Translation
All under heaven, having the way,
Retreating horses fertilize the fields.
All under heaven, without the way,
Army horses breed in the suburbs.
Of misfortunes, none are greater than not being content with one’s lot.
Of faults, none are greater than longing for gain.
Therefore, in being contented with one’s lot, enough is usually enough indeed.
1) land under heaven have (exist) road (way, principle; speak; think), 天下有道，(tiān xià yŏu dào,)
2) step back (retreat; decline; > yet; while) walk (go; move; visit) horse use (<v> take <p> according to; because of <adj> so as to <conj> and) excrement (feces> apply manure). 却走马以粪。(què zŏu mă yĭ fèn.)
3) land under heaven nothing (without; not) road (way, principle; speak; think), 天下无道，(tiān xià wú dào,)
4) army (military affairs) horse give birth to (existence) in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) suburbs (outskirts). 戎马生于郊。(róng mă shēng yú jiāo.)
5) misfortunes (disaster; ruin) no one (nothing; none; no; not; don’t) big (large; great; main) in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) no (not) be content with one’s lot. 祸莫大于不知足。(huò mò dà yú bù zhī zú.)
6) fault (blame; censure; punish) no one (nothing; none; no; not; don’t) big (large; great; main) in (at, to, from, by, than, out of) desire (wish; want; about to; on the point of) get (obtain, gain > satisfied_need; must). 咎莫大于欲得。(jiù mò dà yú yù dé.)
7) happening (reason; cause; hence) be content with one’s lot of foot (leg; enough; full; as much as) of ordinary (normal; constant; often; usually) foot (leg; enough; full; as much as) already (indeed; really; how). 故知足之足常足矣。(gù zhī zú zhī zú cháng zú yĭ.)
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
(pandemic era)
Zoom on YouTube Recordings:
Video Archive https://youtu.be/XlmwD5lYyDs is a link to unedited 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?
None this time
Reflections
All under heaven, having the way,
Retreating horses fertilize the fields.
All under heaven, without the way,
Army horses breed in the suburbs.
Reading this chapter today, it came off as somewhat contrary to the way nature works. The chapter seems to portray the way as a path of peace and contentment. Nature is a dynamic process that plays out “evenly” amid these poles (a.k.a., yin & yang, peace & war). And clearly, nature and the way go hand in hand. This is certainly true overall when observed objectively—dispassionately. Ah yes, that’s the hitch here. The way viewed subjectively is another matter entirely!
When I am content with my lot, when enough is usually enough, I harbor no emotional army horses of anger, greediness or expectations. It is only when I’m immersed in those tense emotions do I contend with my moment. Certainly, such personally stressful situations are of the way too, but that is not how I feel it in those moments. Indeed, I feel “responsible” and the pressures to have life go my way. Thus, as chapter 57 advises, Use non responsibility when seeking all under heaven and I am without responsibility and the people thrive themselves. (See Use Non-Responsibility)
Simply put, when I impartially embrace the whole—divergence (war) and convergence (peace)—army horses have no chance to breed. Being the animal I am, emotions can easily thwart such a magnanimous viewpoint. Even so, I do find that sustaining this cosmic view as much as possible does serve as a prophylactic against the worst disease I face in life. As chapter 71 frames this disease, Realizing I don’t know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease, i.e., an arrogance of thinking I know results in army horses breeding within my psyche.
Of misfortunes, none are greater than not being content with one’s lot.
Of faults, none are greater than longing for gain.
These lines also have an objective and subjective context. Objectively, the instinct of longing for gain is the main biological tool life deploys for counteracting entropy. The saying, “no pain, no gain” is a lot truer than we think. The life push to gain means that life is work, and work can often be painful. This means life, of necessity, lacks an inborn capability to experience long-term contentment. The contentment we are capable of feeling is a fleeting few moments of relief after achieving our current aim. For example, hunger compels us to eat. After we eat, contentment and rest follow, only to be quickly replaced by a new longing for gain when I get hungry again. Note, hunger = need, desire, longing, etc. (See Hunger: A Natural Stimulant and Desire and Contentment )
The misfortune and fault we subjectively experience in nature’s dynamic process are the result of civilization overall, and tools specifically. (See The Tradeoff.) Tools allow us to achieve what we desire quickly and easily. Such a rapid succession of achievements brings frequent, albeit fleeting, moments of contentment. This induces in us an unrealistic “common sense” that longing for gain—desire—succeeds. This creates an illusion that permanent gain and winning is possible. These lines from various chapters speak to this error.
