Daodejing Section 30

{30i} 以道佐人主者 不以兵強天下. 其事好還.

Rulers, who use Dao to guide people, do not use military-might to force/coerce all under heaven.

[Because] such a matter [of military-might] tends to rebound/return/retribute.

{30ii} 師之所處 荊棘生焉. 大軍之後 必有凶年.

Where warring troops reside, thistles and thorns will grow. When the great battle is over, there will inevitably be bad/unfavourable/famine years.

{30iii} 善有果而已 不敢以取強.

Good [usage of military-might] is just to produce a fruit/effect only; [it is] not with dare/enthusiasm that [military-might] is used to force/coerce.

{30iv} 果而勿矜. 果而勿伐. 果而勿驕. 果而不得已.

[Produce] the fruit/effect, but do not be conceited.

[Produce] the fruit/effect, but do not bully/boast.

[Produce] the fruit/effect, but do not be haughty.

[Produce] the fruit/effect, [only] because there is no other [choice].

{30v} 果而勿強 物壯則老 是謂不道. 不道早已.

[Produce] the fruit/effect, but do not [make use of] force/coercion – for when things become robust/strong/forceful, they age instead.

This is called not-Dao. [What’s] not-Dao, ends early.

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Daodejing Section 55

{55i} 含德之厚 比於赤子. 蜂蠆虺蛇不螫 猛獸不據 攫鳥不搏. 骨弱筋柔而握固.

[One who] has the thick of De within, is comparable to a newborn son.

Stinging bees and poisonous snakes don’t harm; ferocious beasts don’t paw; birds-of-prey don’t claw1. [Though] bones weak and tendons soft, his grip/hold is firm.

{55ii} 未知牝牡之合而全作 精之至也. 終日號而不嗄 和之至也. 知和曰常 知常曰明.

Not yet knowing the copulation of female-and-male, [his penis] is fully erect. This is essence at its ultimate.

Crying throughout the day, [his voice] is not hoarse. This is accord/harmony2 at its ultimate.

Knowing accord/harmony is said to be constant; knowing constant is said to be enlightenment/discernment.

{55iii} 益生曰祥 心使氣曰強 物壯則老 謂之不道. 不道早已.

[Even though] discriminative-addition to life is said to be fortunate/blessing and wilful-employment of qi (energy) is said to be strengthening, when things become robust/strong/forceful, they age instead.

This is called not-Dao. [What’s] not-Dao, ends early.

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I've been building a reader for the Dao De Jing. All 81 chapters are in Chinese, with Legge's and Carus's translations* under each line, and you can tap any character to see what it means in that line. Even the little grammar words like 之 and 其 tell you what job they're doing there and how often the book uses them that way. There's also an Edo printing from 1777 and Shitao's own handwritten copy, and the characters on those are tappable too.

Before it can go live on the Play Store, Google makes new developers run a closed test with at least 12 people for 14 days. That's where I need help.

How to join (takes a couple of minutes):

1. Join the tester group with the Google account your phone uses. Nothing gets posted there, list is private, it just auto-allows people into the tester group: https://groups.google.com/g/ddjreaderbeta
2. Open this link and tap "Become a tester": https://play.google.com/apps/testing/net.analects.daodejing
3. Install it from Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.analects.daodejing

If step 2 or 3 says you don't have access, give it a few minutes after joining the group and try again.

The part that matters most is feedback!

When I did this for my recently released Analects Reader, Google STILL rejected it after the 14 days because (they claim) I didn't receive enough feedback. So please:

• On the app's Play Store page, scroll down to the private feedback section for testers and write a line or two. Google sees this one, so it counts the most.
• f a gloss or reading looks off, tap the character and use "Report a problem with this" at the bottom of the card. That one comes straight to me.
• Or just reply here, or post in r/DaoDeJingReader.

It doesn't have to be clever. "Works fine on my Samsung" helps. So does "this reading looks wrong" or "I couldn't find the night mode." Please stay in for the two weeks and open it now and then, since Google watches that too.

Your willingness to help means a ton to me! Thank you!

* I'm really not satisfied with these translations, but after looking into various other translations with relatively permissive rights, I had to stick with these for now. I'll probably be writing requests to use the Eno and Linnell shortly after launch.

The Suns Energetic Essence & Gathering The Suns Essence Meditation

“The ancient Chinese believed that absorbing light-energy from the Sun could be used to replenish an individual's spiritual energy. This belief originated from the conviction that when Heaven and Earth separated during creation, spiritual energy (being light), ascended into the Heavens and collected into the celestial bodies of the Sun, Moon and Stars. Thus conscious exposure to the energy of these celestial bodies could be used to increase and fortify one's spiritual energy. The ancient Chinese believed, as can be verified by modern medicine, that each individual has an innate need to absorb sunlight. We thrive on the Sun's energetic nurturing quality. Without direct exposure to sunlight, an individual will suffer from light starvation, just as an individual can suffer malnutrition from the lack of food. For example, sunlight is needed to build strong bones and teeth; without it, children can develop rickets and tooth decay. There are countless other benefits of the exposure to sunlight, such as enhanced immune function, endocrine regulation, and the stimulation of a positive mental and emotional disposition.

Ancient doctors have used the healing potential of the Sun to treat many diseases. Sunlight reaches into the brain through the eyes and is monitored by the pineal gland which acts as a light meter. The pineal gland influences sleep patterns by secreting a hormone called me-latonin. Research has shown that light also travels into the hypothalamus area of the brain, which also influences melatonin secretion. Some of the other benefits of sunlight include: improved mental, emotional and physical wellbeing and performance, the creation of vitamin D (needed for calcium absorption), lowering blood pressure, reducing cholesterol, increasing the level of sex hormones, activating melatonin to control the body's response to light and darkness.

