Tao Te Ching 22: Let yourself be broken

– 22 –

 Let yourself be broken

and you will be whole.

Let yourself be crooked

and you will be straight.

Let yourself be empty

and you will be full.

Let yourself grow old

and you will be renewed.

Give up everything

and you will be given everything.

 –

The Sage embraces the Tao and

sets an example for the world to follow.

Because she isn’t self-centred,

people can see the light in her.

Because she is not boastful,

she becomes a shining example.

Because she has nothing to prove,

people can trust her words.

Because she does not who who she is,

people recognise themselves in her.

Because she does not compete with anyone,

no one competes with her.

 –

Only in being lived by the Tao

can you truly be yourself.

 –

Commentary

This verse contains more of the existential paradoxes Lao Tzu was so fond of. He tells us that if we want to be whole, we must first allow ourselves to be broken. If we want to be given everything, we must willingly give up everything. This includes all definitions of who we think we are, what we think our life is about and whatever aims, goals and desires we’re clinging to. Most of us carry way too much baggage in our heads. How can we expect to attain anything in life without first clearing the decks, letting go of the extraneous and creating the necessary space to receive? Water can only be poured into an empty jug.

This is far easier said than done, for our society has no appreciation of space or emptiness; it’s totally object-oriented and is all about fullness, grasping and accumulating.

Many people harbour the unfortunate delusion that life somehow owes them. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Life owes us nothing —  but we owe life everything. We’re indebted to life for everything that we have, and everything that we are — and that’s a huge, huge debt.

Life doesn’t really care what we want. The field is one of neutrality, completely unmoved by the petty likes, dislikes and whims of our egos. It doesn’t — and can’t — give us what we want, it can only give us what we need and what we are. So if all we ever do is take from life, then life is most likely going to mirror this and take from us. The sages tell us that if we shift our modus operandi from taking to giving, we’ll not only be far happier, but we may also see a qualitative change in terms of just how much comes our way in life.

The essence of this verse is perhaps contained in the sentence: “only in being lived by the Tao can you truly be yourself”. This implies that whatever notion you already have about yourself may not be the full picture. Many people become imprisoned by a limiting and ultimately illusory self-concept and self-image, an abstraction that exists only in their heads. Surrendering to the Tao means simply letting go of the conceptual, shaking free of habits of mind and thought and coming into alignment with the natural rhythms of life, allowing the Tao to guide our actions naturally, spontaneously and gracefully. This verse gives a perfect example of someone who lives in such a way, with simplicity, selflessness, ease and without a rigid definition of who she thinks she is.