Chapter 77

Chapter 77

The Tao of Heaven works in the world
like the drawing of a bow.
The top is bent downward;
the bottom is bent up.
The excess is taken from,
and the deficient is given to.

The Tao works to use the excess,
and gives to that which is depleted.
The way of people is to take from the depleted,
and give to those who already have an excess.

Who is able to give to the needy from their excess?
Only someone who is following the way of the Tao.

This is why the Master gives
expecting nothing in return.
She does not dwell on her past accomplishments,
and does not glory in any praise.

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Here we see a new metaphor from Laozi: the drawing of a “bow.” From a Taoist worldview, nothing stays the same eternally. Accordingly, there is only a cyclic movement of “up” and “down” and “up” and “down.” A bow that is drawn will naturally have to return to its previous loose state; otherwise, its string may cut off sometime. Based on this metaphor, one can say that one’s misfortune may not last forever and one day he will see arrival of good fortune. Greene similarly notes:

“Like mastering your emotions, patience is a skill – it does not come naturally. But nothing about power is natural; power is more godlike than anything in the natural world. And patience is the supreme virtue of the gods, who have nothing but time. Everything good will happen – the grass will grow again, if you give it time and see several steps into the future. Impatience, on the other hand, only makes you look weak. It is a principal impediment to power.”

Reading Greene’s thoughtful advice, I happen to remember a guy singing “Annie’s Tomorrow” in the American sitcom “Friends.” The guy sings, “There will be the sun tomorrow, bet tomorrow! There’ll be the dollar.”

However, I remarked regarding one of the above chapters that although it is usually true that we have to learn to deal with the ups and downs in our lives, there are moments that some of us rightfully judge that it seems like there is no end in their ongoing pain. In most cases, the “grass will grow again,” but there are rare cases of people among us that betray this principle. That is, there are definitely people who only continue to suffer and can realistically do nothing but suffer.

In fact, on a more “global” scale, as Schopenhauer rightfully argues, the world is mostly full of immense pain and agonies. Even though there are several good things in the world, you do not have to be a Schopenhauerian pessimist in order to conclude that the bad things far outweigh the better things.

Although Laozi says that the Tao of the Heaven proceeds according to its own yin and yang, human suffering is a never changing constant and never gets any better. The tragedies of human affairs are so immense that any positive features that we may discover about our existence are essentially trivial in comparison. The world abounds in so much suffering that it almost looks as though the aim of life is to suffer.

What personally disturbs me is that the universe or our world could have been born otherwise. The universe could have been constructed much differently. Or there could have been a universe created and ruled by a benign one God that never allowed birth of evil at all in the minds of humans. If the universe was constructed much differently, we did not have to emerge through evolutionary contention against the other species. Also, we could imagine a utopia where no one ever dies no one ever suffers an illness, no one ever ages and all of us live peacefully in harmony together and praise one God as Christians hope. But why is it that we happen to discover ourselves in a universe of only so much sorrow and pain? Why is it that of the two worlds possible – one good and the other like the hell that we are living in – we happen to be born in this world and witness and suffer never ending pain?

Human history is mostly full of tragedy, and it is my view that the Tao prefers to let it stay that way.