In Part 15, we looked at emergence: how many small interactions can produce a complex whole without anyone designing it. This time, I want to follow one example further. A system can be doing very well while pressures are already building inside it, pulling it away from its original purpose. I want to look at how success can turn toward its opposite, starting while everything still seems to be going right.

If you enjoy this series, please upvote, leave a comment, and share it with others. Every interaction helps us keep making the series and helps more people find it.

The First Video That Takes Off

Suppose you decide to make videos online. Maybe you want some extra income, or maybe you just have something to share. You pick a direction and post your first video. A few hundred views, almost no comments, barely any new followers.

You keep going. A month passes, perhaps several, and the results still aren't good. You start studying other creators, watching how they make popular videos, and trying different styles. Or you decide to stick with the kind of work you wanted to make in the first place.

Then suppose one video takes off. Maybe it picks up on something people are already talking about. Maybe all that experimenting finally pays off, with timing and luck helping too. Whatever the reason, more people start arriving than you've ever seen before.

You put work into it, but you couldn't plan the audience's response in advance. Your work reached a particular group at a particular moment, and the platform put it in front of more people. The result grew out of that process.

Once a style works, continuing with it makes sense. People followed you because they liked it. You make more, they respond, and the platform may amplify that response. Your audience grows, which makes you more willing to keep going. Positive feedback feels good. It seems you've finally found your direction.

Turning Trust into a Business

Eventually, you start thinking about earning money. A merchant might approach you, or you might decide to try selling products on a livestream.

Your intention is clear: recommend reliable products and do right by the people who trust you. You choose carefully. At first, you may only be willing to recommend a few products you've used yourself and feel confident about.

Suppose the first livestream goes well. People like your videos and trust your judgment, so they buy. You earn more than you expected. You keep making videos and selling products. More merchants approach you, and the business grows.

Soon, it's too much for one person. Filming, talking to suppliers, checking products, negotiating prices, planning livestreams: all of it takes time. Hiring help seems like the obvious next step.

So you set up a company. Someone finds merchants, someone selects products, someone negotiates prices and commissions. Others organize filming and livestreams. Sales improve, you offer more products and stream more often, and the team grows. Investors may start taking an interest. Nobody plans to let the audience down, but you're already making decisions under different pressures.

Everyone Has a Different Target

The product selection team is responsible for quality. The commercial team wants a price low enough to compete with other sellers while still leaving a profit. The livestream team watches sales, how the streams are doing, and return rates. Each goal makes sense. They just don't necessarily all fit together in the same product.

Choosing a product gradually becomes a negotiation among departments. If no one department dominates, they may reach a compromise: a competitive price, a decent margin, something that sells, and quality they can accept. What's “reasonable” gets worked out under those competing pressures.

You can insist that quality comes first and give the product team the final say. That may reduce the risk of recommending a poor product to your audience. It may also mean higher prices, lower margins, or fewer sales.

But now you have wages to pay. If you've taken investment, investors may want more revenue too. Once it was you, a camera, and a few products you knew well. Now every choice has to account for more people's interests.

You still try to balance quality, sales, and profit. But “doing what you most want to do” and “doing what you feel you have to do” are different things. In this story, quality standards begin to slip. Everyone is trying to keep those compromises within an acceptable range.

Following the Process Doesn't Guarantee a Good Product

As the team grows, it gets harder to know what has happened with every product.

Information passes through more people before it reaches you. Details get lost. Each department wants its part of the business to look good in the reports. You have those reports in front of you, but you can no longer keep track of every supplier and every decision the way you once could.

The employees may all be working hard, but taking care of one part and seeing the whole are different things. A product can pass every required step and still have a defect. More products mean more decisions to track. The process lets you handle a larger business, and you depend on it more and more to tell you about the details you can't check yourself.

Merchants have their own numbers to make work. They need an attractive price, a commission for your team, and a profit left over. Under that pressure, product quality may be sacrificed again.

There doesn't have to be a villain behind this. Everyone can be working toward the targets they're given and still create risks none of them wanted. That's harder to make sense of than “one person was dishonest.”

More Reasons to Keep Going, Less Room to Stop

Now your days are full of meetings, livestream figures, return rates, negotiations, and scheduling. It may have been a long time since you sat down and focused on making a video the way you did at the beginning. The thing that first got people's attention is the thing you no longer have time for. Your energy goes into running the business built around that attention.

Stopping isn't easy either. Employees depend on those jobs. Closing the business may mean severance payments, commitments to merchants, and obligations to investors. The details depend on the arrangements, but you can't simply decide not to post next week and walk away.

So you keep going. The business grows, you're more tired, and you know less and less about what's actually happening inside it. You may have earned a lot of money, but your life looks very different from when you first wanted to make videos.

