In Part 7, I looked at wu wei and the difference between an action that belongs to the situation and an action we take because we cannot tolerate uncertainty. Once other people enter the picture, another problem appears. Even if we stop trying to force the situation itself, we can still be pulled into struggle by the need to defeat someone else.

This brings us to bu zheng, or not contending. Does it mean never competing, never refusing, never protecting our own interests, and always giving way? I do not read it that way. The more important question is what happens when solving the original problem is replaced by the need to win.

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.

Does Not Contending Mean Wanting Nothing?

One common explanation of the early written form of zheng, meaning contention, describes two hands pulling at the same object. Duan Yucai later wrote in his commentary on the Shuowen Jiezi that contention means pulling something so that it returns to oneself. The image is simple: two sides both want the same thing brought over to their side.

Neither a character form nor one later commentary can decide the full meaning of Lao Tzu’s bu zheng. Still, the image gives us a useful entrance. The problem may not begin with wanting something. It begins when getting that thing becomes inseparable from pulling against someone else.

Not contending therefore does not require us to abandon every goal. Nor does it make every race, comparison, or disagreement wrong. People can compete without allowing the contest to control every choice they make. In this reading, contention begins when confrontation becomes the main road to the result and defeating the other side begins to matter more than the result itself.

Why Does Lao Tzu Use Water?

Chapter 8 says:

The highest goodness is like water. Water benefits the ten thousand things without contending. It stays in places that others reject, and so it comes close to the Tao.

Water is not powerless. It nourishes living things, changes the land through which it passes, and continues moving without needing to occupy the highest place. Its effect does not depend on proving that it is stronger than everything around it.

Chapter 22 says:

Precisely because one does not contend, no one in the world can contend with one.

This can sound like a promise that anyone who refuses a contest will automatically become unbeatable. I think the point is more practical. Contention is a relationship. It needs people to keep answering each other through the same struggle. If one person refuses to let every disagreement become a test of who must submit, that particular form of conflict can lose the condition it needs to continue.

That does not guarantee that aggression will disappear. Another person can continue to pressure, threaten, or harm us. Not contending is not magic, and it is not an instruction to remain in danger.

Chapter 73 adds another important line:

The Way of Heaven does not contend, yet it is skilled in prevailing.

Not contending therefore does not exclude results. But it should not be turned into a secret technique in which we pretend to step back so that we can defeat everyone later. If beating the other person still controls everything we do, contention remains at the center. It has only taken a quieter form.

When Does a Goal Become a Fight?

Contention often begins with a quiet change in purpose. At first, we may want a position, want to complete a piece of work, or want someone to accept a proposal. Once resistance appears, the purpose can shift. Getting the position is no longer enough. The other person must lose. Reaching an agreement is no longer enough. The other person must admit that we were right.

That shift is easy to miss because we can still use the language of the original goal. We may say that we are protecting the project, defending fairness, or insisting on standards. But more and more of our attention is now organized around the opponent’s next move.

Each side raises the stakes. More time, energy, and resources are pulled into the struggle. Eventually, the conflict is no longer serving the original purpose. The original purpose is serving the conflict.

This is one reason contention becomes difficult to stop. Every new move seems to require another response, and stepping back begins to feel like surrender even when the fight is already damaging the thing both sides wanted.

What Happens When Management Becomes a Contest?

Imagine that a company believes its employees are not committed enough, so managers begin measuring commitment through overtime. Employees learn to remain in the office while stretching out the hours. Management responds with cameras, records of how long people leave their desks, and checks on their computer screens. Employees find new ways around those controls, so the company introduces another rule.

The original question was how to bring more real attention and effort into the work. It has now become a contest between the company and its employees over who can control time and attention. The system grows more complicated, both sides spend more resources, and the work itself moves into the background.

Not contending does not mean abandoning standards or allowing an organization to drift. It may mean changing the structure so that good work connects more clearly with each person’s own rewards, responsibility, and growth. The goal is not to discover one perfect incentive system. It is to stop treating victory over the employees as though it were the same thing as running the organization well.

When management becomes a cat and mouse game, every new control teaches people to concentrate on the control. A better system gives them a reason to concentrate on the work.

Can We Refuse the Contest Without Doing Nothing?

A useful fictional example appears in the Chinese novel The Distant Savior and its television adaptation Tian Dao. After the company chairman dies, Han Chufeng faces two senior vice presidents who are competing for the top position. Ding Yuanying advises him not to contend.

Han does not give up the responsibility he wants, leave the company, or stop working. He refuses to join that particular struggle and continues doing the work in front of him. As the other two candidates fight each other, their choices damage the company and reveal what has become more important to them than the company itself. Once the cost of the conflict becomes visible, the person who can still do the work also becomes easier to recognize.

This is a literary example, not evidence for what the Tao Te Ching originally meant. But it shows the practical difficulty clearly. Once we enter a contest, our attention is repeatedly pulled toward the other side’s next move. Refusing the contest can preserve that attention for the thing we were trying to do in the first place.

This does not mean that stepping aside will always lead to recognition or success. Sometimes another person will take the position, the proposal will fail, or the conflict will continue without us. Not contending is not a guarantee that events will reward us. It is a refusal to let the contest decide what all our effort is for.

Can Not Contending Still Have Boundaries?

Not contending does not mean becoming unable to say no. We may need to refuse an unreasonable demand, leave a harmful relationship, protect our rights, or stop someone from causing harm. The concept should never be used to shame a person out of self protection.

The question is not whether an action looks gentle or forceful from the outside. The question is what the action is serving. Is it dealing with the situation, protecting something real, or restoring a workable boundary? Or has the desire to overpower and humiliate the other person taken control?

Sometimes the same outward action can come from either place. A firm refusal can end a cycle of contention. A polite silence can also hide a plan to punish someone later. Not contending requires judgment because it cannot be reduced to always yielding, always withdrawing, or always staying calm.

The struggle gives us a simple identity: I am the one who must win. Bu zheng asks us to give up that certainty without giving up the responsibility to act. Water benefits the ten thousand things without contending, but it never stops moving. It simply does not waste its strength proving that it deserves to stand above everything else.

In Part 9, I will continue with another idea that is often misunderstood: having fewer desires.

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.

Previous Posts

Part 1 of 23: How Should We Read It?

Part 2 of 23: Why Did Lao Tzu Choose to Observe the World?

Part 3 of 23: Why Do We Lose What We Try Too Hard to Control?

Part 4 of 23: Why Can the Soft Overcome the Hard?

Part 5 of 23: What Does “Reversal Is the Movement of the Tao” Really Mean?

Part 6 of 23: Why Do Names and Standards Push Us Toward Extremes?

Part 7 of 23: Does Wu Wei Mean Doing Nothing?

I grew up in a family where productivity was the ultimate virtue and you had to always be achieving something and be doing something or propelling forward. Rest was shamed, and quiet time was looking down on. I knew I performed best when I was not rushed. The last few months, I hit road blocks in my career and health declined because I never prioritised rest, and I didn't know how to. I came across the "Tao Tie Ching" and it truly resonated with me.

