Tao Te Ching VII

Heaven and earth are enduring.  The reason why they can be enduring is that they do not give themselves life.  Hence, they are able to be long-lived.

Therefore the sage puts her person last and it comes first,

treats it as extraneous to herself and it is preserved.

Is it not because she is without thought of self that she is able to accomplish her private ends?

The cosmos, while not eternal, in comparison to us is eternal.  Certainly the cosmos is indifferent and unconscious.  How then can that which is passionate, conscious, and very transient emulate that which is cold and long-lasting?  Why should it?

The sage does not become heaven and earth, even as she does not become the Tao.  Nothing becomes the Tao; the Tao becomes.  The sage loses herself in heaven and earth to become herself.  This loss is no Christian kenosis, though it is not entirely antithetical.  It is no subjection of the individual will to some larger will; there is no larger will, there are simply many wills.  The sage still has her private ends; she still comes first; she is preserved.  How can this be if she is hidden in the infinite folds of the universe?  It is because she is hidden in the infinite folds of the universe.

The sage does not lack a will; she simply directs her will to the becoming of the Tao, which is to say the becoming of all creatures.  As this is her becoming, why should she not accomplish her ends?

The universe is the only thing that truly and endlessly affirms; it affirms by not speaking and that which speaks—no matter how large, how historic, how numinous, how affective—is always only an aspect of the Tao.  The universe affirms, but it is no cuddly affirmation; it is an affirming that provides brief space for your existence and that is all.

Western dualism posits egoism against selflessness, good against evil, male against female, transience against permanence.  But the Tao, while nodding toward the existence of these categories and affirming them, at least in speech, is not inclined toward separating them.  If you love your daughter and she dies, her death is a negative act.  But if you also love the Tao—or perhaps more aptly are inclined toward it—you know that her loss is the gain of something else.  That the earth—flowers, beetles, squash—benefits from her decay and so, in turn, all creatures on the earth benefit.  Death always includes love and gain.  And who is the sage to say she is the only one that matters, the one that matters more?  It is not that she does not mourn her daughter, but that she does not equate her own place and feelings with the universe.  Everything is in its rightful place.  She mourns but like Chuang Tzu she may very well be singing, drumming, and dancing within days.  Society might be shocked—propriety is broken—but society is not the sage’s master.  Society continually strives to give itself life, maintain and increase it.  Whereas the sage turns her will toward that which looks at life and death, smiles, shrugs, and walks along.