The More You Give, the More You Have

Reading it step by step

The last chapter of the Laozi is only a few lines long. It reads like someone finishing five thousand words and gently setting down the brush.

First: three pairs that strip away the decoration. True words are not pretty; pretty words are not true. The good don't argue; those who argue aren't good. Those who know aren't broadly learned; the broadly learned don't know. Knowledge can be added to forever. One scholar recalls walking between the stacks of a university library abroad, seven million volumes rising floor after floor: a lifetime's hundred books would fill one narrow stretch of shelf, passed in a glance. Life is limited; knowledge has no end. But the way of the Dao is “each day, a little less”: the deeper you go, the simpler it gets. Having written five thousand words, Laozi's last advice is: don't stop at the words.

Second: the sage does not hoard, and ends up with more. “The more he does for others, the more he has; the more he gives, the more he has left.” Things you give away run out. But some things don't work that way. Light one candle from another and your own flame is no smaller. Teach someone a thing and you understand it better yourself. Be kind to someone and your own heart gets wider. What the body needs is limited. A mind that only turns toward more things and more facts never has enough; a mind turned toward the Dao fills up as it gives. This is abundance of the spirit.

Third: the last words are “act, and do not compete.” “The way of heaven is to benefit and not to harm. The way of the sage is to act and not to compete.” The whole book closes here. Heaven does good to all things and harms none; the sage gets on with the work and simply doesn't fight. Non-action was never doing nothing. It was acting without contrivance.