Historically, for reasons of the Confucian controversy, many Confucians would disprove the words in the Tao Te Ching out of context, for example, they would find the phrase "selflessness for selfishness" in the seventh chapter of the Tao Te Ching to point out that Lao Tzu was a conspirator with a dark belly.
But what is the original text? The original text is:
The sky is long, the earth is long.
The reason why the heavens and the earth can last for a long time,
Because it does not grow on its own, it can live forever.
It is the saint who retreats from his body,
Outside the body and in the body,
Not with its selflessness and?
Therefore, it can be selfish.
How to understand this passage? If the saints are selfless and selfish, then is the heavens and the earth also seeking eternal life because they do not live on their own?
Obviously, it is an objective fact that heaven and earth do not live by themselves, and it is not an objective fact that heaven and earth subjectively want to live forever but do not give birth to themselves; in the same way, it is also an objective fact that saints are selfless and selfless, and it is not that saints subjectively want to be selfish and selfless.
It can be seen that this is not a "black belly" statement, and it is not a telling people to pretend to be "selfless" to achieve their "selfish" goals.
This out-of-context approach of Confucianism is undoubtedly an attempt to attack with the scarecrow fallacy in logic. (The scarecrow fallacy is to distort the opponent's position and attack an imaginary object to discredit the other party.) ）
On the other hand, if there are real conspirators who pretend to be selfless and selfish, they will eventually fail. For example, Wang Mang pretended to be humble and usurped the throne, but as soon as he ascended to the throne, he began to act perversely, and eventually left a stink for thousands of years.
What if he was a saint in accordance with the Tao Te Ching? In the first half, it may be the same, after taking office, it will "govern a big country if it cooks small fresh", not to toss the people's livelihood, but to better consider the broad masses of the people, and ultimately achieve better governance.
This process does not involve the consideration of "selfishness", but objectively it is "selfless" - not imposing others with its own will, and not self-righteously interfering with the people below. In the end, the people were allowed to develop naturally and eventually achieve prosperity, which objectively also achieved the saint's own "selfishness".
In addition, about the "longevity" of the second half of this paragraph, in fact, most of the people who can really live a long life will not deliberately go to health, but those who like health, such as the famous health expert Mei Mosheng was only 59 years old when he died; Zhang Shengyu, chairman of Tongrentang, died suddenly due to heart disease at the age of 39; Lin Haifeng, the founder of holistic natural medicine therapy, died at the age of 51.
……
On the other hand, many long-lived elderly people do not pursue any "immortality" themselves, some can still work in the fields in their seventies and eighties, and they will not do any exercises, nor have they eaten any health care products, and they still live a healthy and long life.
After all, people do not live only by the so-called diet and "exercises", but only pay attention to those who are actually putting the cart before the horse, naturally, it is not enough to achieve their goals.
Zhuangzi's saying, "Knowing without thinking and without worrying, starting with the Tao without serving anywhere, and starting from the Tao without the Tao." The Tao here is changed to "eternal life", to "to become selfish", to change to any purpose, in fact, it is possible...