9        Moderation in All

Filling all the way to the brim is not as good as halting in time.

Pounding the edge to sharpness will not make it last.

Keeping plenty of gold and jade in the palace makes no one able to defend it.

Displaying riches and titles with pride brings about one’s downfall.

To retreat after a work well done is the Way of Heaven.

Moderation in All

The modesty and moderation suggested in this chapter are at the core of Lao Tzu’s teaching. This he concludes from observing the discreet and yet omnipotent workings of Tao as the ruling law of nature. Mankind should behave in the same manner. That means moderation in all.

            The life he recommends is hardly spectacular, at least not on the surface. Any excess is sure to cause trouble. People should live their lives humbly, sort of discreetly. This goes for kings, too. Don’t rock the boat. The reward lies in peace and harmony of the mind, and a life lived with ease.

            Lao Tzu finds concrete examples showing the necessity of his ideal. If you fill the cup to the brim, you just risk spilling. It is a waste. In the Bible, this is called gluttony. Sometimes we are like children, biting off more than we can chew. It will not only wear us down, but it will also make everything taste more bland than it would if we consumed it with some restrain.

            If you hammer a blade it may get sharp, but also fragile. It breaks easily, and then what good is its sharpness? In life, this is pushing things. It happens easily when we try to make something more out of what we have at our disposal. Whether this is driving a car faster than it’s constructed for, or forcing our own bodies and minds to feats beyond their capacity, the outcome may be very unfortunate.

            If you assemble riches, you will certainly attract people who want to take them away from you. Either they succeed, and you have nothing, or you spend your life struggling to protect your fortune. Then you have little time to enjoy it. That is just as true today as it was thousands of years ago. If anything, holding on to one’s wealth has become increasingly complicated.

            Our time is obsessed with money, and it is taken for granted that having it in abundance guarantees happiness. We assume that it must be fortunate to have a big fortune. But upon scrutiny we rarely find this to be the case. Instead, life becomes a kind of imprisonment, a slavery under the obsession. The more money you have, the more it dominates your life.

            A poor man’s dream about getting rich is much more pleasant than a rich man’s fear of becoming poor. Money is seductive, but it has a steep price that must be paid for it. Actually, you tend to pay with the joy that money was supposed to bring.

            Titles and elevated positions in society are just as deceptive as money. They cause envy and animosity. Others want to bring you down, either to replace you or just so they don’t have to look up to you.

            In our time, fame has become the great quest. People think that if they just get famous, their lives will be splendid like the lives of celebrities, as seen in magazines and TV-shows. But that’s just entertainment. It’s a gilded version of reality. Under its shiny surface there is not much that separates the celebrities from the rest of us – except the fear of losing their fame.

            Yes, fame is like money: It is much more of a torment to fear losing it, than it is to dream about reaching it.

Undisclosed Benevolence

In the last sentence, Lao Tzu states what is repeated many times in the Tao Te Ching: Do good without demanding praise for it, and you act according to the highest ideals. So does Tao in ruling the world by its laws, without any announcement. Nature obeys without being aware of any rules for its behavior. The mightiest force is the least visible.

            This discretion of the laws of the universe is evident in the perspective of quantum physics, where the very smallest components are said to contain the rules by which all the stars and galaxies of the cosmos abide. There is no struggle involved in it. The world behaves according to its attributes, which are carried by particles too small to be seen in any microscope.

            So, any human being should work with the same modesty. Also, when you don’t demand any praise for your deed, there is no reason for others to question it.

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