When the World Seems Out of Control (Tao Te Ching 29)
29
Do you want to rule the world?
Do you think you can fix everything
according to your own sense
of how things ought to be?
I can see that you won’t succeed.
For the world is a sacred system
and an interconnected mystery.
You can’t dominate it.
Try to tinker with it, and
you’ll screw it up.
Try to own it
and you’ll lose it.
Some lead; others follow.
Some are intense;
others are chill.
Some are ripped; others are lean.
Some build up; others tear down.
The Sage stays balanced,
lays down materialism,
lays down excessive consumption,
lays down egotism.
Reflection
The concept of wu wei is practically and clearly stated in this chapter. Again, this principle of acting by not acting isn’t about disregarding one’s duties, nor is it about being a pushover. It’s about letting the natural forces of the world flow as they flow without arrogantly assuming we can step in and control the flow through force.
Despite this ancient wisdom, our modern world is marked by incessant attempts to try to control the grand forces of the world. We think we can dominate nature and, whenever we end up breaking or polluting nature, we turn to technology to fix the problems technology creates. Since the Enlightenment, civilizations have assumed that science can solve all human problems, even those problems brought about by science itself. For instance, when we introduce invasive species into a newly settled region of the world, we sometimes try to fix the problem by introducing invasive predators to eat the invasive species we let loose.
Our translation of intense and chill people is our way of rendering the idea that some people have cool breath and some have hot breath. Some pant others hiss. Some are agro, while others are mellow. But this also connects to a common way of thinking about health in China. One year, when we were teaching in Foshan, China, it was a sweltering summer. The Chinese teachers with whom we were working were as hot as we were. So, Jeff snuck out to get a dozen iced green teas for us to enjoy that afternoon. To his surprise, most of the teachers refused to touch the drinks. When asked why, they said it was for health reasons.
This response led us down a long winding road toward understanding the rationale behind their startling practice of drinking hot water during hot months, something not only hard to understand for us, but excruciatingly difficult to practice, at least at first. One explanation from a Chinese teacher was that, just as fats coagulate in the refrigerator when we put leftover soup away, they feared that cold drinks after eating lunch could lead to clogged arteries.
Perhaps the original text had something to do with breathwork in yoga-like practices. When Stacie leads folks through yoga, she sometimes works with cooling breath (sitali) and warming breath (ujjayi). There is definitely some resonance here, regardless of whether the Tao Te Ching had breathing exercises in mind here.
Jeff’s best bet is that warm water originally was mostly about safety. Just as eating freshly slaughtered chicken in a region where refrigeration is unreliable or unavailable, drinking water that has recently been boiled ensures that one is not imbibing microscopic pathogens. This, coupled with the philosophy behind Chinese medicine, seems to fit nicely into the practice we encounter today in China.
But there is also another piece of wisdom here, going back to the ancient Taoists, who probably started out teaching: don’t go to lengths to change what the water’s already like. Just receive it. After all, trying to cool down water artificially costs a lot of energy today around the world. Recently, we were camping in the Mohave desert and realized how much energy was spent trying to make ice and keep it icy.
The fact is, if you learn to appreciate room temperature water, you won’t waste energy fighting against the atmosphere. Indeed, the same year we were learning about water temperature in China was the year that our oldest, Auggie, learned to deal with the Shenzhen heat by training his mind to welcome the humid, hot air as if he were in a sauna for which he paid good money.
The final stanza of this chapter (laying down materialism, excessive consumption, and egotism) reminds us of the three temptations of Jesus in Matthew 4. In that text, Jesus refuses the Devil’s temptation to turn stones into bread (consumption), to bow before the Devil in order to gain the kingdoms of the world (materialism), or a trust-fall with angels (egotism).
Here, we find that we do right by ourselves by not being egotistical. Rather, egotistical folks end up being self-destructive in the long run. By laying down false goals, we are able to see our interconnection with others and the environment around us. Learning this allows us to heal ourselves and others, and to live harmoniously with all creation.