These can be the hardest verses for Westerners to understand as our entire society is based on the opposite.

It’s said that Taoism comes from early Buddhist travellers from India to China. The second of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths is that all suffering is born from desire.

The desire to be gifted, to gain security by collecting wealth and to want or not want is to suffer and cause suffering to others.

To empty hearts is to not desire, weakening ambition, stuffing bellies and strengthening bones is filling the dantien/tanden with life energy and circulating it through the body, creating a healthier society.

Not wanting or desiring means no indoctrinating politics from an oligarchy and developing empathy and compassion coupled with the ability to share and care.