Startled by Praise and Blame

How long can one compliment, or one bad review, move your mood?

Original

寵辱若驚，貴大患若身。何謂寵辱若驚？寵為下，得之若驚，失之若驚，是謂寵辱若驚。何謂貴大患若身？吾所以有大患者，為吾有身，及吾無身，吾有何患？

In plain words

Favour and disgrace both startle us; we hold great trouble as dear as our own bodies. What does “favour and disgrace both startle us” mean? Favour puts you below: gaining it, you are startled; losing it, you are startled. What does “we hold great trouble as dear as our bodies” mean? The reason I have great trouble is that I have a self to guard. If I had no self to guard, what trouble could I have?

Key words

寵辱chǒng rǔFavour and disgrace: honour and shame handed out by others.
驚jīngTo be startled, thrown off balance.
身shēnNot just the body: the self we cling to, our image and face.

Reading it step by step

Yesterday was about the use of empty space. Today's chapter is about the thing that fills a mind fastest: what other people think of us. Praise makes the heart race; criticism keeps us awake for nights. Laozi says: “favour and disgrace both startle us.”

First: favour and disgrace are really the same thing. “Favour puts you below.” To be someone's favourite is already to stand beneath them. Whoever can give you favour can take it back, so your mood is in someone else's hands. When you get it, you're thrilled and anxious, afraid of losing it. When you lose it, you're shaken, afraid you'll never get it again. Favour and disgrace are two ends of a seesaw. Once you sit on it, you go up and down with it.

favour

startled to gain itafraid to lose it

disgrace

startled to lose itafraid it won't come back

Either way, you're sitting on someone else's seesaw.

Second: “I have great trouble because I have a self to guard.” We suffer because we care so much about this “me.” The word 身 means more than the body here: face, titles, the picture of us in other people's eyes. “If I had no self” does not mean getting rid of the body. It means not holding this small self so tightly. Stop guarding it day and night, and what is left to fear?

Third: seen from the Dao, gains and losses dissolve. The last pages showed that all things come from the Dao and return to it. Seen from the whole, and over the long run, each thing has its place and none is dispensable. There's the old proverb: a smith shoeing the general's horse drove one nail crooked; in battle the horse stumbled, the general fell, the battle was lost, and the kingdom with it. Yet the reverse is true too: nobody is irreplaceable.

The colleague everyone said the office couldn't survive without retires, and the next person does even better. Indispensable, yet replaceable: see both sides and you will hold yourself neither too heavily nor too lightly. There was once an advertisement that said a silver medal still makes you a loser. By that measure, nearly everyone alive is a loser. Laozi offers a different eye: in the Dao all things are equal. Accept your own place, do your own part well, and that is enough.

seen from “me”

a self to guard

startled by praise and blame

seen from the Dao

all things equal

gain and loss can be set down

Today our favour and disgrace often come as a number of likes, one comment, one performance review. Try a small practice. When you're praised, say “thank you” and set it down. When you're criticised, ask “what in this is true?”, keep what you can learn, and set the rest down too. A little humour helps. A man who swam a bit and played a bit of tennis came home and told his wife he had beaten two Olympic champions that day. He had played tennis against the swimming champion and swum against the tennis champion. Pick your own event, and winning and losing lose much of their sting.

Later in this chapter Laozi says that only someone who treats their own self as lightly as the world can be trusted with the world. People who aren't jerked around by praise and blame are the ones who can carry real responsibility.

One line to carry

Praise or blame: hear it, then set it down.

Today's question

Which recent compliment or criticism has stayed with you longest? Write it down, then write what part of it was actually true.

Quick check

Why does Laozi say that favour puts you below?

Next pageThe Highest Good Is Like WaterPage 15

II · What the Dao Means — Where all things come from and return to

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