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Verse 2 of the Tao Te Ching: 

All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill of the skillful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the want of skill is.

So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to (the idea of) the other; that difficulty and ease produce the one (the idea of) the other; that length and shortness fashion out the one the figure of the other; that (the ideas of) height and lowness arise from the contrast of the one with the other; that the musical notes and tones become harmonious through the relation of one with another; and that being before and behind give the idea of one following another.

Therefore the sage manages affairs without doing anything, and conveys his instructions without the use of speech.

All things spring up, and there is not one which declines to show itself; they grow, and there is no claim made for their ownership; they go through their processes, and there is no expectation (of a reward for the results). The work is accomplished, and there is no resting in it (as an achievement).

The work is done, but how no one can see;
'Tis this that makes the power not cease to be.

Duality and the Spiritual vs the Physical

Beauty vs Ugliness, Good vs Evil - there are plenty of examples of these concepts out there.  I like to think about the Good vs Evil thing a lot - especially as an aspiring storyteller.  Storytelling wasn’t always a thing I enjoyed - I was always fascinated by it but didn’t want to investigate it too much.  That’s changed as of late and I have been observing stories so I can tell better ones.  And a common theme that comes up is good vs evil, the light vs dark, the cowardly vs the brave.  You name it - the world is full of these stories, and it’s little wonder why we love them so much.  We’ve got these brains that allow us to think of stuff, and I think it’s especially pleasing for us to think about big questions, far reaching ones - and the concept of good and evil span a pretty wide mental area.  

 Lao Tzu is urging us to think about opposites in the verse - and good and evil seem to be as good a place as any.  He says that one defines the other.  So without good, there is no evil.  Without light, there isn’t really any dark.  And one that might hit home a little deeper is that without life, there is no death.

 Let’s think about this for a quick moment.  If one quality or concept defines another, if we take a step back, we can realize that opposite things are really just two parts of a whole.  Opposites are helpful for us when we need to define something, and even though the Tao can’t really be defined, I feel like it’s great to kind of mull over different (and seemingly opposite) qualities of the Tao.  

 So if I can think a little bigger than good and evil, I can think of life and death.  And a little bigger than that, I can think of physicality and non-being.  That’s pretty big.  But the cool thing is that I need only to check inside myself to realize that I have all of these big concepts housed within myself.  I only need to poke around slightly to realize that in addition to being a physical thing, I have this...animating force...that keeps everything going.  I’m not sure what it is - and to date, neither does science.  Oh, we’re getting very close to that, especially with some quantum theory, and while that’s a discussion that’s beyond the scope of today’s episode, it’s nevertheless very promising.  In fact, it’s starting to look like we can explain spirituality using quantum physics.  Awesome.  So I guess the main takeaway from this Spiritual vs Physical Duality is this:  we are both physical and spiritual beings.