Tao Te Ching LIX

In ruling the people and in serving heaven it is best for a ruler to be sparing.

It is because he is sparing that he may be said to follow the way from the start.

Following the way from the start he may be said to accumulate an abundance of virtue.

Accumulating an abundance of virtue there is nothing he cannot overcome.

When there is nothing he cannot overcome no one knows his limit.

When no knows his limit he can possess a state.

When he possesses the mother of a state he can then endure.

This is called the way of deep roots and firm stems by which one lives to see many days.

Western causation—scientific, measurable, reproducible, abstract—differs from the way’s causation, which is mysterious, elusive, and embodied.  The Tao begins in restraint and ends in life, passing through an overcoming which is no transcendence but an immanence, no acquisitiveness but an abundance, no leadership but a following.

Physical survival at the writing of the Tao Te Ching was far more dubious than it is now for those living behind the increasingly precarious fortress of the First World.  Yet look at what many of the world’s privileged are focused on—extending life, maintaining and increasing health.  But this is presently done not by being sparing but by being excessive, not through virtue but through extravagance, not through serving but through arrogance.  Individual physical survival may no longer seem like an issue for the world’s entitled, but our species’ survival is—and so each individual is bound.  Thus in ruling ourselves and in serving the earth, it is best for us to be sparing; we might then endure and live to see many days.  But, first, we have to know that it is not better to be a human than a butterfly, to be a ruler than a bum.