Chapter 3

Thoughts and Applications on the Tao Te Jing through the lens of Master Zhu's Teachings.

By not preferring the competent, one brings about that people do not quarrel.

By not treasuring precious things, one brings about that people do not steal.

By not displaying desirable things, one brings about that people’s hearts aren’t confused.

This is the way a Sage governs.

He empties their hearts and fills their bellies.

He weakens their will and strengthens their bones and brings about that the people remain without knowing and without wanting.

He takes care that those who know, do not act.

He follows the non-doing (Wuji), and thus everything falls into place.

At the root of Taoist understanding is balance and harmony. Within ourselves it’s a balance between our internal world, and our lives as they unfold in the world. This chapter we see political ideas in the world of man. In Chapter 2 we laid out concepts about what a Sage is and how they operate, as an extension of these concepts here we see ideas about how a Sage would govern.

If we understand how a Sage sees the natural world, we can imagine how they would see the world of man. I think a Sage sees the world of man as engulfed in change, constantly morphing and shifting. They would see that the world of man following the same patterns as the natural world, absence and presence layered and woven within each other.

Some Commentary…

The first three sentences of this chapter are drawn from the Wuji-Taiji-Yin/Yang pattern shown in (Figure 1). All three of these statements begin from a relative state of Wuji, then a shift happens creating separation transforming into a Yin/Yang pair.

Figure 1

By not preferring the competent, one brings about that people do not quarrel.

If there are competent people, then there are incompetent people. If no one is compared to others, there would be no need to quarrel over someone’s perception. If leaders put others in direct competition, this is what brings about the conflict. Is the Yin/Yang pair here the competent and the incompetent? It could be individuals competing with others. In the modern world we can see the model that Unions utilize. Everyone in the Union knows each other’s wage, every interaction within their organization is transparent. The hierarchy and wage structure are defined by seniority. The worker’s quarrel is with management and the leaders not amongst themselves.

By not treasuring precious things, one brings about that people do not steal.

Why do we desire things we don’t have? We are bombarded with images and situations filled with desirable and precious things. Our modern culture pushes the value of material things to fuel the consumer roots of our modern economy. The Yin/Yang pair that emerges here is between the have and the have nots in the world. If we look into our inner worlds we see the emergence of desire, the Taiji line that creates the separation in this example I see as desire. A desire for something we don’t have. If the desire for precious things never develops, people won’t have a reason to steal.

By not displaying desirable things, one brings about that people’s hearts aren’t confused.

Does desire create confusion in people’s hearts? This seems like a pretty simple yes. What should the state of our heart be? In the modern world we’re filled with artificial desires planted within us by mass advertising, creating unhealthy appetites for products or identities we don’t need or are not healthy. What about desires with the creation of our identities? Many people lack personal identity or self-understanding, defaulting to how they place themselves within the economic system to form identities that conform to some cultural ideal. Creating personas based in desire as a way to become who they think they should or could be. To many this seems healthy and normal, I see this as an extension to a larger identity issue of “I am nobody, but I can become somebody if I work on it.”, the identity issue itself becomes confusing within our society with its melting pot of cultural ideas. How much anxiety comes from people asking themselves “Am I good enough?” and wishing they were something or someone else. Or how many people feel trapped and degraded by some social “norm” that is perceived to be desirable. From this perspective the Yin/Yang pair is who you are (reality) vs who you could/should be (an ideal), I see the Taiji line that creates the separation here as personal or societal expectations.

This is the way a Sage governs.

I think the sage governs from an understanding and perspective of the Wuji-Taiji-Yin/Yang pattern (Figure 1). They understand the differences between desires and needs and how, when they are not provided or addressed, creates an environment where people are thrown into a relative state of confusion and unrest. The state of Wuji here can be seen as a state where people have their needs met and they have limited or few desires. The sage understands when people don’t have access to what they need, a Taiji line forms creating a separation. The separation is an opinion between their “reality” and their perception of what “reality” should be. I think the Yin/Yang pair that arises comes from unfulfilled needs, wants, or desires.

He empties their hearts and fills their bellies.

A Sage understands the needs of the people, providing them with what they need (filling their bellies). If people have what they need, desires drift back into the background. The presence of desire retreats back into absence becoming one with the state of Wuji. If you’re hungry and have access to food the hunger subsides. If you’re thirsty and water is provided the thirst recedes. This is the same for all basic needs in our lives and society.

He weakens their will and strengthens their bones and brings about that the people remain without knowing and without wanting.

Why do people develop strong wills? Is it from feeling or being forced to be hard in the world we’ve created? Is it from the decisions of leaders that create an environment where the people have opinions on how they think the world should be? If you have an opinion on the leaders or the government from the perspective of the Sage, the leaders have failed. The idea here is to have leaders in power who govern without the people questioning their direction. Their opinions on the leaders direction never form, due to their needs, wants, and desires being met.

