Chapter 3

Chapter 3

If you overly esteem talented individuals,
people will become overly competitive.
If you overvalue possessions,
people will begin to steal.

Do not display your treasures
or people will become envious.

The Master leads by
emptying people’s minds,
filling their bellies,
weakening their ambitions,
and making them become strong.
Preferring simplicity and freedom from desires,
avoiding the pitfalls of knowledge and wrong action.

For those who practice not-doing,
everything will fall into place.

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This passage appears to acknowledge that common people have natural propensity to do evil for pursuit of wealth.  A sage, therefore, would not stir chaos among the people by flaunting wealth – nor would he accumulate his wealth in the first place to such an extent that it would cause an outrage.  Thus, the sage’s conduct should be based on a realistic notion that people are naturally enthralled by riches, and would act carefully so as not to “amplify” the elements of their greed.  However, wouldn’t it be proper to say that this  is  not dissimilar to animal trainers in a zoo – who may be able to temporarily tame the beasts but should always keep a careful eye on them lest the trainers should get hurt if they momentarily redeem their bestial instincts and unleash savage attack on their masters?

Also, a sage may  occasionally  have to hire talented people and accumulate possessions for times of war.  It is by fortifying himself in advance that he will manage to maintain order in a future crisis.  The sage’s endeavor to “weakening their ambitions” may not always be welcomed by every functioning member of the society, and some of the more ambitious will always plot to overturn him.  Therefore, wouldn’t it be proper to say that the sage’s “constructive” frugality may not on every occasion be conducive to sustaining order in society?

Therefore, I conclude that we should take a nuanced approach to Lao Tzu’s proposal. Execution of this strategy may achieve peace but only for a while, and there will always be a crisis at some point.  This is where I find Lao Tzu becomes self-refutable; in the end, the Tao that we envision is not an everlasting Tao.

The last verse of the above chapter delivers perhaps the most perplexing principle asserted by Lao Tzu.  How can one achieve everything by not doing anything at all? I looked up several references with regard to the concept of wuwei (do nothing) but haven’t been able to find any completely satisfying answer.  Some even compare wuwei to Mihaly  Csikszentmihaly’s concept of “flow”– which means that you and your target subject become one if you intensely absorb yourself in it.  If this state is achieved, you would feel as if you were doing nothing because everything is so spontaneous and natural. (The major difference between wuwei  and  “flow” would be that one may come closer to realization of Tao by doing nothing whereas a person practicing “flow” would achieve his flow through an insane amount of practice.) However, this way of comparing Tao to “flow” also personally reminds me of liberal Christians’ attempts to interpret the Scriptures in a way that harmonizes its obviously false and inconsistent  texts with up-to-date discoveries or improved understandings of the world.  The problem with this approach is that you are essentially reinventing what has been stated in the original writings. Therefore, I find no justifiable ground for interpreting wuwei in a way other than intended by Lao Tzu himself. Nevertheless, we should note that this may be the only way to benefit from studying the tao te ching.  Regarding the case of the Bible, I do not believe it should allow any room for a figurative understanding or interpretational method that circumvents the original intent of its text if the Bible should indeed claim exclusive rights to absolute truths. The tao te ching, on the other hand, was written by a human being – i.e., he does not appeal to authority based on divinity. Therefore, we are free to put it under our scrutiny, and it is our responsibility to reinvent his ideas for the betterment of ourselves.

However, I personally follow Ogangnam’s interpretation of the tao te ching regarding this problem. The art of wu-wei is effective only when we can distinguish between what we can improve through deliberate efforts and what we cannot improve even through such deliberate efforts.  As for the latter case, we should practice the art of non-doing even when it means accepting losses. By doing more in this case, you will only hurt yourself more and the result will be traumatic as written in the 33 Strategies of War written by Greene.

Taking a complete non-action attitude to every facet of our life would be perilous. An idle king that does nothing and makes an excuse out of the tao te ching would probably be assassinated.

In fact, the butcher appearing in Zhuangzi literature was able to disintegrate an ox so skillfully because he had gone through strenuous apprenticeship.  He would not have built his skills by not doing anything.

Therefore, the practitioner of wu-wei would be a sage knowing – based on his built superior experience and knowledge – when to accurately not take an action and instead let “it” take care of itself.

What do I mean by letting “it” take care of itself?

First, the “it” may be the unconscious. After Junior dos Santos was seriously beaten up by Cain Velasquez and lost in the octagon, he said he hardly remembers anything about that fight because he went on an autopilot mode. Or when Frankie Edgar was able to come out strong again against Gray Maynard after getting knocked down multiple times in the rematch, he hardly knew what was going on. He also went on an autopilot mode. Such an autopilot mode is only possible when the brain acts spontaneously based on years of built experience. The autopilot mode of ours concerns our unconscious.

Second, the “it” may refer to a society ruled by a sage. Instead of interfering in every aspect of their lives, the sage would allow them autonomy, thereby letting “it”take care of itself.

However, let it be made clear that if God does exist, he is making a grave mistake of not taking any action to right the wrong in this world.