Laozi's Paradox: The More You Let Go, The More You Are Fulfilled - A Super-Translated Essay on the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching by Kenji Aoki [Kindle Edition]
The harder you try, the further it gets. What Laozi realized 2500 years ago.
You have likely heard the phrase, 'He who knows he has enough is rich,' at least once.
However, those who can hear that and immediately agree are probably not suffering that much to begin with. For those who work hard but are not rewarded, or who grow exhausted the more they try to be 'right'—this message is difficult to reach.
What I realized after reading Laozi was that this phrase is not a 'lesson.' It is an 'observation record.'
Laozi did not write self-help books.
The 'Tao Te Ching' written by Laozi is a text of only five thousand characters. It is less than one-tenth the length of a modern paperback book.
Within it, the words 'you must work hard' never appear. There are no words like 'set goals' or 'grow.' In fact, it is the opposite: it says do not have goals, do not work hard, do not try to grow—that is what is written.
When I first read this, I honestly thought it was suspicious. I wondered if it was just an excuse for laziness.
However, as I continued reading, I gradually understood that this is not what Laozi is saying. Laozi is not saying 'do nothing.' He is saying 'do not try to force things to move.' That difference is something that probably only those who have actually hit a dead end in life can understand.
'To be whole by bending'
There is a phrase like this in Chapter 22 of the Tao Te Ching.
Qu ze quan.
It means, 'If you bend, you can remain whole.'
This is a paradox. You break because you try to stand straight. You can maintain your wholeness because you have room to bend. Bamboo does not break in a storm because it is flexible.
When I first read this chapter, faces came to mind. People who become stubborn because they are convinced they are right, and who wear themselves out every time they clash with someone. There is always someone like that in a company or a family. Perhaps I was like that once, too.
Laozi does not say 'bend.' He says, 'Bending is, in fact, how you remain whole.' Laozi believed this was not a strategy or a way of life, but an observation about the structure of the universe.
Why is it difficult to 'live like water'?
Chapter 8, 'The highest good is like water,' is a particularly famous passage in Laozi.
Water is like the best of things. Water benefits all things without competing, and flows to the low places that people dislike. Therefore, it is close to the Tao.
Many people hear this and think, "I want to live like that." But why is it so difficult to actually live like water?
Perhaps it is because we are conditioned to believe that "going to the lowest place" is a defeat.
Bowing your head to someone. Letting go of control. Stopping the need to stand out. Society is designed to label these things as "losing." That is why, when you try to live like water, you encounter an intense sense of resistance somewhere along the way.
Laozi says that this very sense of resistance is the cause of suffering.
Water is strong because it does not consider going to the lowest place a disgrace. If it hits a rock, it flows around it; if there is a gap, it enters. You could call that "flexibility," or you could call it "resilience." But water isn't calculating any of that. It is simply flowing according to its own nature.
"Knowing enough" is not resignation.
Chapter 44 says this:
Zhi zu zhe fu.
"He who knows he has enough is rich."
When people hear this, many take it as a message to "be satisfied with the status quo." That is why this phrase is hard for ambitious people to accept.
However, if you read the original text carefully, Laozi is not saying "be satisfied" here. He is saying that "knowing enough" and "being rich" are, in fact, the same thing.
The direction is reversed. It is not "you are rich because you are satisfied," but rather "the state of knowing you have enough is, in itself, wealth."
In modern behavioral economics, there is a concept called the "hedonic treadmill." Humans get used to something as soon as they obtain it and then start wanting the next thing—this is that endless cycle. Laozi saw through this mechanism 2,500 years ago.
"Knowing enough" does not mean killing your desires. It means stepping back from the cycle of desire and seeing what you already possess. That, in itself, is what it means to be rich—that is what he is talking about.
Why Laozi now?
It is believed that Laozi's words were written around the 3rd or 4th century BC. It was a time of war in China. It was an era when feudal lords were fighting, the people were exhausted, and intellectuals were loudly asserting their own "theories of correct governance."
Amidst that noise, Laozi quietly wrote something else.
Do not fight. Do not assert. Do not move things by force. Be like water.
2,500 years have passed. Our society has become wealthy, information is overflowing, and choices have increased infinitely. Yet, conflicts have not disappeared, and if anything, there are more exhausted people.
The reason Laozi's words continue to be read today is not out of nostalgia. It is because human beings have not changed.
About this book
"Laozi's Paradox: The More You Let Go, The More You Are Fulfilled - A Super-Translation Essay on the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching" is a book that interprets all eighty-one chapters of the Tao Te Ching, one chapter at a time.
Each chapter includes the original classical Chinese text, a Japanese reading, a super-translation by the author, and a commentary discussing its connections to modern thought, philosophy, psychology, and history.
The stance of this book is not to "translate Laozi's words into modern language," but to "deconstruct them into something that can be used in this very moment."
I aimed to create a book where, upon finishing it, you feel you have let go of something rather than gained something.
Kenji Aoki's "Laozi's Paradox" Kindle edition now on sale
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