He takes care that those who know, do not act.

In the last statement we see that if the general citizen has an opinion on what direction their society should take leadership has failed. What about the intellectual or educated class that has opinions on societies direction? When this class of people, who understands the role, position, and direction of the leader, observes the leaders’ decisions and direction they understand (and agree), they have no need to act upon their observations and opinions.

He follows the non-doing (Wu-wei), and thus everything falls into place.

Wu-wei here I see as effortless action. A way to act in this world, aligning yourself and your life with the harmony and flow of the natural world. The Sage stands watching the seasons pass and the wind and water flow, governing and leading by how he understands these observations. He watches the world of man flowing with the rhythm of the wild. He prepares for the literal and figurative winter, knowing the warmth of spring and growth that will come, knowing the heat of summer will bring forth a seemingly endless bounty, and that just around the corner the Autumn leaves will fall and the days will become short. They will watch the people harmoniously flow through the seasons of their life, promoting their change from childhood to adulthood, and from adulthood to maturity and death. While the natural world and its cycles speaking to him, guiding, and mentoring him through their world.

When reading this I think these are simple idea. Has the world become more complex? If so why has it become that way? I see this as the world of man flows from various states of formlessness to form. We’ve created many bifurcating paths that have split our realities and perceptions from the root of our understanding as nameless beings on a nameless planet. How many decisions have been made that have shaped our world? Each of these decisions our leaders have made add layers of complexity to our lives, separating us from an endless array of possible realities. Each decision a step further away from Wuji limiting our possible futures, this is normal and not necessarily bad. It’s the deeper, older branches of reality that become entrenched in our lives, filling our minds. If we follow the spirit connects and the mind separates model, we see the conscious decisions of the mind separating our understandings. As an example why do we have 10–12-foot road widths? The average truck width is 8 feet, that corresponds to the width of the standard shipping container. These are all reasonable decisions to make. Where did the idea start for a standard 8 foot truck width? I think we can trace it at least back to Ancient Rome where they thought of the size of the road to correspond to a horse drawn carriage. The depth in respect to the binary tree (figure 2) of our modern roads goes back 1000’s of years. If roads go back 100’s of years, what of politics or religion? This is where we see the decisions being made that shape our lives. The complexities add up. So where does that leave the Sage? I think it leaves him in a maze of varying levels of complexity. I also think he has other tools at his disposal to understand the changes we see in our modern world, I see one of these tools as the Five Element Theory from The Shape of Understanding.

Figure 2

Taoist understanding and the Modern West…

When I think of this understanding of patterns and cycles, I think of the era in which I live and how we live within the ideas and concepts of Western Civilization. The roots of our modern culture reach back to the time of Ancient Greece where Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle laid out the ideas that would form our understanding of the world over the last few millennia. Plato and Lao Tzu (the attributed author of the Tao Te Jing) were roughly contemporaries of each other. Both thinking and writing 2,400-2,500 years ago. It is interesting when comparing their ideas. They both thought an elevated, wise leader was important to lead a healthy society. Lao Tzu talked about how a Sage governs and Plato thought of philosopher kings as the ideal for rulers. I think it’s within the ideas of how a philosopher king and a sage each understand the world where we can see the schism between Eastern and Western thought.

Plato thought there were two realities; the natural world and a world of forms. The natural world he thought was modeled from the world of forms. The world of forms was where pure ideas (Truth) resided. An example he gives of the perfect circle, mathematically it exists exact and perfect in the world of forms but never actualized in the natural world. Spheres, planets, balls all fall short of perfection. This world of forms Plato thought was where true knowledge resides. The philosopher king was one who understood this world of forms and would lead from the wisdom he gathered from this idealistic world of forms.

“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils.”

– Plato

This idea of a separate reality of forms in the modern world has morphed into an understanding of a universal, capital “T”, Truth. This Truth becomes an ideal that is searched and strove for. How often do we hear of some Truth that we are to align ourselves with? We hear about scientific proofs that support an overarching idea (Truth). We hear people talking about the Truth and where they have heard it. In the media we have platforms, individual soap boxes, where we can spout our understanding of these Truths. I think it is Plato’s theory of forms that creates the separation in our lives and societies. I see this idea as the creation point where truths and untruths form. The theory that becomes the origin of the schism between Taoist thought and Western thought.

From this essay and the last we see the Sage as understanding the world and leading by his vision of the patterns of the Tao. He Follows the pattern of Wuji-Taiji-Yin/Yang and makes decisions that keep him within the natural flow. When we contrast these two views; the Taoist aligns himself with the flow of the natural world with an understanding that he is a part of the natural world. The West aligns itself with an abstract understanding of Truth. I see this idea as a shift, or drift, or an extension from Plato’s idea of the world of forms.