Equanimity Amid Favor, Disgrace, and Trouble
Be startled by favor and disgrace; value great trouble as you value your own body. - Laozi
A Taoist Shock to Conventional Values
Laozi’s line from the Taoist tradition, often associated with the Tao Te Ching, jolts ordinary priorities: instead of chasing honor and fleeing hardship, we are told to be “startled” by both favor and disgrace, and to treat “great trouble” as intimately as the body itself. This is not a call to pessimism but an attempt to reframe what truly binds us. By unsettling our reflexes—celebrating praise and fearing blame—Laozi opens a path toward steadiness that does not rise and fall with social weather. From the start, the quote places reputation and suffering in the same arena: both can hijack the mind. In Taoist terms, the problem is not the event but the attachment that makes the event feel like destiny.
Why Favor and Disgrace Should Both Alarm You
To be “startled” by favor sounds counterintuitive, yet Laozi implies that praise is dangerous precisely because it feels good. Favor invites dependence: once you savor approval, you begin to manage your life to keep it, and the fear of losing it grows. Disgrace, by contrast, stings openly, but it operates through the same mechanism—tying your worth to what others confer or withdraw. Seen this way, favor and disgrace are twins. The transition from one to the other can be instant, as court politics in ancient China often demonstrated, but the deeper lesson is universal: when identity is outsourced to external judgment, the self becomes fragile.
Great Trouble as the Body: The Root of Vulnerability
Laozi then links “great trouble” to the body, suggesting that our capacity for distress arises from embodiment—having something to protect, lose, or injure. Because we have a body, we develop fears about survival, comfort, status, and continuity; these fears become the doorway through which turmoil enters. In other words, trouble is not merely bad luck; it is amplified by the instinct to defend a constructed “me.” Yet this is also why the body is a useful metaphor: it makes clear that trouble is not abstract. It is felt, immediate, and personal, which is precisely why it can teach.
Valuing Trouble as Your Body: Intimacy, Not Indulgence
To “value” great trouble as you value your own body does not mean courting misery or romanticizing suffering. Rather, it points to an intimate attention: treat hardship as something that belongs to your experience, not as an alien curse. Just as you respond to bodily pain with care—adjusting, resting, seeking balance—you can respond to trouble with curiosity and appropriate action instead of panic and self-pity. This shift matters because rejection of trouble often adds a second wound: shame, resentment, or frantic control. By holding trouble close enough to learn from it, you reduce the extra suffering created by resistance.
The Political and Personal Lesson of Non-Attachment
Historically, Taoist texts often warned rulers and officials about the volatility of acclaim and condemnation; the courtier who lives for favor becomes easy to manipulate. Transitioning to everyday life, the same principle applies in subtler forms: the employee who needs constant praise, the friend who collapses under criticism, or the creator who cannot work without applause. Favor and disgrace become levers others can pull. Non-attachment, in this context, is not indifference but independence. You can still appreciate recognition and acknowledge mistakes, but neither event gets to define your center.
Practicing Equanimity in a World of Rankings
In practical terms, Laozi’s counsel can be tested whenever you receive a compliment or a rebuke. Notice the bodily surge—relief, pride, heat, dread—and see how quickly the mind starts bargaining for more favor or fleeing disgrace. Then, as trouble arrives—conflict, uncertainty, loss—treat it with the same steady regard you give your physical well-being: neither ignoring it nor letting it become your entire identity. Over time, this practice yields a quieter strength. By being “startled” at the seduction of both praise and blame, you stop living at their mercy, and by valuing trouble as bodily, you meet life’s burdens with grounded care rather than fear.