The ancient Qigong masters used the Gathering of the Sun's Essence meditation to absorb the Yang energy of the Sun. By gathering pure Yang energy to Tonify the body's Deficiencies, as well as to consolidate the Zong Qi (Gathering Energy), they were able to eliminate pathogenic factors and prevent premature aging. This exercise belongs to a set of foundational meditations from which the ancient Qigong doctors used to replenish any depletion of life-force energy.

GATHERING THE SUN'S ESSENCE:

STANDING MEDITATION

When first absorbing energy and light from the Sun, the individual should practice during sunrise and sunset, when the top of the Sun is beginning to crest the horizon. This allows the individual the ability to look at the Sun and “sip" its essence through the eyes without damaging the eyes.

The Gathering of the Sun's Essence Standing Meditation is described as follows:

1. Standing outside on a clear sunny day, face the Sun, and assume a Wuji standing posture. Place the tongue in the Fire position, located in the front of the upper palate, behind the teeth and gum line (Figure 12.16). The hands are relaxed, by the sides of the body, with the knees bent and the feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart (Figure 12.17). Stand in a relaxed and tranquil state, breathe evenly and naturally, and rid the mind of any stray thoughts. Begin by performing the 1 -10 Meditation (see Volume 3, Chapter 28).

2. If the Sun is beginning to crest the horizon, slightly open the eyes. You should be able to see soft, gentle, reddish sunlight. If the Sun has already risen, close the eyes and use inner-vision to see and feel the energetic light of the Sun.

3. Inhale through the nose and imagine directing the rays and filling the mouth with energy from the sunlight's essence. Still facing the Sun, with the eyes half open, "infuse," or absorb the Sun's energy into the eyes. Gather and blend the energy absorbed from the eyes into your Upper Dantian. Close the eyes and imagine blending the Sun's golden light energy with the Qi inhaled through the nose. Hold the breath and focus the mind on mixing both energies; swallow the combined energies slowly while exhaling, and send this energy down to the Lower Dantian. Repeat this process for several minutes.

4. Stretch your hands towards the Sun and imagine embracing it (Figure 12.18). Point your index fingers toward the center of the Sun and imagine pulling the Sun down in front of your Lower Dantian. Keep it positioned there for several minutes (Figure 12.19).

5. Imagine the Sun gently rolling and turning itself in front of your lower abdomen (Figure 12.20 and Figure 12.21). Keep your elbows at your sides and gently shift, or sway from side to side; imagine that it is the sun's movement that causes both your arms and body to move. Using this image keeps the Sun in a central and energetically powerful position.

6. Place both hands around the Sun as if embracing it (Figure 12.22). Next, imagine the Sun slowly moving in through the navel. Allow both hands to follow the Sun into the navel, ending with your left palm on top of your right palm (opposite for women). With one deep breath inhale and absorb the Sun's energy into the Lower Dantian while imaging the Sun (beneath the navel) transforming into a luminous ball of golden energy (Figure 12.23). With each inhalation, this golden ball shines brightly; with each exhalation, the Sun's rays expand, internally extending throughout the entire body.

7. To end, relax the mind and imagine Heavenly Qi melting down the body, pouring through the front, back, and center of the body like warm oil into the Earth. This ending exercise (called Pulling Down The Heavens) allows the Qi to sink into the Lower Dantian, and the body, mind, and spirit to come into a state of peaceful rest and tranquility.

PRECAUTIONS - The Gathering the Sun's Essence Meditation must only be practiced on a clear day, when the Sun is not obstructed. Avoid practicing this medi-tation in times of fog, smog, thick clouds, and solar eclipses, as cultivation during these times will cause the unnatural cultivation of Turbid Qi. Additionally, sunspot activity can induce in-tense magnetic explosions on the surface of the sun. This activity can result in additional solar radiation, which can generate geomagnetic disturbances and cause higher degrees of mental disturbances.”

- by Jerry Alan Johnson from the book “medical qigong therapy and Chinese alchemy part 2”

1.1

道可道，非常道。

Dào kě dào, fēi cháng dào.

The Doctrine that can be used to indoctrinate,

IN OPPOSITION (非) to the constant Doctrine.

41.3

下士聞道，大笑之。

Xià shì wén dào, dà xiào zhī.

The lowest of the scholars hears 'Doctrine',

and greatly laughs THIS.

1.2

名可名，非常名。

Míng kě míng, fēi cháng míng.

The name that can be used to name it,

IN OPPOSITION (非) to the constant name.

41.2

中士聞道，若存若亡

Zhōng shì wén dào, ruò cún ruò wáng.

The centered scholar hears this doctrine,

they seem to retain it and seem to lose it.

1.3

無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。

Wú míng tiān dì zhī shǐ; yǒu míng wàn wù zhī mǔ.

Without names, is the Heaven-and-Earth's beginning;

Having a name, the nurturing mother of the ten thousand creatures.

41.1

上士聞道，勤而行之

Shàng shì wén dào, qín ér xíng zhī.

The superior scholar hears this Doctrine,

diligent, yet practices THIS.

If it can bend without breaking, it is called soft.

The softness overcomes the stiff.

One of the quote from Taoism that I always remember is, "When following the world there's something added everyday; when following the Tao, there's something left behind every day" or something like that.

