Number Nine Greed
9
I draw the blade
across the whetstone
too many times
Lesson #9
You only want just a little bit more.
The blade breaks
from too much sharpening.
The wine spills on the floor,
overfull.
Thieves creep off
with your cherished bags of gold.
Fame turns to dust.
Just enough really is enough.
From: 81 Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Number Nine: Greed
In trying to get it all
you fill the cup over the brim and it spills
Instead stop short
Waste nothing
Beating and sharpening
a blade beyond what is needed
shortens the life of the tool
Hoard wealth beyond what you need
and you attract the attention of thieves
Brag about your position and power
and you invite resentment and sabotage
Work until the work is done
Then stop
Know how much is enough
NUMBER NINE
Let Heavenly Love fill you and overflow in you,
Not according to your measure of fulness.
Prove it, probe deeply into it,
It shall not long withstand you.
You may fill a place with gold and precious stones,
You will not be able to guard them.
You may be weighted with honours and become proud.
Misfortune then will come to your Self.
You may accomplish great deeds and acquire fame,
Retire yourself;
This is Heavenly Tao
Isabella Mears, The Tao Teh King, A Tentative Translation from the Chinese, William McLellan, Glascow, 1916.
Number Nine (commentary) How much is enough?
The hungry ghosts inside you want more and more and more. They want you to fill your wineglass to the very brim and who cares if you spill the wine all over the floor. They say, “Whatever you are doing, it is not enough. More needs to be done! Keep working! Keep controlling!” They want you to grind your knives to the sharpest edge imaginable, to be the best knife sharpener ever and who cares if your steel becomes so thin that it breaks?
The hungry ghosts outside of you want you to spend every minute seeking profit ruthlessly, without a care for the consequence. Who cares who you harm as you climb that ladder? Claw your way to the top and you spend your days fighting off the competition. Grab that five minutes of internet fame and you will find happiness. Do not think about how soon you will be forgotten.
Those who thrive off of the work of the hungry ghosts want you to spend more and more money. Find the need and feed it. Grab all the gusto! Buy all those things that you think you need today and that will end up in your storage sheds, for your heirs to throw away. Spend recklessly and call it fun. Keep making them richer.
And, at the end of your life, you realize that you missed your precious life.
All the while, the climate got hotter, and more people stopped trusting anything or anyone.
Please, for your own life’s sake, leave this rat race.
Work for the love of work, and when the work is done, walk away.
Buy only what you really need and give it away when you are through with it.
That is how to live in harmony with the Way.
Tangent and Tool #9, Just enough leadership: (Reflective exercise) You may not live until your retirement. You may not want to live until your retirement, depending on how quickly the environment and the social order collapse. Stop living to fix a future that lies two days, two weeks, two months or two years down the road. Let that go. When you do let that go, you are left with today and a bit of tomorrow, the only two days you have any real say in co-creating. Walk around today saying this mantra to yourself, “I know it is not enough. But I cannot do it all. I will do only what is required and then I will just walk away.”