Tao Te Ching – Chapter Fifty-Six
Written by Lao-tzu – From a translation by S. Mitchell
Those who know don’t talk.
Those who talk don’t know.
Close your mouth,
block off your senses,
blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust.
This is the primal identity.
Be like the Tao.
It can’t be approached or withdrawn from,
benefited or harmed,
honoured or brought into disgrace.
It gives itself up continually.
That is why it endures.
How I Read This Chapter
Real knowing is quiet.
It doesn’t need to explain itself.
It is soft,
still,
surrendered.
The one who walks the Way,
lets go of the need to prove,
to argue,
to impress.
They untangle their inner knots,
and learn to simply be.
Like the Tao,
They endure,
not by grasping,
but by yielding.
What This Means To Me
This chapter speaks to a part of my story I carried in silence for years: my struggle with words.
The year before I started drinking, I was told I had a form of dyslexia. I didn’t fully understand what that meant – I just knew I found things hard that others seemed to find easy. Reading out loud. Spelling. Organising thoughts. Expressing myself in a way that made sense. It planted a belief deep inside me: I’m not good enough. I can’t do this. I’ll never be able to say it right.
And so I stopped trying.
I developed a real fear of expressing myself. A fear of being exposed as stupid, messy, wrong. I avoided writing, speaking up, sharing what was going on inside me. And inside was a lot. My head was alive with ideas, creativity, emotion – but I had nowhere to put it. Nowhere for it to land. So I did what I knew how to do: I drank to quiet it all down.
Alcohol became the mute button for a voice I didn’t know how to use.
“Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.” I used to read that as a reason to stay quiet. But now I read it differently. It’s not about shame – it’s about depth. True understanding doesn’t always need words. And when words do come, they don’t need to shout. They just need to be true.
It wasn’t until I came into recovery and began working the Twelve Steps – especially when I reached Steps Four and Five with my sponsor – that something began to shift. I started to write – not for anyone else, not for marks or judgement, but just to empty my head and clear the dust.
At first, it felt awkward and clunky. But then something beautiful happened. I stopped trying to write the “right” thing, and just started writing my thing. What was in my heart. My truth. My story. And what I found was that I didn’t need to be eloquent to be honest. I didn’t need to have the perfect sentence – I just needed to show up on the page.
Writing has since become my main form of meditation and prayer. I don’t always know what I think until I write it. I don’t always feel connected until I let the pen (or the keyboard) lead me. It’s not about getting it right. It’s about getting it out – off my chest, through my hands, back into the world.
This part of the chapter really speaks to that process, “Untie your knots… settle your dust.” That’s what writing does for me now. It unties what’s tangled. It calms what’s stormy. It doesn’t need an audience. It doesn’t need approval. It just needs me to show up, honestly.
And this line, “The Tao gives itself up continually. That is why it endures.” That’s what I try to do when I write, when I pray, when I meditate. I give myself up. Not in defeat, but in surrender. In trust. I no longer need to be clever or correct – I just need to be present and willing.
Today, I don’t fear the blank page. I see it as a doorway. And through that doorway,
I meet the Tao – again and again.
