Lynn's - Daode jing of Laozi

When the Dao prevails among all under Heaven, one relegates coursers to producing manure.

"When the Dao prevails among all under Heaven", it means contentment (1) and knowing to stop. (2)  Avoiding all ventures abroad, each of them [such rulers] does nothing beyond cultivating what is at home.  Thus they delegate coursers to deal with the manuring of fields.

When the Dao does not prevail among all under Heaven, war horses are born in the fields outside towns.

When covetous desire becomes insatiable, they [such rulers] do not cultivate what is at home, and each engages in ventures abroad.  Thus "war horses are born in the fields outside towns." (3)

Nothing causes greater disaster than not being content, and nothing brings about greater blame than craving something.  When contentment fills one perfectly, this is indeed constant contentment !

Text, in Italics above, is Wang Bi's commentary.

The notes below, are from the translator, Richard John Lynn -

(deb's note - "section" is used for verse in these notes.)

(1)  Cf. Wang's commentary to section 20, first passage.

(2)  Cf. Wang's commentary to section 32, third passage.

(3)  Cf. Huan Kuan (first century BCE), Yantie lun (Debates on salt and iron), which reads, in a passage that begins with describing the idyllic age of the sage king Yu:

Farmers used horses to till the fields, and the common folk did not ride or use them to pull carriages.  At that time, they relegated coursers to producing manure, but later, when armies were repeatedly dispatched, war horses became insufficient, so even mares in foal were enlisted in the ranks, which resulted in colts being born out on the battlefields.  Because the six domestic animals were neither raised in the homes nor the five grains cultivated in the fields, the common folk did not have enough of even the coarsest food to eat, so there is no question that they ever got tired of eating oranges and pomelos !

~ Huan Kuan, Weitong (Impasse), Yantie lun, section 15, 412

From Stephen Mitchell - tao te ching - A New English Version 

When a country is in harmony with the Tao,

the factories make trucks and tractors.

When a country goes counter to the Tao,

warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

There is no greater illusion than fear,

no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,

no greater misfortune than having an enemy.

Whoever can see through all fear

will always be safe.

From Byron Katie - A Thousand Names For Joy

- Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

There is no greater illusion than fear.

We can only be afraid of what we believe we are - whatever there is in ourselves that we haven't met with understanding.  If I thought you might see me as boring, for example, it would frighten me, because I haven't questioned that thought.  So it's not people who frighten me, it's me that frightens me.  That's my job, to frighten me, until I investigate this fear for myself.  The worst that can happen is that I think you think about me what I think about myself.  So I am sitting in a pool of me.

All fear is like this.  It's caused by believing what you think - no more, no less.  It's always the story of a future.  If you want fear on purpose, get a plan.  Fear is not possible when you've questioned your mind; it can be experienced only when the mind projects the story of a past into a future.  The story of a past is what enables us to project a future.  If we weren't attached to the story of a past, our future would be so bright, so free, that we wouldn't bother to project time.  We would notice that we're already living in the future, and that it's always now.

One day, a few years ago, I was walking down what turned out to be a private driveway.  I noticed that there was no exit, and as I did, some large dogs charged toward me, barking loudly.  My thought was "I wonder if they'll bite me now".  I couldn't project that they would, so there wasn't any fear.  They ran up to me, they growled and bared their teeth, they stopped, they sniffed me, I waited and watched, and I noticed that life was very sweet, so far.  And then they walked me back to the beginning of the driveway.  They were happy, I was happy . . . It was a wonderful reunion.

"But Katie", someone might say, "isn't fear biological ?  Isn't it necessary for the fight-or-flight response ?  I can see not being afraid of a growling dog, but what if you were in an airplane that was going down - wouldn't you be very scared ?"  Here's my answer: "Does your body have a fight-or-flight response when you see a rope lying on the path ahead of you ?  Absolutely not - that would be crazy.  Only if you imagine that the rope is a snake does your heart start pounding.  It's your thoughts that scare you into fight-or-flight -- not reality."   Of course, I can't know what I would think or feel in a hypothetical situation.  All I can say is that it's been a long time since I've been afraid.  And I have been in some very interesting circumstances.

