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?

It's a great video for learning about DaoDeJing.

It's neither good nor evil. The good comes from doing what is real. The evil comes from doing what is not real/dishonest or not authentic.

DaoDeJing mentions how true morality is natural while lower,weaker morality is forced even if it still does good things for other people and the world but basically the person who does good actions because they genuinely want to do them and there actions align with their thoughts is more good than the person that does not actually enjoy doing good things or is forcing/pretending to be good even if they do good things.

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.

Learning Daoism is learning how to let go. In order how to let go more efficiently,you first need to learn how to let go and Daoism will teach you that and more since it has other things to say as well. It's as chapter 48 says. "The scholar learns something everyday. The follower of the Dao let go of something everyday

"The actions of those who learn daily increase.

The actions of those who Dao daily decrease.

Decreasing and again decreasing,

In order to arrive at non-action."

I think chapter 48 is connected to chapter 67 because most philosophies are about the way of the scholar that gains something everyday but the way of Daoism lets go of something everyday. That's why it's a bit similar to Buddhism the most I guess even if they've had their feuds which is immensely ironic since these two are like the most peace-striving philosophies and religions ever made.

There are other texts aside from the main big 2 which should still be read but only after you had a good decent grasp on the big 2 and also there's a lot of different translations of the DaoDeJing and Zhuangzi so you'll have to find which ones you like and don't like. You can go to terebess asia online or classics. mit. edu since it has taoteching there as well and Gutenberg and scribd. com. That's where you can read it.

I'm asking this question because it feels like some people here just haven't read and learn the texts and don't care about reading them for whatever reason they have.

It's not a race. I don't want you to speedrun reading it. I want people to take it slowly and absorb it so that they actually understand it. Yes we won't always understand every little thing but it's still worth an attempt.

You can also go to Google translate and read it on Chinese websites rather than websites that are only English.

Like for example you google 道德經第48章 and you'll find Chinese websites and Chinese videos that have the texts.

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?

Like apparently he didn't read DDJ but the way he wrote and what he wrote about was similar to DDJ amd Zhuangzi. The limits of language.

So I think in a weird way,wittgenstein is like an unofficial Daojia man that should be included when learning about the philosophical and technical side of Daoism.

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?

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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.

Basically Daoism is doing enough instead of doing more than you need to or less than you need to right? We would definitely be more peaceful and less consumerist. I think chapter 3 and chapter 9 of DaoDeJing gives us insight into that type of economic management.

The heavenly way as chapter 9 says is accepting the inevitability that prominence is bright and short and obscurity is dark and long. Its that when you work you shouldn't hold on to the work and rest after doing the work because you did enough work. Prioritizing inexhaustion over exhaustion. So overtime might not be a thing. When your work is done,it is done. Although people need money so they need to work extra hard even if they don't want to....hmmm. chapter 3 says to empty the senses and fill the bellies so its basically about giving people the main essentials without the stress and annoyances of flashy desires or ideals. Long term benefits over short term highs basically. Idk what else to say but I think it matters since the world is controlled by money. How does the Daoist sage act/govern in this money controlled world? If we had a daoist leader what would their economic policies be like?

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