MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER THIRTEEN

life and death
favor and disgrace
praise and blame
success and failure

all of these conditions confuse and dismay us because
they are the same ailment
they cause ill at ease states and related worries

how does this happen

when favor is acquired so is the fear of losing favor acquired

if someone thinks that the corporeal body is the limit of the self
then the fear that is inherent in the body makes itself known
and is difficult to subdue

how can you trust and accept your corporeal limits in the face of
fear

we have fear when a limited self is absorbed in importance

if you view the unlimited world as the self
then you can be trusted with it

because only the person who sees the world as themselves
and their self as the world

will take care of it

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

The faculty of desire purports to aim at securing what you want, while aversion purports to shield you from what you don’t. If you fail in your desire, you are unfortunate, if you experience what you would rather avoid you are unhappy. . . . If you desire something outside your control, you are bound to be disappointed. (Epictetus)

Desires are inescapable, yet they are placeable—inside or outside; in that which is internal or that which is external. In other words, though we may not have a choice as whether or not to desire something (for even desiring to not desire not only fails to do away with the problem, it creates more of it), we do control our attitudes thereby controlling what we wish for. Therefore, in order to save ourselves from the tides of life breaking us upon its rocky shores, we must aim our desires toward those things in our control—and more importantly, we must aim them away from those externals beyond our power.

But what is in our control, and what is not? Let us defer once again to our philosopher, Epictetus:

We are responsible for some things, while there are others for which we cannot be held responsible. The former include our judgement, our impulse, our desire, aversion and our mental faculties in general; the latter include the body, material possessions, our reputation, status—in a word, anything not in our power to control. (Epictetus)

Are there any surprises? Though many of us would surely assent to judgments and mental faculties being within our power, and likewise, though many would agree that material possessions, reputation, and status are things granted and taken sometimes randomly and arbitrarily, perhaps fewer are ready to admit that impulses, desires, and aversions are a things under our purview; perhaps that same number are ready to deny that the body is not something within our power. However, those last listed individuals are not likely to be born as slaves and cripples, as was Epictetus. At the other end of experience, those who have suffered injury, illness, or age are already aware that our health is not something we can determine, but only our choices. What we decided is and is healthy or unhealthy, wholesome or unwholesome, significant or unimportant, marks our life course. It determines our decisions, and THAT we have control over—our moral choices as opposed to the outcomes of those decisions.

Consequences are relevant our material beings. The self who is obsessed with consequences is concerned only with his “corporeal self.” If we are him, we see and value nothing beyond our material conditions. This is in itself a consequence of misplaced desire, of overvaluing the body—an external, a thing which we cannot be responsible for.

Yet we may break free if we realize our misplaced desire. Through acceptance of one’s condition, one’s position in the world as a component of it, then one can place his desire elsewhere. We become able to place our desires on that which we control, our characters—our parts in the play that determines are our fated roles. We can take ownership of our place in the universe; and by taking ownership, we take responsibility; through responsibility, we can face the tragedies that life throws at us without worry or imbalance.

We can care for the world only once we learn to accept our role.

Epictetus. Enchiridion. Discourses and Selected Writings, translated and edited by Robert Dobbin, Penguin Books, 2008.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Thirteen”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.23