The Path - Professor Michael Puett & Christine Gross-Loh

Just like last book review, I also bought this book in Hong Kong and read it once we settled in Phuket. It’s an easy read, a great way to get a basic understanding of different Eastern philosophical thoughts. At that time, I was taking a class on Eastern Philosophies at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), so it was a perfect supplement. "…we think today’s predominant ideas are the only ones that encourage people to determine their own lives." -Page 7 "…every encounter and experience offers a chance to actively create a new and better world." -Page 11 "…we create the Way anew every moment of our lives." -Page 14 Confucius approached his teachings differently. Instead of starting with big philosophical questions, he asked a fundamental and deceptively profound question: How are you living your life on a daily basis? -Page 25 Only through training do we learn to respond well. At the beginning of our lives, we react emotionally; by the end, we respond with propriety. -Page 27 We change the way we speak depending on who we’re with because we’ve learned it’s the appropriate thing to do. Confucius, however, goes further. He begins by asking why we engage in these actions. -Page 29 Chinese negative energy ritual act (interesting). -Page 31 "…goodness… the ability to respond well to others; the development of a sensibility that enables you to behave in ways that are good for those around you and to draw out their better sides." -Page 46 The Confucian perspective emphasizes the complexities: understanding, in a specific situation, what kind of attention someone needs right now (how to help someone going through a rough patch). -Page 51 "Only in the everyday can we begin to create truly great worlds." -Page 53 You won’t fix a troubled relationship with your sister by having one big heart-to-heart talk. Instead, it will happen through the tiny decisions you make every time you interact, even when she’s pushing all your buttons… small details. -Page 64 Mencius believed that the only way to cultivate full awareness of the complexity of situations is by developing our ability to understand how our actions can lead to positive outcomes. And he believed we are all born with the potential to do so: a potential for goodness. -Page 66 If we pay attention, wherever we perform an act of kindness, no matter how small—speaking warmly to someone, holding a door open, helping neighbors shovel snow—we might feel a physical sensation, like warmth or a tiny glow. That’s Mencius’s "sprout of goodness" growing within us, nurtured by our acts of generosity and connection to others. -Page 69 As you become aware of all the triggers and old patterns that shape your emotions throughout the day, you can work on refining your responses. -Page 72 "…the most expansive response comes when you begin to recognize your coworker as an individual with a complex set of sensibilities, habits, patterns, emotions, and behaviors… small things you can do to draw out different sides of your coworker, as well as yourself." -Pages 73, 74 Training our heart-mind means honing our judgment: seeing the bigger picture, understanding what really lies behind a person’s behavior, and remembering that emotions like anxiety, fear, and joy will bring out different sides of people we often see as rigid. -Page 76 By making concrete, defined plans, you are actually being abstract… creating a future based on who you think you are now, even though you, the world, and your circumstances will change. -Page 77 By being responsive to how your interests change over time, you won’t be locked in—you’ll be more able to alter your life and schedule to allow growth… "I don’t know yet what I can become." -Page 81 "It’s a very different vision from asking grand questions like 'Who am I?' and 'How should I plan my life?' Instead, we work constantly to alter things at a small, daily level. If we’re successful, we can build tremendous communities where people can flourish. And even then, we keep working. Our work—better ourselves and others to create a better world—never ends." -Page 84 "The Way is something we can actively generate ourselves, in the here and now. We each have the potential to become effective and influential in transforming the worlds we live in. We can re-create the Way." -Page 90 "We are most effective when we refrain from seeing this text, ourselves, and the world as separate and distinct." -Page 96 Remember, for Laozi, everything emerges from the Way. By helping to generate certain outcomes around you, you aren’t just following the Way. By resetting the attitude in the room and recalibrating the relationships in your life, you literally become the Way. -Page 100 Think about who is most effective in the workplace: the office bully who tries to dominate everyone, or the one who is attuned to people’s emotions, who uses humor and laughter to connect, and who is always aware of the atmosphere. -Page 102 Great analogy of Napoleon. -Page 105 Those who practice non-action seem not to act, but in reality, they are directing everything. -Page 106 Of course, you have an agenda, a set of goals. You know how you want things to go. But instead of stating your position strongly, you elicit responses from the group. You ask a few questions, bring up a few points, and by the tone you use, the words you