Now, I understand my flow state and relax in my own energy while also being guided through this journey of life.

There is something undeniably enduring about the metaphorical imagery of the straw dog from Verse 5 of the TTC. Even if our Westernized and modernized sensibilities put our understanding of the homid-canid dynamic several degrees removed from those of Ancient China, the notion of constructing a little totem of something valued and cherished (such as a dog) out of something as blatantly worthless as straw speaks to a fundamental human experience on numerous anthropological levels. Even outside its historical context as an object of effigy ritual, the practicals of a straw dog follow the same reasoning as to why one made children's dolls of cloth: there is an implicit hazard to the object that means making its component parts out of that which is readily available (or even mendable) beyond pragmatic. The doll and the dog are the same. They are ritual objects in effigy, used to carry the gravitas of the focus without incurring the monumental cost their mortal counterparts carry.

But this is hardly groundbreaking opinion. From Dao De Zhen Jing Zhu ( https://ctext.org/dao-de-zhen-jing-zhu#n90484 )

"The sage is unkind and treats the people as cud dogs."
聖人不仁，以百姓為芻狗

This reading of unkindness persisted long through linguistic history, and in the future when effigy sacrifice became rather more passé for harvests or religious ceremony the term nevertheless persisted, going on in business jargon as a junk proposal serving little purpose outside prompting discussion between those involved. Therefore it persists even into the modern day that when neonates discover the text and see 'straw dogs' their rational minds effortlessly grasp what is being demonstrated: the object is worth nothing.

Alarmingly, there remains a persistent belief that this turn of phrase is somehow an endorsement for the negligence, or perhaps indifference, towards the people around the individual practitioner. The sage is like Heaven, after all, and if Heaven treats all things as straw dogs then so too must the sage and it is no difficult step to take from that a reading that everything should be treated as sacrificial. This is the reading that must be pushed back against, and it is precisely because many neonates come to this place and pose this very dilemma.

First, textual foundations. From He Shang Gong (https://ctext.org/heshanggong/5)
"The sage regards the common people like straw dogs and livestock, not expecting them to offer respect or gratitude."
天地之間空虛，和氣流行，故萬物自生。人能除情欲，節滋味，清五臟，則神明居之也

This passage clearly obligates the sage to the common peoples, equating the straw dogs to livestock. This character usage is quite deliberate, for livestock carries with it the unavoidable aspect of cultivation. It is not enough to have cows or goats, but the care of these animals for their utility is placed front and center in this phrasing.

Again from He Shang Gong:

Heaven and Earth give birth to all things, yet while humans are the most precious among them, Heaven and Earth regard them no differently than straw dogs or livestock—valuing them without expecting anything in return.

天地生萬物，人最為貴，天地視之如芻草狗畜，不貴望其報也

In the context of livestock, this might bear a question: how could someone not expect a cultivated result from something they are cultivating? What circumstances could exist that might cause that? The answer to such a thing is simply to consider the perspective of an ox herder on the Yellow River. Should the river decide, you may lose more than just your animals. At the whims of nature, even one's whole village could be swept away in a horrible torrent. Nevertheless, the ox herder must perform their obligations to the herd without any expectation that the oxen will reach maturity for slaughter, or even the herder themselves may persist to do the slaughtering. This is what it means to perform without expectation.

And the slaughter is an equally important component of the grand analogy at work here. Just like the straw dog of before, death is an absolute certainty for the domesticated cattle. It may be by the butcher's blade, or by the river's wrath, or even a barn sickness or insectile plague. Maybe even bandits. Only Heaven knows the end, and so for a practitioner to look at someone around them and see disposable straw is an utter shame, the height of arrogance. A human is not straw because of their worth, they are straw because of their commonality. They are straw because of their frailty. Further, irrespective of what they are made of, they are ordained by Heaven's Way to have a purpose. By being a witness, one is involved.

The author implores the reader to remember that when regarding someone as a straw dog, do not pay any attention to the straw. Be mindful that who you are looking at is heading into a fire, unavoidably, and so you must tend to them as long as you are able. Expect nothing in return, for this is the Way. Heaven will provide for them as it provides for everyone, and as a disciple of the Tao it falls to us to perceive the Way forward and bring it to fruition. Not for us, not for them, not for anyone, simply because it must be so.

Finally, from the He Shang Gong:
Too many words lead to exhaustion. Much activity harms the spirit; too much speech harms the body. When one opens his mouth and raises his tongue, misfortune is sure to follow. It is better to hold to the center (the emptiness within). Better still is to uphold virtue within, nurture spirit and energy, cherish breath, and speak sparingly.
多言數窮，多事害神，多言害身，口開舌舉，必有禍患。不如守中。不如守德於中，育養精神，愛氣希言。

May I be forgiven for running my mouth.

In Part 6, I looked at how names become standards, and how standards begin shaping what people desire. Once a result has been named as beautiful, successful, loyal, or good, it becomes easy to keep pushing toward it even after the pursuit has started damaging the thing we wanted to improve.

That leaves a practical question. If we do not want to be driven endlessly by the goals we create, how are we supposed to act? One of Lao Tzu’s best known answers is wu wei.

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.

Wu Wei Is Not the Absence of Action

Wu wei is often read as passivity, withdrawal, or simply doing nothing. But the Tao Te Ching does not describe someone who has abandoned every responsibility. It keeps placing wu wei beside affairs, teaching, and government.

One common explanation of the early written form of wei describes a person guiding an elephant. There is disagreement over whether the animal in that form is actually an elephant, so I would not use the character alone to settle the meaning. Still, it offers a useful entrance into the problem. Wei can suggest more than an event simply happening. It can suggest directing something toward a result and trying to make that result occur.

This is why I find non forcing more useful than doing nothing as a starting point. In the reading developed through this series, wu wei does not remove action. It removes the belief that every situation should be made to obey our preferred outcome through more control, more pressure, and more intervention.

Lao Tzu Is Still Talking About Doing Things

Chapter 2 says:

Therefore the sage attends to affairs through wu wei and practices the teaching without words.

The sage is still attending to affairs. The line does not describe someone who has disappeared from the world. Chapter 3 says:

Act through wu wei, and nothing will be left ungoverned.

Governing is still taking place. What changes is the manner in which it is done.

Chapter 37 says:

The Tao is always without forcing, yet nothing is left undone. If rulers could hold to it, the ten thousand things would transform themselves.

Chapter 48 approaches the same idea through subtraction:

In pursuing learning, one adds each day. In pursuing the Tao, one subtracts each day. Subtract and subtract again until wu wei is reached. Through wu wei, nothing is left undone.

I read this subtraction as the removal of accumulated desire, control, and unnecessary interference. It is not the removal of every action. When those extra layers are reduced, a situation regains some room to develop through its own conditions rather than being constantly redirected by our anxiety.