Hence, normally without desire so as to observe its wonder (#1).
Not to catch sight of what suits desire, enables people’s heart to avoid confusion. (#3).
See simply, embrace the plain, and have few personal desires. (#19).
With desire choosing anything, of doing I see no satisfied end. (#21).
Not to desire jewelry is comparable to beauty. (#1).
I am without desire and the people simplify themselves. (#57).
Therefore, in being contented with one’s lot, enough is usually enough indeed.
The difficulty all living creatures have with being contented with one’s lot begins with the bio-hoodwink. (See How the Hoodwink Hooks) The senses, the instincts, hoodwink living things into feeling certain that reality is the world they experience. Life isn’t aware that what it perceives is restricted to what it evolved to perceive to further survival. In other words, what life perceives is only a small sliver of the whole.
Humans undergo an additional deception that imagination creates. Imagination increases the permanency of the bio-hoodwink. We are able to imagine a past and a future. Not surprisingly, imagination is a blade that cuts both ways. First the good news: Being able to imagine a past and a future allows us to manipulate circumstances deftly. This greatly benefits survival!
Also not surprising is how imagination easily becomes too much of a good thing. We are emotionally convinced these figments of our imagination are real… We believe the virtual reality that plays out in our mind. Imagination enables us to battle with ourselves—our conflicting needs and fears. We fill our plate of life with the stuff of the future and the past, and then find ourselves juggling this mess, convinced that resolution and contentment will be ours if only (__fill in the blank__).
I find the only possible way out of this absurd inner tug-of-war is to strive my utmost to deal with what I have right in front of me, moment by moment. When I consistently do that, no army horses ever breed in the suburbs of my mind. Naturally, my minds imagination is a restless beast always looking for more… Ah yes, that natural instinct shared by all creatures —“more is better”, a.k.a., longing for gain.
Ironically, the only tool I have to pull my mind into the moment is a complete distrust of words, and the thoughts and flights of fancy they produce. This may make chapter 71 the most practical and useful of them all. When moment to moment I viscerally realize—remember—that I don’t know, all that remains is a vast empty space that my trusted beliefs previously filled.
This space doesn’t remain empty—static. ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’, and so thoughts do refill the emptiness. Yet absent my trust in them, words become little more than chaff, that I constantly winnow out to discover occasional gains of insight. Mainly though, the benefit of this effort lies in how it deepens my awareness and faith in what chapter 14 describes nicely…
Faith in the way’s discipline helps me take each moment more seriously. After all, each moment is all I truly have. The rest is imaginative fancy.
Note: It helps to consider thought as simply an emergent property (see Tao As Emergent Property) of the dipolar dynamic processes (See Yin Yang, Nature’s Hoodwink) of the nervous system. As such, it will always lead you down the primrose path of dipolar illusion. Reality becomes a perceptual ‘it’s either this or that’ proposition. Liberation from this cognitive framework becomes possible once you sincerely—viscerally—realize you don’t know.
Breaking my trust in word meaning is probably a very important key to how I approach life. If you can’t truly trust the words you use to think, how can you put too much stock in those thoughts… you can’t! (See Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations )
Video Archive https://youtu.be/XlmwD5lYyDs
Second Pass: Work in Progress
Issues:
What can I say? This chapter is perfect, at least in the eye of this beholder. I do have an issue with what some read into this and similar chapters. They say this view of being contented with one’s lot was an attempt to keep peasants happy with their lowly circumstance. Complete nonsense. Being content is the holy grail of life itself. We are driven to jump through all sorts of hoops in life to reach some ultimate idealized contentment / happiness.
Commentary:
Whenever there is talk of times when the way does not prevail in the empire, war-horses
breed on the border, I always wonder, how is that possible? After all, The way is broad, reaching left as well as right, and also the Taoist view of modeling, i.e., And the way on that which is naturally so. Some of the inconsistency that bothered me was likely due to reading D.C. Lau’s translation. The more literal version of the first 4 lines straightens matters out, at least for me. For example, All under heaven, having the way, Retreating horses fertilize the fields, paints a more subjective picture. For example, when I personally feel I have the way, my warhorses fertilize the fields… and visa verse.
