Fake Lao Tzu Quote
"To hold..."
This is NOT a quote from Tao Te Ching:
"To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go."
The Book
The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained. The great Taoist philosophy classic by Lao Tzu translated, and each of the 81 chapters extensively commented. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).
More about the book here.
|
Indeed, if you want to grab something you must start with an open hand. A fist can hold on to nothing. The paradox is in "let go." So you hold on just to let go? Well, it is the only way to get hold of something else. Still, this is a strange message. It seems to say: always let go, so that you can hold anew. Perpetuum mobile.
Letting go, though, was something Lao Tzu felt strongly about and recommended as a basic principle of reaching wu-wei, non-action. Chapter 48 of Tao Te Ching says (my version):
Those who seek the Way,
Let go of something every day.
They let go and let go,
Until reaching no action.
When nothing is done,
Nothing is left undone.
|
90 of the most spread false Lao Tzu quotes, why they are false and where they are really from. Book by Stefan Stenudd. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).
More about the book here.
|
The quote examined here is not from Lao Tzu. He would not regard letting go as something by which to grab something else. Still, it is inspired by his teaching.
The source to this quote is not from the Far East but from 'far out.' It can be found in Psychedelic Monograph II from 1966, with a new edition called Psychedelic Prayers and Other Meditations in 1997, by the psychologist, writer, and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary (1920-1996). The book consists of "psychedelic prayers" based on the first 37 chapters of Tao Te Ching. In the foreword, Leary described the Chinese classic as a "psychedelic manual" and Tao as an "energy process" (page 37).
The quote is part of a poem called "Take In — Let Go." The whole poem reads (page 64):
To breathe in
You must first breathe out
Let go
To hold
You must first open your hand
Let go
To be warm
You must first be naked
Let go
In an endnote, Leary specified that this poem was adapted from chapter 36 of Tao Te Ching (page 134). There is another poem based on the same chapter, called "The Lesson of Seed" (page 79):
The soft overcomes the hard
The small overcomes the large
The gentle survives the strong
The invisible survives the visible
Fish should be left in deep water
Fire and iron kept under ground
Seed should be left free
To grow in the rhythm of life
His interpretations of the chapter are not impossible to extract from the original, though partly deviating from it by the obvious use of poetic license — and admittedly of meditation as well as psychedelic drugs (page 38). Here is my version of the same chapter:
What should be shrunken must first be stretched.
What should be weakened must first be strengthened.
What should be abolished must first be cherished.
What should be deprived must first be enriched.
This is called understanding the hidden.
The soft and weak overcome the hard and strong.
The fish cannot leave the deep waters.
The state's weaponry should not be displayed.
It is understandable how Leary's poems adapted from Tao Te Ching chapters were later mistaken to be proper translations of them. After all, many versions claiming to be translations allow themselves even greater liberties with the original than Leary did.
Psychedelic Prayers and Other Meditations is still in print. So is his book Start Your Own Religion, containing the same poem (page 99).
On Goodreads, the quote examined here, ascribed to Lao Tzu, got its first like in November, 2008, which was the year after the website was launched. With that exception, the oldest web page I found with an ascertained date, containing the quote, is from October 2010, also ascribing it to Lao Tzu. On Facebook, the quote seems to have started to appear in 2012.
Stefan Stenudd
September 22, 2020.
There are many more fake Lao Tzu quotes examined on this website.
Click the header to see a list of them.
Click the header to read a "fake" interview with Stefan Stenudd, the author of
Fake Lao Tzu Quotes.
My Taoism Books
Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).
The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained. The great Taoist philosophy classic by Lao Tzu translated, and each of the 81 chapters extensively commented.
More about the book here.
The Ancient Wisdom of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. 389 quotes from the foremost Taoist classic, divided into 51 prominent topics. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).
More about the book here.
Erroneous Tao Te Ching Citations Examined. 90 of the most spread false Lao Tzu quotes, why they are false and where they are really from. Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).
More about the book here.
|
My Other Websites:
The 64 hexagrams of the Chinese classic
I Ching and what they mean in divination. Try it online for free.
The ancient Chinese life energy
qi (
chi) explained, with simple instructions on how to exercise it.
The many ancient and modern life force beliefs all over the world explained and compared.
Other Books by Stefan Stenudd
Click the image to see the book at Amazon (paid link).
The Greek philosophers and what they thought about cosmology, myth, and the gods.
The life energy
qi (also
chi or
ki) explained, with exercises on how to awaken, increase and use it.
Basic concepts of the peaceful martial art. Aikido principles, philosophy, and fundamental ideas.
Qi, prana, spirit, ruach, pneuma, and many other life forces around the world explained and compared.
Jungian theories on myth and religion examined, from Carl G. Jung to Jordan B. Peterson.
About me
I'm a Swedish author and aikido instructor. In addition to fiction, I've written books about Taoism and other East Asian traditions. I'm also an historian of ideas, researching ancient thought and mythology. Click the image to get to my personal website.
Tao Te Ching
Now it's a book, too!
Tao Quotes
Cosmos of the Ancients
Qi — Increase Your Life Energy
Aikido Principles
Life Energy Encyclopedia
Archetypes of Mythology
Stefan Stenudd