STABILITY & FEAR

“13

Success is as dangerous as failure.

Hope is as hollow as fear. What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?

Whether you go up the ladder or down it,

your position is shaky.

When you stand with your two feet on the ground,

you will always keep your balance. What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?

Hope and fear are both phantoms

that arise from thinking of the self.

When we don't see the self as self,

what do we have to fear? See the world as your self.

Have faith in the way things are.

Love the world as your self;

then you can care for all things.

(...)One can be stable and efficient when one avoids ambition. This does not mean to not take opportunities which arise of themselves, but more to not try and raise those opportunities artificially. (...)

Hope and fear run contrary to the 'as such-ness' of events. Hoping, as it were, is to prefer one way to another; fear is that the not preferred way will come about. In both cases, it is the skin-contained ego trying to impose itself on Nature.

(...)When we can accept and love all things the Universe is doing, all of its 'wiggles', there is no need for ambition, hopes or fears (...). We do not need advantages, for everything and everyone is 'advantaged'. And one does not apply one's stability toward an isolated security, but to the well-being of all.”

SOURCE:
Tao Te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation) & commentary : Tao I


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