Go, go, go! In the name of progress, we can’t afford to slow down or feel contented; we are here to make progress. Having been programmed to strive since birth we can’t stop now, not even when our survival is at stake, so we keep drilling and fracking even as ice melts from mountain peaks to seas and more of our homes are lost to firestorms, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather. We keep releasing more greenhouse gases every year, even as more of us die breathing lethal particulates. We keep removing trees even though they offer our last hope of averting climate collapse. Is this collective denial, or death wish, or madness?
Twenty-five hundred years ago, the ancient Chinese classic, Laozi (also known as the Daodejing or Dao Te Ching) was written to ponder just such questions.1 Over a dozen of its eighty-one verses address the boundlessnes of human desire that keep us from feeling satisfied and depriving us of the wisdom to know when enough is enough. Of these poems, Verse 32 posits that we must know when to stop in order to preserve as much as we can. The next verse puts forth the idea that the ability to quiet the mind is critical for vanquishing desire and feeling contentment. We cannot rely on ingenuity to solve the problem of excess. The subtext is that we must be careful what we take from nature, since once we have tipped its delicate balance, we can never restore it and our survival will be jeopardized, even though nature will keep evolving long after the human species has gone extinct. But what shall we do at this time?
Along with Confucianism and Buddhism, the Laozi‘s reverence for nature had been observed throughout Chinese civilization. Later, the imperial powers came to pillage and carve up China, whose people were so humiliated that they turned to science and technology to save their nation. In the process, they turned their backs on the ancient philosophies and joined the technological rush to develop what is left of nature for prosperity and convenience, pushing human survivability right to the edge. At this time, it may still be worth our while to contemplate what the Laozi offers us as a way to head forward and to make peace with ourselves. To that end, I am putting forth these two poems reflecting on our place in nature.
In my translations and analyses, I use its transliteration of sinograph Dào rather than its literal, more banal, meaning as “the path” or “the way,” since the Laozi has assigned it to represent the unknowable, indescribable, and nonconscious mystery that created the universe and continues to guide the transformations of nature. I also eliminate punctuation in order to emulate the form of the earliest texts, whose five thousand characters ran continuously without punctuation or breaks. Instead, I insert line and stanza breaks to make the text more comprehensible. Chinese and English words are aligned side-by-side so that those who do not read Chinese can see the repeating characters and parallel structures.
Commentary for Verse 32
The balance between human progress and pristine nature is precarious. If we could manage to maintain this balance, we could continue to thrive along with all the other species on earth. However, once the natural balance is tipped, it is impossible to restore and as a species, we will be in grave danger: such is our present situation.
Introductory Stanza
The poem begins with the phrase: “The constant Dào has no name” (dàocháng wúmíng 道常無名), which nearly repeats the first line of Verse One: “The constant Dào is unspeakable.”2 The word “constant” (cháng 常) connotes immutability as the Dào is the only permanence, while “nameless” (wúmíng 無名) connotes enigmatic. This means the Dào is an unchanging and unknowable principle that guides all cells and objects in the universe, is an enigma, undefinable and unclassifiable.
The Old Master uses the sinograph “unhewn, primitive piece of wood” (pǔ 樸) to represent the pristine wilderness and unadorned simplicity of nature, untouched by humans. It also denotes the natural state of the mind when we are infants, as this passage of the “Horse Hooves” chapter of the Zhuangzi illustrate:
Equally without knowledge, one’s virtue does not part. Equally without
desire is called the simplicity of an unhewn piece of wood. With the simplicity
of an unhewn piece of wood, people attain their own nature. (ZZ 9)3
Like the Dào, pǔ is ubiquitous and ineffable. But as we evolved into bipedal creatures, we began to use our hands to shape pǔ into artifacts or tools (qì 器)4. There is a zero sum game between pǔ and qì. For thousands of years, indigenous cultures managed to preserve an abundant pǔ, until they too were decimated along with the pǔ.
As we create more qì, more pǔ is destroyed forever. Once we have obliterated enough pǔ to tip the critical equilibrium, we have also brought our survival into question. I am afraid we may be at just such a junction, perhaps we have even exceeded it. Psychically, pǔ also represents the natural state of mind with which we are all born. That is the mind of a newborn, before learning anything in the human realm. It is a state that the Old Master treasures for its innocence and emptiness. It is a state of mind that notices fleeting thoughts without holding onto any desirable ones, nor evading the undesirable ones. Therefore pǔ is a frame of mind that sees all things coexisting interdependently as one without distinction. Such a condition is too contradictory for words. Language would invariably lead us astray.
