Tao Te Ching Verse 36: Harnessing Opposites

The Tao Te Ching for Everyday Living

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Tao Te Ching Verse 36

translation in The Tao of Rivenrock: a personal translation
It is the way of the Tao that:
To reduce the influence of something,
first allow it undue influence.
To reduce something, it must first be allowed to expand.
That which will be torn down, must first be raised up.
This is the subtle way the weak can overcome the strong.
A fish should not leave the water.
And one should not display one's weapons.

Photo by Nicholas Doherty on Unsplash
The Subtle Way

Ebb & flow. Sometimes doing. Sometimes resting More than just opposites, these are states in which we find ourselves from time to time. There is an event.. Then there’s a time of reflection. A physical feat like a race , and then a period of physical recovery.

There is a noise, and then silence. Remember how we talked about the Tao always being in motion? That’s one of the principles I think Lao Tzu is building on in this verse.

But he takes it a little further, as far as human attributes are concerned. He talks about a time to expand and a time to contract. A time of strength, and a time of weakness. A time for influence and a time for none.

I think we can get a couple deeper meanings. One meaning, the one I came away with, was sort of a derivation of the verse that explained contentment. The one that said the one who doesn’t compete is not competed against. Remember that one? I took that plus this verse and thought hmm, I need not experience such extremes in my life if I recognize where I’m at, examine its opposite, and if that’s an undesired state for me, dial back the intensity with which I’m pursuing or giving attention to my current state. In other words, I’m kind of consciously using the Law of Balance.

The second deeper meaning expands on the one we just talked about, from Chuang Tze, as relayed by Lin Yutang in his book, The Wisdom of Laotse, page 192 in the 1948 version: “To take the phenomena of rise and fall, growth and decay, the Tao does not regard rise and fall as rise and fall...These are all leveled together by Tao. Division is the same as creation, and creation is the same as destruction. There is no such thing as creation and destruction, for these conditions are again leveled together into One.”

So this seems to be drawing a wider net around our counterintuitive discussion: that a time of action and a time of rest are just different varieties of times for the Tao. That a time of happiness and a time of sadness are just different ways to describe an experience.

So there are a few takeaways here: one, that we can use the Subtle Light to look for and work towards balance in our lives, that seeming opposite times are just different kinds of times for the Tao - it’s only that importance that we place on them that makes them seem to matter, and two, the implication thereof: that nothing we can experience eclipses the Tao. We are safely ensconced in its domain. There is really nothing, either in our current forms or other forms of which to be afraid.