Tao Te Ching 13 (Teaching 1)

Success is a dangerous as failure.
Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.
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Success has to be as dangerous as failure. It can’t be otherwise; they’re opposite sides of the same coin. With one, we get the lurking presence of the other one in equal size and weight.

Similarly, “up” can exist only in the presence of “down”. They, too, are co-dependent. When up and down are experienced on a ladder each is equally dangerous because of the instability inherent in either direction. Whether we’re going up or going down we have only one foot on the ladder at a time.

The Tao invites us to go through life without thinking in terms of success and failure. These are relative and subjective concepts that have no bearing on truth and reality. Truth and reality are free of dualistic concepts.

The Tao invites us to stand firmly on ground where stability and balance are possible. The only solid ground is the present moment – here in space and now in time. Instability is found when we take a one-footed journey down to the past or up to the future. If we feel insecure, then we’ve gone off in one direction or the other.

The Buddha is often depicted sitting in meditation with one hand lightly touching the ground. This simple gesture reminded him, and reminds us, that the purpose of any form of meditation is to bring us back to the ground – the present moment – the only place where peace and contentment can be found.

Life can only be lived in the present, moment after moment. When we wander up or down our ladders of perceived success or failure, we leave life behind, on the solid ground, where it awaits our return.