Living fearlessly is natural when you've questioned your thoughts.  People ask me what that looks like today, and I sometimes tell the story of the birth of my granddaughter Marley.  When Rosann went into labor, we were all there in the delivery room - I, Stephen, my son-in-law, Scott, and Scott's parents.  Everything was going well, until suddenly the baby got stuck in the birth canal.  She began to sink back into the womb, and her heart went into distress.  The hospital was small, and on this night, at three in the morning, it was understaffed, the doctor had no qualified assistant, and there was a sense of panic in the room.  He decided on a caesarean section, brusquely dismissed us, and wheeled Roxann into surgery.  She was screaming, and no one would tell us anything, so we had reasons to believe that she and her baby were in serious trouble.  Then the screams stopped.  We could hear angry or panicked instructions at the end of the hall.  An assistant from the emergency room ran toward me, asked me to call a number and tell the person who answered to come to the hospital immediately, then ran off without explaining what it was all about.  After I made the call, I walked over to Scott's parents.  When they saw me, they said, "Katie, will you pray with us ?"  The question surprised me.  I didn't have a reference for prayer.  I looked into their dear, tired, frightened eyes and thought, There's nothing I need to ask for.  I want whatever God wants.  But I joined them, of course.  They took my hands, closed their eyes and prayed, and I stood there with them, loving them, knowing how painful it can be to want a particular outcome.

During this experience, there was no internal resistance, no fear.  For me, reality is God.  I can always trust that.  I don't have to guess what God's will is.  Whatever happens is God's will, whether my child and grandchild live or die, and therefore it's my will.  So my prayer is already answered.  I love Roxann with all my heart, and I would gladly have given my life to save hers, and that was not being called for.  As it happened, the caesarean section went well, and both Roxann and Marley were fine.

There is another way.  If I had believed such thoughts as "It's better for Roxann to live than to die", "My granddaughter should be born", or "The doctor should have been better prepared", I would have been very upset.  I might have barged into the emergency room, making it even more difficult for the staff.  There might have been anger, frustration, terror, prayers (the kind that attempt to manipulate what cannot be manipulated).  These are a few of the ways we react when we believe what we think.  It's what the war with reality often looks like, and it's not only insane, it's hopeless, and very painful.  But when you question your mind, thoughts flow in and out and don't cause any stress, because you don't believe them.  And you instantly realize that their opposites could be just as true.  Reality shows you, in that peace of mind, that there are no problems, only solutions.  You know, to your very depths, that whatever happens is what should be happening.  If I lose my grandchild or my daughter, I lose what wasn't mine in the first place.  It's a good thing.  Either that, or God is a sadist, and that's not my experience.

I don't order god around.  I don't presume to know whether life or death is better for me or for anyone I love.  How can I know that ?  All I know is that God is everything and God is good.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Dr Dyer's Essay for Verse 46 -

If you're presently evaluating your level of achievement based on how much you've accumulated, prepare to sense a major shift in your state of personal satisfaction and contentment.  Verse 46 of the Tao Te Ching invites you to discover a more peaceful and self-satisfying way of knowing success - and as your determination to acquire more begins to weaken, your new views will change the world you've known.  You'll find that the experience of inner peace becomes your true gauge of accomplishment.

This 46th verse begins with a look at what happens when a planet loses its connection to the Way.  Countries begin needing to conquer more territory . . . and in their quest for more land, power, and control over others, they must constantly prepare for war.  Lao-tzu speaks symbolically of horses here: When connected to the Tao, the animals fertilize the fields; when disconnected from it, the beautiful creatures are bred for war.

In a modern translation of the Tao Te Ching, my friend Stephen Mitchell interprets this message in present-day terms:

When a country is in harmony with the Tao,

the factories make trucks and tractors.

When a country goes counter to the Tao,

warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

It's painfully obvious that our world has largely lost contact with the Way as described by Lao-tzu.  These days so much of our energy is placed on breeding warhorses at the expense of using our resources to fertilize our fields so that we can live in peace.  The United States is chock-full of weapons of mass destruction, and we continually legislate more funding to make our weapons so menacing that they're capable of rendering our entire planet uninhabitable.  The "disease of more" has created an environment that personifies Lao-tzu's observation that there is "no greater tragedy than discontentment".  But even if so many of our Divine selves seem to be engulfed by the flames of unease, you can begin the process  of putting Lao-tzu's advice to work.

When you truly understand what it means to live peacefully, satisfaction will begin to replace your desire for more.  Your world will begin to become tranquil as you change your own life and then touch the lives of your immediate family, your neighbors, your co-workers, and ultimately your nation and the entire planet.  Begin by simply thinking of the opening line of the famous Prayer of Saint Francis when you notice that you're demanding more of anything.

Silently say, Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love.  As that instrument of peace, you'll radiate tranquility to those in your immediate surroundings, and you'll feel the flicker of a new and different success in contentment, perhaps for the first time in your life.  By refusing to lose the Tao, regardless of how lost others are and what our world's governments elect to do, you're living harmoniously.  Your connection to the Tao will make a difference, gradually inching Earth away from the precipice of discontentment that Lao-tzu called "no greater tragedy".  

The sublime Hafiz beautifully sums up the kind of success I'm referring to in his poem" Would You Think it Odd ?":

Would you think it odd if Hafiz said,

"I am in love with every church

And mosque

And temple

And any kind of shrine

Because I know it is there

That people say the different names

Of the One God."