genuine human nature as salt to stew.”
I LOVE THAT!
What would our life (and holidays) be like if this was our fundamental belief about human nature? What if we were fully conscious that everyone is here on Earth with a unique and curious assignment? What if the fact that “that person” is mean and “this person” doesn’t listen and “that person” is clueless is… well… normal? What if some people are good at communicating and others don’t care? What if this kind of difference was considered normal?
One of my favourite books about Taoism is “The Tao of Pooh”. In this simple, yet brilliant book, he compares many of the personalities that we come into contact with every day with the characters of Winnie the Pooh. There is Eeyore, that person who sees the negative in everything. There’s Rabbit who is always super busy, throwing it in your face, and can’t understand how lazy everyone else is. There’s Piglet who is afraid of everything and always needs a friend to do new things with. There’s Owl who is a pontificating Know-It-All. There’s Tigger who never takes anything seriously and just loves to Bounce!
How many of these people will be at our family gatherings this year?
Taoist wisdom says that Rabbits will always be Rabbits, Eeyores will always be Eeyores, etc. Why would we try to change them?
What if THIS was our fundamental worldview? What if we had no desire to change them?
Of course, this doesn’t mean that someone is allowed to treat you badly. We can still have boundaries and we can always listen to our intuition as to which gatherings we feel called to go to.
But what if we went into our families knowing that everyone is simply going through something - our parents, siblings, and even that crazy drunk uncle? From there, it would be logical that there would be conflict between the characters. Nothing to worry about. Everything is actually very natural and reasonable.
What would Christmas be like then? As a quiet and understanding Taoist?
To learn more about Katrina’s books, teachings, courses, and upcoming events, please visit her website: katrinabos.ca or subscribe to her weekly newsletter here: https://katrinabos.ca/subscribe