The Sufficiency of Contentment
The Teaching
There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition; no calamity greater than to be discontented with one’s lot; no fault greater than the wish to be getting. Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.
— Tao Te Ching 46, trans. James Legge, 1891
He who is satisfied with his lot is rich.
— Tao Te Ching 33, trans. James Legge, 1891
Commentary
Chapter 46 opens with a picture this text leaves out: when the world has the Tao, the war-horses haul manure in the fields; when it doesn’t, they are bred on the borders. Then it names the cause. The great calamity is not poverty or war. It is not knowing when you have enough.
The phrase that carries the chapter is a paradox: a sufficiency that is enduring and unchanging. Every other kind of enough wears out. A thing obtained is a new starting point within weeks, and the wanting moves on. The only sufficiency that does not erode is the one that doesn’t depend on what you have. On this Map that is the same teaching as Subtracting Daily, chapter 48. The Way is followed by dropping, not adding.
Themes
Connections 7
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Greek thought and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Taoism reached Confucianism by 400 BCE. The same Warring States world. Zhuangzi argues with Confucius by name.
Where This Appears
Sources
sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm (Legge).