a morning contemplation on Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching

This morning, I found myself sipping not just coffee, but Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching—one of those deep wells you can drink from for a lifetime and still taste something new each time. It’s the kind of chapter that doesn’t hand you wisdom, but stirs it loose inside you. A slow-release truth. A paradox you have to feel your way into.

Lao Tzu writes like a wind through reeds—he doesn’t explain reality, he weaves it. And in this chapter, the thread he pulls is the mystery of opposites: the negative gives birth to the positive, and the positive inevitably folds back into the negative.

Yin gives birth to Yang.
Presence arises from absence.
The valley holds the mountain’s shape.
Loss opens the hand to receive.

What strikes me most is that the Tao doesn’t preach balance as a goal. It reveals it as a way. Not a fixed point, but a dance. Harmony isn’t a static state to achieve—it’s a living rhythm. Something you trust, not control.

Here’s how Lao Tzu lays it down:

“The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to the ten thousand things.”

There’s a beautiful lineage here—source flowing into separation, separation flowering into multiplicity. And in the midst of all that, he reminds us:

“All things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by blending these vital energies.”

But then, almost abruptly, the tone shifts:

“What others teach, I also teach:
‘The violent die a violent death.’
I shall take this as the teacher’s precept.”

It’s jarring. Why end there? Why interrupt harmony with violence?

Because Lao Tzu knew the danger of favouring one side of the coin. When we cling to light and exile shadow—when we grasp at control and refuse the fall—we invite imbalance. We mistake the surface for the source. And in doing so, we slip out of the Tao.

The cost of refusing the negative is not peace but fragility.

The Tao is not a ladder to climb. It’s a circle. A breath. A pulse. And to live in harmony with it, we must allow the whole of life in—not just the parts we prefer.

This morning, I let that truth steep inside me.

I thought about the parts of life I still resist—the down cycles, the endings, the uninvited losses. And I asked myself:

Where is the negative gestating a hidden positive?
Or flipped: where is the ‘positive’ blocking the deeper gift of the ‘negative’?

Not as an intellectual exercise, but as a living question. One to carry into the day like a small stone in your pocket.

Because maybe the Tao isn’t just ink on the page.
Maybe it’s the steam rising from your cup.
The quiet before the noise.
The breath you didn’t realise you were holding.

And maybe today, balance isn’t something to reach for.
Maybe it’s something to remember.
To return to.
To trust.

—

Journaling invitation:
What if every “problem” in your life right now was part of a deeper balancing act?
What would shift if you didn’t try to solve it, but instead walked with it until it changed form?

Let the mist be your teacher. Let the in-between speak.