Tao Te Ching 36

If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand. If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish. If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given.

This is the subtle perception of the way things are. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast.
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Some teachings in the Tao Te Ching need to simmer in our pots for a while. This teaching is like that. In some respects it’s counterintuitive; in others it parallels the wisdom of the Beatitudes and Jesus saying in Luke 6:38:

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full…. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

How many of us want something from life, but because of pride or fear we won’t allow it to be given to us. Learning how to receive a gift is often more difficult than learning how to give a gift.

Allowing something to expand or flourish allows its energy to be dissipated, like when a doctor tells us to just rest and let a viral infection “run its course”. Parents of young children know that on some evenings they simply have to let the little ones run around until they give out.

The martial arts teach the importance of using an opponent’s energy – letting it expand in our direction – as the means to take him down, exhaust him and eventually defeat him.

The Tao Te Ching invites us to remember that things are not always as they seem; in fact, things are often the opposite of what they seem. In a world that is trapped in dualistic thinking that should come as no surprise. There can be no shrinking unless there is expansion; there can be no floundering unless there is flourishing; there can be no giving unless there is receiving. Good cannot exist without bad; right cannot exist without wrong; vice only has meaning in the presence of virtue.