45、Truth That Can Be Expressed with Language Never Lasts Long

Tao Te Ching: Chapter 1

‘Tao’ and ‘Te’ are different from ‘morality’, which is usually mentioned by us.

Tao Te Ching is not a book talking about ethics.

‘Tao’ refers to the way of dealing with problems. More precisely speaking, ‘Tao’ refers to the most correct, cleverest, and humane way of dealing with problems with the lowest social cost and the best effect. Tao means an ultimate method of considering all big and small problems through careful consideration.

‘Te’ refers to the social benefits produced by the implementation and promotion of Tao, which is the best way.

‘Tao’ and ‘Te’ mean achieving good social benefits through implementing the most correct method, which is moral praised highly by Lao-Tzu. Certainly, morality in an ethical sense is included in it, but moral is not limited to morality in an ethical sense.

It is the first chapter of Tao Te Ching and also general introduction.

Lao-Tzu emphasised, ‘Tao refers to truth and a changing thing. It cannot stick to convention. Otherwise, Tao does not exist.’

From the method and strategy of governing a country, national policies, policies, laws, and regulations developed by a gentleman (namely, state leader and leading group) are determined by practical situations. In case the situation changes, the thinking mode, key work, and contradiction nature of the gentleman have to change at any time. Otherwise, a disaster will be triggered due to wrong national policies.

It is very simple to understand. At the beginning of revolution and during the period of Japanese rampage, the gentleman had to highlight the contradiction with enemies and the opposition party and made his countrymen see the direction of revolution clearly and harbour a hatred for treason, invasion, oppression, flinch, and so on.

All in all, the purpose of hatred was to establish a new people’s regime. Therefore, hatred was Tao at that time because it could stimulate people’s desire of destruction and slaughter. In that case, people’s regime could be established only through destroying and slaughtering enemies.

However, domestic contradiction turned into the contradiction of economic construction after the revolution achieved success and aggression of all directions was pacified. No one can make money by means of hatred. It is Tao of economy and money. Tao of hatred should be ended. Tao does not exist if people knowing nothing about Tao of economy take the helm of the state, issue confused orders, and wage a war randomly. Without Tao, a country will disappear and fall apart like Eastern Europe.

China would end in the same way if Deng Xiaoping did not make vigorous efforts to turn the situation and separated from them.

Economic construction is Tao of business, which has no colour and class. What a gentleman should do is to combine Tao of business with national conditions and perfectly blend them instead of concentrating on economic construction with outdated struggle and Tao of hatred. In this case, Tao does not exist.

At present, Tao refers to perfectly combining Tao of business with national conditions with great wisdom, which not only consolidates the regime, but also develops the economy. Through looking at the card in his hand and others’ hand, a gentleman enhances advantages, avoids disadvantages, achieves success one way or another, uses both hard and soft tactics, and achieves the goal to ensure healthy development in all aspects.

Tao Te Ching is theory specially aimed at system.

The state is a system that Tao Te Ching pays most attention to because whether a monarch has Tao is directly related to the life, death, happiness, and health of the people.

The state is a system.

In particular, a despotic state is a system that can be regulated and controlled to the fullest.

China’s feudal dynasty is a national system of autocratic centralisation according to the systematic thought of Lao-Tzu.

Socialism and communism are a national system of new generation and an autocratic national system that can be fully regulated and controlled.

In such a national system, whether the gentleman (namely, state leader and leading group), the key figure in the control centre of the system, has the way of running the state is directly related to the operating condition and safety of the whole system.

If controlled well, a national system can fully release the potential of each individual in society. Each individual can fully display his value and get the maximum return. In the meanwhile, our country can be far ahead of other countries.

When driven, a car runs faster than creatures with two legs. Cars are the method of a system state while two legs belong to the way of a democratic state.

If controlled badly, contradictions will be constantly aggravated. Full of chaos everywhere, a state will fall apart, collapse, and disappear in the end.

Apart from the way of running a state, all kinds of knowledge are ‘Tao’. They are Tao of various subjects. For various subjects, Tao refers to all kinds of professional knowledge and technology.

As long as they are truth, they can be called ‘Tao’.

When the heaven and earth took shape in the beginning, there was no life in the world except for inorganic substances.

Life started to appear after the existence of ‘Tao’. Regarding the origin of life, I think that biological evolutionism cannot be explained and creationism is reasonable, scientific, and logical.

Growing out of nothing, creatures are not an evolutionary process, but a very complicated biochemical process.

Inorganic substances are stones, water, air, sunshine, thunder and lightning, and wind. How these inorganic substances in nature form life naturally without the help of any intelligence of science and technology is a problem that any top technology cannot answer and simulate so far.

Any life, even the simplest life—virus—is a thing that is infinitely superior, advanced, and complicated than our computers. It is impossible for a life to take shape spontaneously under natural conditions.

Therefore, ‘Tao’ appears before any life. Similarly, technology and drawings appear before machines. With the existence of technology and drawings, there are machines that can operate. Those technology and drawings are ‘Tao’.

Technology and knowledge are intangible. Therefore, Tao is characterised by ‘invisibility’.

However, all life has its objective law—‘Tao’. Therefore, Tao exists in everything. Every life has Tao. As a result, Tao usually exists.

For people, knowledge is infinite. No scientist is sure about when people can master all knowledge in the universe. Therefore, Tao is very abstruse.