Telos Journal Edition Three October 2013 | Página 5

Tao of Eating
Classic Guidance for Lasting Dietary Wellness
Lao Tzu’s Tao Teh Ching is one of the most ancient and perhaps the most confident
sources of literature available to us. Whereas Confucius’s wisdom tutors the connection
of man to man and advises them to labor exhaustively for the welfare and nobility of
each other, Lao Tzu’s wisdom goes beyond comparative behavior and seeks to
synchronize man to eternal nature in an intimate journey. Excessive social distractions
and the mundane automations of everyday life are thus left behind. At first strange to
Western understanding, the Tao often works mysteriously with the unbothered truth that
lies between contradictions. Tzu is known to say things like: “Difficult and easy
complement each other,” and Johnny Cash doubtless thought of the Tao when he
wrote: “Where the rain never falls, the sun never shines.”
We ought to use Tzu’s insight to gain deeper realizations of ourselves and our world.
When Tzu says: “Big things can only be achieved by attending to their small
beginnings,” we can doubly apply the wisdom. We can understand logically that in
order to achieve goals B and C we must first achieve the prerequisite goal A. Secondly,
we can relate the maxim to our present situation and streamline focus, which will afford
us the power to intrepidly pilot our creative actions.
The Tao of Eating and Tao of Exercise graft these logical and existential lessons onto
today’s multi-national diet and fitness problems. Applying Taoist knowledge to diet and
exercise can provide us with lifelong considerations that can eventually be forged into
permanent abilities. Our present and future health depend on these abilities, and
incessant reliance on external sources for dietetic and fitness knowledge and services
only delays that knowledge from becoming our own. With Taoist training, we will learn
to effectively select healthy food, maximize our work-outs, and appreciate our physical
uniqueness without diagnoses and prescriptions.

Proposition One: Listen to your body, before and after you eat.
There—you sitting in front of your plate, nothing can separate you from it, your thoughts
are correspondingly affected, and once you ingest your meal, it becomes mutually
organized and fused with the workings of your organs. Simply become conscious of this
intimacy.
Physiologically, the food that you take-in immediately begins the process of cell
reparation via the absorption of ‘transit models’ while balancing your body’s mass.
Psychologically and spiritually, knowing what ingredients compose your food, how your
moods and range of activities are affected, and how much you genuinely appreciate