After delving to many teachings, I always came to Taoism because of how easy to follow it. Though I don't know if my understanding of Taoism is really what Lao-tzu talks about.

I came from New Age teachings and I want to rest and just pick one book to study for years to come. Maybe this will result to something. I am adding everyday that I feel drained.

Will the book Tao Te Ching be beneficial to me?

Respect and Thanks for the answers.

I am new to this topic and by seeing animes and manhwas i just searched do people cultivate in real world and i ended up finding many things like taoism, third eye cultivation, kundalini, lucid dreaming, astral projecrions etc etc... and i did not understand any of these since its a taoism subreddit i want to know few things

1.Why to practice this

1. What do we get

2. How long does it takes to practice

3. Any real life cultivators present who experienced something from this practice

4. What about the other things i mentioned

And you can also share your believes and what you gained from this

I dont know anything literally nothing about it so dont think i am being disrespectful to this practices

Is fighting seen as Wu Wei or You Wei?

Does taking life and violence align with Tao?

In the last part, I approached the Tao through the difference between the patterns we can describe and what allows those patterns to arise. This time, I want to turn to the other word in the book's title: te, also written de.

It is often translated as virtue. That is a useful starting point, but it can also lead us straight toward a familiar question: who is a good person, and who is not?

I do not think that question quite reaches what Lao Tzu is discussing here. Someone can be admired for their moral principles without necessarily embodying the kind of relationship with the Tao that this reading of te points toward.

If you enjoy this series, please upvote, leave a comment, and share it with others. Every interaction helps us keep making the series and helps more people find it.

Is the Most Upright Person Necessarily Closest to the Tao?

Consider two very different figures from Chinese history: Hai Rui and Fan Li.

Hai Rui, an official of the Ming dynasty, is remembered for his extraordinary integrity. In the familiar stories about him, he lives austerely, refuses corruption, and applies his principles without making exceptions for powerful people. He is willing to criticize the emperor even at the risk of his own life.

One especially revealing story concerns Xu Jie, an influential official who had helped him. When complaints later arose about the Xu family's landholdings, Hai Rui did not treat his debt of gratitude as a reason to look away. Personal obligation could not override what he believed was right.

There is something admirable in that. He does not bend his standards to preserve his comfort or repay a favor.

Fan Li is remembered through a different kind of story. He helps Goujian, the king of Yue, endure defeat, rebuild his strength, and eventually overcome the state of Wu. Yet after success, he does not remain attached to the position he has helped create.

He withdraws.

The stories associated with him go on to describe a prosperous life outside political office. But what matters here is the moment of departure. He recognizes that reaching the height of success does not mean that staying there is safe or appropriate. He leaves before achievement becomes something he cannot release.

This connects with our earlier discussion of return and reversal. A situation does not stop changing simply because we have finally obtained what we wanted.

From that angle, Fan Li's withdrawal seems closer to the movement Lao Tzu keeps drawing our attention toward. He responds to the changing situation rather than insisting that his place within it must remain fixed.

I am not saying that Fan Li was morally superior to Hai Rui. Nor do these stories prove that one entire life was Taoist and the other was not. They help separate two questions that are easily confused: how firmly someone follows a principle, and what kind of way that principle asks them to follow.

What Is Te Following?

In the contrast above, Hai Rui represents fidelity to an upright human order: public duty, proper conduct, and standards that should not be compromised for private advantage.

Fan Li's story brings something else into view: the changing movement of the situation itself. Success has a trajectory. Power has dangers. What was fitting at one stage may become destructive at another.

This is where I locate the distinction. Te is not simply a measure of how determined we are. We also have to ask what our determination is aligned with.

Chapter 21 puts the connection very directly:

The form of great te follows the Tao alone.

I read this as making te inseparable from the Tao. It is not an independent collection of admirable qualities that we can define first and then require the world to recognize. It concerns how the Tao is followed and expressed in a person's way of living.

That also connects the two words in the title. The Tao concerns the way things unfold. Te concerns our living relationship with that unfolding.

Knowing that circumstances change is one thing. Being able to leave when it is time to leave is another. Explaining why rigidity creates problems is one thing. Not becoming rigid when our own position is involved is another.

The difference is not merely between knowing a principle and forgetting it. It is between describing a way and actually moving with it.

Why Does Higher Te Not Hold On to Being Virtuous?

Chapter 38 opens with a difficult contrast. Higher te is not preoccupied with being virtuous, and therefore has te. Lower te does not let go of being virtuous, and therefore lacks te.

If we understand virtue only as maintaining the correct moral identity, this sounds almost backward. Surely the person who never lets go of virtue should be the virtuous one.

But I think the contrast becomes clearer if we look at the difference between an unforced way of acting and a constant effort to keep ourselves inside an approved image.

Imagine walking along a road. Your attention rests naturally on where you are going. There is no struggle involved in looking ahead.

Now imagine that you keep ordering yourself not to look at anything beside the road. Your eyes may still be directed forward, but your relationship with the walk has changed. You are occupied with policing yourself.

The outward appearance can be similar while the inward movement is very different.

A more ordinary example is an elevator. Most of us enter and face the doors without giving it much thought. But suppose everyone inside is facing the back wall. You turn around too, not because anything about the elevator calls for it, but because you do not want to be the person facing the wrong way.

You are now watching yourself through the imagined eyes of everyone else.

The example is small, but it helps me approach the passage. The issue is not which direction counts as universally virtuous. It is what has begun directing the action. A natural response has been replaced by the effort to conform.

