Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 48 — Daily Decrease
In pursuit of learning, daily increase; in pursuit of Tao, daily decrease
In pursuit of learning, every day something is gained; in pursuit of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less until non-action is reached — and through non-action nothing is left undone. The world is won by leaving it alone.
Source context
- Theme
- cessation of accumulation and progressive dissolution of conceptual doing as the path to non-action (wu-wei)
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Advaita Vedanta — neti netiThe Upanishadic method of progressive negation (neti neti) parallels Chapter 48's movement of subtracting rather than adding: knowledge of Brahman is approached by stripping away all superimposed attributes, not by accumulation.
- Buddhist practice — nirodhaThe Pali nirodha (cessation) and the Mahayana concept of non-abiding activity (asamskrita) show cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 48's principle that effortless accomplishment arises precisely when deliberate fabrication is relinquished.
- Neoplatonism — apophatic ascentPlotinus describes the soul's return to the One as a progressive abandonment of multiplicity and discursive thought, structurally congruent with Chapter 48's prescription to subtract day by day until non-action is reached.
Chapter 48
He who devotes himself to learning (seeks) from day to day to increase (his knowledge); he who devotes himself to the Tao (seeks) from day to day to diminish (his doing).
He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing nothing (on purpose). Having arrived at this point of non-action, there is nothing which he does not do.
He who gets as his own all under heaven does so by giving himself no trouble (with that end). If one take trouble (with that end), he is not equal to getting as his own all under heaven.