When we take a step back from our ego and examine the beliefs we have come to hold unconsciously, we recognize something profound; nothing has value. By this I mean that nothing in the universe has inherent value. Nothing is inherently good or inherently beautiful, and nothing can be said to be objectively true. Simultaneously, the essence of nothingness has value. Reveling in the emptiness, the “nothingness” of nature improves our life.
We can explore this concept more deeply by looking to the Chinese concept of Yin-Yang.
Yin-Yang
Yin-Yang is the concept in Chinese philosophy that reality consists of opposites. However, the Chinese conceptualize opposites not as contradictory elements but as complementary ones.
As we can see in the image above, the black and white colors, which symbolizes yin and yang respectively, are opposite of each other, but together they form one whole. The yin-yang symbol could not be complete without the presence of both yin and yang.
So, what does this mean in practice? The yin-yang of nature is manifested in our actions. Because of yin-yang, every action brings two opposing but complementary consequences. Lao Tzu describes this reality in chapter 2 of the Tao te Ching, saying:
“When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises. When the world knows good as good, evil arises.”
In other words, while absolutes may exist in theory, they are absent in reality. Beauty exists only in comparison to ugliness, good in comparison to evil.
Assigning value
When we look at the symbol of yin-yang, it is tempting to see only the yin and the yang and forget about the circle they compose. In reality, yin and yang don’t exist anymore than beauty and ugliness exist. We are the ones who summon their existence. We assign value. In actuality, nothing has value.
Our misguided assignment of value distracts us from reality and leads to the downfall of social harmony and misfortunate in our personal lives.
Praise and Materialism
Throughout the history of civilization, many humans have highly valued social status and material wealth. At first glance there seems to be nothing wrong with this. Why shouldn’t we want to be well-liked and enjoy awesome material goods like iPhones and sports cars? Similarly, why shouldn’t society reward those who work hard and succeed by lavishing them with praise and material compensation? If we all want status and wealth, rewarding success with those things seems like a pretty strong incentive to succeed.
However, Lao Tzu disagrees. In chapter 3 of the Tao te Ching, he writes:
“Do not glorify the achievers
So the people will not squabble
Do not treasure goods that are hard to obtain
So the people will not become thieves
Do not show the desired things
So their hearts will not be confused”
This chapter has always bothered me. If we achieve, it feels natural to expect praise. However, with the concept of yin-yang in mind, I can now see the wisdom Lao Tzu is offering.
While “glorifying achievers” and “treasuring goods that are hard to obtain” may bring about good feelings in the individual being praised or the individual who has acquired those goods, it leads to jealousy among those who are not glorified or in possession of the treasured goods. This jealously sparks aggressive competition that ruins friendships, brings about thievery and scheming, and creates a cut-throat environment filled with distrust.
Conquistadors
We can see the downsides of praise and materialism in the example of the Conquistadors. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed to the West Indies and tipped off the era of Conquistador exploration of the so-called “New World.” These conquistadors were explorers in search of God, Glory, and Gold. They wanted to spread Christianity, attain fame, and get rich.
In some respects, their exploration led to good things. They expanded the West’s knowledge of global geography, for example. However, their pursuit of glory and gold also led to a lot of bad things (according to Paul Hawken, the author of the book Blessed Unrest). The Conquistadors committed just about every atrocity known to man. They raped, murdered, tortured, and pillaged the Native American communities they encountered. They had competitions to see who could cut a person in half with one sweep of their swords. Of the 90-112 million indigenous people living on the American continents at the time of the conquests, 98% died of disease, violence, and heartbreak within 200 years.
While praise and glory led to greater knowledge and greater riches for the west, it also resulted in the greatest genocide in recorded history.
What do we do?
If assigning value to things like achievements and material objects leads to tragedy, what are we to do. How do we live without assigning value? In Chapter 19 of the Tao the Ching, Lao Tzu gives us a simple answer:
“End sagacity, abandon knowledge
The people will benefit a hundred times”
Again, Taoism presents us with a paradox. It seems wisdom and knowledge would be the key to living a better life. Are wisdom and knowledge not absolutely good things? How can it be better to live in confusion, than to live with knowledge and wisdom?
Let’s talk about knowledge first.
Taoism says that knowledge leads to desires and that these desires bring about social disorder and our unhappiness. Chief among these desires is the desire to control our own destiny. As humans, we tend to believe we are separate from the natural world. We believe that through accumulating scientific knowledge and developing more technology that we can manipulate nature to serve our interests and we can preserve ourselves from oblivion. We believe that knowledge leads to progress.
Lao Tzu would ask us, what progress? Knowledge has brought genocide, mass murders, and nuclear weapons. It has motivated us to spray toxins on our food supply that destroy ecosystem and increase the prevalence of cancer. Is this progress?
There is nothing to know
The pursuit of knowledge precipitates disaster because there is nothing to know. We think we know, and we act on this knowledge, but in reality, we know nothing. We believe whole-heartedly that the values we assign to things are true values, but they aren’t.
We assign the value of “good” to the existence of iPhones. And so, we treasure them as goods, and we support Apple who keeps producing them. But by collectively assigning this value, people become eager to steal iPhones. By assigning this value, we allow Apple to subject child laborers to horrendous working conditions as they mine for the raw materials necessary to make their products.
Wisdom Won’t Save Us
Now, let’s turn to wisdom. Just as with knowledge, the Tao te Ching says wisdom is not our saving grace. “End sagacity.” Why? For the same reason we should abandon knowledge. There is no use for knowledge or wisdom because, according to Taoism, as humans all we must do is look to our nature to know how to act. There is no greater purpose or meaning to life that wisdom will reveal to us.
Looking for meaning in life is like looking for patterns in the clouds. If we look hard enough, we can find it, but like the beauty in the flower, it’s not actually there. Assigning value to things based on knowledge or wisdom we think we possess simply muddles our view of reality. It is better to see clearly and be confused than to think we know and live in delusion. Seeing reality clearly while simultaneously being confused typifies yin-yang. That’s life in balance.
Our nature tells us that ultimately our fate is the same fate as that of every other living thing; our fate is death, oblivion, nothingness. Trying to escape this reality through the accumulation of knowledge or wisdom is a fool’s errand.
The people will benefit a hundredfold
When we stop assigning value to things and stop pursuing knowledge and wisdom, we can return to our natural state of being as selfless creatures who live in service of the greater whole. We can shed the illusion of permanence and recognize the transitory nature of all things. We can fulfill our role as part of nature and live in harmony with our environment.
In our personal lives, when we stop assigning value, we will stop being jealous of others’ achievements and possessions. We will stop competing with others and we will stop engaging in unnecessary work. We will have more time to appreciate the mystery of life. More time to live life. All we must do is recognize that nothing has value.