"There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
And there is no greater disaster than greed."
(Tao Te Ching, 46)
Before discussing things out, I would like first to share this story; I knew it as the "Parable of the Corn of the Biggest Kernels" during my secondary education, which was shared by our teacher that time:
"Once upon a time, there was this little boy who lived with his family in a corn field, far from that of the urban influence; his name was John. One day, his father, Thomas, asked him to go straight through that of the field and find the corn that has the biggest kernels among all the other corns with one challenge though: John must not go back to the ones he already passed by.
John then directly accepted the said challenge in return of that of his leisure time. As John started to walk through the field, there were a lot of corns that consist enormous kernels in them, -probably that size of an onion! But John was not contented, he still decided to walk and believed that there will be more kernels ahead that are far more bigger than that of the firsts.
But as he continued to walk, it turned out that the kernels of that side of the field went smaller and smaller until he reached the end of the field which happened to have the smallest kernels among the corns in the field.
Yes, unfortunately, he was not able to acquire his leisure time, but at least, he was able to grasp the importance of contentment. -End-"
Here in the story, we can somehow see what Lao Tzu was trying to say; that our desires, discontentment, or simply greed happens to be the utmost hazard one can ever get and will never bring us any good at all. Well, there could be nothing wrong about having desires, but the thing is, somehow, it must, at least, not leave us unsatisfied and make us hungry for more. Nevertheless, what Lao Tzu suggests here is that one must be able to fabricate satisfaction and acceptance to whatever he/she has now, thus, it will have him/her not to crave for more, for again, such hankering will just lead an individual to a far more bigger tragedy, or simply, DISASTER.
John then directly accepted the said challenge in return of that of his leisure time. As John started to walk through the field, there were a lot of corns that consist enormous kernels in them, -probably that size of an onion! But John was not contented, he still decided to walk and believed that there will be more kernels ahead that are far more bigger than that of the firsts.
But as he continued to walk, it turned out that the kernels of that side of the field went smaller and smaller until he reached the end of the field which happened to have the smallest kernels among the corns in the field.
Yes, unfortunately, he was not able to acquire his leisure time, but at least, he was able to grasp the importance of contentment. -End-"
Here in the story, we can somehow see what Lao Tzu was trying to say; that our desires, discontentment, or simply greed happens to be the utmost hazard one can ever get and will never bring us any good at all. Well, there could be nothing wrong about having desires, but the thing is, somehow, it must, at least, not leave us unsatisfied and make us hungry for more. Nevertheless, what Lao Tzu suggests here is that one must be able to fabricate satisfaction and acceptance to whatever he/she has now, thus, it will have him/her not to crave for more, for again, such hankering will just lead an individual to a far more bigger tragedy, or simply, DISASTER.
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