Bend and Be Whole

Reading it step by step

Laozi has a habit of speech you could call “straight words that sound crooked”: the truest things come out sounding backwards. Today's chapter is the classic example.

First: six pairs that complete each other. Bend and stay whole, stoop and straighten, be hollow and fill, wear out and be renewed. Think of a typhoon. The willow bends right over, and when the wind has passed, it's still there. The tall, stiff tree is the one that gets torn out by the roots. An inchworm has to arch its back to move forward. A full cup can't take another drop. This isn't word-play. Laozi is reminding us that high and low, straight and bent, new and old lean on each other. Look at only one side and you miss the whole.

Second: have little and you gain; have much and you are confused. This line lands hard today. One visitor to a Dutch museum had three hours, and that day sixty famous paintings were on show. Three minutes a painting: by the end, all he remembered was a blur of colour. Another time, with the same three hours, the gallery showed a single painting. He spent the whole visit on it, understood it, and ever since can talk about it wherever he meets it. Less isn't poverty. It's the room you need to actually receive something.

The bending here is not spineless giving in. It's the willow: its roots are deep, which is exactly why its branches can afford to be soft.

Next time, in a meeting or at home, you feel the urge to insist “I'm right,” try bending first. Ask, “How do you see it?” Sometimes one step back gives you the whole sky.

What can bend is what remains.