Jessica’s Reviews > Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey > Status Update

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it's the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path is serenity.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man's job?
If you don't understand this, you will get lost,
However intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

The more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be; the more we let go of what we love, the more present love becomes; the clearer our insight into what is beyond good and evil, the more we can embody the good.

Thus the master is available to all people
and doesn't reject anyone.
Ready to use all situations,
and doesn't want anything.
This is called embodying the light.

Softness is the opposite of rigidity, and is synonymous with suppleness, adaptability, endurance.... The master has mastered nature; not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming it. In surrendering to the way, in giving up all concepts, judgements and desires, the mind has grown naturally compassionate.

"A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action.

Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.