Tao Te Ching 57

If you want to be a great leader, you must learn to follow the Tao. Stop trying to control. Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous the people will be. The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. The more subsidies you have, the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore, the Master says:
I let go of the law, and people become honest. I let go of economics, and people become prosperous. I let go of religion, and people become serene. I let go of all desire for the common good and the good becomes common as grass.
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Rarely on these pages have I quoted an entire chapter of Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching. But in the midst of a presidential election this chapter seems particularly appropriate for serious contemplation. The second paragraph above speaks both to the liberal and to the conservative among us. Each finds a central tenet supported and each finds one challenged.

Ah, yes, the middle way.

The paradoxical nature of the Tao Te Ching is readily apparent in the series of calls for us to “let go”. By letting go we discover what we believe we can obtain only through the thing that we’re letting go.

There can be no lawbreaker among us unless there is a law to break. We are only threatened in the presence of weapons that purport to defend us. Is there a sin in the absence of a religion that defines that sin?

Our efforts to control our world through fixed concepts are producing exactly the opposite of what we desire. Those efforts are producing a world that, by definition, is out of control. The world was created with the ability to govern itself, but we are unwilling to trust in that creation or in its creator.

What would the world be like if every person who purports to subscribe to the motto, “In God We Trust,” actually trusted in God? That world might be well described by the words honest, prosperous, serene and good.