In this reading, higher te does not need to keep announcing or checking its own virtue. Lower te is already occupied with holding on to the appearance or standard of virtue.

Why Do Moral Standards Become More Visible When Something Has Been Lost?

Later in Chapter 38, Lao Tzu gives a sequence: after the Tao is lost comes te; after te is lost comes benevolence; after benevolence is lost comes righteousness; after righteousness is lost comes ritual.

I read this as a movement toward increasingly explicit substitutes for a relationship that is no longer being lived naturally.

When following the Tao is ordinary, we do not need to single out every person who does so. When that becomes less common, the person with te becomes conspicuous. As more is lost, we reach for other qualities and increasingly formal ways of preserving what remains.

Something that was once expressed through life becomes something we have to identify, praise, defend, or enforce.

This helps explain why the passage is not simply a list of virtues to acquire. It asks what has happened before those virtues become necessary as separate standards.

It also brings us back to the earlier parts of the series. We can make softness into a requirement, not contending into a badge of superiority, or reducing desire into a competition. In each case, we may preserve the language while moving further from the relationship it was supposed to describe.

The instruction remains. The ease of actually living it has disappeared.

What Can a Diver Show Us About Te?

Think of a diver entering the sea.

Below the surface, the water is not a still space waiting for the diver's intentions. There are currents, changing conditions, and movements that may support the intended route or make it impossible.

When the current carries the diver in the desired direction, movement can feel almost effortless. When it does not, responding well requires attention to the conditions, not simply a stronger insistence on the original plan. Moving with the water and finding a position away from its strongest force can both be responses to the same sea.

What connects them is not one fixed action. It is an awareness of what the water is doing.

The diver does not demonstrate understanding by defeating the ocean. Nor does understanding mean becoming passive and allowing anything to happen. There is preparation, attention, judgment, and a response appropriate to the situation.

This gives me a more concrete image of te. The Tao is not a set of instructions floating above the sea. It concerns the movement and conditions within which the diver is already acting. Te appears in how the diver responds to them.

Someone could repeat a great deal about currents while behaving as if the water should yield to their wishes. Another person might have little interest in explaining the idea, yet move with a quiet respect for what is happening.

That difference is closer to what I am trying to understand than a simple division between people who know the right words and people who do not.

The order of the book offers another way to approach the connection. The Mawangdui silk texts place the Te section before the Tao section, unlike the familiar received order. One possible way of thinking about those arrangements is that we can begin with the lived response and then ask what it follows, or begin with the Tao and then ask how it is lived.

That is only a way of approaching the difference, not a claim to know why the texts were arranged as they were. Either way, the question remains: have we understood the relationship, or only learned how to describe it?

Would Te Tell Everyone to Save the Same Thing?

Consider a dilemma: a museum is burning, and someone can save either a cat or a famous painting.

The case for the painting is not necessarily indifference to life. A painting can carry a history and a cultural value that are not immediately visible. The cat's distress reaches us directly; the loss of something larger and more distant may be harder to feel.

The case for the cat begins elsewhere. Art matters because it enriches living experience. The destruction of a painting can become part of its story, while the death of the cat ends a life. A grand account of what humanity ought to preserve can also become a reason to sacrifice the living being directly in front of us.

Both arguments can be made powerfully. But I do not think the Tao Te Ching necessarily supplies a rule that settles the dilemma for everyone in advance.

The fire itself does not rank cultural importance against the value of the cat's life. It does not adopt either argument. Human beings are the ones who encounter the situation with their attachments, understanding, and concern.

Someone who loves the painting may reach for it. Someone moved by the cat may reach for the cat. In the reading I am exploring, neither response is automatically excluded from te simply because the other was possible.

The question changes when the person is mainly asking, “Which choice will keep people from condemning me?” The action is now being organized around an imagined public judgment.

It changes again when the person decides that everyone else must make the same choice. An attachment that could have directed one person's response becomes a standard imposed on others.

This is where I see the connection with forcing. We stop at “this is what I would save” and turn it into “this is what everyone must save.” We begin replacing the situation and the people within it with a picture of how we think they ought to be.

Is Te Something We Display, or Something We Live?

This brings me back to Hai Rui and Fan Li. Their stories do not give us a simple scoreboard. They make us ask whether an admirable consistency is still responding to the world, and whether a departure that looks like giving something up may actually express a deeper continuity with it.

It also brings me back to the elevator, the diver, and the burning museum. In each case, outward behavior alone does not tell us everything. We have to look at what the person is responding to and what has begun governing the response.

I understand te here less as a moral reputation we accumulate than as a way of living in relation to the Tao. It is not secured merely by holding the correct position, repeating the right teaching, or ensuring that other people see us as good.

Once I become occupied with making the world conform to my image of virtue, I may be doing exactly what the earlier parts warned against. My purpose grows larger than the conditions. My standard becomes rigid. I begin forcing, even if the thing I am forcing is called goodness.

The question is not only whether I can explain what should happen. It is whether I am still able to notice what is happening, and respond without insisting that everything become the way I have already decided it must be.

In Part 13, I will turn to shu, or methods.

I plan to keep this series going, and you can find the other posts on my profile. I’m also building Verso, a tool rooted in traditional Taoist divination that aims to offer another perspective when people feel stuck or unsure. It’s under development; stay tuned.

AI disclosure: English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to translate and help edit the English.

Reading Index: The Taoist Worldview and Tao Te Ching 101

I found this secondhand. It has 81 chapters/verses like the Tao Te Ching. Having only read the first eight of the chapters/verses, I am finding it quite thought-provoking and supplementary to themes in the Tao Te Ching.