In the second line, the word pǔ is followed and modified by the characters “even though small” (suīxiǎo 雖小). During the Old Master’s time, pǔ abounded, so how could it possibly be small? The adjective “small” (xiǎo 小) has a wide range of implications, such as “subtle,” “intricate,” or “delicate” as in the “delicate balance” among all species in our web of lives. Another inference is “inconsequential” as in the interdependence of species that is often dismissed or overlooked. Once the delicate balance is upset, it cannot be regained. This is the essence of the second line:
As delicate and insignificant as the natural order may seem, we must abide by it in order to survive.
Second Stanza
If those in power kept their subjects from living in excess, everyone could live equitably and continue to enjoy a hospitable climate. The second line ends with the binome “ambrosia” (gānlù 甘 露) that represents timely rain and genial climate. This utopian view is similar to a passage in the Commentary on Decision (tuàn 彖) from the (qián 乾) hexagram in the Classic of Changes (Yijing 易經)5:
Clouds flow by sending rain to bequeath all creatures their distinctive forms . . .
Qián transforms all things according to their true nature to ensure Grand Harmony. Their
pure nature comes from their primordial creation, keeping all nations safe and peaceful.
This commentary and the poem esteems water for its life-giving quality and its moderating quality. Water meandering downstream is aesthetically pleasing because of its graceful, effortless flow according to gravity. However, historical strongmen were fond of diverting the flow of rivers to flaunt their might and modern despots are eager to show their prowess by building colossal dams even they though know the calamitous results. 6 “Grand Harmony” (taihe 太和) signifies perfect equilibrium in the ecosystem, similar to the Old Master’s pǔ.
Third Stanza
The binome “fabrications” or “systems” (social, economic, political, and other) (shǐzhì 始制) refers to all the human nomenclatures (yǒumíng 有名). The idea of growth has been touted as a virtue pushing the human race forward, but our inability to stop sends us on a linear trajectory strewn with extinct people and creatures. When pǔ was ubiquitous, all lives could thrive with moderation and renewal; with pǔ all but vanished, we find our own survival endangered because the climate we have created cannot sustain us. We use language to divide and categorize things, priding ourselves on cleverness for conquering nature. Our inability to stop makes us the most invasive of species. We are never short of creativity, only our lack of insight into our place on earth is glaring. The Old Master teaches us to be thrifty in order to consume less of nature. Internally, he urges us to work toward the pǔ state of mind that is similar to this opening passage of Confucian Great Learning (dàxué 大學):
Knowing when to stop permits one to settle into steadiness, which in turns offers one tranquility, which
brings a sense of wellbeing, where one can deliberate carefully, which helps one to reach one’s goal.7
Concluding Stanza
The Old Master’s utopian vision returns to this stanza along with the water theme telling us that we must stop wanting more in order to preserve as much pǔ as possible to create a harmonious ecosystem infused with the Dào. In such a world, all things could flow smoothly as ice melts and dew drops form in the valleys of the headwaters before flowing into rivers and out to the seas.
Summary
Civilization was able to maintain a reasonable amount of pǔ until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. But since then, we have so thoroughly destroyed pǔ, we can no longer restore it. The best we can do is to stop our mindless destruction and let trees, billions of them, rescue us. If we cannot sustain our existence on earth, perhaps it is time to mourn the extinction of species and indigenous peoples that have fallen victim to our “progress,” as well as the paradise that we have destroyed, knowing life will go on evolving, only without us.
Commentary for Verse 33
This verse shows us that knowing when to stop requires internal cultivation to allow ourselves to feel satisfaction. Knowing when to stop is critical to our survival for it can help us avoid the calamities brought on by desire. This musical poem uses parallelism to repeat the character zhe 者 in every line as an internal rhyme throughout. Its sound ta ʔ appears eight times in this six-line poem. Both the MWD and FY texts end every line and half line with the sinograph yě 也 as an additional end-rhyme throughout the poem. This sustained sameness of sound heightens the theme of preserving nature, maintaining its enduring qualities in the face of human greed.
Introductory Stanza
The Old Master forms a thematic matrix with the first halves of these lines addressing the external while the latter halves focus on the self – It is fine to know and vanquish others, but we must first get to know and control ourselves.
