The larger spreads below where all under heaven meet.
Of all under heaven, the female normally uses stillness to overcome the male.
Using stillness she supports the lower position.
For this reason, the larger, using the lower position, normally takes in the smaller,
The smaller, using the lower position, normally takes in the larger.
Hence, perhaps the low takes in, perhaps the low yet taken in.
The larger only wishes concurrently to raise the people.
The smaller only wishes to join in the affairs of the people.
Both each satisfying the position they want,
The larger fittingly serves the lower position.
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Word for Word
Limits: Translations, even the nearly literal one above, lose some of the original meaning due to the cultural context of contemporary words. Studying the numerous synonym-like meanings of the Chinese characters in the Word-for-Word translation mitigates this.
Fourth Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
https://youtu.be/1RHm3zAax4k is the link to the Zoom video of this month’s Sunday meeting. The shorter first part of the meeting begins with a chapter reading followed by attendees’ commentary, if any. A little later on begins the longer open discussion part of the meeting when those who wish to discuss how the chapter relates to their personal experience.
Corrections?
This is in regards to the words larger and smaller used in this chapter. I made the following corrections in 2012. They still make sense, but I’ll add a few more thoughts on this at the end of the Reflections section.
I completely dropped ‘country’ ( 国) from my poetry, i.e., larger country ( 大国) smaller country (小国), and instead just use the adjectives: The larger (大) and The smaller (小). The character for ‘country’ ( 国) is found about ten times in the Tao Te Ching. D.C. Lau usually translates it as empire or state. I shift back and forth throughout my translation, either omitting it, or translating it as country, empire, state or nation, all of which can apply. Thinking of this character and its meaning in a deeper and more personal way, country make sense, as would ‘native home’. Nations, states, empires are all recent cultural adaptations… emergent properties arising from our primal tribal instinct. What is the most useful way to interpret this for common people (not kings or presidents)? Sometimes just leaving it silent and implied may work best. Anyway, that was what I’ve done here. The dynamics of The larger (大) and The smaller (小) apply universally, not just to country or state. On the other hand, using country or state as an example of the process can help illuminate it.
Reflections
The larger spreads below where all under heaven meet.
Of all under heaven, the female normally uses stillness to overcome the male.
Using stillness she supports the lower position.
Reading this chapter today, it came across as the dynamic necessary for social harmony. The connection between the larger and smaller forces in life unfold more harmoniously when the larger entity takes the lower position.
The male (yang or active) side of our nature innately drives us to succeed (win, overcome). The female (yin or passive) side of our nature innately drives us to back off, take the lower position—be ‘lazy’. So how is it that the female side uses stillness to overcome the male? Fundamentally, the male eventually runs out of energy, where as the female stillness is the result of the dispersal of that male energy. In other words, entropy is where organized energy always ends up. Stillness overcomes the male sooner or later. You might say, stillness has eternity on its side.
I experienced this in a practical way with by young sons. When they would throw a tantrum, all I as the larger entity needed to do was be still and wait them out. Patience is the most powerful tool available to parents rearing children. Unfortunately, in our modern and socially fragmented society, deep patience is often lacking. We want what we want, and we want it now!
For this reason, the larger, using the lower position, normally takes in the smaller,
The smaller, using the lower position, normally takes in the larger.
In relationships, one entity naturally becomes the larger while the other entity becomes the smaller. This is easy to notice in conversation, for instance. If I’m with a very talkative person, I’ll become quieter, and vice versa. There is no such thing as 50/50 in nature. Interactions between the larger and the smaller (the yang and the yin, the positive and the negative) maintain a natural dynamic balance.
When each side, the larger and the smaller, in a relationship use the lower position, their relationship is a harmonious flow, a dynamic balance of opposite forces. Absent that use of the lower position by both sides, chaos and dynamic imbalance ensue briefly until the relationship disintegrates.
Hence, perhaps the low takes in, perhaps the low yet taken in.
The larger only wishes concurrently to raise the people.
The smaller only wishes to join in the affairs of the people.
This larger versus smaller dynamic also applies to one’s inner life. These are the two competing sides of one’s personality. The relationship we have within ourselves will be either harmonious or destructive depending on each side of our nature’s ability to use the lower position.
The difficulty here is that we have no true control over those two sides of our nature. They are innate. The degree of each is determined by genetic inheritance, and then greatly influence by circumstances and our expectations. The wide scale imbalances that people suffer now is essentially a result of civilization, now made more acute by exponential increase in technological advances over the last few centuries.
Actually, the Tao Te Ching acknowledges this negative consequence of civilization. Thus, the problem began much earlier than a few centuries ago. (See The Tradeoff) As chapter 80 cautions,
The great irony for humanity lies in how we largely expect civilization to fix our problems. We are fundamentally blind to how central civilization itself is the underlying cause of our more troubling social and personal problems. Indeed, civilization weakens the natural sense of humility our ancestors experienced in the wild. We are blinded by the certainty of belief that civilizations promote—“education”. Chapter 71 identifies this as a disease, Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. We are cognitively certain (belief) that civilization is the solution, if only we could find the right way to tweak it. In other words, we have not even identified the real cause of our problem… our disease.
While civilization sets up the circumstances that we find ourselves in, the disease occurs on the individual level. Deeply realizing one has this disease makes management possible, which at least helps counteract the effect of civilization in one’s own life.
Both each satisfying the position they want,
The larger fittingly serves the lower position
In any relationship—be that in a country, between two people, or within one’s self—the larger (the most adept side) needs to serve the lower position to foster harmony of the whole. This is otherwise recognized and prized as humility. It is interesting to note that those larger forces who were unable to serve the lower position have gone down in history as villainous infamous people, e.g., Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vlad the Impaler, Pol Pot, Ivan the Terrible.
Conversely, those able to serve the lower position have gone down in history quite differently, e.g., Jesus, Buddha, Asoka, George Washington. Of course, there have also been all our innumerable ancestors who have been somewhere between these two extremes.
Correction section continued
I was thinking back to the era when the Tao Te Ching was created, ~500BCE (or earlier), China was either ruled under a single dynasty (Xia, Shang, Zhou) or a collection of warring states during the end of Zhou (Zhanguo 475–221 bce). Larger (大) and smaller (小) could refer to these states, or more accurately, I feel, native homes. This chapter then is offering counsel on how to bring about a harmonious relationship between them, and in principle, between any two entities or factions.
Chapter Archive https://youtu.be/WLMYBRHrm8U
This is the complete video. It begins with blowing Zen followed by the meeting
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