Repay Grievance With Virtue

answered by Laozi, Dao De Jing, ch. 63

기원전 6~4세기

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Hibiscus Town (1987)

dir. Xie Jin · China

An unjust brand tramples a person for years. It is only natural to want to return the causeless hatred and humiliation. But repay hatred with hatred, and I come to resemble it. Is it possible to keep one's humanity even under persecution, and by what is it kept?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

By returning the hatred I received, am I in fact extending the very chain of that hatred?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

報怨以德

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

Repay grievance with virtue.

💡 TL;DR

Laozi's four characters cut the arithmetic of revenge.

📝The Classic Answers

Laozi's four characters cut the arithmetic of revenge. Repay hatred with hatred and the scale seems briefly balanced, but the chain only grows one link longer. Before unjust persecution, to repay grievance with virtue is not to submit to the other, but to keep that hatred from entering me and staining me too. One who keeps their humanity while being trampled is not weak but has stopped the inheritance of hatred at their own place. I choose to stay the hand that returns like for like, and to cut the chain here.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If there is a hatred you want to repay today, instead of repaying it, imagine one different price that cuts the chain.

📖 Classic Source: Laozi, Dao De Jing, ch. 63. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.