“Difficult and easy complete one another”
Difficulty and ease necessarily serve one another. We need difficulty in order to make things easier for ourselves. For this reason, a Taoist’s life is far more difficult than other people’s, and infinitely easier than other people’s!
What do we mean by this? A Taoist’s lifestyle is difficult because he wants to conquer his false mind, and enthrone his true mind – he wants to cut off his desires, and move effortlessly in time with the rhythm of the universe. But, because most of us have been raised in spiritually-dyslexic societies that go against nature and encourage delusional thinking, we must ‘unlearn what we have learned’ in order to accomplish what is effortless for an aborigine, an animal, or a new-born child. This requires restraint, discipline, dedication, perseverance, endurance and forbearance – qualities most people are too weak-willed to actively (or passively) foster. We attain these things through meditation, yoga, dieting, fasting, study, patience, rigorous self-improvement, and personal transformation – things that are not undertaken lightly.
However, after we have worked hard, and our labours begin to bear fruit, the qualities of restraint, compassion, dedication, humility, and endurance begin to become natural for us. They are no longer things that we have to strive to acquire, for they are qualities that exist self-evidently within us. Because we are free from desires we no longer have to restrain ourselves; because we are free from a self, we no longer have to strive to be selfless. Everything comes naturally to us, and, thus, our difficulty has given birth to easiness.
A fitting example of this is a story I read in ‘Ancestors’ by Frank Ching. The author relates how his father, as a child, often had heavy rocks placed in his rucksack by his parents when he was going to school. His school was at the top of a steep hill, so his parents were only making an already difficult endeavour even more difficult. But, as a result of his fortitude, as an adult, rucksack-free, he was able to scale hills and mountains with lightning speed. His difficulty had hatched into easiness!
It takes a lot of effort to attain such effortlessness. We must take on many heavy loads before we can reject them, and embrace infinite flight. Do not turn away from the difficulties in your life, or else you will be turning away from the alchemical crucible that makes things easier.
A Poet's Life 