Daily Reflection
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.1—Tao Te Ching, Ch. 38
We continue our conversation on morality, today pivoting from Confucian thought to its balancing force—Daoism (or Taoism depending on your translation preference.)
This excerpt might appear a bit puzzling on the surface, especially for a week-long study on morality. After all by line 2, a loss of goodness leads to an increase in morality. How is that?
To understand the Tao Te Ching, we have to understand Wu-Wei. We’ve talked about this here at TPP a few other times in depth here and here. But for today, it’s sufficient to translate Wu-Wei as spontaneous living—in this case spontaneous virtue.
The Tao is reality as it is, prior to our decision to discriminate, judge, and separate the world in our mind’s eye.
The Tao is what lies underneath our judgements about the good and the…
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