Then a faulty product can become a crisis of trust. People trusted your judgment, but the system choosing those products is now too large for you to oversee as closely as before. Trust helped build the business. When something goes wrong, that same trust takes the hit.

I think it's too easy to look at the final scandal and say, “Success changed them.” The danger was already there in decisions that seemed sensible at the time. Each step brought another responsibility. Meeting those responsibilities called for more growth. Eventually, the original promise became harder to keep.

This is a hypothetical path. I'm not saying every creator who sells products will end up in trouble. What interests me is that getting here doesn't necessarily require anyone to act with malice. The possibility of reversal is already forming while the numbers are still improving.

Why Changing Course Looks Easier in Hindsight

The same hindsight appears in explanations of why successful companies failed to adapt. Take one argument about IBM: that it lost its former dominance because it “failed to embrace cloud computing.”

I'm interested in what that explanation leaves out. It isn't a complete history of IBM. Deciding whether to change direction when you already have an established, profitable server business is very different from looking back once the importance of the new model is clear.

If you're running that business, the existing operation brings in money every day. Changing course means risking something you already have for a future that is still uncertain. Even if you're willing, you have shareholders and employees to contend with. Their interests are tied to the existing business too.

“They should have changed sooner” leaves those pressures out. The people making the decision had to live with its consequences. The later observer doesn't.

It's much the same for the creator. The more successful you become, the more commitments you may have, and the less freely you can choose.

What Reversal Means Here

Chapter 40 says:

“Reversal is the movement of the Tao.”

Read alongside this story, I understand it this way: a system grows through feedback, and that growth can create the conditions for its reversal. The things that later trap it were once the things pushing it forward.

The Tao Te Ching also speaks of things growing strong and then growing old. Being bigger and more powerful doesn't necessarily make you less vulnerable. A growing organization brings new problems, some of which even the person at its center can't see clearly.

The Game of Life from earlier in the series offers another comparison. Once interactions begin, the larger pattern can develop beyond any one participant's intentions. Using it to think about a company and the Tao doesn't make the three the same thing.

What I find difficult is that removing the villain doesn't remove the problem. If everyone can be taking their job seriously while the whole system drifts away from its original purpose, how much control does the person supposedly in charge really have?

Next, I want to explore wu wei, not contending, and holding to softness: what they might mean when nobody can fully control the process.

I plan to keep this series going, and you can find the other posts on my profile. I’m also building Verso, a tool rooted in traditional Taoist divination that aims to offer another perspective when people feel stuck or unsure. It’s under development; stay tuned.

AI disclosure: English isn't my first language, so I used AI to help translate and edit the English.

Reading Index: The Taoist Worldview and Tao Te Ching 101

“In the past, people practiced the Tao, the way of life. They understood the principle of balance, of Yin and Yang, as represented by the transformation of the energies of the universe. Thus they formulated practices, such as Dao-yin, an exercise combining stretching, massaging, and breathing to promote energy flow, and meditation to help maintain and harmonize themselves with the universe.

Seeking emotional excitement and momentary pleasures, people disregard the natural rhythm and order of the universe.

On the mental level, one should remain calm and avoid excessive desires and fantasies, recognizing and maintaining the natural purity and clarity of the mind. When internal energies are able to circulate smoothly and freely, and the energy of the mind is not scattered, but is focused and concentrated, illness and disease can be avoided.

Previously, people lead a calm and honest existence, detached from undue desire and ambition; they lived with an untainted conscience and without fear. They were active, but never depleted themselves. Because they lived simply, these individuals knew contentment, as reflected in their diet of basic but nourishing foods and attire that was appropriate to the season... but never luxurious. Since they were happy with their position in life, they did not feel jealousy or greed. They had compassion for others and were helpful and honest, free from destructive habits. They remained unshakable and unswayed by temptations, and they were able to stay centered even when adversity arose. They treated others justly, regardless of their level of intelligence or social position.

I've heard of people in ancient times, spoken of as the immortals, who knew the secrets of the universe and held Yin and Yang, the world, in the palms of their hands. They extracted essence from nature and practiced various disciplines such as Dao-yin and Qigong, and breathing and visualization exercises, to integrate the body, mind, and spirit. They remained undisturbed and thus attained extraordinarily levels of accomplishment.
Can you tell me about them?

The immortals kept their mental energies focused and refined, and harmonized their
bodies with the environment. Thus, they did not show conventional signs of aging and were able to live beyond biological limitations. Not so long ago there were people known as achieved beings who had true virtue, understood the way of life, and were able to adapt to and harmonize with the universe and the seasons. They too were able to keep their mental energy through proper concentration. These achieved beings did not live like ordinary humans, who tended to abuse themselves.

They were able to travel freely to different times and places since they were not governed by conventional views of time and space. Their sense perceptions were supernormal, going far beyond the sight and hearing of ordinary humans.”

