Tao Te Ching – Chapter Seventy
Written by Lao-tzu – From a translation by S. Mitchell
My teachings are easy to understand,
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them,
you’ll fail.
My teachings are older than the world.
How can you grasp their meaning?
If you want to know me,
look inside your heart.
How I Read This Chapter
The Way is not an idea.
It’s not something to solve.
It’s something to live,
to feel in your bones,
to carry in your breath.
Trying to figure it out with your head,
only gets in the way.
If you want to understand,
listen to your heart.
It already knows.
What This Means To Me
This chapter speaks right into one of the core shifts I’ve experienced in recovery: the journey from my head to my heart.
Before recovery, I lived almost entirely in my intellect. I overanalysed everything. My brain was constantly running – looping through worries, obsessing over what people thought, trying to predict outcomes, rationalise pain, make everything make sense. But the more I tried to think my way into peace, the further it slipped away.
“My teachings are easy to understand and easy to put into practice. Yet your intellect will never grasp them…” That could’ve been written directly to me. I thought if I just read enough, planned enough, understood enough – I could outsmart my suffering. But the Tao, like the programme, doesn’t work that way. It’s not a concept to conquer. It’s a path to walk. With your whole self. And when I finally stopped trying to be clever, when I just surrendered – that’s when things started to change. That’s when I began to feel what the Tao means. Not in theory. In real, quiet moments: Making a cup of tea after a hard day – Being honest when it would’ve been easier to hide – Sitting in a meeting and not needing to speak – Letting someone else be right. These aren’t intellectual acts. They’re acts of the heart. And they teach me more about the Tao than any philosophy book ever could.
“If you want to know me, look inside your heart.” This line holds so much truth for me. In the past, my heart was buried – under shame, fear, and noise. But recovery gave me tools to clear the way. The Steps. Inventory. Amends. Service. Prayer. Meditation. All of
these helped me reconnect with something deeper than thought.
Today, I trust my heart more than my head. Not because the head is bad – it’s just not the place where peace lives. The heart holds what matters most: love, intuition, gentleness, truth. And when I listen to it, I don’t have to grasp anything. I just have to be.
So when life feels too complicated, when I’m tempted to overthink or control, I come back to the centre: Look inside my heart. The Tao is already there. Always has been. I just had to stop searching everywhere else.
