Enough
At the end of a good meal, there is a moment when you are no longer hungry.
Not full yet. Just no longer hungry.
Most of us eat straight past it.
天下有道，卻走馬以糞。
tiānxià yǒu dào, què zǒu mǎ yǐ fèn.
When all under heaven has the Way, the galloping horses are turned back to work the fields.
天下無道，戎馬生於郊。
tiānxià wú dào, róng mǎ shēng yú jiāo.
When all under heaven has lost the Way, warhorses foal on the borderlands.
禍莫大於不知足；
huò mò dà yú bù zhī zú;
No misfortune is greater than not knowing what is enough;
咎莫大於欲得。
jiù mò dà yú yù dé.
no fault is greater than wanting to get.
故知足之足，常足矣。
gù zhī zú zhī zú, cháng zú yǐ.
So the enough of knowing what is enough is always enough.
The words
a foot; enough, sufficient
The same character means foot and enough. You could hear it as: enough is where your feet are. Not further along the road, not when the next thing comes. Here. It appears four times in the last three lines, as if the book wanted you to stand on it.
dung; to spread dung on a field
The plainest word in the chapter, and a deliberate one. In peace the fast horses, bred for war and racing, are put to the humblest work there is: carrying manure out to the fields so that things grow.
the open land outside a city's walls
Where armies camp. When the warhorses give birth there, the mares themselves have been taken to war, and the war has gone on so long that their foals are born in it.
Sitting with it
The chapter opens on two pictures of a country.
In the first, the horses are in the fields. Fine, fast horses, the kind that carry messengers and soldiers, are pulling carts of dung to the farms. Nothing grand is happening. Crops are growing. That is what the book calls a world with the Way.
In the second, the horses are at the border. Even the mares are at war, and their foals are being born in the camps outside the walls. Nothing is growing. Everything is being spent on taking and holding.
Then the chapter tells you where war comes from. Not from enemies. From not knowing what is enough. From wanting to get.
You don't need to be a king for this to be true. Inside one person, it is the same two pictures. When you know what is enough, your strength goes into the plain, slow, growing work of a life: a meal cooked, a friend called, a garden watered. When you don't, it all goes to the border: to getting, comparing, defending, never resting.
The last line goes round in a circle, on purpose. The enough of knowing what is enough is always enough. There are two kinds of enough. One is enough of things: it never lasts, because as soon as you have it, the line moves. The other is the enough of knowing enough. That one doesn't depend on what you have. It is a way of standing. And because it doesn't depend on anything, it is always there.
This is the end of the module on knowing yourself. It has led, step by step, to the same place: the light of knowing yourself, the cup not filled to the brim, the heels coming down, the foot that stops. And now the foot that is already where it needs to be.
A practice
At your next meal, eat slowly enough to notice the moment you stop being hungry.
Stop there, or soon after. Sit for a minute with the feeling of enough. It is quieter than full, and lighter.
To carry
知足之足，常足矣。
zhī zú zhī zú, cháng zú yǐ.
The enough of knowing what is enough is always enough.