Explanation Of the Tao Te Ching Part Fifty

“Between birth and death,
Three in ten are followers of life,
Three in ten are followers of death,
And men just passing from birth to death also number three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they live their lives on the gross level. 

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.”

This is an interesting one, breaking society down to a third (interesting Chinese ‘3 out of 10’)  full of life and positivity, a third depressed and courting death and a third that don’t really consider it.

In battle a third who want to live will be scared and are likely to get killed, a third will be reckless and be killed and a third are not ‘in the zone’ and likely to die as a result.

This is living life on a ‘gross level’.

The paradox is that if we understand the Tao, we get the balance of life, death and the universe and its inevitability, the ‘fearlessness’ is that we’re not scared of dying but also not reckless, this puts us into the safest state of not making mistakes through fear, recklessness or apathy.