The sixteenth verse of Tao Te Ching is one I began reading everyday to start it the right way, with an open heart and mind, free of any negative controls. “Become totally empty, Quiet the restlessness of the mind, Only then you will witness everything unfolding from emptiness.” The first thing I thought to do was take into the woods, the quietest place one can go in Newark.

This point in the semester is the make or break point for many people, including myself. The stress I have been feeling within myself has shown through my grades, my relationships with people, and my own health. Quieting the mind, even in the woods, has been a fairly difficult task for me the past couple weeks.

However, reading Tao Te Ching made me reminisce back to last year when I unknowingly strove to act in accordance with the lines in the book. I had never read it before, but the way it explains one should live is how I always felt I should live. It just felt right, I felt at peace. Now, reading Tao Te Ching, I can fully understand and put words to the emotions I was feeling all those years. For a while I did feel very at peace, but as the lines say, “emerging, flourishing, dissolving back again This is the eternal process of return,” I knew my peace would not last forever, as life moves in ups and downs.

I am taking this moment in my life as a down, though college is supposed to be the best four years of one’s life, my struggle with internal issues gives me grief sometimes. Be quiet. Be still. Sitting by the river I decided to be as still as possible. Mediation time. I had to quiet the mind, to let the bad thoughts come, be addressed, and go so that I could live in peace once again. I realized all things that matter dwelled in the very place I was sitting. External problems don’t matter, what matters is life and that you are living. The woods are living, but still and quiet. That is living. Being one with everything that may happen to you whether you are emerging, flourishing, or dissolving. The tree I’m leaning on is doing all at the same time. It’s emerging taller and taller every year, flourishing in the dirt, sunshine, and water in which it dwells, and dissolving into death as it will come in however many years.

Acceptance is the key to living. If I accept everything that is thrown at me as a positive experience, something that needs to happen in order to live, I will be at peace once again. I often would look adversity in the eyes and say “good,” but I don’t know what has happened to me. My confidence has taken a tumble, but reading Tao Te Ching is empowering. It brings feelings you always knew were there, but could never put words to. The great truth of nature is Tao!