Let Your Children Flourish (Tao Te Ching 37)
37.
The Tao does not coerce,
yet everything gets accomplished.
If leaders could grasp this Tao,
everything would be transformed
spontaneously.
Even when transformed men
fall back into their old patterns,
I calm them back down
by pointing them to naturalness
to remind them how to rest
in the sublime.
Resting in the sublime,
they can let go of desire.
Letting go of desire,
everything in the world
will spontaneously settle
back into balance.
Reflection
This chapter is often seen as the last chapter of “book one” or the first section of the Tao Te Ching, which focusses on the Tao. This second book or section turns its attention to Te, or the application of the eternal way in concrete, ethical contexts.
This chapter is also terribly difficult to trust. In so many areas of our lives, from leisure to professional demands, we get the strong sense that coercion is precisely the name of the game. The problem is, we must constantly remind ourselves about the nature of the game itself. It just might be a rat race, with no real winners in the long run.
From here on out, we’ll be taking a hard look, therefore, at the structures, assumptions, and ideologies that undergird the world that too often works to ensnare us in delusion. By trusting in the subtle, unfathomable power of reality, we have to let go of the controls, and that can be terrifying. I (Jeff) am particularly afraid of heights. I once almost had to pull over on a bridge over Tampa Bay. Rappelling off cliff edges causes me to almost hallucinate with the flood of fear-induced brain chemicals (or whatever’s going on when I start seeing kaleidoscope visuals despite my sober and hydrated state as I’m rock climbing). But in my experience, there’s no terror more unnerving than seeing one of my kids standing close to the edge of a precipice.
When we see loved ones in a scary situation, our biology and our ethics and our spirituality all rightly converge and compel us to respond in a mature, life-preserving manner. It’s hard. I remember trying to cautiously but urgently bring my kids back from the edge of Cumberland Falls, a tight turn through the canyon on a motorcycle, an ill-advised relationship, and a Puget sound current. In each case, the worst approach would be to shout or threaten. Just as I wouldn’t want to literally startle my son with loud yelling and intimidating body language as he stood to close to a safety rail, it is figuratively worth staying steady when we try to offer wisdom to young people who are on the precipice of personal life catastrophe. This isn’t about being a softy, or a pushover, or overly lenient. It is about prudence. It is about love in action for the sake of healthy living. This principle goes well beyond parenting. Rearing children is one of many applications. The overall message is about the way we live in this world from beginning to end.
This chapter resonates with the Buddhist emphasis on finding freedom from the snares of desire. There are many sects of and approaches to Buddhism, but the central feature of its philosophy is the idea that the core of the human problem is suffering. Suffering is caused by desire. Thus, by freeing oneself from desire, one can be released from suffering. I’ve said that this is sane advice and advice heeded with moral integrity.
Nevertheless, I’ve also sided with the Japanese theologian Kazoh Kitamori, who believed that the followers of Jesus go one seemingly absurd step further and embrace suffering for the sake of the other. Why do we do this? Out of love. What is love, desire to be connected with the other, as if we were connecting with our true self. In love we run to those who suffer and are often impaled in the process. We trust others and are let down. We are vulnerable and get shivved by seeming friends. That way of Jesus led of course to the sufferings of a Galilean sage two millennia ago.
Here’s how I’ve modified my thinking on this, after studying this chapter: we are using desire in different ways. The desire to unite with the good, true and beautiful is noble and life giving. The desire to connect with others as if they are ourselves is noble and life giving. The desire for appreciation for the littlest thing before us each morning is noble and life giving. But desire over someone is the way of death. Desire to lord it over others at work, to control our children’s dating life, to constantly judge our spouses with our words, each of these desires is indeed the source of our suffering. By trying to tinker with reality and to change it according to our demiurge lusts leads to agony.
Fortunately, behind all that is an unfazed reality that keeps flowing with the flow. La Tzu teaches that we do well to learn the way of non-action or wu wei. Learn to surf this ripple of reality, he suggests, and you won’t get wiped out. And you won’t knock over the little ones trying to learn to play in the foamy surf either.
We get it. It’s hard to let anything you love flourish without your direct control. But that’s the only way to really get it done properly. So let us trust, as scary as it is, and trust for the sake of love and in the confidence of an ageless power that cannot be overcome by petty wickedness.