#HowTo: Apply Tenets of Tao Te Ching to Dating
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Jordan Harbinger
One of the things I’ve always liked about Eastern wisdom in general and the Tao Te Ching in particular is its practicality. Before, I associated spirituality with some guy in a long robe spewing stuff about crystal power and channeling dead ancestors and whatnot. But here was this book — the Tao Te Ching– which gave you these paradoxical-sounding concepts that made your life BETTER when you applied them. Crazy, huh?
See, I’m a practical kind of guy, which means that I start out as a skeptic, test an idea, and see if it gives me results. If it does, then hallelujah. Game on. That’s how I got into hypnotherapy, and that’s how I got into Eastern wisdom. I call this ‘open-minded skepticism’, and I encourage you to try it on for yourself.
There’s this month-long mentor-ship program that I started which utilizes a lot of seemingly esoteric concepts derived from Buddhist, Hindu, Tantric and Taoist traditions. My job is to bring them down to earth and make them eminently usable. To give you results here, now, on Planet Earth. Not only actual babes in your life, but also a sense of inner peace and real power, which interestingly enough, makes it a lot easier to have more babes (or that one special babe) in your life.
So let’s talk about this notion of no-self, or ‘anatta’ as it’s called in the Buddhist tradition. For the scholars out there, ‘anatta’ is the Pali word; ‘anatman’ is the Sanskrit term. You’ve probably heard from a variety of sources that ego bad, no ego good. And by the way, there is no ego.
What the heck does that mean? And how do you make it work?
Let’s start with the old metaphor of the river. If you’re looking at one, close your eyes and open them again. It may look like it’s the same river, but it’s not. Every water molecule in it has moved, the banks have shifted by some miniscule amount, and it’s not exactly the same river as before. It’s like it’s brand-new every moment.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said it thus: “You never bathe in the same river twice.”
And so it is with you. Just now, you took a breath, and trillions of molecules of air exchanged in your lungs. Millions of neurons fired as you just read that last sentence, and you’re effectively different from what you were five seconds ago.
So this is not just metaphor — it’s real. Granted, some structures remain stable, which allow people to recognize you from one day to another. But fundamentally, there is no fixed ’self’ to anything.
Everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — is in a constant state of flux. Now what happens with us people is that we tend to get attached to some notion of a fixed self. “I am a certain nationality. I am a certain ethnicity. My name is Dan. I’m a fan of so and so team. I’m not a partying kind of guy. I like this. I’m offended by that. I’m this kind of person. I’m not that kind of person.”
Oh really.
What if I told you that you could give yourself permission to suspend that notion of a fixed self — just for a little while? And that this suspension would allow you to get better results in life and have a lot more fun? Since these articles are about dating, let’s examine this concept of ‘no-self’ in the context of — what the hell — dating.
Gentlemen. I introduce to you the concept of the Dating Pipeline. Briefly, the seven steps are:
1) Find. Are you going to the places where there are women who are interesting to you? What is the size of the total pool of women in your living area that you could potentially date?
2) Meet. Of those who catch your fancy, how many are you actually saying ‘Hi’ to?
3) Get contact information. Okay, now you made the first contact. Did you get a phone number or email?
4) Follow-up. Did you actually call or write her in a timely manner?
5) Second encounter. Did that follow-up turn into a date?
6) Progression to intimacy. Did you make out — or more?
7) Third encounter and beyond. Were there repeat dates after the first?
Remember, the power is within you.
To learn more about how to meet & attract women, check out the Toolbox over at the Pick Up Podcast!