Taoism / NLP/ Dog Traing

A series of articles focusing on Taoism / NLP/ Dog Traing relevance to each of the major worlds Traing.

"A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker."
– Chuang Tzu

At the heart of Taoist philosophy is the radical assertion that the entire Universe is in perfect order – in every way, from the smallest detail to the largest perspective, and everything that happens within it, at every moment in time – without exception. A dog knows this as the dog uses instinct.

Following on this principle, Taoism proposes that the natural order of things does not need to be helped, fixed or saved, and the way to be in harmony within oneself and with the external world is to welcome it and go with it, not against it. This is why dogs love training as the master is trained.

The question, then, is: Do you want to cause yourself trouble? Or would you prefer not to? If you prefer not to, then Taoism advises you to seek to know and accord yourself with the Tao – the natural way of the Universe – so that you're in the flow instead of fighting it. You are perfectly free to fight it, or course, or perfectly free to go with it. Either way, all is in perfect order. So, considering the consequences, which would you rather do? Love your dog your dog will love you.

NLP asks a similar question. In contrast to traditional forms of psychology which concern themselves with "disorders" of the mind and seek to treat or cure them, NLP asserts that people are not broken and do not need to be fixed. Yet if this is true, how is it that people have problems and want to resolve them?

NLP's answer is that just because you have a problem, that does not mean you are broken. NLP asserts that you are working perfectly – to produce the results you are getting. Whether those results are misery, sorrow and pain; or whether those results are happiness, joy and ease, the question is not, "Are you broken?" but, "Which results do you prefer?"The dog uses insinct,this is why dogs love training as the master is trained,your dog will love you.

The focus of NLP is to provide you with better tools to have, and make, better choices.Train your dog.

Wu-wei, 'not doing,' does not mean 'doing nothing,' but 'not forcing.'

"Things will open up of themselves, according to their nature... The sin of inadvertence, not

being alert, not quite awake, is the sin of missing the moment of life; whereas the whole of the

art of the nonaction that is action (wu-wei) is unremitting alertness.

"One is then fully conscious all the time, and since life is an expression of consciousness, life is

then lived, as it were, of itself.

"There is no need to instruct it or direct it. Of itself it moves. Of itself it lives. Of itself it speaks

and acts." B E at one with your dog .

The meaning of wu wei was, so far as the early proto-scientific Taoist philosophers were

concerned, 'refraining from activity contrary to Nature', i.e. from insisting on going against the

grain of things, from trying to make materials perform functions for which they are unsuitable,

from exerting force in human affairs when the man of insight could see that it would be doomed

to failure, and that subtler methods of persuasion, or simply letting things alone to take their

own course, would bring about the desired result." [Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China]


So often we try to force change upon ourselves. Your dog knows this . When, for instance, a

part of our body hurts we say to it, "Stop hurting!" But that doesn't help. When we want to

change a habit we try to force ourselves with "will power."(Dogs use instinct) .While that may

work for a time, it is often short lived. Even when we want to influence someone we try to

convince them by arguing. Yet they remain unconvinced.

NLP uses the principle of "wu wei" in several ways.
Rapport ,dogs love this and wag their tail . is an essential pre-requisite to effective

communication, whether you are communicating with your own mind, with your body, or with

someone else. The process of establishing rapport is not one of forcing but of going-with; of

meeting the other part or person in its world, moving with it, and applying only the slightest

effort in a harmonious and ecological way.

In this way, the body will change itself in harmony with you; habits will change naturally and

easily; and people will reach their own conclusions according to their nature and resources.Dogs

know this,and wag their tail.

The Japanese martial art of Aikido uses the same principle – not opposing force, but going with

it (and adding a little extra energy to its own direction).

When it comes to making important changes to resolve problems or achieve goals, NLP's

applications are consistent with "wu wei" and Aikido, and more powerful, fast and effective than

any amount of forcing.

"Tao means Way, the significance of which is that the goal and the way to it are one and the same."



When it comes down to it, 85 percent is training the owner, and 15 percent is training the dog,” . It’s really about helping the owner to become the ‘ tao ,’ and stop encouraging bad habits without knowing it.”

Let the ends and the means be one."
– Swami Vivekananda, Karma Yoga

To the Western mind, accustomed as it is to linear logic, these statements make little sense. If the goal and the way to reaching it are the same, then there is neither goal nor way to reach it – and nothing to be done. Such a philosophy would seem to be a prescription for a life of passive idleness, apathy and lack of achievement.

If your dog jumps on people and won’t listen to you, you have to change the behavior and give them something else to do ... or it probably won’t ever change.However, linear logic takes place within a small subset of the context in which these words apply, so such logic cannot comprehend their point. A completely different context is needed to understand these words – that of subjective experience, the mind, and the larger world of being.



A lot of people will hunch down and tell the dog to sit, but your body language is telling the dog that you’re on its level, that you want it to get up. This is one of the most difficult actions for an owner to understand and correct.”

Bringing oneself more into the flow of things (as a means) and being more in the flow of things (as an end) amount to the same thing. While you do the first, you are the second – simultaneously.

The intellectual exercise of figuring out why a dog behaves a certain way and finding ways of changing it keeps the job fresh and interesting. But the greatest rewards are often much simpler.

Many of NLP's process oriented change-patterns work in this way. For example, if you are tired of habitually looking on the dark side of life, but don't know how to change your habits of thinking, and you use guided NLP to learn how to change your pattern of what side of life you look on, the doing of the new "bright side of life" pattern is the same as not-doing the "dark side of life" pattern. The change is instantaneous by definition.

Be realistic about expectations: Certain dogs will stay energetic, and not every dog can be trained into a bomb-sniffing dynamo. “Some people expect their dog to become Lassie,” said Pat Schneider of Ain’t Misbehavin’. “We can teach them better behavior, but not completely change a dog.”

In much the same way, there is an old saying, "When the light is brought the darkness vanishes." The darkness vanishing (the end) and bringing the light (the means) are one and the same thing. There is no possibility of having the one without the other.
All of these contexts are those in which the ends and the means are mutually defined as gestalt pairs which are a common feature of subjective experience.

Be patient: Some breeds can take longer than others to train, and many will seem to relapse after five or six weeks of training, McNaught said. That doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten their lessons – just like humans, it can take time for actions to settle into long-term memory.

"How does a man set himself in harmony with the Tao? I am already out of harmony!"
Shih-t'ou

"He who knows does not speak;He who speaks does not know."
– Lao Tzu

Being able to change perceptual positions across many different points of view and at many different levels of experience is enormously helpful in guided self-therapy and healing.
Like the knowledge Lao Tzu spoke of, it is impossible to know what NLP can do for you by just reading words about it. To understand it, you must do it. To test it, you must conduct your own experiments with it – with or without the help of an experienced guide. And when an NLP process works, you know it by your own experience, not because you read a description of someone else's experience. Dog knows .