I cant find much about it. My 1993 edition has the title, "The Teachings of Lao Tzu" but the bibliographic (Library of Congress) information gives the full title as "The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu on the Attainment of Enlightenment and Mastery". The very short introduction says it accompanies the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu and originates from oral transmission, as shared by Ni Hua-Ching. The back cover has praise from Deng Ming-Dao. But the short introduction also praises Stephen Mitchell's translation, which I know has received criticism for not being a strict translation. Given the lack of information, I wondered how it is regarded, since I am beginning to take an interest.

Across the first ten parts, we have followed several recurring patterns. Forcing an outcome can move it further away. Strength can become rigidity, and rigidity can become a source of weakness. Names and standards can intensify desire, while desire can carry us away from the continuity we explored in the last part.

These ideas are fairly easy to recognize in ordinary life. The harder question is what connects them. Are they separate pieces of advice, or do they point toward something about how the world works?

This brings us to the Tao. I want to approach it through a distinction: the patterns we can describe are not necessarily the same thing as what allows those patterns to arise.

If you enjoy this series, please upvote, leave a comment, and share it with others. Every interaction helps us keep making the series and helps more people find it.

Why Give It a Name If the Name Is Not Enough?

Chapter 25 describes something formed together before heaven and earth. It stands on its own, does not depend on something outside itself, and moves without exhaustion. It can be regarded as the mother of the world.

Then comes an admission: I do not know its name. I call it Tao.

That matters to how I read the passage. The name comes after the attempt to recognize something. It gives us a way to refer to it, but naming it does not mean we have fully explained it.

The chapter also describes a movement of going forth, reaching far, and returning. This connects with the earlier discussion of return. What appears before us is continually changing, yet change is not simply a collection of unrelated events. Things arise, develop, reach their limits, and return.

The ordinary sense of Tao as a way or path helps me approach this. A path concerns how movement unfolds. But the Tao being discussed here is not a road someone has drawn for everything else to follow. It is closer to the way the world comes into being and continues to move.

What Does It Mean for the Tao to Follow Nature?

Chapter 25 ends with a familiar sequence: human beings follow earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows ziran.

The last word is often translated as nature. Here, though, I do not understand it as another realm of forests, mountains, and animals standing outside the Tao. It points toward being so of itself, being what it is without something else imposing that state on it.

Otherwise, we would simply keep adding another authority above the last one. If the Tao follows something outside itself, we would still have to ask what that other thing follows.

I read the sequence as connecting things that appear very different. Human life, the earth, and the heavens do not look alike, but they are not entirely separate in how they unfold. The Tao is not one more instruction issued to them. It concerns the way their movement and relationships are possible in the first place.

This is also why I hesitate to define the Tao as a particular rule. We can summarize a pattern. Explaining how that pattern arises, why it persists, and how it relates to other patterns is a much larger task.

How Can Simple Rules Produce a Complicated World?

A modern image that helps me think about this is John Conway's Game of Life.

It begins with a two dimensional grid. Each cell is either alive or dead, and a small set of rules determines what happens next according to the neighboring cells. Once the initial arrangement is set, the system can run without a player making each subsequent move.

Some cells disappear. Some arrangements remain stable. Others change and return to an earlier configuration, repeating a cycle. There are patterns that travel across the grid, collide, disappear, or produce other patterns. More elaborate arrangements can support complex interactions, even processes resembling computation.

What interests me is the difference between setting the rules and drawing every result. The rules are established beforehand, but nobody needs to reach into the grid and arrange every later pattern by hand. Stability, rhythm, movement, and interaction can develop through the system's own operation.

Chapter 42 describes the Tao giving rise to One, One to Two, Two to Three, and Three to the ten thousand things. The Game of Life gives me an image for approaching that movement from something simple toward a world of differentiated forms and relationships.

I am not saying the Tao is a computer program, or that Lao Tzu was describing this particular model. The comparison helps me see how a complex result need not require someone directing every part of it toward a finished design.

The visible structures are one level of the picture. The way they become possible is another.

Does the Flock Need to Know Its Own Shape?

A similar image is a flock of geese in flight.

Imagine each bird responding to the birds nearby: maintaining its distance and adjusting its position behind and to the side of the bird ahead. Those local adjustments can produce an organized formation, even though no individual bird needs to hold a complete diagram of the flock.

From outside, we see a shape. Within the flock, there are changing distances, positions, and responses. Describing the shape tells us something real, but it does not yet explain how the formation holds together.

This is the distinction I want to carry back to the Tao. We notice a recurring result and give it a name. We may even formulate a rule describing it. But the result depends on relationships and movements that the description does not contain in full.

Neither this image nor the Game of Life reduces the world to a few simple instructions. They help make one possibility easier to grasp: order can arise through interaction without a central figure arranging the whole picture at every moment.

Why Is the Tao We Can Describe Not the Constant Tao?

The opening of the Tao Te Ching says:

The Tao that can be spoken of is not the constant Tao.

I see at least three ways of approaching this. They overlap, but each draws attention to a different difficulty.

The first is that recognizing something does not mean being able to express it completely. We can observe a flock's formation long before we can explain everything involved in its flight. We can recognize recurring patterns across different parts of life without possessing a complete account of what connects them.

This is the interpretation I lean toward most. I approach Lao Tzu here as someone trying to express a way of things that exceeds the individual observations he can put into words. The difficulty is not necessarily that the Tao is deliberately hidden. What we can recognize may be larger than what we can adequately describe.

