Bodhicitta (@Bodhicitta)

The Daodejing counsels everyone, but especially those in power, to be humble, frugal, and modest (see chapters 9, 46). While excessive desires lead to profound misfortune, such calamity is not regarded as an inevitable feature of the human condition. People can pursue certain modest levels of satisfaction without incurring any bad consequences. However, most are enticed to upset the natural balance, to embellish and thereby obscure and hinder their original nature, by pursuing excessive wealth, beauty, or power—values foisted upon them by social conditioning. The obsessive quest to obtain such artificial goods blinds one to the true and natural desires and leads to both physical and psychological distress (see chapters 3, 12). PJ Ivanhoe version