Over the past quarter of a century, I have taught various classes in philosophy and world religions. In both venues, the classes have heard me discuss Lao Tzu. This is a famous sculpture of him meditating.

The old master, aka Lao Tzu

There are three ideas about which Lao Tzu wrote that caused great debate in the classes. The first was yin-yang. To understand something, one must know its opposite.

Yin-Yang

The next notion of Lao Tzu was wu wei. That phrase means doing nothing or effortless action. Scholars often call this mindset going with the flow or the middle way. This concept also resulted in arguments among students.

Going with the flow

Finally, the third belief of Lao Tzu was “A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” Lao Tzu wanted to leave China, but a guard stopped him at the border. The guard forced him to write down all his insights about life. Lao Tzu penned Tao Te Ching. After completing that task, he left China and entered Tibet.

Goodbye China

However, Lao Tzu’s one-liner, “A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live,” created the most significant debate in my various classes. Andre Gide, a French writer in the first half of the 20th century, created his version of Lao Tzu’s statement. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

Neither Lao Tzu nor Gide referenced courage as an outward response to life. Extraordinary courage involves one’s internal fight to address personal problems. Sacrificing one’s life for another person is noble and admirable. However, when a person wages a personal war inside with the one’s self, that takes far more guts.

Name a problem that you have internally, then address it. I have two major fears and insecurities. The first and most significant has to do with being dumb and poor. My father got a promotion where he worked, which meant we moved from Pennsauken, NJ, to Mt. Lebanon, PA. I left Collins Trait Elementary School just before junior high school. I was an above-average student in a lovely middle-class community, but we moved to Mt. Lebanon, the 19th-best school system in the country and the wealthiest community in Western Pennsylvania. I learned two things while attending school at Mt. Lebanon; I was dumb and poor.

The scar tissue of feeling inadequate academically caused me to prove to myself that I was incorrect about feeling dumb and poor. While I am not Stephen Hawking or Warren Buffett, I spent a couple of decades proving I wasn’t dumb and poor. It also caused me to want to help other students to see themselves as more than they see themselves.

Facing death twice opened my eyes to both dances with death. Doing the dance with death caused me to be more driven in the time that I still have. It also taught me my limitations. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

In closing, I learned from The Epic of Gilgamesh about his quest to find immortality. Gilgamesh asked the only immortal in the world, Utnapishtim, about finding his own immortality. Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh to find a unique flowering plant and eat it. Gilgamesh found the plant and returned home, intending to eat the plant. However, a snake ate it first. When the snake achieved immortality, it was a teaching moment for Gilgamesh. He realized that immortality wasn’t possible and said, “Forget death and seek life.”