81 Days with the Tao: Verse 7

“The Master stays behind;

that is why she is ahead.

She is detached from all things;

that is why she is one with them.

Because she has let go of herself,

she is perfectly fulfilled.”

—Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching, Harper Perennial Modern

Classics, 1988

These three koans, or puzzles, represent for me the three virtues of humility, detachment, and selflessness. The puzzle lies in how one thing can achieve, or hold within itself, its opposite.

Humility achieves honor. The one who stays behind somehow ends up ahead. The last shall be first (Matthew 20:16).

Detachment achieves oneness. Not clinging makes possible the union so deeply longed for and cherished.

And letting go achieves perfect fulfillment. One must lose one’s life to gain it. (Matthew 10:39, Matthew 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, John 12:25)

We cannot explain why these riddles are true, but many traditions express them as ancient wisdom, and deep within ourselves we know they are so. Take, for example, the last one: “Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.”  Letting go of the ego self—the self conditioned by social norms and others’ expectations—reveals the true self: at ease, enough, contented, and happy.

As I get older and look death in the face, I long for the ability to let go of myself, to be who I truly am in the days or years remaining to me. I yearn to be effortlessly and perfectly real. Yet, I suspect that the moment of perfect fulfillment comes at death, when I must let go completely and finally.