Tao Te Ching: Chapter #13

13

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

When you succeed, usually, you attach your identity to that. As in the Buddhist teaching, when you attach to something, this makes you terrified of losing it. When you fail, these events usually drag you into despair and resignation.

Hope and fear are both based on a projection of the self into an uncertain future. They are both hollow because they are not the reality; we waste our present on those.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

When you chase success, there will be highs and lows. When you strive for success or try to climb the ladder, you risk a fall. When you go down the ladder, you experience disgrace, failure, or loss of status.

Standing with "your two feet on the ground" means being centred in the present moment, accepting things as they are, and operating from a place of inner clarity rather than external validation. This is the source of unshakable balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

As said before, hope and failure are mental projections; they aren't real. Both depend on the ego (the self) that has something to gain or to lose. When we let go of the ego and eliminate the root cause of hope and fear, we are not attached; there is nothing to fear losing, and nothing to hope for. And when we free ourselves from both these attachments, we can be grounded in the flow of the Tao.

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.

Kill the ego, trust the Tao, and move from beyond detachment to selfless compassion, because only the person who has transcended their selfish ego is capable of truly serving and caring for the whole.


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