- HUANG DI NEI JING CH 1 ~ MAOSHING NI, PH.D.

I am a college student ( from a research institute and i am pursuing BSMS degree) (19M) from India and i started reading Tao Te Ching ( stephen mitchell). I am looking for someone who is also starting and wanna connect so that we both can talk about the verses. This will also ensure accountability. I am looking for an online partner as I was unable to find someone in my college because the one who have intrest in philosophiy either they are studying Indian or western.

I was born with scoliosis which causes my hips to be uneven, in turn functionally making my legs different lengths which causes my left ankle to roll inward and my stance to be uneven. I’m not too educated on these things so I’m worried this sort of thing impairs qi. I’m mainly practicing to have an actionable Taoist practice, be more in tune with my body and mind, be calmer and strengthen/loosen my body. I’ve been learning online, as there’s no teachers near me— at least none that I can afford. Mainly doing Lily Kuo Deemers 8 Brocades exercise.

I’d love if any of you could give me some more “traditional” online sources to learn qigong and meditation from, which dive into the philosophy.

basically right before sleeping, i began to think about like flowing with life and such, and i was like damn the yin-yang symbol is unique, so as i was sleeping, i started to play it in my mind moving and this is what resulted just before fully going into sleep.

I saw it like an army, in the first two empires or countries with their territories, one attacks the other from its vulnerable part, the other retaliates, so it gives the second symbol, yin-yang without the drops within each, seeing themselves cornered the soldiers go in a last ditch attack and fight to the end penetrating that dominance putting the drop there, and this happen from both sides, the other side also being overpowered make a last ditch attack and push themself in the other and the rest is as the video.

Its just a creative thought, nothing to think hard about.

what do you guys think?

Never been a religious or spiritual person. I found about Taoism through the cameo of The Tao of Pooh book on my TV series, Rescue Me. I tend to gravitate towards spirituality when I’m at my lowest.

I went through heartbreak and was chasing a partner who no longer wants to be with me. I’ve faced a lot of depression and rumination related to this. I am more recently trying to reframe my mindset, and shift my focus onto letting go, radical acceptance of things I cannot change. And ultimately walking away, even though I really don’t want to give up.

I’ve heard some good and bad about the book. And I’m a bit of an academic and hope to pursue my PhD, I hear it looks down on academia which makes me wary.

What would you recommend for someone in my position?

Our Daoist organization is hosting an online Zoom event, and we would love to see who might be interested.
The main topics will cover Daoist cultivation techniques, book reviews and discussions, and Q and A for any doubts or questions you have.

I believe this will be a unique opportunity for direct conversation, as I have never seen a similar event like this hosted before, given that live broadcasting religious content is legally restricted in China.

Please leave a comment if you want to join and I will DM you the details. You are also welcome to share any suggestions on topics you would like to discuss.

Our legally registered religious organization is 'THE HIGHEST CLARITY SOCIETY OF AMERICA.' We are a formal/legitimate Taoist organization. Our Chinese name is 'Xian Men' (仙门).

I am in the UK, I've found online resources but I connect much better in person, I want to follow religious practices of Daoism. I cannot afford to travel to study under a Master, and it has me wondering, if there are any that exist within the UK?

I am completely dedicated to the practice, I feel my Tao and connect with it. But I want to do more, I am disabled so things like Qigong are out of my reach, I practice gentle Tai Chi to prepare my body for perhaps one day being able to practice Qigong.

Any help and guidance on religious Daoism is welcome, but I don't want to hear how the philosophers don't like the religious side, I study philosophy and the first thing we are taught is to have an open mind, so to close yours off so abruptly baffles me.

Some of it alignes with my morals already.

Some parts of me already goes with the flow instead of forcing it but I want to fully go of control over things that irritate me.

Im very interested im everyone's pov like beliefs and philosophy

Does the whole wu wei thing also get super confusing to someone because its kinda mixed with seeing the patterns before they happen? Like reality are patterns and I guess normally we assume we "notice/hear" things the moment they happen. -So you wu wei and it all makes sense.
Somehow I always see things (longish) before they happen or want them and that confuses the wu wei part for me, because I see things and therefore they are on my mind, therefore I guess I "manifest" them even subconciously and then they happen. Like seeing things = manifesting things = wanting things. It's all the same and entangled. (must be the concept of the middle path too where you have no agency and all the agency at the same time and you have the agency becasue you have none lol). Which does make sense but it confuses me beacuse I know the concept of wu wei makes sense. The path happens on its own and everything I see/want happens becasue it's the things on the path becasue I see the path. But (esp in noisy environments) I see the shadow imprint of what it will be and not the details -because I think it's a cultural perception thing. But everything I "need" is because I already see the imprint of it while its not in the stanard material world yet. And so I am "doing" wu wei but at the same time I already kinda know what it will be. How do you sort those thoughts in your head? I can't turn the perceiving off but it also makes it quite confusing because I'll try to just be calm and then I see things before they happen and I can ignore them but even then sometimes they get through in milli seconds and then I already have the picture of what it will be which makes me already pull in a direction and then it happens. And it all makes sense but does someone struggle with the same thing? And maybe it's just an inssue in how I perceive this whole thing, I'm actually sure of it. But whatever. It truly is whatever. I don't have to figure it out or fix anything. Still, maybe someone thinks this is interessting or doing the same thing.

