Tao Te Ching Daily

Rice Fields

If you know me and my blog, I am usually a “just stick to the basics” kinda gal, but with this month I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge, which challenges me to write a post every day.

I usually stick to doing essays on the Tao Te Ching and am currently working on series on Stillness which is fun, but for today I am going to share with you some of the blogs that I have found that really resonate with my Taoist philosophies. Most of them aren’t proclaimed Taoists, they just write with a slant towards these principles and I like their work…some are not Taoist at all. They are lifestyle design bloggers but I added them to this list because I believe that the Tao is really about designing your life in the best way possible…in a way that considers others and asks you to live simply and truthfully.

Taoist & Lifestyle Design Blogs I Love

Taoish (www.realchange.org/taoish) - (Mark Saltveit) His tagline is “spiritual not pretentious”. Love that. For me, Mark’s blog is like the news for Taoist ideas. He does a great job. I also like that he uses humor. Don’t get me started on a rant about how much humor is lacking in today’s spiritual philosophies! Buddha laughs all the time, people. Ease up. This week, Mark posted a cartoon about feeding your inner duck. Inner duck? OK, a bit odd, but if you read the cartoon you will see how Taoist it is.

FinerMinds (www.finerminds.com) - A blog for people who are smart. That is how I think of it. Every time I pop out there, they have something interesting that makes me think. They are the perfect blend of intelligence & spirituality, which I love. Their latest article (as of this writing) is titled, “Is Your Sex Life in Need of Some Wabi Sabi?” Who needs the news or tabloids when you’ve got that? The subject areas for this newspaper site format is Consciousness, Happiness, Wellness, Relationships, Meditation, Manifesting, Mind, Personal Growth and Spirituality. With over 65,000 fans on FB, they are surely doing something right to get their name out there too (and helping many others to see that this type of thinking is SMART!)

Elephant Journal (www.elephantjournal.com) - Not just your yoga momma’s blog… This site consistently has great articles on all things spiritual (not just Taoist, but I’m not picky.)  Think: Huffington Post for spiritualists and yoga geeks.

The Art of Non-Conformity (Chris Guillebeau) - Chris Guillebeau is a lifestyle design blogger.  He is who I think of when I think of the phrase, “living big”. He is a leader of leaders and has inspired thousands, if not millions, to live bigger through serving others. His World Domination Tour is a hot ticket item and sells out every year to some of the top bloggers on the planet. His current goal is to travel to every country in the United Nations before age 35 (?) and I believe that he is just on the verge of completing that huge goal. (I think he has only one or two left.)

Zen Habits (Leo Babauta)  – This is just a great blog. The simple advice that he offers for daily living has a Buddhist slant and is highly focused on minimalism. Even his blog design is extremely minimalist. He is also part of the LifeRemix group blog (below), so you may see him there if you check them out as well. The key words for this blog are simplicity, mindful eating, time management and lifestyle design.

LifeRemix (www.LifeRemix.net)  - There are lots of great bloggers who contribute to the unique blogging community of LifeRemix. When I glance through the list of blogs that are part of this community, I know many of them already. Some of my favorites on this list are Jonathan Fields and Zen Habits.

Tynan (tynan.com) – Tynan is in a class of his own. He is a life experimenter and traveler who lives life fully and writes about it. He is on this list because every single post that I read is fantastic – thoughtful and insightful. His posts focus on living simply, eating well and travel adventures.

Timothy Ferriss (www.thefourhourworkweek.com/blog) – Another very unique guy. With his controversial first book, The Four Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss got millions of people around the world dreaming of life outside the office. I was moderately impressed by his first book, which was quickly overshadowed by other great books on similar topics that seemed to resonate with me better so for a while, I didn’t like him much. Then a few weeks ago, I watched a video interview (which I can’t find!) and I was hooked. He has written two other books which are amazing. The second book, The Four Hour Body is all about hacks for weight loss and getting the best performance out of your body. There was so much NEW information in there. Tim’s MO is that he finds the top professionals in any field in order to find out what he needs to know about a certain topic. So, in this case, he interviewed top nutritionists and researchers in the field of medicine and the study of people who live a long time and digested it down for us. In the Four Hour Chef, he teaches us how to learn by using cooking skills (which everyone needs, right?) as an example. You can buy them both in their various forms on Amazon.