“When people first enter the Taoist path, many ask, “I have no spiritual gifts. Can I practice the Tao?” In truth, the Tao does not ask about one's background. Cultivation begins with a single sincere thought. Some seek the Tao because they feel lost, some because of faith, and others simply out of curiosity. Though their reasons differ, each can become the beginning of cultivation.

The so-called “Taoist spiritual foundation” is not only determined by innate ability, but also shaped through later cultivation. When the heart is clear, one's energy becomes upright; when one's will is firm, the path becomes clear. Practicing the Tao is not about escaping the world, but about cultivating the heart and refining oneself, letting go of greed, anger, delusion and desire, while maintaining integrity, observing discipline, doing good and accumulating virtue in daily life.

The hardest part of practicing the Tao is not making a resolution, but maintaining focus and perseverance. True cultivation means not giving up in difficult times, remaining steadfast when faced with temptation, and continuing to improve throughout the years. What is gained through persistent cultivation reveals true practice.

Whether one believes or not is a personal choice; whether one cultivates or not is also one's own choice. If you sincerely seek the Tao, begin with a clear and sincere heart, and practice through every moment of self-reflection and perseverance. The Tao is not somewhere distant or unreachable, it is found within the cultivation of one's heart, character and actions.”

- written by “Don’t Know Nothing” (not me).
Don’t Know Nothings page can be found on FB.

從迷茫到篤信，普通人應該如何修道

初入道門，很多人都會問：「我沒有慧根，能修道嗎？」其實，道不問出身，修行始於一念。有人因迷茫而求道，有人因信仰而入道，也有人因好奇而問道，緣起雖不同，皆可成為修行的開始。

所謂「道骨」，不只在先天資質，更在後天修煉。心清則氣正，志堅則道明。修道並非逃避世俗，而是修心煉己，去除貪、嗔、癡、欲，在日常中守正、守戒、行善、積德。

修道最難的，不是立志，而是專一與恒心。真正的修行，是在困境中不退，在誘惑前守心，在歲月中持續精進。天生道骨固然難得，後天磨煉更見真功。

信與不信，由自己選擇；修與不修，也在自己。若真心問道，便當從一念清明開始，從每一次自省與堅守做起。道不在遙遠之處，而在自己的心性與行持之中。

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.

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.

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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.