Wen Tzu - Verse 72, Part VI

from Verse Seventy-Two

Examples of losing the Way are extravagance, indulgence, complacency, pride, attention to the extraneous, self-display, self-glorification, competitiveness, forcefulness, making trouble, forming grudges, becoming commanders of armies, and becoming leaders of rebellions. When small people do these things, they personally suffer great calamities. When great people do these things, their countries perish.

~ Wen-tzu: Understanding the Mysteries ~

For me, the passage above ties together well the two aspects of humanity: individual and collective. It illustrates how we can fail as individuals when we don't embrace Tao and how our individual problems become magnified when adopted by society as a whole.

This returns us to one of the classic Taoist themes that each life is a microcosm of the entirety of humanity. The struggles we have with our individual egos impacts the ethos of the entire human community. When one person or group is out-of-balance, the web of social relations concurrently is out-of-balance too. So, embracing and following the Way is not merely the province of each person as an individual decision that affects one life form; this decision impacts the entire world.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.