Tao Te Ching Passage 2 Analysis

Tao Te Ching book is filled with mini lessons of life. It was an enjoyable, quick read, and something that I was able to take a lot from because the passages contained practical writings of wisdom for the modern day person. Because the passages varied topics, the following paper will be written with the same notion. The first stanza of passage 2, to me, explained that each persons’ view point is different (“…people see some things a beautiful, other things become ugly…”); however, each view point creates, supports, defines, depends, and follows each other. If interpreted correctly, each time a person has a view point, typically an action follows and that action is viewed as an appropriate response. The additional two stanzas were more difficult to …show more content…
I can apply the first stanza to weeds in a garden. These are obvious things that are not wanted. It is undesirable for weeds to flourish or expand through my garden because then, I would have to put a mass amount of effort and work into getting rid of them. Same could be put into terms of health care. If a doctor does not stop a parasite from growing inside a patients’ body, it would be very, very difficult to stop this parasite from flourishing to the point of the patients’ death if it is allowed to grow too long. But, we can also look at it in terms of a child. We have to allow our children to flourish if we want them to survive in the real world on their own. Line two of the first stanza in passage 44 reminds me of the Jordan Belfort story, a man who framed his livelihood on scamming the stock market only for his own benefit, and money. In his mind, money was the root of his happiness. If there was no money, there was no happiness, especially after he was caught for his crimes. This passage is a sweet reminder to us to be happy, be thankful for what life has given us, and that things could always be