Tao Te Ching Chapter Summaries

To all light there is some darkness and to all the darkness there is some light. The Yin and the Yang cancel each other out but they still appear within each other. The Tao Te Ching is full of contradictions. Contradictions can otherwise be known as the Yin and the Yang. The village on the sunny side of a mountain may have Yang in the name while a village on the shady side of the mountain may have Yin in the name. The Tao is the way. And the way is literally the Tao. I once read a book called the Tao of the badass. It was a comedic joke about how to be a badass. At the time when I first read the book I didn’t realise the meaning of the word “Tao”. That word has taken a toll on my decisions and has made me think in a completely different way. …show more content…
I am speaking of the meaning of Yin and Yang. For every single thing in the world there is an opposite. Ying Yang is how the world works, it is a paradox. “The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible” (Tao Te Ching 6). This chapter speaks of the Way being the mother, the mother includes a Yin and a Yang in this case, because it is contradicting itself, it is something it can’t be. The Tao is the Ying because it is called the mother in this chapter. “Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt” (Tao Te Ching 9). This chapter nearly defines yin/yang because it starts off as the Yang then becomes the Yin. The Yang is good and too much good becomes the Yang, which is the bad. On the other hand if you are having the worst day of your life, the next day has the chance to become the best because even nature knows that one person can’t handle the worst day ever twice in a …show more content…
This chapter contains the most important contradiction in my opinion because this is the meaning of the yin/yang symbol.This contradiction is also a paradox at the same time. A paradox is something that is two things at the same time. And if something is empty yet inexhaustible that is not physically possible. But in terms of the Tao that is totally possible. The Tao is not a physical thing yet it has so many ways it can be translated, used, or invented. The Tao is the way and it seems like you called call the Yin and Yang together the Tao because that is the basic principle of opposition. To ever good there is bad. But in some special cases the Tao cancels itself out and just becomes the one biggest thing that really isn’t anything. The Tao is a paradox because it is what it isn’t. The Tao should really not be there if this is true but it somehow is still in every decision we