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Chapter of the Week: #09 [Archive]
The other version of this is : the reason your parents can pull your strings is because they are the ones who tied them there! 
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Note: The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 9
Rather than fill it to the brim by keeping it upright
Better to have stopped in time;
Hammer it to a point
And the sharpness cannot be preserved for ever;
There may be gold and jade to fill a hall
But there is none who can keep them.
To be overbearing when one has wealth and position
Is to bring calamity upon oneself.
To retire when the task is accomplished
Is the way of heaven.
The inertia that drives us to fill it to the brim is likely the cause of humanity's difficulties. Not knowing when to stop pulls life off balance and creates a counterbalancing reaction which also seldom stops in time. The pendulum swings back and forth passing through the 'golden mean' momentarily on its way to another extreme.
This is why I have difficulty knowing which way to vote. No matter how I vote, the 'powers that be' will take it to extremes. Humanity's instinctive drive for comfort and security is never satiated, and so we keep pushing Nature for ever increasing wealth and position. Ironically, much of the calamity we bring upon ourselves we rationalize as good - it's progress
Nature accomplishes its task each moment, and each moment retires to the next. It flows. We on the other hand, thanks to memory, drag along past moments and future plans into the task of 'this' moment. Our minds don't know when to stop and fill each moment to the brim. We imagine ideal points and hammer away at 'it' in a struggle to reach perfection. We just can't accept anything less... less doesn't match our ideals for more of whatever we desire. Sure, we may say "less is more", but believing this emotionally is another matter. Actually taking the [chref=61]lower position [/chref] is not an innate ability. Alas, only life's [chref=51]circumstances bring us towards such maturity[/chref].
In youth we just don't feel that there is none who can keep them. I noticed that once I deeply internalized this, the reality of death, I have come closer to stopping in time and retiring when each moment / task is accomplished. When you deeply know you are going to die 'tomorrow', taking care today comes much easier. When I forget it, I'm back to chomping at the bit...and hammering it to a point.
I think of a container. It is better to keep it upright than to fill it to the brim because even if you fill it to the brim, unless you keep it upright, it will spill out. The attempt to fill it is endless and the aim unattainable. I am like the container.
The attempt is endless and the aim is unattainable because I am constantly changing. Even if I become "upright" for a moment, I soon waver. So it is better to be upright than acquiring wealth. Aside from wealth, I might also consider the filling to be trying to be all the right things; whatever I think that might be.
Like when I die?
I never retire in this life because the task is never accomplished.
My journey is in discovering the state of being upright. Some might consider that to be "morally straight". I consider it to be founded, centered, and (relatively) steady. I am still discovering what that might look like. It is always changing.
As a paid-up member of AA, how could I NOT comment on the wisdom of this one. More is not better.
I looked up retire in the dictionary, and the definition I think fits here is retiring as in 'retiring Jerry Rice's jersey number'. A task is accomplished and then it is retired and the next moment's task comes along. Doesn't that feel peaceful and complete?
I am learning how to do watercolor. I can't think of a better example of how hammering to a point does not work! If I try too hard I end up with a big mess. And I try to hard when my "I" is too big. There's no use in being overbearing...it happens or it doesn't and all you can do is stop in time.
I don't know if this will clarify it for you, but for me, thinking of water and how water seeks the lowest level brought it home.
Imagine acting like that in your everyday life: like water settling into the lowest level. I've experienced that it has a calming effect on animals anyway!