Introduction

This verse has a challenging message phrased difficultly. The interpretations I’ve encountered varied significantly in their treatment of core lines that change the meaning from “love yourself so you can love everyone” to “despise your body so you can properly serve others.”

In the older texts, the word for “body” is contrasted against the word for “tassel,” giving “body” the idea of “main part.” The whole thing makes more sense when this isn’t a commentary about our physical body. It makes more sense because Daoism favors longevity (preferably immortality!) through self-care. It’s implausible that a canonical text would teach us to despise our bodies. Further, we’ve discovered that Confucian perspectives were read into the Dao De Jing in verse 5. Could particular views from the Hindu/Buddhist ascetic traditions also be mixed in? I think so! However, the position and concepts described are still quite tricky, so this verse is also impacted by whether the text is treated as a pragmatic manual for meditative living or a leadership text for the elite.

Translation

Honor and shame are extras.
Regard caring as your core.

Why are honor and shame extras?

Honor and shame are secondary.
Gain and lose them like decorations.
This is what is meant.

Why say “regard caring as your core”?

I become “me” through what I care about.
What would I worry about if I didn’t have a “me”?

Therefore, prioritizing “being me” in the world,
the world can be entrusted to me.

When love is the essence of all,
the world is in hand.

Commentary

The structure of the verse bounces around a bit. I think it will facilitate our contemplation of the text to do a little regrouping for the commentary. In the spirit of this, we begin with:

Honor and shame are extras.
…
Why are honor and shame extras?

Honor and shame are secondary.
Gain and lose them like decorations.
This is what is meant.

Honor and shame are just caresses and slaps to our notion of self. They can’t touch who we truly are at our core, either to build it up or to tear it down.

I remember being a shame-filled human being, placing in the top three in dozens of karate tournaments, getting straight As, and generally being considered well-talented. None of those accolades mattered to who I thought I was.

I also remember getting very full of myself because people told me I was great, only to have that ego inflation lead to deplorable behavior.

I remember receiving significant formative feedback that my work was sub-par while in a very self-assured place. Despite the feedback’s crude delivery, I could hear it and take it in without feeling the tiniest twinge of guilt, shame, or defensiveness because I knew I was doing my best.

Experiences like the above have shown me how true it is that honor and shame are extras. When we get blown about on emotional highs and lows, like tassels in the wind, when we pay too much attention to them. In fact, we can completely forget our connection to the world in either direction by being crushed in shame or inflated with honor. Such highs and lows are addictive, and we will radically change our behavior to preserve or avoid them.

What is stable? Like verse 12 said:

Therefore, let go of that and hold this
according to the inner and not the outer.

Regulate yourself according to your self-knowledge and your interior. Do not allow the things “out there” to determine who you are and what you do. What, then, is “in here” as a guiding compass?

Regard caring as your core.
…

Why say “regard caring as your core”?

I become “me” through what I care about.
What would I worry about if I didn’t have a “me”?

Contemplative traditions across time and space seem to concur: caring is the most potent force in the world. We will become our heart’s greatest desire, so be careful what you wish for. When caring is self-centered, we are separated from the sublime. When caring is other-centered, we are closer to it but aren’t quite there. We taste divinity when our “self” and “other” merge, and we recognize how self-care is other-care and other-care is self-care.

The last part of this sequence, “What would I worry about if I didn’t have a “me”?” is a profound, non-dual, spiritual truth. It is also possibly a rebuttal against the ego-destroying practices of other East Asian Wisdom traditions. Basically, the mystical experience goes through an arch that starts with being very self-centered, as we naturally all become by about age 3. Many of us mature to be self-centered in socially appropriate ways but are still fundamentally driven by our sense of identity. Typically, to become deeply religious and pursue mystical experiences, one has to have an existential crisis that makes us willing to surrender to something else. Many religious practices stop here and encourage a profound selflessness. Such people often inspire us, and we can place self-sacrifice on a pedestal.

Self-sacrifice and being nice are synonymous, as are being mean and egotistical.

The trick here is that mystics who genuinely experience the dissolution of the self discover a deep sense of apathy toward existence. Without an ego structure, we don’t care about things like eating. Anyone who has become so engrossed in a task that they forget to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom has a sense of what this is like.

This verse points beyond either of these stages; the thesis of egotism and the antithesis of egolessness become synthesized into something else when it says:

I become “me” through what I care about.
What would I worry about if I didn’t have a “me”?

The non-dual position recognizes each individual as part of an indescribably beautiful, interconnected web. If each person is sacred and deserving of service, how could it be right to debase myself? Instead, we recognize that we always function from our deepest desires, so shaping them in beneficial ways is essential. The values memes we adopt to determine what is beneficial are often our most significant difference and greatest points of contention.

For some, the scales lean heavily toward personal pleasure, gain, or comfort to the detriment of others. For others, the scales tip so far toward altruism and self-effacement that they end up materially and psychically impoverished, incapable of further acts of giving. Worse yet is when either attitude compensates for a confused and unhealthy notion of who one truly is.

Therefore, prioritizing “being me” in the world,
the world can be entrusted to me.

The perspective espoused in this verse is an all-inclusive middle way. It encourages us to understand that one is wrapped up in the other, and neither perspective is complete.

One of the remarkable results of a non-dual spiritual perspective is that our personal development becomes a priority. It is as Mohandas Gandhi famously said:

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

By genuinely loving ourselves, we understand how to love everyone else. We discover untold inner resources by knowing how to prioritize what we care about, regardless of personal gain or sacrifice. Giving ourselves the gift of grace and kindness teaches us understanding and compassion for others. Clearly, my mental attitude is critically important when the entire universe is an extension of myself.

When love is the essence of all,
the world is in hand.

“Regarding caring as our core” is given a powerful second meaning here at the end. What “caring” is our core? Determining what we care about is not as simple as it may sound, and our life conditioning can easily twist it into something unhealthy. So, what is the highest value?

Caring about Love.

Love is the essence of all. It is the driving, motivating pressure felt as the ever-unfolding pressure of the Dao. Love brings everything together, harmonizes all opposites, and envelopes all dualities. Love is generative, which, by necessity, includes destruction. When we tap into this essential natural force we recognize ourselves and the world as sublime. From this vantage point, nothing is impossible.