The public domain book I found out on Kindle about the Tao interprets the 7th verse as:  Heaven is long-enduring and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves. This is how they are able to continue and endure. 2. Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no personal and private ends, that therefore such ends are realised?

Stephen Mitchell’s interpretation is similar.  The Tao is infinite, eternal. Why is it eternal? It was never born; thus it can never die. Why is it infinite? It has no desires for itself; thus it is present for all beings. The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead. She is detached from all things; that is why she is one with them. Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.

When reading through all the material on the 7th verse the idea that the Tao endures because it puts its own person last caused me a bit of heartburn at first, reminding me of the martyrdom ideas I had listened to as a child growing up in the Catholic religion.  But as I delved deeper I heard another word resonate with me as it did the first time I heard it at an Alanon meeting.  Detachment.

In Alanon, the support group created to help friends and families of alcoholics, they speak of the concept of detachment with love.  They teach the family members of alcoholics to let go of the responsibility for another person’s actions.  When someone grows up with or lives with an alcoholic he or she gets caught up in the notion that they can help the alcoholic get better.  Thus they blur the boundary between themselves and the other person and are constantly trying to change the exterior environment to keep the alcoholic from drinking again.  What I learned as a member of Alanon was how to love my alcoholic but not be responsible for him.  Then I became a counselor and realized this is not a phenomenon earmarked for just the alcoholic family.  So many people have been erroneously taught as children that they are responsible for everyone else’s happiness.   It’s a cultural concept of socialization to be nice and not make waves but in our society we seem to take it further to mean that we have to sacrifice our own happiness in order to help someone become happy.   Yet another truth I learned as a counselor is that I cannot “make” another person happy.  Only they can.  So if I spend all my time and energy trying to figure out what I must do in order to make someone feel better, I’m actually just spinning my wheels.  It was as I grasped the concept of each person having to choose their happiness for themselves that I began to grasp the concept of detachment, not just detachment from other people but from everything outside me.  For it is only by changing my own attitude about everything and everyone that I can truly be happy. 

This is what I believe the Tao is saying here.   In Byron Katie’s interpretation of this verse she wrote, “She is detached from all things in the sense that when they come, that’s what she wants, and when they go, that’s what she wants. It’s all fine with her. She is in love with it as it comes and goes.”  What an incredible concept this is.  Instead of me trying to figure out what I want, I just wait to see what comes and change my attitude to be grateful and happy for what is.  That is true detachment.  It reminds me of how Jesus kept saying he was not “of the world.”  That is what true

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