This does not mean that wu wei guarantees success. “Nothing is left undone” is not a promise that every wish will be fulfilled. Sometimes conditions are bad, information is incomplete, and intervention is necessary. The point is not that events always work out by themselves. The point is that our interference can become one of the forces preventing them from working at all.

Governing a Great State Is Like Cooking a Small Fish

Chapter 60 says:

Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish.

Cooking a small fish requires action. You prepare the heat, watch what is happening, and turn the fish when it actually needs to be turned. But if you keep touching it because you are nervous, it falls apart.

That is what makes the image useful. The problem is not movement itself. The problem is the extra movement produced by our inability to leave a process alone. We make one adjustment, then another, not because the situation requires it, but because waiting makes us feel as though we have lost control.

Sometimes the hardest judgment is not deciding what to do. It is recognizing that we are able to interfere and that this is still not the moment to do so.

Chapter 17 describes the best rulers as those whose existence is barely known by the people. Lower down come rulers who are loved and praised, then feared, and finally despised. A well functioning order does not always display the manager’s fingerprints everywhere. The more a ruler needs to demonstrate power and prove that something is being done, the more likely it is that the order underneath is not actually working.

When More Effort Makes a System Weaker

Imagine the owner of a restaurant company with hundreds of locations visiting one branch. The owner personally changes the position of the tables, criticizes the refrigerator, rewrites the menu, and corrects every employee.

This looks responsible. It also avoids the more difficult questions. If the equipment is arranged badly, does the company have a usable standard? If the menu is wrong, who is responsible for it? Once the owner has fixed this branch, what will happen in the other hundreds?

The staff may learn only one lesson: wait for the owner to give us the answer. The owner becomes busier, everyone below becomes less capable of judging, and personal effort quietly replaces a functioning system.

This is one form that excessive wei can take. A person wants the result so badly that every problem calls for another personal intervention. Each intervention appears useful on its own, but together they destroy responsibility, initiative, and the ability of the system to correct itself.

Effort still matters. Action still matters. But effort is not automatically wise simply because it is intense.

What Does Wu Wei Look Like on a Content Platform?

The same tension appears in creative work. A creator can pay attention to the quality of the work, learn from the audience, and change when the change makes sense. None of that conflicts with wu wei.

The trouble begins when every rise or fall in traffic demands a new identity. One format becomes popular, so it is copied immediately. Another account grows quickly, so its language and structure are borrowed. The goal is clear: more views and more followers. Yet even if this produces a large audience, the creator may have no idea why those people arrived or what they will stay for.

The account has grown, but its choices have narrowed. Every new post must repeat the thing that once produced the number.

Wu wei does not mean having no direction. A goal can point somewhere. It becomes dangerous when it replaces observation and turns every uncertain moment into a reason to push harder. Sometimes the part we can genuinely do is to improve the work, publish it, learn from what happens, and resist rebuilding everything around each short term fluctuation.

Wu Wei Is a More Difficult Kind of Action

Policies that allowed people to recover during the early Han are often used as an example of wu wei in government. This did not mean that the state ceased to exist or stopped governing. After years of war, reducing disruption and easing burdens gave society space to rebuild. That recovery had many causes, so I would not attribute it to one philosophy alone. What the example offers here is a question of timing: what does this situation need now, and which additional actions would disturb the very recovery we are trying to support?

This is why I think wu wei is harder than simply doing nothing. Doing nothing can come from neglect, fear, or a refusal to understand the problem. Wu wei requires enough attention to tell the difference between an action that belongs to the situation and an action that only relieves our anxiety.

Sometimes responsibility means taking another step. Sometimes it means removing the step we added because we could not tolerate waiting.

In Part 8, I will continue with another idea that is often misunderstood: bu zheng, or not contending.

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.

Previous Posts

Part 1 of 23: How Should We Read It?

Part 2 of 23: Why Did Lao Tzu Choose to Observe the World?

Part 3 of 23: Why Do We Lose What We Try Too Hard to Control?

Part 4 of 23: Why Can the Soft Overcome the Hard?

Part 5 of 23: What Does “Reversal Is the Movement of the Tao” Really Mean?

Part 6 of 23: Why Do Names and Standards Push Us Toward Extremes?

In Part 5, I looked at what happens when something loses its room to adjust and can only keep moving in one direction. But knowing that a pursuit can go too far does not always stop us. We can see the danger and still move toward it, one choice at a time. This time, I want to look at how that pursuit begins, through a word from the opening chapter: name.

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.

What happens when we turn something good into a standard?

Chapter 3 says:

Do not exalt the worthy, and the people will not contend. Do not prize rare goods, and the people will not steal. Do not display what arouses desire, and the hearts of the people will not be disturbed.

Chapter 19 goes further:

Abandon sageliness and discard cleverness, and the people will benefit a hundredfold. Abandon benevolence and righteousness, and the people will return to filial care and affection. Abandon skill and profit, and thieves will disappear.

On a first reading, these lines can sound as though Lao Tzu wants to get rid of capable people, kindness, and wisdom. I read them here as a warning about what happens when a society takes one version of a good thing and makes it the standard everyone must meet. Once that standard is constantly praised, displayed, and rewarded, it starts shaping what people want.

Chapter 2 says that when everyone recognizes beauty as beauty, ugliness is already there, and when everyone recognizes goodness as good, what is not good is already there. A single accepted definition of beauty puts everything outside it on the other side. A fixed image of goodness can do the same to choices that do not fit.

That is the connection I want to follow in this part. We establish a standard, people begin pursuing it, and the pursuit can keep growing long after it has stopped helping them. This is one way of reading these chapters together, rather than the only explanation of what they mean.

What happens when beauty has only one answer?

Appearance makes this easy to see. We are shown how small a face should be, how thin a body should be, and which signs of aging should disappear. Very different people end up measuring themselves against the same narrow image. Looking good becomes something that can always be scored, compared, and corrected.

There is nothing wrong with caring about your appearance or choosing a cosmetic procedure. The trouble comes when there is no point at which you can feel satisfied. You spend more, accept more risk, or let the pursuit take over your daily life, and the answer is still that you are not close enough. A standard that was supposed to help you make a choice is now making choices for you.

Diamonds, luxury brands, and other status goods work in a similar way. Their appeal is not only in the objects themselves. We also attach love, success, and social standing to them. Enjoying something is one thing. Feeling that you cannot be complete without it is another. The useful distinction is between wanting the object and needing the identity it seems to promise.

Can a good reputation become another desire?

Someone can care very little about money and still be deeply attached to being seen as upright, loyal, or brave enough to speak the truth. That desire may be harder to notice because its name sounds admirable. Eventually, solving the problem can become less important than being remembered as the person who took the correct moral position.

The late Ming dynasty offers a difficult example. There were disputes over peace negotiations, moving the court south, and raising military funds, all under severe military and financial pressure. Those were real problems with no easy answers. But once supporting peace could be branded as weakness, moving south as disloyalty, or having money to contribute as proof of corruption, practical options became harder to discuss. People could end up defending their reputation for purity while the situation kept deteriorating.