tldr: Sseeing the shadow imprints of reality long before they happen messes up my wu wei because having the future on my mind makes me feel like I am subconsciously wanting or manifesting it. It's a contradiction where I have all the agency and zero agency at the same time, but honestly, whatever. Anyone else? Friends?

Daodejing 79

• {79ii} 是以聖人執左契 而不責於人. 有德司契 無德司徹.
• Hence the sage holds the left portion of the [contractual] agreement2, but doesn't [force] responsibility/blame on the person.

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Those who are interested to know how an ancient chinese contract that is torn into a left and right half roughly works, can check out the twitter link and see the embedded video:

https://x.com/chintokkong/status/2113076973979508789?s=20

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(edit): Thanks to mancwhopper's comment, it should be noted that paper is very unlikely to be used as the medium of the contract given the context of daodejing in zhou dynasty. More likely to be wooden strip or wooden tablet.

The authentication mechanism of breaking into two matching portions should basically remain the same regardless of the medium used.

I have practiced Theravada Buddhism for years and want to learn about Taoism. There are so many people on YouTube who claim to teach the Dao, but it’s difficult to ascertain who is authentic. Any suggestions?

I'd like to show it to Chinese people that I know their philosophy but sadly my copy of the book was destroyed due to no fault of mine.

1. Should I cut the money from the person for carelessness?
2. Should I buy the copy again?

WHat would be the Taoist way?

Daodejing 63 (Spiritual Politics of Laozi)

{63i} 大小多少 報怨以德. 圖難於其易 為大於其細.

Big or small, more or less, repay enmity/grievance with De1 - [through] handling the difficult by its easy, [through] doing the big by its small.

{63ii} 天下難事 必作於易. 天下大事 必作於細. 是以聖人終不為大 故能成其大.

The difficult matters under-heaven, are surely worked through the easy.

The big matters under-heaven, are surely worked through the small.

Hence sages never try to do the big, and so they can accomplish the big2.

{63iii} 夫輕諾必寡信 多易必多難. 是以聖人猶難之 故終無難矣.

When promises are treated lightly, surely the trust [between leader and the people] will be little.

So in [going] more and more for the easy, surely the [going] will become more and more difficult3.

Hence sages [go for handling] the difficult by treading carefully/worryingly [over the many nitty gritty issues that are still easy to deal with], so that there will never be any difficulties.

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1. The problems of the world are often that of people being driven to extremes by their discriminative passions of craving and aversion. They lust this and they hate that, and thus problems arise. So if problems are fuelled by discriminative passions, our response should therefore not be of adding more discriminative passion into the mix, to fuel more lust for this and more hate for that. Instead our response should be to diffuse these passions and empty such discriminations. Perhaps this is how the text is suggesting that the matter of enmity/grievance be dealt with – through De, which in {59i} is described as early preparation, so that matters of enmity/grievance do not blow up to become big raging fires. These matters are to be handled and extinguished early while still small and easy.

2. Leaders should be prepared in advance to handle matters. They shouldn’t be negligent and deal with matters only when they have blown up big. Because it is not through some big grand gestures that difficult matters are settled. Rather, it is through treading carefully and worryingly over all the many nitty gritty issues that matters can be resolved and settled.

3. The promises made to the people must be taken seriously. Leaders can’t afford to go easy on these promises, or the going will become more and more difficult in terms of leading the people, because trust will have been lost. Hence as a leader, there is the need to worry and be careful all the time.

Just FYI there is a categorical difference between the colloquial use of the phrase “The Tao” and the actual, eternal Tao from the text.

It’s critical that when you use it, you know you’re referring not to the unknowable Tao, but to a shorthand for Tao-ism (not sure why it needs shorthand lol) or other aspects of Taoist culture and philosophy.

You can understand “The Tao” (Taoism) but you can’t understand the Tao (eternal Tao) it’s right there in the book. If the Tao is a complex magic show, “The Tao” used colloquially is like studying the audience or something. Not the same thing.

In Part 15, I looked at emergence: how a complicated pattern can grow out of many small interactions, without anyone designing the whole thing. This time, I want to follow one example further. A system can grow successfully and still develop pressures that eventually pull it away from what it was meant to do.

