men of excellent virtue during ancient times
were very skilled in cultivating
the tao way of life
but knew the dangers of understanding
something
too quickly

unsophisticated people will speculate
beyond what they intrinsically know
and draw conclusions
false and firm

combating the false and firm
requires humor and astonishment

it becomes difficult to harmonize the bodymind
when you think
that you know it all

cleverness traps the bodymind
certitude robs the bodymind

outer knowledge
must reconcile with
inner knowledge

those who understand these two
allow distance to measure itself
instead of measuring distance
because directly experiencing
mystic virtue
requires turning inward and reconciling
your inner life
with
your outer life

harmonizing the seen with the unseen

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey

“Be wary of wisdom you have not earned.”
Something approximating this sentiment has been attributed to Psychoanalyst Carl Jung whose psychological theories we’ve employed on a number of occasions to aid in interpreting the possible meanings implicit in the Tao Te Ching. We do so again today through the lens of that attributed quote. But what does it mean to be wary of wisdom? And how can wisdom be unearned in the first place?

Consider the first two stanzas for Chapter Sixty-Five. Lao-tzu describes a danger in comprehending too rapidly, which he goes on to call “false and firm.” This is Jung’s “unearned wisdom.” They are speculations born out of misunderstood experiences—misunderstood because the individual having the experience mistakes said experience for the thing in itself. The wise sages of old took care to retain their humility when it came to what they knew about the world. In other words, they earned their wisdom through cultivation of character, particularly through practice being humble. Without this humility, it is easy to assume that one’s experience of a thing has granted him the totality of relevant information about that very thing. However, this is never the case, and to assume so makes it that much more difficult to receive new information, to update one’s understanding. If this sounds familiar, it is because we’ve arrived again at the great Spirit of Deception, Arrogance. It is arrogant to presume one’s conclusions are correct.

But just like the wise sages, we can work to abate arrogance in ourselves. We can cultivate humility by humoring ourselves and others—by listening to and entertaining ideas that to us seem strange, ridiculous, or foreign. Likewise, we can practice being humble through allowing ourselves to be astonished. Perhaps that seems odd; let me explain: to be astonished is to be surprised, and to be surprised one cannot have known or predicted some piece of knowledge. So when something shocks us or takes us off guard, we should not rush to our intellectual defense but instead laugh or applaud or thank whoever or whatever it was that gave us the chance to learn something novel.

Otherwise, we trap ourselves in a stultified persona of who we’d like to be—but aren’t. If we remain there, where there is no room to grow because all the space for new information has been closed off, we will surely suffocate and die. We will become like senile old men who can only repeat the same stories they’ve told a thousand-thousand times. No new stories can enter their minds. They are already dead and are but corpses rotting slowly. The soul has deteriorated and can no longer reconcile with the hollow husk outside.

“Be wary of wisdom you have not earned.” Work to cultivate humility through introspection. Laugh at yourself. Become again and again like a reincarnating child—immortal and impervious to arrogance, senility, and the death-march of time.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Sixty-Five”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.125