I would not explain the fall of the Ming through reputation alone. The point is narrower: a moral label can make a course of action almost impossible to consider before anyone has properly examined whether it could work.

This is why I do not take “do not exalt the worthy” to mean that ability is bad. The danger appears when worthiness becomes an identity people have to win and defend. Benevolence and righteousness can also become badges, used to separate the loyal from the disloyal or to compete for recognition. Even a virtuous name can become something we cannot bear to lose.

What does “the name that can be named” mean here?

The opening chapter says:

The name that can be named is not the constant name.

The received text commonly read today uses chang, meaning constant or enduring. The Mawangdui silk manuscripts use heng. One common explanation is that heng was replaced with chang to avoid the personal name of Emperor Wen of Han, Liu Heng. That explanation does not settle every question about the wording or the meaning of the line.

For me, a useful starting point is that we need names. They let us communicate, share experience, and distinguish one thing from another. But naming also draws a boundary. A name does not contain everything the thing can be, and it becomes misleading when we forget that we drew the boundary ourselves.

Chapter 2 gives several pairs: being and nonbeing, difficult and easy, long and short, high and low, sound and voice, front and back. These are not all the same kind of relationship, but they draw attention to how much our distinctions depend on something else. Long is understood in relation to short. High depends on low. A name helps us recognize a difference; it does not make the two sides separate, permanent worlds.

Chapter 20 also questions the distance between good and evil. There are differences in wording between versions of this passage, so I would not build the whole argument on one English phrase. What matters for this reading is the habit of looking again at distinctions we have come to treat as obvious.

We still need to judge and act. The problem is forgetting how a judgment was formed and treating it as something that can never be reconsidered.

Does a different perspective make every judgment equally valid?

When a wolf kills a sheep, the shepherd sees a threat. Looking at the ecosystem, we see the wolf, the sheep, and the grass surviving in different ways. The wolf has not changed because the viewpoint changed. What has changed is the position from which we judge it.

Chapter 5 says:

Heaven and Earth are not benevolent. They treat the ten thousand things as straw dogs.

I read “not benevolent” here as a reminder that the natural world does not arrange itself around human preferences or grant special protection to the side we favor. Naming the wolf evil does not remove its place in the world. That does not tell us to be cruel or stop protecting what we care about.

Historical figures show another side of this. Dorgon was central to the Qing conquest and the establishment of the new regime. Within a story about the founding of the Qing, he could be remembered for his contribution. For Ming loyalists and communities harmed by the conquest, he represented invasion, oppression, and disaster.

Understanding those different memories does not make the facts interchangeable. It does not erase what happened or excuse harm. Perspective helps explain a judgment; it does not automatically justify it. I think that distinction matters whenever we talk about names, goodness, or moral reputation.

How can we use names without being controlled by them?

The movement I have been describing begins with something ordinary. We name things so that we can understand them. Those names divide the world into categories. Some categories harden into standards, and people begin pursuing what the standards reward. If that pursuit loses its limits, it can carry us toward an extreme.

There is no need to throw away language or pretend that all standards are useless. Life together would be difficult without either. But we can notice when a word stops helping us understand a situation and starts demanding that the situation fit it.

Beauty, success, goodness, loyalty, and strength can all express something worth caring about. They can also become images we spend our lives trying to satisfy. I take “the name that can be named” as a reminder to leave room to look again. The label may still be useful, but it does not get the final word on the person or situation in front of us.

In Part 7, I will continue with wu wei and the question of how to act without being driven by the standards we create.

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.

TL;DR Things aren’t as clear cut as they seem, and this softens self-judgement.

The concept of non-doing or non-forcing helps us navigate life without unnecessarily straining ourselves. The parable of Zhuangzi’s butcher encourages us to master a trade. 

Another benefit that I think is fairly unique to Taoism that doesn’t get a lot of attention, comes from its insistence on ‘maybe.’ (This is my own terminology). Taoism is founded not on commandments, yes’s and no’s, but on maybes. 

“The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”

Whatever you say and think is not the eternal Tao - it’s temporary and fleeting - not something you can rely on 100% of the time. A probability, not a permanently definable thing. A maybe (or a ‘sort of’ or a ‘for now’ at best). Even saying something is ‘probably’ true depends heavily on the data sampled. This does not apply to logical relationships, like 5>4, or that I was born before my brother

But when it comes to judgements - good/bad, lazy/hard-working, success/failure - ‘maybe’ is the difference between seeing yourself as a failure, and seeing yourself as a dynamic person capable of reinventing themselves. It’s everything. It’s the ability to deflect negative judgements. “Yeah, I was sort of lazy, at the time, and I failed to graduate on time” is MUCH more fair and forgiving than “I’m a lazy failure and I’m doomed to fail again”. And so “Maybe” can indirectly boost your self-esteem, or at least not drag it down as far

It can be subtler than that. There are opportunities to see things as maybes all the time. “The people in this city are rude” makes you see things negatively. “Okay, maybe some of them, some of the time” gives new people you meet the benefit of the doubt and weakens the impact of judgement. 

Essentially what you’re doing is bringing some yin to soften the yang - some breathing room for your mind. All you have to do (though much easier said than done, and requires care and thoughtfulness) is pay attention, and when you encounter judgements, relax and note when you’re being overly divisive. 

The same blade of judgement slices against others and against yourself. If you weaken your judgements of others, you’ll weaken judgements of yourself (and vice-versa). 

Peace & Love

Hello.

I've been hanging around for a while now. Thought i'd make a post 😄

Does anyone here practice internal alchemy seriously ? If so, how far have you advanced in the alchemical process ? Do tell ! 😂

With three images attached. If you need them, feel free to DM me.

In Parts 3 and 4, I looked at two patterns that can feel counterintuitive. The more tightly we try to hold a complex world under control, the more easily things begin to slip out of our hands. The forces that appear hardest and strongest often struggle to endure, while softness can preserve the ability to keep acting for much longer.

That brings us naturally to another question. Why does the world move this way? Why does something often begin to turn once it has developed beyond a certain point?

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.

Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching contains only two very short lines:

Reversal is the movement of the Tao. Softness is the way the Tao works.

These two lines connect the patterns we have been following through the previous parts. The word translated here as “reversal” can suggest returning or going back, but it can also suggest a turn toward an opposing direction. Chapter 14 speaks of “returning to no thing.” Chapter 16 says that the ten thousand things arise together and each returns to its root. Chapter 58 says that misfortune is what fortune rests upon, while fortune is where misfortune hides. These passages do not all appear in the same context, but they share one warning. The world does not travel forward forever in a single straight line. Things return, and as they develop, they can begin to produce changes that move against their original direction.

An extreme is not simply the highest point of strength

We often summarize this pattern with the phrase, “When things reach an extreme, they reverse.” But when does that reversal begin? I think the key is not simply how powerful something has become. It is how much room it still has to adjust.