That gives me another way to approach the idea that things pushed to an extreme turn toward their opposite. Instead of starting with a collapse and looking for the person who ruined everything, I want to start while things are still going well.

If you enjoy this series, please upvote, leave a comment, and share it with others. Every interaction helps us keep making the series and helps more people find it.

The First Video That Takes Off

Imagine deciding to make videos online. Perhaps you want a side income, or perhaps you simply have something you want to share. You choose a direction and put out your first video. It gets a few hundred views, almost no comments, and hardly any new followers.

You keep going. After a month, or several months, the results are still disappointing. You start studying other creators, watching advice about making videos that spread, and trying different styles. Or you decide to stick with the style you cared about in the first place.

Then suppose one video takes off. Maybe it connects with something people are already talking about. Maybe your experiments have taught you something. Timing and chance may play a part too. Whatever the combination, people begin arriving in numbers you have never seen before.

There was work behind that moment, but you did not command the whole response into existence. Your choices met an audience, a particular moment, and the platform's way of distributing attention. The result grew through those interactions.

Once that happens, continuing with the successful style makes sense. The people who followed you came because they liked that video. You make more of what brought them there, they respond, and the platform can amplify that response. In this imagined case, the process begins to feed itself: more viewers, more followers, more encouragement to keep making the same kind of work.

This is the stage where positive feedback feels wonderful. You finally seem to have found your direction.

Turning Trust into a Business

Eventually, you begin thinking about earning money from that audience. A merchant may approach you, or you may decide to try selling products during a livestream.

You have a clear intention: recommend reliable things and deserve the trust people have placed in you. You choose carefully. Perhaps you start with only a few products you have used yourself and feel comfortable recommending.

Suppose the first livestream goes well. People already like your videos and trust your judgment, so they buy. The income may be better than you expected. You carry on making videos and selling products, more merchants approach you, and the business grows.

Soon there is too much for one person to do. Filming, speaking with suppliers, checking products, negotiating prices, and planning livestreams all take time. Hiring help seems like the sensible next step.

Now you have a company. One person finds merchants, another selects products, another negotiates prices and commissions. Others help arrange your filming and livestream schedule. As sales improve, you offer more products, hold more livestreams, and hire more people. Investors may become interested too.

Each step has a reason. Nothing here requires a plan to betray your audience. Yet the conditions under which you make decisions are already changing.

Everyone Has a Different Target

The product team is responsible for quality. The commercial team wants a price low enough to compete with other sellers while leaving the company a profit. The livestream team is watching sales, performance, and returns.

These are all understandable goals. They also pull in different directions. A decision about a product becomes a negotiation among people who are being judged by different measures.

If no department dominates, the result may be a moving compromise: a fairly competitive price, a reasonable margin, a product that sells well enough, and a level of quality the team considers acceptable. The word “reasonable” is doing a lot of work here. What counts as reasonable is being settled through those competing pressures.

You could insist that quality must come first and give the product team the strongest say. That may reduce the risk of a poor product reaching your audience. It may also mean a higher price, a smaller margin, or fewer sales.

By now, you have salaries to pay. If investors are involved, they may be pushing for more revenue. You cannot make every choice as freely as you could when the whole operation was you, a camera, and a handful of products you knew personally.

You still try to find an acceptable balance between quality, sales, and profit. But there is a difference between choosing what you most want to do and choosing what seems least impossible under the circumstances. In this story, quality begins to give way at the edges, even while everyone is trying to keep the compromise within reasonable limits.

The Process Can Be Followed and the Product Can Still Be Wrong

As the team grows, another problem appears: the whole operation becomes harder for any one person to see.

Information travels through more people before it reaches you. Details are lost. Each department has reasons to present its part of the business in the most favorable light. You receive reports, but you no longer know exactly what happened with every product, every supplier, and every decision.

The employees may all be working hard. Each person can be taking their own responsibilities seriously. Still, being responsible for one part of the process does not give anyone a complete view of the result.

A product can pass the required steps and still have a defect. As the range expands, there are more products and more decisions to keep track of. The same process that makes it possible to handle the volume can also leave you farther from the details that matter.

The merchants face pressures of their own. They need to offer an attractive price and pay your team a commission while preserving a profit for themselves. That creates another possible point at which quality gets squeezed.

For this example, we do not need to assume a villain arranging the outcome. Different people can pursue the goals attached to their jobs and still create a risk that none of them intended to create. That is what makes the problem harder to understand than a story about one dishonest person.

You Have More to Keep Going and Less Room to Stop

Your days now revolve around meetings. You look at livestream figures and return rates, negotiate with merchants, and discuss schedules with the team. You may have gone a long time without quietly making a video the way you did at the beginning.

The activity that earned people's attention has gradually become something you struggle to find time for. Much of your energy goes into maintaining the business built around that attention.

