Daodejing Themes

The Daodejing we read is the first book of two. This book focuses on the Way while the second book focuses on Virtue. In this first book there are thirty-seven chapters. Each chapter is its own lesson and contains a meaning separate and independent from the other chapters. The first book has some themes that each of these chapters fall under: the Dao, nothingness, non-desiring, nature as a model, wuwei-nonaction, and knowledge and value. The Daodejing has three parts to this word; Dao means Way, de means power, virtue, and jing means classic, so the entire word means “The classic of the way and its power.” The Dao is one of the themes the first book focuses on and it hits this with the first chapter. In this chapter Laozi says, “Always eliminate …show more content…
In chapter 4 it is said that, “The way is like an empty vessel; no use could ever fill it up.” The book is trying to state that the way is so vast that it seems to be the “ancestor of the myriad creatures” in other words the Dao was around before anything else and it is what governs all of existence. The way lies in the place where people need it as stated in chapter eight, “The highest good is like water… It resides in the places that people find repellent, and so comes close to the Way.” Nothingness is another theme of the book. This theme leads us to almost the same as non-desiring. “To produce without possessing; to act with no expectation of reward” (Chapter …show more content…
Here it shows that water benefits life without reason. The water does not benefit from helping the creatures of the Earth and it does not expect any return. This is the lesson Laozi is trying to teach. Non-action is the next theme in the Daodejing. In chapter two it is said that “Everyone knows that when the good strives to be good, it is not good.” Although we are focusing on book one, the first chapter of book two is included in this reading so I am going to use it to help explain non-action. “Those of highest Virtue do not strive for Virtue and so they have it… Those of highest Virtue practice non-action and never act for ulterior motives” (Chapter 38). These two quotes are used to show that those who seek out Virtue and overall goodness will never achieve it. These are obtained through non-action and therefore through the process of actively pursuing Virtue the actions done in doing so are not genuine and lead to a person of lowest Virtue. When one acts for and ulterior motive this is what causes them to lose