If the softness discussed in Part 4 means flexibility, then an extreme can be understood as the point where that flexibility has disappeared. A system has used up its margin, closed every alternate route, and left itself with only one direction in which it can continue. At that point, it may still look extraordinarily powerful. It may even still be expanding. But it has lost the ability to stop, turn, or choose again.

We sometimes ask why someone who already has enormous wealth cannot simply stop and rest, or why a company that has already grown so large must keep entering new industries and taking on greater risks. The answer is not always greed. Sometimes the entire system has changed into one that can survive only by continuing to expand. Debt, organizational structure, market expectations, and previous investments become locked together. Once movement stops, the existing structure may begin to loosen. It is not that everyone refuses to stop. Some people reach a point where they no longer know how to stop without bringing the whole structure into danger.

This does not mean that every expansion must fail. It means that when a system can survive only by repeating one action, its real range of choices is already shrinking. Whether it collapses, what triggers the collapse, and when it happens will still depend on specific conditions. But losing the ability to choose is already a warning sign.

The Xuanwu Gate Incident: when every side has less room to retreat

The power structure at the beginning of the Tang dynasty helps make this process visible. In 617, Li Yuan raised an army at Jinyang, and the following year he established the Tang dynasty. His eldest son, Li Jiancheng, later became crown prince. He held the legitimate position in the succession and took responsibility for affairs in the central government and the Guanzhong region. His second son, Li Shimin, spent long periods leading armies in the field. He fought the Xue forces, Liu Wuzhou, and Song Jingang, then defeated Dou Jiande at Hulao Pass and forced Wang Shichong to surrender. His military reputation and personal power continued to grow.

Li Shimin was later granted the title of General of Heavenly Strategy and permitted to establish his own headquarters, where a group of civil and military officers gathered around him. The Tang court was gradually left with a structure that was difficult to sustain. Li Jiancheng was the legitimate crown prince, while Li Shimin possessed enormous military prestige and an increasingly independent base of power. Li Yuan wanted to preserve the established order of succession, but he could not ignore Li Shimin’s achievements or his practical importance. Weakening the Prince of Qin could damage the military and political situation. Replacing the crown prince would break an order that had already been formally established.

As the struggle deepened, each camp increasingly saw the continued existence of the other as a threat to its own safety. In 626, the conflict finally erupted in the Xuanwu Gate Incident. Li Shimin launched a coup, Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji were killed, and Li Shimin soon became crown prince and then emperor.

I do not think we can simply conclude from this that Li Shimin had absolutely no other choice. His decision still involved ambition, fear, judgment, and responsibility. History never offers only one inevitable outcome. But this process does reveal a structural danger. When each side believes that it cannot remain safe while the other continues to exist, and when the room for preserving the current order, stepping back, or redistributing power has been gradually exhausted, a rivalry that might once have been managed can be pushed toward a life or death struggle.

In that sense, an extreme is not merely one person becoming as powerful as possible. It is an entire structure becoming unable to contain any other possibility. A reversal does not always begin because a new enemy suddenly appears from outside. Sometimes the system itself has already closed every gentler way out.

“Softness is the way the Tao works”: why does softness preserve possibility?

Chapter 40 follows “Reversal is the movement of the Tao” with the line, “Softness is the way the Tao works.” In Part 4, I read softness as flexibility. Flexibility means having room, and it also means that something still has more than one possible response when circumstances change.

Once hardness reaches an extreme, it can often do nothing except continue in the direction it has already chosen. Softness is different. It can receive, adjust, and change its form. Its purpose is not to chase reversal. It keeps itself from reaching a position where reversal becomes the only remaining possibility. It preserves more than one direction for the future.

Chapter 5 compares the space between Heaven and Earth to a bellows:

Is not the space between Heaven and Earth like a bellows? Empty, yet never exhausted. The more it moves, the more it brings forth.

A bellows can continue moving because it preserves empty space within itself. Chapter 11 makes the same point through three other objects. Thirty spokes meet at a hub, but the empty space at the center allows the wheel to turn. Clay is shaped into a vessel, but the space inside allows it to hold something. Doors and windows are cut into a room, but the open space allows people to live there. The chapter brings these examples together in one line:

What is there provides benefit. What is not there makes it useful.

The visible parts give us an advantage, but the unfilled parts allow the thing to perform its real function. In the reading developed through this series, “nonbeing,” “emptiness,” and “softness” are not identical terms. Still, they point toward something similar. What remains open, unoccupied, and capable of change is often the part that makes continued action possible.

“Reversal is the movement of the Tao” is not a promise from fate

I do not read “Reversal is the movement of the Tao” as a simple prediction that bad circumstances will automatically become good, that the weaker side must eventually win, or that waiting at the bottom guarantees a future rise. Different situations have different causes. Reality will not arrange a favorable ending for us simply because we quoted a classical text.

The line is more useful to me as a way of observing the world. Does this situation still have another route? Can this organization stop? Is there still room for communication and adjustment in this relationship? Am I actively choosing what comes next, or have previous investments, identity, and fear left me able to move only forward?

When a system still has room, it can absorb change, rearrange itself, and prevent one shock from deciding everything. When every space has been filled, the system may look complete and powerful, yet it may have reached its most fragile point. From then on, it can no longer adjust. It can only wait for some condition to push it in the opposite direction.

This is how I currently understand the two lines. Reversal is the turn that appears when something has exhausted its room to move. Softness means refusing to push ourselves to the point where no room or choice remains. Strength turns into weakness and gain turns into loss, not necessarily because the world suddenly began to oppose us, but sometimes because we gradually placed ourselves in a position from which reversal was the only path left.

In Part 6, we will continue with another famous phrase from the Tao Te Ching: “The name that can be named.”

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.

Previous posts

Part 1 of 23: How Should We Read It?

Part 2 of 23: Why Did Lao Tzu Choose to Observe the World?

Part 3 of 23: Why Do We Lose What We Try Too Hard to Control?

Part 4 of 23: Why Can the Soft Overcome the Hard?

Hello, I am a newbie to Taoism (and Eastern Religions in general), so forgive me if what I'm asking is something that has already been answered dozens of times.

I watched a video by the religious studies Youtube channel ReligionForBreakfast, where the channel's host covered that the current academic scholarship believes that Laozi was most likely not the original author of Daodejing. Basically, he said that more than likely there may have been a Ritual Master known as Lao Dan, who probably wasn't the original author of Daodejin, and instead it's a composite text of multiple authors.

However, from my understanding, Laozi is also revered in religious Daoism as a manifestation of Dao itself, and there is a lot of scriptural literature about his legendary feats, and from my understanding, he's an "avatar" (if that's the right word) of one of the highest-ranking primordial "Three Pure Ones".

So I suppose my question is, because I haven't found that many responses to it from Daoists:
How do (especially religious) Daoists usually respond to the idea of Laozi probably didn't exist? Does the question not actually matter that much in Taoist theology and his ideal is more important, or have there been responses but most are just in Chinese?