Taking a ‘layered view’ of the way also helps broaden the view: Nothing is outside nature, including all human efforts to buffer himself from nature’s harsher side. That can’t work on the whole because nature’s harsher side provides all-essential natural balancing forces on life. Humans have succeeded in circumventing many of nature’s harsher balancing forces.
Nevertheless, balance is ‘natural law’, and so humans make up the shortfall by providing essential (and often harsh) balancing forces—war being among the most harsh. The greatest heights exist below what we realize, and so we civilization can’t help but skew the balance in favor of comfort and security (seek pleasure; avoid pain). It is both natural, and because it leads to imbalance, often fails. When it fails, Army horses breed in the suburbs. All civilized efforts to end harshness are doomed despite moral codes (like the Ten Commandments) that every culture conjured up. One way or the other, harshness and pleasantness produce each other—follow each other. That’s just the way of the way, despite our wish to the contrary. As chapter 2 puts it, Hence existence and nothing give birth to one another, Difficult and easy become one another… C’est la vie.
Being content with one’s lot doesn’t mean one’s lot is pleasant. Feeling content and feeling pleasant (or pleasure) can be confused and look upon as one. Feeling content is really about acceptance of current circumstances, which can be a very tall order. Naturally, when times are pleasant, it is easy to feel acceptance and contented. I actually notice the tendency to ‘shot ourselves in the foot’ at those times by longing for gain. If this situation is ‘good’, then more must be better ─ the bio-hoodwink of ‘more is better’. And so, we loose our opportunity for lingering contentment as we rush for gain more. Of misfortunes, none are greater, Of faults, none are greater sure sums it up correctly in my view.
Suggested Revision:
All under heaven, having the way,
Retreating horses fertilize the fields.
All under heaven, without the way,
Army horses breed in the suburbs.
Of misfortunes, none are greater than not being content with one’s lot.
Of faults, none are greater than longing for gain.
Therefore, in being contented with one’s lot, enough is usually enough indeed.
First Pass: Chapter of the Week
The way has two sides to it, as I see it here: a subjective one, and a ‘objective one’. Subjective is the personal sense of harmony, or the lack of it, we feel. It all depends on circumstances. Pinned under ton of concrete after an earthquake one would not feel the way was prevailing in the empire (their way anyway). On the other hand, after we have eaten well, are rested, with friends and feel content, we would feel all under heaven, have the way . This fits the view that the world we see is just a reflection of how we feel (desires/needs and insecurities/fears).
And what about the objective one? How about, ‘darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there‘. Perhaps balance is the word that comes closest to describing the way objectively (for me anyway). Although, balance, as a definition of the way, is far more shadowy and indistinct than how I normally define balance. I think of the ‘way of balance’ as an ‘ideal’ to which nature aspires. By aspires, I mean pointed to, driven towards, pull into…etc. Balance is the center, the core around which the universe eternally revolves. Interestingly, this ideal of balance to which nature moves toward (or returns to) can also be seen as the origin of (driving force behind) our ideals of peace and harmony. After all, our consciousness, at its height of impartiality, must certainly reflect the essential qualities of nature. How could it be otherwise?
The needs and fears of living things (desire, covetousness, discontent in humans) are biological hoodwinks to push us to act. The illusion is that only when our fears are allayed and desires sated will we feel eternal peace and harmony – be in balance. Even if we rationally know that contentment will be fleeting, our emotions say otherwise. Our emotions are convince that feeding desire will make us happy. In truth, happiness is momentary, sated desire, like the Greek Hydra, is almost immediately replaced by another need or fear.
This parallels nature naturally. For example, stresses build, like desires and we have an earthquake. The ground settles, tension is relieved for a moment until stress begins to build again. Nature swings like a pendulum, back and forth through the Golden Mean of balance. Balance is immediately lost as soon as its won. Like any ideal, the reality of balance is never realized. Indeed, the process of seeking balance is itself an unbalancing force, which serves to counterbalance balance.