Here’s what Lao-tzu offers you from his 2,500-year-old perspective in this 28th verse of the Tao Te Ching:
Entertain the exact opposite of what you’ve been conditioned to believe.
Instead of striving to see yourself as superior to others, perhaps choose the self-image of a valley. From this grounded, fertile, and receptive position, be willing to hear and receive. Listen intently when you’re inclined to offer advice. Be a humble earth source rather than a lofty ego-inspired person. In the last line of the 28th verse, Lao-tzu is clear on this: “Truly, the best governor governs least.” This isn’t advice to lower your opinion of yourself, but rather to see yourself as so strongly connected to your Source of being that you know and trust that you’re a piece of it.
Replace all negativity with love.
Kahlil Gibran, the spiritual Lebanese poet, once advised that “if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.” Actively begin the process of preserving your original qualities by being an instrument of Spirit, particularly in places where you find it easy to forget your own true virtuous self.
Do the Tao Now
Be childlike at least once a day. Deliberately select a typically stressful situation and become a valley of heaven. Play rather than work, even while you’re at your job! Giggle rather than maintaining a solemn air. Be in awe for a moment or two. For example, find a spider-web and just gaze at the miracle before you: a tiny little creature spinning a perfect net bigger than it is in order to catch airborne bugs for dinner . . . wow!
29th Verse
Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.
Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled.
Trying to control leads to ruin.
Trying to grasp, we lose.
Allow your life to unfold naturally.
Know that it too is a vessel of perfection.
Just as you breathe in and breathe out,
there is a time for being ahead
and a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion
and a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous
and a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe
and a time for being in danger.
To the sage
all of life is a movement toward perfection,
so what need has he
for the excessive, the extravagant, or the extreme?
Living by
Natural Law
This verse speaks of a natural law that’s unaffected by ego. The message? You’re not in charge—you never have been, and you never will be. So you’re advised to let go of any ideas you have about controlling anything or anyone, including yourself. It’s a difficult lesson for most of us to learn. As Lao-tzu puts it in the beginning of this verse, “I do not believe it can be done.”
Nevertheless, here’s one of the world’s most famous scientific minds, Albert Einstein, commenting on this law:
[The scientist’s] religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work . . .
It is to this feeling that I urge you to turn as you put into practice the wisdom of the 29th verse of the Tao Te Ching. Tuning in to this rapturous feeling of amazement at the sacred perfection of the world helps you release your desire to control anything or anyone. Doing so will allow you to live in the “harmony of natural law,” as Einstein describes it.
Lao-tzu reminds you that “everything under heaven is a sacred vessel,” needing no input from you. Since you’re also a part of everything, you may need to change the way you look at your life and all that has transpired in it, as well as your vision of the future. Whether you agree or disagree, whether you like it or not, all of it is outside of your ego’s domain. It’s all unfolding according to the same natural law that causes the seasons to follow one another, the moon to look as if it rises and falls, the whales to traverse oceans, and the birds to migrate and return without benefit of a map or human-made guidance system. When you look at your life in this way, you’ll begin to see it unfolding organically.
The Tao is a natural law, not some controlling force that’s manipulating you. In The Tao of Philosophy, Alan Watts reminds us that Lao-tzu once said, “The Great Tao flows everywhere, both to the left and to the right. It loves and nourishes all things but does not lord it over them.” The Tao is the informing principle of God, not nature’s lord and master. A power-hungry and ego-dominated control freak it’s not! Feeling superior is a human creation. The Tao doesn’t act as boss, forcing itself on you or anyone. It simply allows all of creation to reveal itself with perfect timing . . . and all that is revealed is sacred because it’s a piece of the ego-free Tao.
I suggest that you create some quiet time to reread this verse and reflect on the sacred nature of everything in your life. Include past experiences that you’ve blamed for preventing you from having the abundance, health, or happiness that you’ve wanted and even expected. Ponder the advice that there’s a time for it all: Just
