When the great Tao is abandoned, benevolence and righteousness arise.
Interpretation
Abandoning the natural way leads to the emergence of artificial moral concepts.
This quote by Laozi suggests that when humanity moves away from the natural and harmonious path (the Tao), artificial constructs like benevolence and righteousness emerge. These constructs, though often viewed as positives, signify a loss of the intrinsic wisdom found in following the natural way of the universe. It reflects on the idea that societal norms and moralities can be distortions stemming from a disconnection from a deeper understanding of life.
In practice
In a discussion on moral philosophy, one might quote Laozi to highlight the importance of natural ethics over constructed morality.
If you understand others you are smart._x000D_ If you understand yourself you are illuminated._x000D_ If you overcome others you are powerful._x000D_ If you overcome yourself you have strength._x000D_ If you know how to be satisfied you are rich._x000D_ If you can act with vigor, you have a will._x000D_ If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting._x000D_ If you die without loss, you are eternal.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.
In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.
Rule your mind with serenity rather than with force and manipulation.
Our entire life, with our fine moral code and our precious freedom, consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.
For the superior morality, of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is properly rather an inferior criminality, produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion.
We are born and reborn countless number of times, and it is possible that each being has been our parent at one time or another. Therefore, it is likely that all beings in this universe have familial connections.
Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act.
Weβre too much ourselves. Afraid of letting go of what we are, in case we are nothing, and holding on so tight, we lose everything else.
There isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. All the time, we find animals doing things that, in our arrogance, we thought were just human.
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