Humility - Lessons from the Past

One of the financial blogs I visit regularly is Juggling Dynamite by Danielle Park. Danielle is the advisor I spoke about in my post The Ethical Financial Advisor. I encourage you to visit her blog also if you want to keep abreast of what is happening and where we are at in today’s turbulent financial arena. I say arena in the sense of gladiatorial arena where you can lose a financial arm and a leg if you’re not careful. I was struck by her recent post ‘Bouncing away’ which you can read in full here. In it Danielle talks about the recent rally since the March 9 low. But what I would like to share with you here is Danielle’s observations on her recent visit to Malta.

This will be a baby steps recovery. It will take time and real work. But it will be a healthy wake up call. The tiny Island of Malta is one of many examples of this phenomenon. Malta was one of the most bombed countries of the Second World War. It was pummelled to rubble. A German blockade brought the people to the verge of starvation just days before the British navy came to their rescue.
When I was visiting Malta recently, I asked the local people about how the world credit crunch and downturn is affecting them and their economy. They noted that tourism was somewhat slower. But they said Maltese people had generally not been caught up in over-consumption and credit abuse the past few years, so they were not suffering the consequences of deleveraging now. When I asked why, they explained that the older generation in Malta had lived through the utter decimation of their Island in the war. They had lived through the life-altering experience of losing one’s wealth, property and loved ones. They had worked for the past 60 years rebuilding their country brick by brick. They had taught their children the importance of not wasting and not taking more than they need. They own houses, but not mansions and no one has a three-car garage. They have no fresh water on the island. They developed the expensive process of desalination and now properly value clean water as the source of their life. They tend to walk and ride bikes, they drive smaller cars. Adversity brought a humility and wisdom to the Maltese people that has served them now for 2 generations.

With adversity comes humility and ‘with humility comes wisdom’. The adversity the Maltese people went through, though painful, had the seeds of something good in it. Likewise, the adversity America and the world is going through today is perhaps a necessary purging, a necessary winter to kill off the swamp plants that were growing to excess. And hopefully it too will have the seeds of something good in it, as Danielle says:

Some of the solutions to coming problems have yet to be designed. But there is now great effort focused on getting the world back to growth and in the end, we will succeed. That said, those looking for a resumption of reckless consumer spending and bubble-like prices will no doubt be frustrated and disappointed, at least for some time. Dark as many now feel, there is strength in this experience and we will bounce.

Back to Beginnings

The first promising days of Spring are here. Our hardened, light-starved souls perk up naturally with the arrival of the sun and the departure of the cold biting wind. So, we made it through another winter, we made it through to another beautiful Spring. Let us be thankful and remember to enjoy it.
There exists a very special book which I have had it in the back of my mind to tell you about for some time. And thinking about Spring brought it to mind because the seasons are a central theme of its wisdom. The book is called ‘Back to Beginnings – Reflections on the Tao’ by Huanchu Daoren, translated by Thomas Cleary. You probably never heard of him, and I only know him by the sheer luck of falling on his book in a second-hand bookstore. But I am here to tell you that there is more concentrated wisdom in this little book than in any other I know.

As soon as the plants and trees have withered, they show sprouts at the roots. Even though the order of the seasons brings freezing cold, eventually it brings back sunny energy. In the midst of purging and killing, the sense of continually renewing life is always in control. Thereby one can see the heart of heaven and earth.

The book was written around 1600 by a retired Chinese scholar and civil servant named Hong Yingming who took the Taoist name of Huanchu Daoren, which means ‘A Wayfarer Back to Beginnings’. The book is in the form of a collection of meditations on the seasons of life, on serenity, on discerning truth in a complex society and on practical ways to live in harmony with the Tao.

Wealth, status, honour, and praise that come from enlightened qualities are like flowers in the mountains, growing and blossoming naturally. Those that come from achievements in one’s career are like flowers in pots, being moved about, removed, replanted. Those that are gained by temporal power are like flowers in vases, without roots, soon to wilt.

The teachings are a synthesis of several Chinese schools of thought. In his introduction to the book, Thomas Cleary says:

In it can be seen a form of lay Taoism dating many centuries further back into history, in which the historical and sociological insights of pristine Confucianism were combined with the advanced educational and psychological knowledges and methodologies of Buddhism and Taoism.

Here is a passage supporting that assertion, and we should not be surprised to see the importance attached to sincerity, should we?

There is a true Buddha in family life; there is a real Tao in everyday activities. If people can be sincere and harmonious, promoting communication with a cheerful demeanour and friendly words, that is much better than formal meditation practice.

Perhaps the hand of the translator has something to do with it, but there is a direct, simple, easy to grasp message in each of the meditations. There is nothing obtuse or requiring extensive footnotes here. The language is plain and pertinent as if the author were living today.

The learned should be vigorous and diligent, but they should also be free-spirited. If they are too rigorous and austere, they have the death-dealing quality of autumn but lack the life-giving quality of spring. How can they develop people then?

There was a period when I carried this book around with me. Just reading one or two of the quotes in a spare minute several times a day is a sure way to keep your day in perspective. It is like taking a step back to observe events through the eyes of the ‘observer within’. Through the eyes of this great wisdom, you can see things for what they really are.

In adversity, everything that surrounds you is a kind of medicine that helps you refine your conduct, yet you are unaware of it. In pleasant situations, you are faced with weapons that will tear you apart, yet you do not realize it.

Reading these quotes again is like meeting an old friend. A wise and knowledgeable friend whose ‘adoption is tried’ and who I should ‘grapple to my soul with hoops of steel’. Now I have introduced him to you and I encourage you to do the same.

Be deferential in dealing with the world; deference is the starting line of progress. Be generous in your treatment of others; helping others is really the basis on which you help yourself.

Open a cool eye in the midst of intense activity, and you save yourself that much bitter thought. Keep an enthusiastic attitude in hard times, and you gain that much true enjoyment.

Those who turn things around by themselves do not rejoice at gain or grieve over loss; the whole world is the range they roam. Those who are themselves used by things hate it when events go against them and love it when they go their way; the slightest thing can create binding entanglements.

Whatever meets the eye is the realm of immortals for the contented, the realm of mortals for the discontented. All the bases of activity in society have life-giving potential if used well and death-dealing potential if not used well.

Ship's log April 2009

Spring is here at last. We thought winter was never going to end. Unpleasant situations seem to drag on forever, pleasant ones seem to be over in the blink of an eye. This is what Einstein meant by relativity.
I am in mind to write some posts about Spring and the significance of the seasons. Here are a few quotes that translate quite accurately my feelings at this moment:

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. Shake-speare (De Vere)

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world. Virgil A. Kraft

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase. E.B. White

For more quotes like this, go Famous inspirational quotes