Stanza 13

Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.

What do you mean by “accept disgrace willingly”?
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with loss or gain.
This is called “accepting disgrace willingly.”

What do you mean by “Accept misfortune as the human condition”?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?

Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.

Translation: Gia-Fu Feng

Lao Tzu (5^th or 6^th century BC) was a philosopher and poet of ancient China and the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching and founder of Taoism. Tao is the source and ideal of all existence; it is unseen, immensely powerful yet supremely humble. The Tao Te Ching teaches how to a return to a natural state, in harmony with the Tao.

This is one of my favorite passages from the Tao Te Ching because it directly addresses two of our most difficult challenges, the desire to be the ‘best’ and the desire to avoid ‘pain.’ In our ordinary lives we are taught to be proud of ourselves and our accomplishments; to take charge of our destiny and manifest what we want from life. And when things don’t turn out the way we want, we should complain loudly and find out why to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We want our own way! And we want it now!

The Tao counsels us to approach life differently and to transcend the ego rather than exalt it, to accept the lower place at the table. Humility is the acknowledgement of ‘what is’ rather than what we want it to be, or think it should be. Rain falls on the just and on the unjust. Rain is, like the misfortunes of life, doesn’t take sides. It’s not personal.

Because we are human, it is inevitable that we will experience sickness, loss, suffering, etc. If we have setbacks in our lives, it is not necessarily because we are not thinking positively, not manifesting correctly, or that we have been sinful and are being punished. Life is living through us and for reasons we may not understand, attracts people, circumstances and events to us that we may not like.

I think to “surrender yourself humbly” means to give our self over to the current of Life whose sole purpose is to awaken us and bring us home. When we have given up self-interest, we can be trusted to care for all things.