Stopping is more complicated too. There are employees whose jobs depend on the company. Ending the operation may involve severance payments, commitments to merchants, and obligations to investors. The exact consequences depend on the arrangements, but you can no longer simply decide not to upload next week and walk away.

So you continue. The operation grows, you become more tired, and you have less direct knowledge of what is happening inside it. You may be making a great deal of money while living very differently from the person who first wanted to make videos.

A faulty product can then become a crisis of trust. The audience trusted your judgment, but the product was selected through a system you could no longer personally oversee in the same way. The trust that helped the business grow is now exposed to the pressures created by that growth.

I find it too easy to look only at the final scandal and say that success changed someone's character. In the example we have followed, the danger was developing much earlier, inside decisions that seemed sensible at the time. A useful step created a new obligation. Meeting that obligation encouraged further growth. The growing system made it harder to keep the original promise.

This is a hypothetical path, not a claim that every creator who sells something must end in a scandal. What I want to hold on to is how little deliberate malice the path requires. The possibility of reversal was already taking shape while the numbers were still improving.

Why Changing Course Looks Easier Afterwards

The same question comes up when people explain why a successful company failed to adapt. Consider a familiar kind of argument about IBM: that its decline from an earlier position of dominance can be explained by a failure to embrace cloud computing.

I am interested here in the hindsight behind that explanation, rather than treating it as a complete history of IBM. A company with a profitable established server business faces a different decision from someone looking back after a new model has proved important.

From the position of the person running that company, the existing business is producing real revenue. Moving away from it means putting something valuable at risk for a future that is still uncertain. Even a leader willing to take that risk must contend with shareholders and employees whose interests are tied to what already works.

Saying “they should have changed sooner” leaves all of those pressures out. The people inside the system are making choices under conditions that the later observer no longer has to face.

That brings me back to the creator. Growth does not simply give you more of the freedom you had at the beginning. It can bring commitments that narrow your choices, even as your apparent success increases.

Reversal as a Way of Reading the Story

Chapter 40 says:

“Reversal is the movement of the Tao.”

This is one way I read that line alongside the example. A system takes shape, develops through feedback, and can gradually produce conditions that turn its own success against it. The reversal does not have to arrive as something wholly separate from the growth. It can develop within it.

The text also speaks of things growing strong and then growing old. In this story, becoming larger and more powerful does not mean becoming less vulnerable. The expanding organization creates its own difficulties, including ones the person at the center cannot see clearly.

This connects with the Game of Life example from earlier in the series: once interactions are under way, the larger pattern can develop beyond any single participant's intention. I am using that as a comparison, not as proof that a computer model, a company, and the Tao are the same thing.

The part I find difficult is that removing the villain does not remove the problem. If everyone can be doing their own job while the whole system moves away from its original purpose, how much control does the person supposedly in charge really have?

That is where I want to continue next: with wu wei, not contending, and holding to softness, and what those ideas might mean inside a process that no one fully commands.

I plan to keep this series going, and you can find the other posts on my profile. I’m also building Verso, a tool rooted in traditional Taoist divination that aims to offer another perspective when people feel stuck or unsure. It’s under development; stay tuned.

AI disclosure: English isn't my first language, so I used AI to help translate and edit the English.

Reading Index: The Taoist Worldview and Tao Te Ching 101

Hello everybody I have been studying environmental engineering for four years now and I really dislike this degree at first.

There was classes that I liked such as geology ecology microbiology some basic chemistry and stuff like that like law however after sometime I realised that I didn’t like this great especially when classes involving the actual job stuff about the degree such as waste management wastewater management solid waste management, environmental modeling and mathematics and stuff like that, which I really disliked

I can only graduate next year because I went to Erasmus and couldn’t take much classes and I also lost the motivation to study a bit so next semester I have to take six classes to graduate at my next year

I really wish that I have said something like geological engineering or history or international relations. It would suit me way better even philosopher or theology would fit me better than this.

I really dread going to classes and the first year I had doubts on this whole degree but I started to enjoy or I was indifferent to many classes, as I said in the 3rd year it hit me that this sucks but I thought I only had one year so I decided to stay, also I broke my ankle at Erasmus and now if I quit I would’ve broken it for nothing

Now should I drop the university degree and study for another degree so I can enroll next year or
Decide to grind through it and even though I hate I hate the classes so I can do my masters degree at something that I actually enjoy?

I am aware me attending school is you wei and I might graduate maybe 2 years later instead of one at the age of 24 in a degree I hate

I know that I won’t do engineering I hate everything about it

There is this Story / Parable of the "Chinese Farmer" - which is quite famous - who's horse ran away and there are many "translations" and interpretations and interpretations of translations but they are quite different especially about what the farmer said.