choose, and the way you look at people, you create a mood that guides everyone down the path you want. As people talk, your calm, interested, expansive responses bring out other thoughts. They start to understand each other better, bouncing ideas off one another, and plans form that you can shape through nonverbal communication: smiles, frowns, nods. -Page 108 Make no mistake: you are in charge. But because of the way you sit, make eye contact, and express excitement about their ideas, your colleagues aren’t aware of how much you are directing the agenda. Slowly, a consensus forms as everyone connects over a certain set of plans. -Page 108 Reagan was the first president to salute the military whenever getting off the presidential helicopter. -Page 115 Incredible chapter: Not always the one making the most noise is the one running the show. -Page 117 These emotional extremes are exactly what inward training says devitalize us, exhaust us, and drain our spirit. -Page 129 According to Wuxing, each of us has five potential virtues that need to be cultivated: goodness, propriety, knowledge, ritual, and sagacity. -Page 134 To set aside worry, there’s nothing better than music. -Page 137 With a stable mind at your core, with eyes and ears acute and clear, and with limbs firm and fixed, you can make a lodging place for the vital essence. -Page 137 Fish swim. They too are gifted with natural endowments: gills and tails. They use these to move according to the currents, spontaneously following the Way. They don’t stop to think, "Now I should turn this way because the current is moving this way, and now I should move that way, to maneuver past that rock." They just swim. -Page 144 Spontaneity isn’t about doing whatever we want whenever we want. True spontaneity requires us to alter how we think and act in the world, opening ourselves up to endless flux and transformation all the time. -Pages 145-46 Zhuangzi’s parable of the butcher (Johnson’s painting)... He achieved spontaneity through the humble activity of cutting meat over and over until he could just flow with the process. -Page 146 "True imagination and creativity don’t come from big disruptive moments; they’re part of how we live our everyday lives. All moments can be creative and spontaneous when we experience the entire world as open and expansive. We get there by constantly cultivating our ability to imagine beyond our own experience." -Page 152 Flâneur: a person who strolls the city streets, observing and taking in everything with great openness. -Page 153 Our habits limit what we can see, access, sense, and know. -Page 154 As Zhuangzi shows us, it’s the principle of seeing things differently or shifting our perspective that allows us to experience life with newness and intensity. -Page 155 The problem comes when we assume our perspectives are universal. -Page 157 "Imagine what it would be like if little things and big things alike stopped disturbing us, instead becoming part of the excitement of life." -Page 158 For Xunzi, being artificial is a good thing—if we’re aware of it and can do it well. -Page 168 When we’re exhausted or hungry, if a coworker asks for ten minutes to discuss a problem with the boss, we don’t give in to our natural instinct to throw our coffee mug at her and say absolutely not. We act "as-if." We tell her, of course, we have time, it’s our pleasure—and as we help her, we find ourselves enjoying the interaction, forgetting that we’re tired and hungry. When we leave work fifteen minutes later than planned, we’re in better spirits than if we’d given in to who we “naturally” are. -Page 169 If there were no human nature, there would be nothing for artifice to enhance. But without artifice, human nature wouldn’t be able to beautify itself. -Page 171 In the 13th and 14th centuries, Chinese government exams were based on goodness, and social mobility was measured by meritocracy. -Pages 187-89 Generations of Western thinkers perpetuated the view of China as stuck in an earlier stage of evolutionary progress… yet there’s no doubt that much of what Europe inherited—and by default, our 21st-century world too—comes from China. The concept of meritocratic exams, laws that apply to everyone equally, and bureaucracies run by an educated elite all have roots there. -Page 191 In China, the goal had been to divorce wealth from political power so the state could function as a meritocracy run by an educated elite. -Page 191 In this fractured and fragmented world, it’s up to us to generate order. We are the ones who construct and give patterns to the world—not by eliminating messy human emotions, but by starting right there. We do this through daily self-cultivation: working through our rituals to improve how we relate to others, cultivating energies in our hearts and minds to handle daily decisions in a powerful way, and resisting the tendency to cut ourselves off from experience, so we remain open to new things. -Page 197 If the world is fragmented, it gives us every opportunity to construct things anew. It begins with the smallest things in our daily lives, from which we change everything. If we start there, then everything is up to us. -Page 198 Personal note: A fragmented world is full of opportunities to make changes based on compassion and love, positively affecting the lives of many people. It all begins with making the necessary changes in yourself…