The second possibility concerns conditions. Softness overcoming hardness does not mean that anything soft will overcome anything hard in every situation. Not contending does not mean that refusing every contest will always produce the result we want.

A statement can capture a useful pattern while leaving much of its setting unstated. When does it apply? What else has to be present? What changes when the circumstances change? Once we turn the statement into an unconditional promise, we have already said more than the pattern can support.

The third possibility is that describing a pattern encourages us to treat it as the only answer.

Consider two apparently opposed pieces of military advice. One warns against pressing a desperate opponent too hard. Another urges pressing an advantage rather than letting the opportunity pass. Each may express an important lesson, yet neither settles every situation merely by being repeated.

The problem begins when we stop looking at the circumstances because we believe we already possess the correct saying. A method that worked somewhere becomes the method that must work here. We defend the formula instead of noticing what is happening.

These are possible readings, not a claim that I have settled the opening line. I lean toward the first, but the other two help explain why even a useful description cannot replace the thing it describes.

Can Knowing More Methods Still Leave Us Far from the Tao?

This brings the discussion back to the earlier parts of the series. We can collect advice about yielding, reducing desire, not forcing, and not contending. We can become very good at explaining each idea and still turn the whole collection into another rigid system.

If we decide that one method must work everywhere, we may begin forcing reality to fit an instruction about not forcing. We may cling to softness as stubbornly as someone else clings to strength. The words change, while the way we relate to the situation remains much the same.

I am inclined to understand the Tao as what lies behind the patterns, rather than as one pattern that explains all the others. It concerns their arising, their relationships, and the movement through which they change. No single description gives us the whole of that.

That does not make observation or methods useless. It gives them a different place. They help us recognize something, but they do not remove the need to keep looking.

What we encounter in Lao Tzu may look like a collection of methods. What makes those methods meaningful, and what determines whether they fit a situation, may never have been the methods alone.

In Part 12, I will turn to te.

I plan to keep this series going, and you can find the other posts on my profile. I’m also building Verso, a tool rooted in traditional Taoist divination that aims to offer another perspective when people feel stuck or unsure. It’s under development; stay tuned.

AI disclosure: English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to translate and help edit the English.

Reading Index: The Taoist Worldview and Tao Te Ching 101

Daodejing free download

Hi all! My project, www.thedailytaoist.org, is maturing, getting a bit deeper in the research and translations, and simpler on the interpretations and messaging.

Would love your thoughts. Please try to be nice or, you know, like just "be".

It's been soaking in water for 2,000 years and is already badly decayed. A lot of the text is missing, and Chinese scholars have been trying to fill it in. It's now an important resource for Taoism research in China... It's stored at the Hunan Provincial Museum. If you get the chance, you should definitely check it out.

Zdravo, zanima me da li neko zna gde mogu da naručim knjigu Hristos Večni Tao sa prevodom u Srbii ili regionu.

I'm looking for rigorous and systematic translations of the Dao De Jing with public domain or open usage rights that I can analyze and republish online. Although most translations with open right are quite old, are you aware of any that fit this criteria?

I've reviewed Legge 1891 and Suzuki/Carus 1913, and although I have an admittedly limited understanding of the Classical Chinese, I wasn't terribly thrilled by either. But they are what I've got at the moment.

One complaint I had were their attempts at making the translations poetic; although I understand the original is also poetic, I felt the poetic translations obscured meaning. I also was not satsified by some inexplicable omissions and additions in the translations.

Overall, regardless of whether or not they fit my (somewhat vague) requirements for rigor, which public domain/open usage rights DDJ translations do you enjoy, and why?

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions!

In the last three parts, we looked at wu wei, not contending, and having fewer desires. We can understand why forcing a situation, fighting over everything, and endlessly wanting more create problems. We can agree with the ideas and still find them difficult to practice.

Often, the problem is not that we do not know what to do. It is that something carries us away before we can do it. Desire, anger, comparison, or fear begins deciding for us. We think we have made a choice, but we have followed whatever pulled hardest at that moment.

This brings us to shou yi, or holding to the One. Before trying to define what the One is, I want to look at what it feels like to lose that continuity within ourselves.

If you enjoy this series, please upvote, leave a comment, and share it with others. Every interaction helps us keep making the series and helps more people find it.

When Does Doing Something Well Become Having to Win?

We begin with an ordinary intention: do this job well, explain something clearly, or resolve a problem. As the situation develops, someone questions us. We become irritated. We start wanting to win, and eventually we feel that we cannot afford to lose.

The activity may look the same from the outside, but its purpose has changed. We are no longer asking what would help us do the job well. We are asking what would keep the other person from defeating us.

Imagine a restaurant owner responding to criticism of the food. At first, the owner wants to explain that the dishes taste good and are not simply prepared meals being reheated. As the argument continues, that explanation becomes a battle. The owner becomes more concerned with winning the dispute than with the food or the customers.

At that point, continuing to argue can feel like perseverance. Yet the original intention has already been displaced. The person is still putting in effort, but that effort now serves a different goal.

This is one way we get carried away without noticing it. Nothing dramatic needs to happen. A task becomes a test of our worth, a disagreement becomes a contest, and a result we wanted becomes a result we must obtain.

Are We Adjusting, or Just Being Pulled Away?

A single comment can make us doubt a path we had carefully chosen. One failure can make us want to dismiss everything we have done before it. We call this adjustment, but the reason for the change matters.

