As I was reading the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, I think I finally found a real-life example of someone who helped me understand this book more.
The Tao Te Ching is a difficult book to understand. My brother and I often joke about “The Way,” and we say to each other “how are we even supposed to know what ‘The Way’ actually is? Is it this way or that way?” It’s the kind of book you can read again and again, and find new meaning in different verses depending on where you are in life.
I’ve read it twice now, about a year apart. In that time, I’ve gone through a lot of growth, change, and maturing. Each time I revisit it, I find new takeaways. But this time, something in Verse 50 stopped me in my tracks:
“Again and again
Men come in with birth
And go out with death
One in three are followers of life
One in three followers of death
And those just passing from life to death
Also number one in three
But they all die in the end
Why is this so?
Because they clutch to life
And cling to this passing worldI hear that one who lives by his own truth
Is not like this
He walks without making footprints in this world
Going about, he does not fear the rhinoceros or tiger
Entering a battlefield, he does not fear sharp weapons
For in him the rhino can find no place to pitch its horn
The tiger no place to fix its claws
The soldier no place to thrust his blade
Why is this so?
Because he dwells in that place
Where death cannot enter.”
This verse made me think of Mother Teresa. I know it might sound strange to compare a 6th-century Chinese text to a Catholic nun in the 20th century, but stay with me. I recently read Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Personal Portrait by Fr. Leo Maasburg who was a priest who traveled with her for many years. He wrote stories of her standing face-to-face with Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, surrounded by machine guns. Or walking into a building in Chicago that was overrun by gangs. She faced danger again and again and she never had fear.
And nothing ever happened to her.
Death never entered.
I believe that’s because she embodied Tao. She gave pure love to everyone. She lived by her truth and by what she believed God called her to do. She didn’t fear anything, because she wasn’t clinging to the world and that’s what this verse is about.
Reading about her helped me understand a part of Tao Te Ching in a completely new way. I still have a long way to go, but it’s amazing how two seemingly distant lives, Lao Tzu and Mother Teresa , can echo the same truth. Love protects, leads, and maybe love is The Way.
