Perennial Lives | Stoics, Saints, and Sages
The Perennial Lives series explores the life and philosophy of 12 figures (one per week), from Socrates (470—399 BC) to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274). To assist us in our journey, we’ll turn to resources like Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, along with more recent works like Examined Lives by James Miller, Socrates’ Children by Peter Kreeft, and Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, and many others.
Today’s meditation is Part VI of the Perennial Lives series — The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas. Previously, we discussed The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas (Part I), How to Live — Like Socrates (Part II), The Life and Philosophy of Confucius (Part III), The Wisdom of Jesus (Part IV), and The Teachings of the Buddha (Part VI).
How to Live — Like Lao Tzu
In his series Socrates’ Children, modern-day philosopher Peter Kreeft writes Lao Tzu (also Lao-tse, Laozi) may have lacked something no other philosopher in this book lacked: actual existence. Some scholars believe he was a myth. His name means simply “the old man” or “the old master.”
According to the old records, Lao Tzu and Confucius are the only two religious founders who ever met each other. Confucius wrote of the meeting,
“I know a bird can fly; I know a fish can swim; I know animals can run. Creatures that run can be caught in nets; those that swim can be caught in traps; those that fly can be hit by arrows. But the dragon is beyond my knowledge: it ascends into heaven on the clouds and the wind. Today I have seen Lao Tzu, and he is like the dragon.”
Lao-Tzu was a Chinese philosopher credited with founding the philosophical system of Taoism. He is best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching, translated as “The Way of Virtue” or “The Classic of the Way and Virtue.” Tao is not manifested in words and rules like Confucianism observes Kreeft, but in natural things and events. It is like water: humbly, quietly, and gradually conforming itself to other beings and nourishing them.
Lao Tzu ultimately became disillusioned with Confucianism as a set of rules that he left the cities of China, where Confucius was teaching, and rode on a water buffalo into Mongolia (depicted in the painting above), never to return. However, as legend has it, the gatekeeper would not let him through until he had shared his wisdom in writing. He took three days to write the eighty-one short poems of the Tao Te Ching, gave them to the gatekeeper, was let through, and was never heard from again.
The Way of Virtue
“If you want to become whole, first let yourself become broken. If you want to become straight, first let yourself become twisted,” according to Lao Tzu. The Tao Te Ching consists of many poetic and counterintuitive statements like these. Here are three well-known chapters from the Tao Te Ching that illustrate its profound, mysterious, and paradoxical nature.
The Tao is like an empty container: it can never be emptied and can never be filled. Infinitely deep, it is the source of all things. It dulls the sharp, unties the knotted, shades the lighted, and unites all creation with dust. It is hidden but always present. I don’t know who gave birth to it. It is older than the concept of God.
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 4
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Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that allows the wheel to function. We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. We fashion wood for a house, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable. We work with the substantial, but the emptiness is what we use.
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11
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Success is as dangerous as failure, and we are often our own worst enemy.
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? He who is superior is also someone subordinate. Receiving favor and losing it both cause alarm. That is what is meant by success is as dangerous as failure. What does it mean that we are often our own worst enemy? The reason I have an enemy is because I have a ‘self’. If I no longer had a ‘self’, I would no longer have an enemy. Love the who world as if it were your self; then you will truly care for all things.
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 13
Final Thoughts
Lao Tzu's philosophy is surprisingly practical and relevant today. The wisdom of Lao Tzu reveals itself in modern culture more than we might realize. For example, Disney’s popular Mandalorian series uses several phrases and concepts directly from Taoism, like “The Way” and “those who know do not speak.” Similarly, movies like the new Avatar: The Way of Water, the original Star Wars series, and even the Kung Fu Panda trilogy all utilize several Taoist ideas and concepts.
Taoism can also help us make sense of how the world works. The Chinese philosophical concept known as the yin and yang describes opposite but interconnected forces. The yin and yang, the cosmic feminine and masculine, express the relativity of all qualities: hot and cold, wet and dry, high and low, birth and death, pain and pleasure, strength and weakness, and even good and evil in the sense of good fortune and bad fortune. Kreeft writes, “Our attempts to get one half of the dualism without the other necessarily fail because they run counter to nature, the ‘way’ things are. Wisdom embraces both, in embracing the whole, which is the Tao.”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions!
There is something so special about Taoism. For 40 I chased the illusion of enlightenment - but as a quote from Krishnamurti reminded me recently - “the pursuit of knowledge is just another form of materialism.” Now I’m just the hole in the wheel.