Duke Âi said,
‘What is meant by saying that his powers were complete?’

Confucius replied,
‘Death and life,
preservation and ruin,
failure and success,
poverty and wealth,
superiority and inferiority,
blame and praise,
hunger and thirst,
cold and heat;

these are the changes of circumstances, the operation of our appointed lot.
Day and night they succeed to one another before us,
but there is no wisdom able to discover
to what they owe their origination.
They are not sufficient therefore to disturb the harmony (of the nature),
and are not allowed to enter into the treasury of intelligence.
To cause this harmony and satisfaction ever to be diffused,
while the feeling of pleasure is not lost from the mind;
to allow no break to arise in this state day or night,
so that it is always springtime in his relations with external things;
in all his experiences to realize in his mind
what is appropriate to each season (of the year):

these are the characteristics of him whose powers are perfect.’

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, trans. by James Legge, Hyun Hochmann, Yang Guorong, The Sign of Complete Virtue

The proposal of Taoism amounts to a virtue ethic. Individual and personal, something that is to be cultivated, a state of well-being that is approached, even if the goal is never 100 percent achieved. The cultivation of virtue is nothing new, as Aristotle writes at length about the topic in his Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle argues that eudaimonia is the ultimate good, a state of the soul, the consequence of virtuous living. Aristotle’s approach by comparison, features reason as the key to flourishing.

The cultivation style of the Taoist takes the measure of external circumstances, concluding that everything which effects the body amounts to fate, the necessity of cause and effect. Thus, there is nothing beyond blind fate having to do with these elements of life. Externals are to be accepted, received as what chance and necessity have brought to us. The mind, our emotional state by contrast is where one begins to see and appreciate the harmony that obtains between the dance of opposites which compose nature. There is an overarching harmony, much as there is flavor nuance to a quality cup of coffee, or a glass of decent wine. 

Who doesn’t desire to have a good life? A good life = it is always springtime.

But, clearly virtue is not for everyone.

*header photo of holiday cup promotion at Starbucks.