Tenth Chapter: Tao Te Ching | Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Tenth Chapter: Tao Te Ching

Tenth Chapter: Tao Te Ching

Tenth Chapter:
Tao te Ching

Can you keep your body and soul separated?
Can you keep your body as supple as an infant?
Can you look at yourself in the dark mirror and make it spotless?
Can you govern the state without knowledge (cunning)?
Can you play the role of the female in the opening and closing of the gates of Heaven?
Can you understand and penetrate all without taking any action?

To birth things and to rear them,
And not take possession of them,
To act, but not to take credit for that action,
To lead but not to master –
This is called profound and secret virtue.

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As I understand it:

Body cannot be separated from man’s breathing and intelligence.
A faded body cannot bloom again.

We cannot have the profound insight about ourselves unless we look within.
Look at ourselves when we are about to put down someone else.

We cannot govern unless we replace cunning with sense of self.
We cannot let the creativity flow unless we awaken our femininity.
We cannot understand without unless we understand within.

Not to possess things we have,
To accomplish and not puff up,
To take pleasure in the things we have – our family, what we like to do, things that flow into our lives. Not to get attached. Just to observe.

Guide. Do not control the people we lead.
Love. Do not possess people we’ve birthed.
Becoming detached will put us in a state of bliss.
In the process of letting go, we’ll gain freedom.

At the moment of our last breath, we would own nothing and no one. The only real thing would be the invisible energy — in our heart and in the hearts of those surrounding us.

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Suggested Readings:
Lao Tzu, The Way of Lao Tzu, tr. Wing-Tsit Chan, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1963.
Dyer, Wayne W., Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of Tao. Hay House, Inc. 2007.

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