Greed Harms

Weaving the Way, verse 75

Introduction

This verse lends itself to a political commentary and has been interpreted accordingly. When rulers are obsessed with their projects instead of taking care of the people, things get bad for the small-folk, which means things get bad for the leaders. The last verse’s exposition on confusion around boundary setting, when read as a commentary on legal structures in government, would support this interpretation.

But the final lines of this verse fail to bring this political logic to a satisfactory conclusion.

Fortunately, the same line does use a structure that makes perfect sense according to Daoist principles. When I examined the other lines, I found several key governance-like terms that serve as internal, alchemical metaphors. As always, the commentary follows the structural logic revealed through meditative living.

Translation

A person’s hunger,
Is because the taxes on food are high.
This is how there is hunger.

Common people’s disorder,
Is because their superior is too active.
This is how the superior doesn’t regulate them.

Death’s warp is caused by
prioritizing the pursuit of becoming
This is how death is woven.

Indeed! Only those who
allow Yin to give rise to Yang
Are capable of cherishing becoming.

Commentary

A person’s hunger,
is because the taxes on consumption are high.
This is how there is hunger.

Being hungry because consumption has a cost ties directly into the Nei Dan (Daoist inner alchemy) teaching that we are born with a full reservoir of vital life essence (精, jīng). Through our psycho-emotional confusion, entanglement with sense desires, poor diet, out-of-Integrity actions, and loss of conscious connection with the Dao, this essence is thrown out of balance and depleted.

Consuming our essence without taking time to replenish it leaves us feeling “hungry.” Yes, this can manifest as an insatiable appetite (for food as well as other sensory pleasures). But that is just the confused way that we go about addressing our internal hollowness, depression, and anxiety, which arise when we are disconnected from the Dao.