To change our behavior, we must start with the heart-mind. But most of us value only our mind and esteem cleverness (zhì 智), spending years attending school to gain knowledge. We try to take charge (yǒulì 有力) of people after figuring out their modus operandi, not realizing self-knowledge (zìzhī 自知) is far more potent, though not as glamorous. Self-knowledge allows us to cultivate strength (qiáng 強), to develop magnanimity and equanimity, eventually leading us to tranquility where there is no need to exert control. When we experience this Oneness, we are enlightened (míng 明).
Expository Stanza
The first line states that feeling sufficiency and contentment (zhīzú 知足) makes us opulent. In the second line, the word “strength” returns to say that we must apply our strength internally, never outwardly to force our way in the world. Likewise, we must treat the word “will” (zhì 志) at the end of the line as self-determination akin to fortitude, rather than exerting our will over nature and others. We should abide by the natural order, letting affairs develop spontaneously according to the Dào.
Concluding Stanza
The verse closes with a pair of parallel lines that circle back to the psychic development mentioned in the introductory stanza. If we manage to uphold the fruit of our internal work along with self-knowledge, we could attain immortality (shòu 壽), since our essence will “persist beyond our deaths” (sǐérbùshī 死而不亡). The spirit of these ideas will be remembered long after life has left the body. Knowing ourselves is no different from knowing the universe, or the Dào.
Summary
The Old Master advocates quietude as a means to cultivate ourselves by purging desire. Once we have calmed the heart-mind, there are no others to vanquish, as we can see we are all interconnected as one in the web of nature. In this unitary state, there is no duality such as self or other, good or bad. This is what he calls “nothingness” (wú 無), similar to what the Buddha calls “emptiness” (kōng 空). In this unitary state, one would feel a serene connection and interdependence with all beings in the universe.
1 The book Laozi is a text composed of 5,000 sinographs written in eighty-one verses. Laozi 老子 (Lao-tzu in the Wade-Giles Romanization system of Chinese Mandarin) means literally the “Old Master,” the putative author conventionally credited with having written this eponymous text. He was believed to have lived sometime between the end of the Spring and Autumn era (770-481 BCE), but no verifiable facts can be established about the existence of such a person, so the “Old Master” has become a mythical cultural legend that has traditionally served the “author function” for the text of Laozi. (See Paul Rabinow, Ed. Foucault Reader, NY: Pantheon Books, 1984, 101-120)
2 Traditionally, the received texts of the Laozi refer to texts of Heshang Gong (HG, 河上公 of the Western Han dynasty 西漢 206 BCE-8CE) and Wang Bi (WB, 王弼 226-249 CE) of the Three Kingdoms era (三國 220-280 CE) commentaries. In fact, most of the English translations are based on WB’s texts. HG emphasizes cosmology and self-cultivation, while WB focuses on “nonexistence,” which the Buddhists equate to the Buddha’s notion of “emptiness.” The Xiang’er commentary, on the other hand, is an “excavated” text, since it was discovered from the caves of Dunhuang in the early 20th century. Written before 215 CE, it is the earliest religious Daoist interpretation after Laozi was canonized as the Daodejing for recitation. All these commentaries work with different, although not substantially different, texts.
3 同乎無知，其德不離；同乎無欲，是謂素樸。素樸而民性得矣 Se
4 See Verse 28: “Pristine naturalness disintegrates to become artifacts.” (pǔ sàn zé wéi qì 樸散則為器).
5 雲行雨施，品物流形。 乾道變化，各正性命，保合太和，乃利貞。首出庶物，萬國咸寧。See Wang Yun-Wu, ed., Nan Huai-jin and Hsu Ch’in-ting, trans. Zhouyi Jinzhu Jinyi (Taipei: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1976) 12.
6 One of the three legendary sage-kings of ancient China and the founder of the Xia 夏dynasty (tread. 2070-1600 BCE), Yu 禹, purportedly invented a system of canals, dikes, and dams to prevent flooding and promote agriculture. Damming rivers have caused the extinction of millions of species and displaced 80 million of people whose lives depend on running rivers. Annually dams have emitted a million tons of greenhouse gases from the decomposing plants that they have inundated. See Macarean Soler, Monti Aguirre, and Juan Pablo Orrego’s “Keep Our Rivers Flowing Freely,” New York Times, December 30, 2019.
7 See Xu, Linqi, Sishu Wujing Lunyu, (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2013): 知止而后有定，定而后能靜，靜而后能 安，安而后能慮，慮而后能得。物有本末，事有終始，知所先後，則近道矣。
This article has been updated.