When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other
Therefore the sages:
Manage the work of detached actions
Conduct the teaching of no words
They work with myriad things but do not control
They create but do not possess
They act but do not presume
They succeed but do not dwell on success
It is because they do not dwell on success
That it never goes away
- Translated by www.DerekLin.com
My interpretation of this verse is that I think Lao Tzu is inviting us to live without judgement and choose to be in perfect oneness with everything. Instead of labelling something as good or bad, we need to see it as simply 'just is'. We need to choose a love centred view of the world, which includes accepting and loving everything - where nothing is excluded - including those things that present themselves in the most distressing of disguises.
Mother Teresa sums up this verse perfectly “Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening. This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of love, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.”
Opposites Must Co-Exist With Each Other
We live in a world that is defined by labels and social/moral expectations. However, for something to be labelled as ‘good’ ‘bad’ ‘lazy’ and so forth – it needs to co-exist with its opposite. One doesn’t exist without the other – for example someone can’t be tall if we haven’t defined something else as short.
To see something as beautiful we have to have a perception of what we think is ugly. To see something as good we have to have a belief of what we think is bad. Our egos have created a world of duality - a world where things aren't equal - and it is in this world of duality that judgement is born.
In order for our ego to feel safe and secure it needs to label and define everything. This then creates separation and duality. The truth is that duality creates a false sense of security for our ego by creating a world where everything has its place or should be a certain way. It is nothing but a skewed perception of the world, as our ego thinks it ought to be. This skewed perception is influenced primarily by our own life experiences. Hence, it is for this very reason, why someone can regard something as good or beautiful, and another person will hold a completely different viewpoint.
It's even so, that as we age and evolve each of us changes the way we see things. What we once may have perceived as beautiful we may now find not so beautiful or even be indifferent to it.
What’s more; the more beautiful you perceive something, the more repelled you are by the ugliness of its opposite.
By emphasizing one side, you actually emphasize its opposite.
The truth is that you become unbalanced when you get to narrowly focused on a one-sided reality, it causes you to loose your grip and live from a place of fear.
Have you ever noticed that:
The more you yearn for the easy, the more difficult life becomes.
Or whatever you cling on to ever so tightly usually always pulls you into its opposite.
The trees, flowers and animals know nothing of ugly, beautiful, good or bad – instead they simply are. The horse doesn’t think it is better than the donkey – it’s only the ego of the human mind that comes to these type of judgements.
Our ego has created a world of fear through choosing to label things as opposites or separate from one another.