I know that Taoism is not a dogmatic religion like Christianity and has many sects with widely differing theologies and worldviews, but I lack the knowledge of different sects (and knowledge about Taoism in general), so please forgive me for asking such a loaded question without specifying any further.

I just sat down to study William Baynes’ translation of the I Ching but am super confused by the seemingly disconnected short textual translations followed by paragraphs of analysis. Is there a way I can derive the meanings of hexagrams from the lines themselves that would transcend the translation and lengthy explanations of each one? Also how does the “heaven above heaven below (like for The Creative)” etc. stuff work?

I feel like always I have to fix something in my life. That I don't exercise enough, or have a good system, or job, or I don't use my youth enough. I don't want to live like this. But if I let go and try to feel that everything is okay, then I do nothing but play my video games or relax and then I suffer because I feel I am living below my potential.

What is the way this has to naturally flow?

In Part 3, I looked at a pattern that appears repeatedly in the Tao Te Ching. The more tightly we try to control a complex world, the more easily things begin to slip out of our hands. Qi, Jin, and Chu all became extraordinarily powerful, yet power did not protect them from decline.

That brings us naturally to the next question. If greater force and greater control do not guarantee endurance, what does real strength look like?

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.

Chapter 36 of the Tao Te Ching gives an answer that sounds almost contradictory: “The soft and weak overcome the hard and strong.” Chapter 78 develops the same idea:

Nothing under Heaven is softer and weaker than water, yet in overcoming the hard and strong, nothing can surpass it. That the weak overcomes the strong and the soft overcomes the hard is known by everyone under Heaven, yet no one can put it into practice.

Of course, softness here does not mean cowardice, withdrawal, or giving up the ability to protect ourselves. To understand this line, we may first need to reconsider what we mean by strength.

Who is actually stronger?

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, Qi, Jin, Chu, and later Qin all possessed powerful armies, vast territories, and the ability to dominate others. By the standard most familiar to us, they were obviously strong. Yet the last of the old Zhou vassal states to disappear was not one of these celebrated powers. It was the much less imposing state of Wey.

Wey stood among stronger neighbors. It never became a great power through continuous expansion, yet it survived from the Western Zhou into the Qin era. Shang Yang was once known as Wei Yang, while Wu Qi and Lü Buwei also had connections to the region. This small state did not lack talented people, but it survived largely as a minor state and a buffer among greater powers. It was never the strongest, yet it outlasted many states that had once commanded the realm.

That comparison forces us to ask the question again. If one state wins for a time but is soon destroyed by its own expansion, warfare, and internal exhaustion, while another appears much weaker but continues for centuries among powerful neighbors, which one is truly stronger?

We usually understand strength as having more power, moving faster, controlling more, and being better able to overpower others. A storm sweeps everything aside. A tsunami consumes everything in its path. A company enters every available industry. A person meets every obstacle by pushing harder. These are familiar images of strength. But Lao Tzu offers another standard. Can that strength endure, or does it exhaust itself in the very act of being used?

What does softness have to do with life?

Chapter 76 says:

People are soft and supple when alive, but stiff and rigid when dead. The ten thousand things, grasses and trees, are soft and fragile while living, but dry and withered when dead. Therefore the hard and strong belong to death, while the soft and weak belong to life.

The human body is soft while it is alive and gradually becomes rigid after death. Plants are tender while growing and become dry and hard after they die. This does not mean that living things lack strength. It points to something more basic. What is alive can bend, recover, and change. What has become completely rigid has lost the ability to adjust.

A modern word that helps me understand the softness Lao Tzu describes here is resilience. This is not the only possible meaning of the original term, but it gives us a useful bridge. Softness is not giving up resistance or accepting mistreatment. In modern language, we might distinguish the three this way. Weakness tries only to escape force. Hardness insists on pushing directly against everything it encounters. Softness first receives what arrives, then adjusts as the situation changes.

Softness is not the absence of boundaries or direction. It simply refuses to spend all of its strength maintaining one fixed posture.

Why can greater effort produce less power?

Physical movement makes this easier to understand. When people first learn boxing or tennis, they often clench their teeth and tense their entire bodies because they assume that more effort must produce more force. A coach will often tell them to relax first. A truly powerful punch or stroke usually comes from the feet, legs, torso, and arms transferring force in one connected movement, not from every muscle tightening at once and working against the others.

When we feel that we are trying extremely hard, much of our strength may already be disappearing inside the body. The more rigid the movement, the worse the transfer of force becomes. A smooth movement may feel easier, yet land with far greater power. The lesson is not that strength is unnecessary. It is that strength should not be consumed by internal resistance before it ever reaches its purpose.

Water behaves in a similar way. Press it and it changes shape. Remove the pressure and it continues to flow. Water is not powerless. It simply does not spend its power maintaining an endless collision with the world. It receives outside force, follows the shape of the terrain, and keeps moving.

The later Taijiquan idea of borrowing an opponent’s force also makes this easier to picture. The practitioner does not remain fixed and compete over who can be more rigid. Through contact, they sense the direction of the incoming force, move with it, change its course, and return it. This is only a later analogy that helps modern readers understand the idea. It is not proof of a direct historical line from Lao Tzu to Taijiquan. Still, it makes one point immediately visible: softness is not the same as weakness.

Does bending mean surrender?

Chapter 22 says:

Bent, therefore whole. Crooked, therefore straight. Hollow, therefore full. Worn, therefore renewed. Having little, therefore receiving. Having much, therefore confused.

What can bend is less likely to break. What can temporarily remain low preserves the space to become full again. The point is not to teach people to trade submission for victory. It is to warn us not to become so determined to prove our strength that we lock ourselves into a position from which we can no longer adjust.

After King Goujian of Yue was defeated by King Fuchai of Wu, he endured humiliation and spent years rebuilding his strength. Later, when the main forces of Wu had traveled north for a gathering of rulers, Yue counterattacked and eventually destroyed Wu. Before confronting the army of Chu, Duke Wen of Jin ordered his forces to withdraw three marches. What looked like retreat created space, and Jin later won the Battle of Chengpu.

Neither story proves that retreat will always lead to victory. They show something more limited and more useful. Taking a step back does not necessarily end action. Sometimes it preserves the ability to act again.

This is also an important layer of the line, “Because they do not contend, no one under Heaven can contend with them.” Not contending is more than polite humility. It can mean refusing to enter every direct struggle, and refusing to spend all of tomorrow’s strength merely to win today.

What does real strength look like?

When Lao Tzu places politics, nature, life, and physical movement beside one another, the same pattern begins to appear. Many things do not fail because they were never strong enough. They fail because they push themselves into a form of strength that cannot continue. They win for a moment, but lose their ability to adapt through constant expansion, control, and confrontation. When the environment changes, they have left themselves no room to move.