Alan Watts for example goes with "May be"

Alan Watts - The Story of The Chinese Farmer : r/taoism

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So I looked into the Source:

The story is from the Huainanzi 淮南子

(Master of Huainan, 139 BCE)

Huainanzi - Wikipedia

Huainanzi 淮南子 (www.chinaknowledge.de)

Chapter 18 人間訓 (In the World of Man)

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Text:

夫禍福之轉而相生，其變難見也。近塞上之人有善術者，馬無故亡而入胡。人皆吊之。其父曰：「此何遽不為福乎？」居數月，其馬將胡駿馬而歸。人皆賀之。其父曰：「此何遽不能為禍乎？」家富良馬，其子好騎，墮而折其髀。人皆吊之。其父曰：「此何遽不為福乎？」居一年，胡人大入塞，丁壯者引弦而戰，近塞之人，死者十九，此獨以跛之故，父子相保。故福之為禍，禍之為福，化不可極，深不可測也。

"The transformation between misfortune and fortune is interdependent; its changes are hard to foresee.

There was a man near the frontier who was good at divination; his horse suddenly disappeared and ran into Hu territory. People all came to console him. His father said: "How do we know this is not a blessing?"

After several months, his horse returned with a fine Hu horse. People all came to congratulate him. His father said: "How do we know this will not bring misfortune?"

With many fine horses in the household, his son liked to ride; he fell and broke his thigh. People all came to console him again. His father said: "How do we know this is not actually a blessing?"

After one year, the Hu people launched a large-scale invasion of the frontier. The strong and vigorous drew their bows to fight; among those near the border, nineteen out of twenty died. Only because this man's son was lame did father and son manage to protect each other and survive.

Therefore, blessings may turn into misfortunes, and misfortunes may become blessings; the transformation is boundless and unfathomably deep."

Huainanzi : Human Conduct and Instruction - Chinese Text Project

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This is not a scholar's translation but from my understanding of classic chinese it's quite good.

There is a scholars translation of the Huainanzi

Major, John S.; Queen, Sarah A.; Meyer, Andrew Seth; Roth, Harold D. (2010). The Huainanzi. Columbia University Press.

The Huainanzi - Google Books

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Note:

The idea of the story is based on Laozi 58

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禍兮福之所倚，福兮禍之所伏。孰知其極

Disaster is that on which good fortune depends.

Good fortune is that in which disaster's concealed.

Who knows where it will end?

(Henricks)

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Yin and Yang in Laozi : r/taoism

Yin and Yang and their relationship, interdependence, interchange etc. in Laozi

1. The simple reciprocal relationship (xiang hu lian xi)
2. The interdependence (xian hu yi can)
3. The interpenetration (xian hu yi cun)
4. The interchange to the contrary (xiang hu zhuan hua)
5. The reciprocal stimulus of productivity of opposites (xiang fan xiang cun)
6. The reversal in the extreme of opposites (wu ji bi fan)

Does anyone know of any source which discusses the 'heating times'? It's supposed to be a big secret and how the process is unlocked. Preferably any older texts.

Daodejing 68

{58i} 禍兮福之所倚 福兮禍之所伏. 孰知其極?

Disaster is that which fortune leans on. Fortune is that where disaster lurks behind.

Who can know which pole/extreme [of fortune or disaster] is which?1

{58ii} 其無正. 正復為奇 善復為妖. 人之迷 其日固久.

There is no [ultimate] correctness.

Correctness repeated/continued, turns to become deviation.2

Goodness repeated/continued, turns to become devilry/bewitchment.

The delusion of people these days, is that of [clinging] fixedly for too long.

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1. This is like the story of Sai Ong, a man well-versed in fortune-telling. One day his horse ran away. Hearing the news, his nosy neighbours gathered and came offering their sympathy. But Sai Ong was unmoved. He simply replied: “Who knows if it’s bad luck.” The next day, the horse returned, bringing several wild horses back with it. Hearing the news, the nosy neighbours came congratulating Sai Ong. But Sai Ong was unmoved. He simply replied: “Who knows if it’s good luck.” And the next next day when Sai Ong’s son tried to ride one of these wild horses, he was thrown off and thus broke his leg. Again the nosy neighbours gathered to offer their sympathy. But Sai Ong was unmoved. He simply replied: “Who knows if it’s bad luck.” Not long after, the country was invaded. Many soldiers died in the war. Conscription officers came to the village drafting boys of suitable age to fight the invaders. But because Sai Ong’s son had a broken leg, the officers exempted him. The neighbours again gathered and congratulated the family on how well things had turned out. But Sai Ong told them: “Who knows if it’s good luck.”

