Chapter 46

天下有道，却走马以粪。天下无道，戎马生于郊。
祸莫大于不知足；咎莫大于欲得。故知足之足，常足矣。

Translation
When the Tao is prevalent, the horses are discarded because of they only produce waste; when the Tao is absent, war-horses are bred just outside your house.
The greatest misfortune cannot be greater than not content; the greatest fault cannot be greater than the desire to gain. Therefore to know to have enough is the key to abundance.

Comments
Two topics are discussed in this chapter. In the second paragraph, once again the subject of contentment is raised. Lao Tzu believed that not content is actually a misfortune. The word 祸 can mean a bad accident, or anything of malicious nature happening to you. The desire to gain and not being content is the same thing. This thing is against the Tao and is the source of unrest, and wars.
It is difficult not to desire. Very few people can do that. Merely talking of having no desire may not eliminate the desires. Besides, the desire of not having a desire is a desire itself. That’s why Wu Wei is the center of Lao Tzu’s teaching.
This morning I suddenly thought about the phrase “chasing the rainbow”. It happened several times when I was driving in the highway and there was this beautiful rainbow ahead of the car. I was driving to it at 110Km per hour. Any yet, not once was I even close to the rainbow. It occurred to me this morning that when I saw the rainbow, someone else must have been right there where the rainbow was, and yet he just does not realize that. The same thing can be said to me, that I was in the rainbow, that I just don’t know that. And all the times, I was just trying to chase it, but in fact I am already in it. This lead me to think the reason behind this not to know to have enough. People chase the rainbow because they think they don’t have enough. The chasing is a result of the lack of knowledge that in fact they already have enough. Once they realize that, chasing is automatically stopped, or desire is eliminated.