Tao Te Ching – Chapter Twenty-Eight
Written by Lao-tzu – From a translation by S. Mitchell
Know the male,
yet keep to the female:
receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you,
and you will be like a little child.
Know the white,
yet keep to the black:
be a pattern for the world.
If you are a pattern for the world,
the Tao will be strong inside you,
and there will be nothing you can't do.
Know the personal,
yet keep to the impersonal:
accept the world as it is.
If you accept the world,
the Tao will be luminous inside you
and you will return to your primal self.
The world is formed from the void,
like utensils from a block of wood.
The Master knows the utensils,
yet keeps to the block:
thus she can use all things.
How I Read This Chapter
Hold the strong,
but stay close to the soft.
Embrace the light,
but don’t abandon the dark.
Know yourself,
but don’t cling too tightly.
To receive life fully,
we must open, not control.
To lead, we must yield.
To act, we must first accept.
Return to the childlike,
not childish,
but whole, trusting, free,
and full of wonder.
Stay close to the source,
and you can shape the world
without being shaped by it.
What This Means To Me
This chapter reminds me of the balance recovery has helped me rediscover—the balance I spent years running from. In my addiction, I lived in extremes. I pushed hard to be strong, dominant, in control—yet underneath was a deep vulnerability I couldn’t face. I was terrified of being soft, of needing help, of being seen. But the Tao tells me that wholeness doesn’t come from choosing one side over the other. It comes from holding both.
“Know the male, yet keep to the female.” That line isn’t just about gender—it’s about energy. The force and the flow. The doing and the being. The protector and the nurturer. Yin and Yang. In recovery, I’ve had to learn to receive as well as give. To surrender as well as act. When I stop trying to dominate life, I can finally hold it gently. And in that gentleness, I rediscover something essential: a sense of childlike openness. Not naive, but trusting. Receptive. Willing.
“Know the white, yet keep to the black.” For me, this is about embracing my shadow. In addiction, I tried to live only in the light—or at least to appear that way. But all the while, I was haunted by shame, guilt, and hidden pain. Recovery taught me not to reject the dark parts of myself but to bring them into the light. To be a pattern for the world, I don’t need to be perfect—I need to be whole. When I honour both the wounds and the healing, I become stronger, not weaker. The Tao grows inside me when I stop hiding.
“Know the personal, yet keep to the impersonal.” That line speaks directly to my ego. I spent so much of my life caught in self-centred thinking—what people thought of me, how I was doing, whether I was enough. Recovery has helped me zoom out. To remember that I’m part of something larger. That the world doesn’t revolve around me—and thank My God for that. When I stop taking things so personally, I start to experience peace. I stop resisting the world and begin to accept it, just as it is.
And this: “The world is formed from the void, like utensils from a block of wood.” That’s what recovery has done with me. It’s shaped me, yes—but not by force. By returning me to the raw material of who I am. It’s helped me carve meaning out of emptiness, and purpose out of pain. The Master “knows the utensils, yet keeps to the block”—meaning, they see the shapes life can take, but never forgets the formless source beneath it all. That’s the wisdom I strive for now: to know my roles, my responsibilities, my gifts—but not to lose myself in them.
I want to keep returning to the block—to that uncarved, quiet centre. That’s where my recovery lives. Not in performance, not in perfection, but in presence.
So today, I hold both sides of who I am:
The strength and the softness.
The light and the shadow.
The self and the surrender.
And from that holding, the Tao moves through me—not as something I grasp, but as something I’m becoming.