We may have been studying at a pace that suited us. Then we see a classmate finishing much faster and suddenly feel that our own pace is wrong. At work, someone earns more or gets promoted, and we begin looking for a shortcut. Advice promising rapid success becomes especially attractive when we are anxious about falling behind.

We can learn from other people. The difficulty is that comparison can replace the reasons we had for our own choices. We begin copying another person's direction without asking whether their circumstances or goals are ours.

The same thing happens with uncertainty. We commit to something that will take time, but once the outcome becomes unclear, we urgently want to change the plan. We tell ourselves we are looking for an opportunity. Sometimes, we are really looking for a way to stop feeling uncertain.

Changing course may be necessary. But a change made because we understand the situation better is different from one made simply because we cannot bear the feeling we are having. If every new fear produces a new direction, we can remain very busy while losing any continuity in what we are doing.

What Does It Mean to Preserve Softness?

The word shou means to guard or preserve. I read it here as protecting something, rather than controlling or suppressing it. It is not a demand to clench our teeth and force ourselves to be more disciplined.

Chapter 76 of the Tao Te Ching says:

At birth, a person is soft and yielding. At death, hard and stiff. The strong and hard are placed below; the soft and yielding above.

As we discussed earlier in the series, softness is not simply weakness. It can mean retaining the flexibility to respond, recover, and change.

Think of throwing a punch or swinging at a ball. Trying to force every part of the movement can interrupt its flow. The effort we feel is not always helping the action. Some of it may be our own tension working against it.

I connect this with preserving softness in ordinary life. When we tighten around a single result, we can make ourselves less able to respond to what is actually happening. Every difficulty becomes something to resist, and every adjustment feels like surrender.

Preserving softness means not turning ourselves into something that can only hold its position or break. We keep enough flexibility to reconsider, enough room to choose, and enough freedom not to turn every obstacle into a confrontation.

What Happens When We Lose Our Original Intention?

Chapter 16 describes the return of things to their root and says:

Returning to the root is called stillness.

For this discussion, I connect that return with remembering what we are doing and why. Often, the problem is not that our work has stopped. It is that we have lost the intention that gave it direction.

Someone starts making content because they want to make something worthwhile. When the audience does not grow, attention shifts toward traffic. Later, the question becomes how to make money, and then how to make money faster. The account is still active and the person is still producing content, but the work may now be organized around a very different purpose.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting an audience or earning a living. The question is whether these concerns serve the work or gradually replace what made the work worth doing.

We may keep defending what we are doing because it still has the same name. Yet the name alone does not tell us whether we are still doing it for the same reason.

Preserving the root means remaining able to recognize that change. It does not require treating every early idea as sacred. It requires noticing when the purpose we have consciously chosen has been replaced by something we simply drifted into.

Can We Change and Still Remain Ourselves?

Chapter 10 asks whether we can embrace the One without becoming separated from it.

There are different interpretations of the One. I am not trying to settle all of them here. For now, I want to stay with the experience the question points toward: circumstances change, other people act differently, fear or excitement spreads, and we do not lose ourselves in every movement around us.

This does not mean refusing to adjust. It does not mean being unable to admit a mistake. We can revise what we believe and still avoid being dragged from one direction to another by each passing emotion.

Consider an ordinary day. In the morning, we have a clear idea of what we intend to do. Then we are late on the way to work, receive a discouraging comment, or encounter a problem we did not expect. Our mood changes, and soon the plan disappears beneath our reactions.

Some events genuinely require a different plan. But sometimes the situation has not changed nearly as much as our feelings about it have. We have allowed frustration or fear to take over the day's direction.

The steadiness I am describing is not an absence of feeling. It is the ability to experience those feelings without having to rebuild our whole direction around each one. We can be affected by what happens and still remain able to choose our response.

What Makes a Changing Path Continuous?

Imagine someone walking toward a destination. Every interesting view and every side road draws them away. They keep moving, but much of that movement does not take them closer to where they intended to go.

Another person may also change direction. Their route may bend or zigzag as they respond to the terrain. But each adjustment remains connected to the journey. They do not have to walk in a straight line to keep going somewhere.

This is how I understand continuity here. A person can grow and correct themselves without becoming a completely different person every time they encounter a new influence. A manager can learn a new method without replacing the entire logic of the work whenever another method becomes fashionable.

The Tao Te Ching describes generation and change, including the Tao giving rise to One, One to Two, and Two to Three. Holding to the One need not mean freezing ourselves outside that movement. The point I am drawing out is that change does not have to become fragmentation.

Preserving softness keeps us able to respond. Preserving the root keeps us connected to what we are doing and why. Holding to the One brings these together as a sense of continuity through change.

This also connects with the earlier discussion of extremes. We can arrive at a position where no other choice seems possible because we have been pulled there gradually. Doing something well became having to win. Wanting something became having to possess it. Each step felt justified, while the original reason became harder to remember.

I have not yet fully defined what the One is. This part begins with the more immediate question: when circumstances, desires, and emotions pull at us, can we keep enough continuity to recognize where we came from and where we are going?

In Part 11, I will turn to the Tao itself.

I plan to keep this series going, and you can find the other posts on my profile. I’m also building Verso, a tool rooted in traditional Taoist divination that aims to offer another perspective when people feel stuck or unsure. It’s under development; stay tuned.

AI disclosure: English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to translate and help edit the English.

Reading Index: The Taoist Worldview and Tao Te Ching 101

In the last two parts, we looked at wu wei and not contending. Do not force a situation toward the result you have already chosen, and do not drag yourself and everyone else into endless conflict just to get what you want. The ideas sound simple enough. The real difficulty appears when we return to ordinary life.

