Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
- This chapter drops some wisdom about dualities.
- Once we know beauty, we know ugliness.
- Once we know good, we know evil.
- High and low, long and short—all these opposites support each other and can't exist without one another.
- The sages, the super-wise Tao dudes, use this knowledge of dualities to live their lives with the Tao.
- For one, they live with the wu wei, or unattached action.
- Context Alert! Wu wei (also known as unattached action, effortless action, or the action of no action) is a big-deal concept in Taoism. It's slippery to define, but mostly it's about living in the moment, being relaxed, and not obsessing over outcomes.
- Anyway, the sages also do other cool stuff like teach the power of silence and live life without valuing material things.
- This chapter ends by giving us the secret to the sages' success: they don't dwell on success, so it never goes away.
- How very wu wei of them.