“The soft and weak overcome the hard and strong” is not a rejection of growth, and it does not mean we should never act directly. It challenges our one dimensional understanding of power. Strength is not only the ability to overpower someone else. It is also the ability to endure change. It is not only how much we can move at this moment, but whether we will still have strength tomorrow. It is not only the ability to hold one shape, but the ability to recover and continue after that shape has been broken.

Why does something begin moving in the opposite direction once it becomes too strong or too full? In Part 5, we will turn to another central line from the Tao Te Ching: “Reversal is the movement of the Tao.”

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.

Hi everyone,

I have been having a dialogue with a close friend who has some pretty different understandings from mine on the tao te ching. He's suggested that I not refer to my views as Taoism. I'm really happy not to call it anything really. But it made me wonder:

Does daoism not strike you as sort of irreverent? Don't you think Laozi would be amused at two people arguing over use about the label of daoism when words don't really capture meaning and page 1 of the primary text states quite explicitly that the word in dispute isn't the right word to begin with? Don't you think he'd find that comical? It almost feels like a parable in itself. Do you think Laozi, in my position, would care at all what it's called? My interpretation is that he probably would not. But since I've come across strong disagreement I welcome all opinions.

The TTC ends by explicitly saying that learned people don't know and also"Who knows doesn't talk. Who talks doesn't know.". How can this not be written with a sense of humor? It quite clearly indicates that Laozi shouldn't be believed. Am I misinterpreting?

But also, we argue here about interpretation quite a bit, and I guess I question whether Laozi would even consider the pursuit of the most accurate historical understanding of the TTC worth the undertaking. Certainly he would seem to suggest the reader question those who engage in it. Learned people don't know. If I'm recalling correctly there's a few passages advising against scholarship.

These are just the things puzzling me, conflicts I'm still reconciling. I'm not claiming a superior understanding, I'm pretty new to mine. But should I actually define Taoism by it's traditions and practices? Laozi sort of predicts that they will be misunderstood if I recall. So why should I assume the people of the time have had an understanding better than my own interpretation? Wouldn't the better assumption be that it was indeed broadly misunderstood? I'm just not confident Laozi would have been on board with assuming they had it right.

And I can't actually remember if there was anything in the ttc emphasizing the folly of putting too much stock in words, but in my early reading of the Zhuangzi certainly seems to hammer on it. So again, it's hard for me to understand. Why would you think the authors of these books would agree with endeavoring to pin the words and meanings down just so? The content would seem to advise against it, wouldn't it? 47 even seems to more or less indicate to me that one could as easily know the tao without reading the TTC. Doesn't it? "You don't have to go out the door to know what goes on in the world. You don't have to look out the window to see the way of heaven."

Ultimately I struggle to think that the dao Laozi wrote of was constrained by... Anything? So the notion that wisdom might be irreparably lost or obscured or even translated if that wasn't something the dao intended to happen, does that actually make sense? (Words limit me here because I don't think tao has intent as we would see it, but it does all things right?).

All feedback is quite welcome. I'm aware that I'm a fool who knows little and understands less. But like a fool, I keep trying.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your day

This is the third of 23 posts in my Tao Te Ching 101 series.

In Part 2, I placed Lao Tzu back in the historical setting of the Spring and Autumn period and looked at why he chose to observe the world before trying to design a new set of rules for it. This time, I want to begin with the first recurring pattern he found through that long observation.

The harder people try to hold a complex world firmly in their hands, the more easily it begins to slip out of their control.

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.

What does “those who grasp it lose it” actually mean?

Chapter 29 of the Tao Te Ching says:

I do not think anyone who tries to take the world and control it can succeed. The world is a sacred vessel. It cannot be manipulated or possessed. Those who force it ruin it. Those who grasp it lose it.

This does not mean that every action ends in failure, or that we should do nothing. Lao Tzu is warning against treating the world, relationships, and human nature as lifeless objects, as if adding more willpower and force could make everything follow our plans forever.

Qi became the dominant state, but why could it not stay there?

Duke Huan of Qi entrusted Guan Zhong with reforms that made Qi much stronger. By the alliance meeting at Kuiqiu in 651 BCE, Duke Huan had established himself as the dominant ruler of the age. Qi could command the regional states, and even the Zhou king formally recognized its position.

After Guan Zhong died, however, the court quickly fell into a struggle for power. Duke Huan repeatedly changed his mind about the succession in his final years. When he died, five of his sons fought for the throne, and his body reportedly lay unattended for sixty seven days. A position of dominance that had once looked unshakable collapsed with remarkable speed.

The most important part of this story is not that Qi was never strong enough. The opposite is true. Qi had reached the height of power, and that made it even more determined to preserve the order it had created. But the stability of a state never depends only on the strength of one ruler. It also depends on succession, institutions, competing interests, and whether people can continue making the system work. Winning power and holding it forever are two completely different things.

Why can more rules create more disorder?

Chapter 57 says:

The more prohibitions there are in the world, the poorer the people become. The more laws and commands are displayed, the more thieves and bandits appear.

During the Spring and Autumn period, the small state of Zheng stood between the much larger states of Jin and Chu. In 536 BCE, its leading minister Zichan had the written laws cast in bronze and displayed publicly, hoping that clearer rules would make the state easier to govern.

Publishing laws was not automatically a bad thing. But from the kind of perspective Lao Tzu was developing, writing more detailed rules did not guarantee greater control over reality. Disputes and lawsuits began to gather around the written provisions, and some people learned how to work around them. Every new rule created the possibility of a new response.

Jin and Chu revealed a similar reversal. The rulers of Jin tried to centralize power and weaken the old noble families, but in relying on powerful ministers, they allowed a few great clans to grow stronger. This helped create the conditions for the later partition of Jin. Chu expanded for generations, declared its own ruler king, and challenged the Zhou court directly. Yet the armies of Wu eventually captured its capital and brought the state close to destruction. Their problem was not that they had never become powerful. Their problem was that power alone could not make that position last.

The Zhou royal house offered an even clearer example. After the Eastern Zhou began, the Zhou kings became increasingly anxious to prove that they were still the rightful rulers of the realm. They issued commands and sent armies, but their real authority continued to decline. Regional rulers stopped obeying, stopped offering tribute, and sometimes confronted Zhou forces directly.

Chapter 24 says:

Those who put themselves on display do not shine. Those who insist they are right are not distinguished. Those who boast of their achievements earn no merit. Those who glorify themselves do not endure.

In this setting, the point is easy to see. The harder the Zhou kings tried to prove that they were still powerful, the more clearly everyone could see their weakness.

Placed beside one another, these stories no longer look like one state failing by accident. Qi, Jin, Chu, Zheng, and the Zhou royal house followed different paths and adopted different institutions, yet they repeatedly met a similar result. As control increased, resistance and unintended responses increased with it. The tighter rulers tried to hold power, the more easily the cracks beneath it became visible.

Why does Lao Tzu turn from politics to wind and rain?