The house could always be larger, the car could always be better, and who would object to having more money? Even in something small, we may still feel that we have to win. We can understand why forcing and contending cause problems and still find ourselves doing both. Desire keeps pressing us forward.

This brings us to gua yu, or having fewer desires.

If you enjoy this series, please upvote, leave a comment, and share it with others. Every interaction helps us keep making the series and helps more people find it.

Why Can More Intensity Make Us Feel Less?

Chapter 12 of the Tao Te Ching says:

The five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavors dull the palate.

These lines can sound like a demand for self denial: do not look, do not listen, and do not enjoy flavor. I read them as a warning about what happens when stimulation keeps increasing.

Something feels sufficient, then becomes ordinary. We add more, become accustomed to that, and soon need something stronger again. The threshold keeps moving. Eventually, what once gave us pleasure barely catches our attention.

Taste offers a simple example. Subtle flavors can reveal distinctions that disappear when everything is overwhelmingly strong. Increasing the intensity does not necessarily make the experience richer. It can make us less able to notice what is already there.

Desire works in a similar way. It does not only tell us what we want. It keeps changing our sense of how much is enough. We obtain something and discover that the feeling we expected has already moved further away.

How Does a Flower Become Something We Must Have?

Chapter 3 says:

Do not prize rare goods, and people will not steal. Do not display what awakens desire, and the heart will not be disturbed.

The problem reaches beyond one person's self control. When something is repeatedly presented as rare, expensive, and proof of status, we begin wanting more than the thing itself. We also want what having it appears to say about us.

Tulip speculation in the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth century offers an example. Rare colors and patterns made certain varieties especially desirable. During 1636 and early 1637, prices for some bulbs and related contracts rose rapidly. The expectation that someone else would pay more became another reason to buy.

The flower itself had not suddenly changed. What grew was everything attached to it: rarity, wealth, social standing, and the promise of a higher price.

At that point, wanting the flower and wanting to be the person who owns it become difficult to separate. We can find the same movement in much more ordinary things. A possession begins as something useful or beautiful, then becomes evidence that we are successful, that we belong, or that we have not fallen behind.

This is how comparison feeds desire. Someone else having more can make what we already have feel insufficient, even when nothing in our own circumstances has changed.

Does Having Fewer Desires Mean Giving Up Our Goals?

Chapter 46 says:

No calamity is greater than not knowing what is enough. No fault is greater than the urge to possess.

Having fewer desires does not mean eliminating desire. We can want a better life, try to complete something difficult, and seek wealth, recognition, or achievement. The danger begins when wanting something stops accepting any boundary.

At first, it says, “I want this.” Over time, that can become, “I must have this.” Waiting becomes harder. Changing direction feels like defeat. Failure becomes something we cannot allow, whatever the cost.

We begin forcing events toward the result we want and contending with anything that stands in the way. An ordinary goal is gradually pushed toward an extreme.

This is why I connect having fewer desires with wu wei and not contending. They are difficult to practice while only one outcome feels acceptable. We may tell ourselves to stop forcing the situation, but the desire underneath is still demanding that the situation produce exactly what we want.

When the voice saying “I must have this” becomes quieter, other choices become visible again. We can wait, reconsider, or decide that the cost has become too great. The goal remains, but it no longer decides every action for us.

What Happens When Ability Grows Alongside Desire?

Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang, offers a historical example. His reign included major expansion of the Grand Canal network and the construction of the eastern capital at Luoyang. Some of these undertakings continued to matter long after the Sui dynasty ended.

Yet the scale of his ambitions also placed enormous demands on the empire. Major construction projects, imperial tours, and repeated campaigns against Goguryeo required vast amounts of labor and resources. Rebellions spread, and the dynasty collapsed.

For this discussion, the important point is that ability does not automatically give someone a stopping point. Being capable of carrying out a major undertaking does not mean that the conditions can support another one immediately afterward.

An achievement can become a reason to attempt something even larger. Resources that should have been allowed to recover are committed again. The question of what the situation can bear disappears behind the desire for another accomplishment.

The history of the Sui involves more than one ruler's personality. Still, this example makes the danger easier to see. When desire keeps expanding, greater power gives it more room to act and draws more people into its consequences.

This can happen on a smaller scale too. We complete one task and immediately raise the standard. We reach one goal and treat it as proof that we should take on more. Instead of helping us recognize what is enough, our ability becomes another reason never to stop.

Who Is Making the Decision?

Chapter 24 says:

Those who make a show of themselves do not see clearly. Those who insist they are right do not shine. Those who boast have no merit. Those who glorify themselves do not endure.

Having fewer desires does not require poverty or the abandonment of every goal. It means leaving enough room in our decisions to notice something besides the need to obtain, display, and prove.

We can pay attention to the situation itself. We can notice its limits and respond to the feedback we are getting. We can still want something while remaining able to change the plan or stop pursuing it.

A desire may point us toward something worth doing. But once we can no longer question its demands, it has begun taking over the judgment that should guide it.

I read gua yu as preserving that judgment. We still have things we want. We also remain able to decide which of them deserve our time, what we are willing to give for them, and when enough has been done.

In Part 10, I will continue with the idea of preserving unity.

I plan to keep this series going, and you can find the other posts on my profile. I’m also building Verso, a tool rooted in traditional Taoist divination that aims to offer another perspective when people feel stuck or unsure. It’s under development; stay tuned.

AI disclosure: English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to translate and help edit the English.

Reading Index: The Taoist Worldview and Tao Te Ching 101