Why didn’t we have to read the Tao Te Ching in school?
If you were ever a student in the K-12 school system in the United States, then you were familiar with reading lists. If it wasn’t a reading list during the school year, then it was a list of books to read during the summer. I always have loved to read, but there is something about mandating that a list of books be read — and read during the fleeting, joyous months of a child’s summer, to add insult to injury — that makes one immediately recalcitrant. It’s just human nature to want to do the opposite of a mandate. Ruling with an iron fist only works well for a time, and it does nothing to encourage learning for learning’s sake. There is something suffocating about lists and assignments and demands and warnings and admonishments — but turn a curious child loose in a library, and he could get lost in his imagination for hours. The mind is expansive; it grows to fit the space that you provide it. If you give it parameters, it will develop within those constraints. If you give it open fields, it will illuminate its own path; it will see the flowers and the streams, the hills and the valleys, the good and the bad. It will make its own meaning and discover its own truth.
Which brings me to my question: Why didn’t they make us read the Tao Te Ching in school?
Because the Tao Te Ching, if you are not familiar with it, is an ancient Chinese text, a tiny book of immense wisdom. It’s sparse in its details, but it’s vast in its meaning. But don’t take my word for it; read a passage for yourself:
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do you work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
The Tao is not a book of goofy, meaningless sayings — but it could be if that is what you desire. Nor is it an instruction manual for how to live one’s life. It simply tells it like it is, unpretentiously and dispassionately. What if children were taught from the Tao Te Ching instead of The Great Gatsby? What if a generation of leaders were guided to step back instead of indoctrinated to lean forward? And what if we sought understanding from others instead of demanded understanding from others? What if we led from a lack of understanding instead of dogmatic certainty? Would our world look any different?
Reading through a book like the Tao Te Ching is comforting for me. It’s like the first day of a long friendship.
Read on:
He who stands on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn’t go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can’t know who he really is.
He who has power over others
can’t empower himself.
He who clings to his work
will create nothing that endures.
If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.
I never learned this stuff in grade school. I wasn’t encouraged to think in this way. Sure, I got an excellent education, but how much did I miss when my mind was focused on not missing anything at all, on taking every detail of every textbook, lesson, and assignment in and storing it somewhere in the recesses of my brain? How much of our lives are spent wading in the details? The next time you find yourself at a stressful work event, take a few deep breaths, and give yourself a sharp pinch.
You’re already awake, but are you really?
