# Progressive Summary Lent's book is about the application of the wu wei ethic of the Taoists to resolving some of the complex problems of our time. # Key Points Tao and dharma mean the same thing. It is the fluid, changing reality which we must attune to, a reality that cannot be fixed by our concepts or labels. When Buddhism arrived in China, the Chinese translated dharma simply as Tao, because it reminded them of what they already sensed. ## Why Am I? ### Everything is Connected Christianity helped to create the individualist mindset through the concept of eternal souls. Heaven and Hell drove a wedge between people, even people who cared for each other, because they were fates that were attached to individuals. Christianity paved the way for Descartes' cogito, "I think, therefore I am." In our secular world, this division of souls has been translated into economic disparity. Contrast this with Buddhism's insight that the separate self is an illusion. Indra's net is a Buddhist metaphor for the connectedness of everything. In the heavenly abode of Indra, there is an infinite net, and in each eye of this net, there is a jewel. Each jewel reflects all the other jewels, and the reflections themselves reflect all the others. > We've frequently seen how the way in which things are connected tells us more than the things themselves - in fact, for crucial phenomena such as life, evolution, mind, consciousness or flourishing, just like Indra's Net, the more we inspect them, the more we find their very existence is the emergent product of their interconnections. # Resonances Very similar message to Phil Shepherd's [[Reference Notes/New Self, New World]] and [[Reference Notes/Radical Wholeness]]. Except that he locates the division within the brain, and points towards the left brain as the problem. Shepherd locates the division between the brain and the perineum, and identifies the whole brain as the problem. # Oppositions # Questions / Comments # Quotes ![[Readwise/Books/The Web of Meaning]]