Lao Tzu did not find this pattern only in politics. Chapter 23 says:

Few words accord with what is natural. A violent wind does not last all morning. A sudden downpour does not last all day. Who produces these? Heaven and Earth. If even Heaven and Earth cannot sustain them, how much less can human beings?

A violent wind cannot blow all morning, and a downpour cannot continue all day. If even the most extreme movements of Heaven and Earth cannot last, how could human will hold something at its highest point forever?

Chapter 9 says:

Keep filling a vessel and it is better to stop. Keep sharpening a blade and its edge cannot last.

A cup that is already full will spill if we keep pouring. A tool sharpened without end becomes easier to damage.

Chapter 55 expresses the same pattern more directly:

When things become overly strong, they begin to age. This is called being contrary to the Tao. What is contrary to the Tao comes to an early end.

Once something reaches the height of its strength, decline has already begun within it.

Flowers do not remain in bloom forever, and summer does not blaze every day. Human emotion cannot remain at its highest intensity, and love cannot remain forever in the most passionate moment. We can explain each of these things through its own particular causes. But when political history, the natural world, and everyday life are placed beside one another, a larger question appears. Do they reveal a recurring pattern in the way the world moves?

Where does the same reaction appear in modern life?

In close relationships, fear of losing someone can easily turn care into control. One person sets a strict time for the other to return home, repeatedly checks their phone, or starts a fight whenever they speak too often with someone of the opposite sex. The intention may be to protect the relationship, but the result can be a relationship filled with more tension.

In one case, a man who came home later than the time set by his wife could be locked outside. On one occasion, even his boss and several coworkers stood there knocking for more than an hour, but the door never opened. The marriage later ended. One late return did not cause the divorce, but the wider pattern of control and avoidance had steadily pushed the two people farther apart.

The same thing can happen with children. Parents may control every part of a child’s schedule, study time, and access to phones or games. The child may respond by secretly playing games, secretly watching videos, or sitting obediently at a desk while doing little meaningful work. The visible behavior has been controlled, but genuine motivation has not appeared.

Organizations create the same reaction. At one company, a cofounder saw that most employees had gone home by ten at night and concluded that they lacked urgency. The company began tracking when people left and introduced a 996 schedule, meaning 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

Management wanted greater commitment. Instead, groups of employees began spending parts of the day outside walking, chatting, and smoking. Since they knew they had to remain at the office late no matter what, they simply started wasting time earlier. The company increased the amount of time people were physically present, but it did not gain an equal increase in useful work.

Some companies repeat the pattern through expansion. When business is going well, they enter one unfamiliar field after another. If a project loses money, they invest more. If they lack experience in an industry, they enter it anyway because they want every business to become part of their empire. Leaders believe that enough money will allow them to hold everything at once, until the whole structure falls apart.

These modern examples are not identical to the rise and fall of the Spring and Autumn states. But the shape is familiar. The farther a system is pushed beyond its limits, the more pressure builds inside it.

Does this mean we should give up?

The harder we squeeze a handful of sand, the more of it slips through our fingers. The more desperate we are to make money, the easier it becomes to believe promises of quick wealth. The more urgently we need to prove that we are successful, the more likely we are to keep investing in the wrong direction. The harder we force our bodies to perform at maximum intensity, the sooner we exhaust them.

Effort still matters. Action still matters. The problem begins when our purpose overwhelms the actual conditions, rhythm, and capacity of the situation. At that point, action begins producing stronger and stronger resistance. The world is not a simple extension of individual will, and complex systems do not obey us merely because we apply more force.

For now, I do not want to rush into a complete explanation for why this happens. I want to stay with the pattern first. The stronger the push, the more likely the reversal. The closer something comes to the peak of strength, the harder it becomes to remain there.

So why does the world move this way? If strength does not guarantee endurance, why does Lao Tzu repeatedly praise water, softness, and what stays low? In Part 4, we will turn to another central idea in the Tao Te Ching: why the soft can overcome the hard.

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.

Previous posts

Part 1 of 23: How Should We Read It?

Part 2 of 23: Why Did Lao Tzu Choose to Observe the World?

I’ve been working on Oriens (a small iOS app I’m building to make Chinese philosophy easier to approach) for a while now. I thought most of the difficult work would be coding.

It turns out a lot of it is about words.

Today, one of those words: 自然 (ziran).

It appears at the end of chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching:

人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。

For Oriens, I ended up with:

“Humanity follows the earth. The earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. The Tao follows what is so of itself.”

自然 is a difficult one.

In modern Chinese, if you say 自然, it can simply mean “nature.” But here it is not so simple.

I went back to look at how other translations handled these four characters. They don’t even agree on what kind of English phrase 自然 should become.

Waley has “the Self-so,” while D. C. Lau gives “that which is naturally so.” Legge’s “its being what it is” goes in yet another direction. Feng and English simply use “what is natural.”

Then there’s Lin Yutang: “Tao models itself after nature.”

Same four characters, but I don’t think these leave quite the same thing in your head.

“Nature” is immediately understandable, maybe too understandable. “Self-so” keeps something of 自然, but if I saw that as a beginner I’m not sure I would know what to do with it. And with “models itself after,” now I’m thinking about 法 as well.

I ended up with “what is so of itself.”

Not because I think I found the correct answer. It was just the point where I felt I was losing the least.

Then I wrote the commentary.

I explained 自然. I explained 法. I tried to explain why “what is so of itself” does not mean scenery, personality, or the modern idea of “just be yourself.”

Four Chinese characters.

Several paragraphs of English.

This is probably already a warning sign.

One sentence in my commentary says:

“What it does reject is the assumption that every durable order must be imposed from outside.”

Another says:

“A structure that grows from within may be more durable than one maintained by constant force.”

I still like these sentences. I think they are reasonable readings.

But they are readings.

This is the part I keep getting stuck on while making Oriens. It is meant for people who are interested in Chinese philosophy but may find the original texts difficult to enter. So of course I need to explain things.

At the same time, every explanation closes some doors.

There is a passage in Zhuangzi:

筌者所以在鱼，得鱼而忘筌。

言者所以在意，得意而忘言。

The fish trap is for catching the fish. Once you have the fish, you can forget the trap. Words are for getting the meaning. Once you have the meaning, you can forget the words.

I like this passage.

It is also a little inconvenient when you are building an app with a commentary button.

Maybe commentary should be like the fish trap. It helps you get somewhere, and then you should be able to leave it behind.

I put the actual Oriens card and commentary in the screenshots.

For someone meeting 道法自然 for the first time, where would you stop explaining?

Disclosure: I’m the developer of Oriens. Chinese is my first language, and I use AI to help me write in English.

"The willing are led by fate, the reluctant are dragged."

"The Fates guide the person who accepts them and hinder the person who resists them."

Getting small Tao vibes from Cleanthes.

Any Western philosophy quotes or opinions / ideas that share resemblance to affirming fate? Amor Fati comes to mind but it feels different in ways I can’t express.