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Alan Watts Lecture > Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching

Alan Watts Lectures

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The Difficulty of Self-Consciousness

Taoism does not escape this problem. I mean it doesn't, it doesn't avoid this problem, it deals with it. But it doesn't deal with it obviously. So we get back to this fundamental verse about the nature of de. What is highly virtuous is a virtue that is not conscious of itself as virtue. The moment it's conscious of itself you see, it fails. And this is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. We love to see a child dancing all by itself, lost in the dance and not performing for an audience. Only I could become like a child again, innocent.

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