If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that moral values and duties arise in response to the loss of a harmonious way of life.
Laozi's quote reflects on the state of human relationships and moral obligations within society. It implies that when harmony and the 'Great Way' are lost, people tend to cling to morality and duty as a response to chaos and clever deceit. The mention of familial love and loyalty in the face of conflict highlights the importance of maintaining strong bonds in difficult times, suggesting that true virtue emerges from necessity rather than a natural state of being.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion on ethics and human behavior in chaotic times.
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.
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame.
Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
Reality! But what does this word mean? Each has his own reality. I draw upon my personal reality upon the dark side of myself, my unconscious.
We may now have reached a point where this gap in our make-up has become unsustainable; partly because what in the past would have counted as material plenty has become the norm for the majority in much of the world; and partly because the slow retreat of religion that coincided with the spread of a capitalist economy has left a gaping hole in millions of people's lives. (Geoff Mulgan)
He had had a severe shock some weeks earlier, when, having narrowly failed to capture a large grey-brown hare for his dinner, it had stopped at the edge of the forest, looked at him with disdain, and said, 'Well, I hope you're proud of yourself, that's all,' and had scampered off into the long grass
The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.
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