that which is

balanced          poised              equal

will be peaceful and at rest
amidst the flow

the key is your spirit and its management

the ancient child asks
how do you manage your spirit

embrace active non-action effortlessly
balance yin and yang within your bodymind
poise your will, thought, and imagination
equalize your life force and be under its influence
believe in yourself but never compete
wear your spirit like a radiant mantle
surrender to the deep pleasure of individual attention

remember
building nine palaces can begin
with a single earthen brick
held in your hand
if you give it your undivided attention

ten is real
ten times ten is genuine
ten times ten times ten is pure

steps taken in an authentic journey
possessed of breadth and depth
must rise up from the earth
to meet your feet
which take each step as if it were
the first
and only
step
you will ever take

never try
only do

and then
use your spirit to communicate

project the pleasurable depth of your spirit
outward
extending authenticity and simple pride
to all

experience your self as intimately connected
to all
awakening a unified bodymind response
at just the right moment
in space and time

it is much easier for the tao to believe in you
if you believe in yourself

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

What is the difference between confidence and arrogance? Are not each an abundant belief in oneself? What about honor and narcissism? Are these not also excesses of self-opinion and of the desire for the approval of others?

It is easy to equivocate two separate things through describing them by what they have in common. Watch: “Are not food and water and air all the same thing because people require all three in order to live?”—in a sense, yes. But that isn’t the question at hand.

If we realize that our definitions are maps and models and NOT the things in themselves, we can understand that how words are applied can be to a greater or lesser degree of correctness. Sometimes our definitions allow us to make accurate predictions, and sometimes we treat concepts as synonyms or as opposites when in reality they are neither. It is a matter of stilling, silencing, and thereby opening the mind to the fact that we are in some way wrong about what we think.

That is why it is important to play—to entertain strange and even dangerous ideas. Absurdness, after all, is only a label. It is in this spirit that I request we reconceive confidence and honor. Let confidence be not belief, but acceptance; in a sense, it is an absence of fear—not because one is convinced of his success, but because he has already embraced the consequences before hand. Confidence is the purging of doubt that is replaced by courage that is found by voluntarily facing the unknown (e.g. “What will be the outcome?”)

What about honor? Lay down what we currently think in order to free our hands for what honor could be. We might say that is honorable which brings unity between the ego and the conscience. It is honorable to act in accord with one’s nature, a nature shaped by the Nature of the external world. Honor is integrity in alignment with what affirms life and the world. It is the purging of guilt and inborn shame through refinement of person, cultivation of conduct, and balancing of one’s character.

These are the lessons of Chapter Sixty-Four, lessons for managing your spirit: open, quiet, and rest your mind; hear the Tao source of life speaking to you; see what it shows you, what you could not see before and what you do now want to see; do this, and the honorable Path will make itself apparent. The first step is confidence. This will be arduous—it may even destroy how you have previously defined yourself—but if you follow this Path that belongs only to you, you will begin to act honorably. Step by arduous step, you will balance your foundation. You will find agreement between aspects of yourself. You will find agreement between yourself and the world. Competition ceases to be, because you have transformed it into cooperation. In this way, you’ve become impervious and unshakable, all because you began to pay attention to yourself, your conduct, and your attitude.

But remember, this process is slow. The journey is long, and each step will feel small, often insignificant. Yet if you remember that even the smallest steps accrue, that one day ten steps will become ten-thousand, then you can find it in your heart to renew your life-embracing attitude. You can continue travelling in accord with the Tao, each step like it was the first.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Sixty-Four”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. pp.123-24