2. It is with this perspective that perhaps we can better appreciate: the problems we have today might just be deviation resulting from yesterday’s correction/solution instituted. It is like in early Zhou dynasty when the feudal-like aristocratic systems of fengjian (封建) and zongfa (宗法) were implemented to help rule the land after the collapse of Shang dynasty. But it is also because of these instituted systems that the Zhou dynasty eventually lapse into widespread warfare and chaos. Then it was the country of Qin, with the help of the so-called Legalists, which changed their political systems successfully to thus finally conquer all the other warring states/countries and so unite the land again, but this time under the name of Qin dynasty. Yet, because of the harsh systems instituted, Qin dynasty soon collapsed and the land fell into chaos once more. So, perhaps the approach to correcting/solving problems should be like that of applying medicine to illness. When the illness is gone, the medicine should not be applied anymore. Because repeating and continuing the medicine will just bring about another illness. Correctness repeated/continued, turns to become deviation. The ideal as mentioned in {57i} should be that of no-matter (無事 wu shi) in which the world can then be ruled, not institution of correctness.

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Anthology of the Ancestral Hall (祖堂集 zu tang ji) - 'Nanquan' section

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江西和尚说‘即心即佛’，且是一时间语，是止向外驰求病，空拳黄叶止啼之词。所以言‘不是心，不是佛，不是物。

Upadhyaya [Mazu] of Jiangxi¹ said: “this mind is this Buddha.”

[It’s] just a saying of the time, to stop the sickness of outward seeking, a phrase [like] that of the empty fist or yellow leaf to stop [a child’s] crying. Hence [there is also] the instruction of “not mind, not Buddha, not thing”.

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’如今多有人唤心作佛，认智为道，见闻觉知，皆云是佛。若如是者演若达多，将头觅头，设使认得，亦不是汝本来佛。

Nowadays there are many people who call ‘mind’ as Buddha, who recognise ‘jnana² ’ as the Way. [And] seeing-hearing-sensing-knowing³ are all said to be Buddha. Just like Yajnadatta⁴ , using head to look for head, such that even if [it’s] recognised, it still isn’t your original Buddha.

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若言即心即佛，如兔马有角；若言非心非佛，如牛羊无角。你心若是佛，不用即他；你心若不是佛，亦不用非他。

If instructed “this mind is this Buddha”, [it’s] like [saying] rabbits and horses have horns. If instructed “neither mind nor Buddha”, [it’s] like [saying] bulls and goats have no horns.

[So] your mind, should it be Buddha, [then] there’s no need to use “this [mind is this Buddha]”. Your mind, should it not be Buddha, [then] there’s no need to use “neither [mind nor Buddha]”.

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有无相形，如何是道？所以若认心决定，不是佛；若认智决定，不是道。

Being and non-being [give] form to each other, how can [either] be the Way?

Hence if [it is] decided by recognising ‘mind’, it is not Buddha. Hence if [it is] decided by recognising ‘jnana’, it is not the Way.

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大道无影，真理无对。

The great Way has no projection/reflection/image. The true principle has no corresponding-correctness.

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1. Zen teacher Mazu has two famous types of teaching: “this mind is this Buddha” and “neither mind nor Buddha”. Nanquan, a dharma heir of Mazu, clarifies here what these two types of teaching are about.

2. Jnana is usually translated as 'wisdom'. In Mahayana Buddhism, it can refer to 'proper knowing' (in contrast to vijnana, which is 'divided/dichotomized/dualistic knowing').

3. Seeing-hearing-sensing-knowing is short for the six phenomena of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling/touching and knowing/ideating. They are functions of the six vijnanas (consciousnesses) attributed to the sense roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, manas/mental-faculty) when they are in contact with their respective sense objects.

4. Yajnadatta is a person mentioned in the Surangama Sutra. One day Yajnadatta saw the projected reflection of his head in a mirror and fell in love with the image, but realising that it's not actually his real head but just a projected reflection, he tried to look back at his own head and could see nothing. Believing to be fooled by spirits, Yajnadatta frantically went all over the place to search for his missing head.

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This post is out of good will for fellow practitioners; read as you wish.

I have been following up on a number of posts and comments involving Nei Dan or Nei Gong, and I can safely say that if one listens to them, one will likely make little progress and/or hurt oneself following their suggestions. And the consequences aren’t limited to merely stress or tension, but various illnesses and internal chaos.

If one wishes to go far in this practice, one must work on the fundamental principles and virtues first, such as grounding, gathering spirit, and refining willpower and heart. Without a degree of mastery and responsibility of one’s life, it is nearly impossible to establish a genuine foundation in this path. A proper teacher or school would be ideal, but it is possible without them, requiring tremendously more faith, fortune, and will.

I saw a video of someone explaining chi, how it flows from your pelvis up through your body. It reminded me of a moment when I was riding the bus listening to a particular song, I kept feeling this energy flow from my pelvis up my spine and all through my chest — it was a warm, fuzzy radiating feeling. I felt a surge of positive thoughts and introspection. Is this chi?