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What does Laozi mean by being and nonbeing giving rise to each other?
A judgment needs a comparison. Chapter 2 asks us to examine that comparison, then follows the question into how we act and claim credit.
A sentence can lose its setting
Being and nonbeing giving rise to one another is often made to carry an enormous conclusion. If every distinction depends on another distinction, the argument goes, beauty and ugliness disappear and moral judgment becomes unnecessary. Chapter 2 does place beauty beside its opposite, and goodness beside what is not good. It then lists several pairs. That structure invites close attention to relationships; it does not establish that everything related is identical.
Length offers a useful modern illustration. A piece of wood may be too short for a table and sufficiently long for a small box. The assessment changes with its purpose and comparison. Its measured length does not vanish. Laozi gives us reason to question the reference point of a judgment, rather than permission to invent the object being judged.
Read the pairs before expanding the theory
The passage connects being and nonbeing with difficulty and ease, length and shortness, height and lowness, sound and voice, and before and after. These concepts help specify one another. Before makes sense in a sequence in which after can also be identified. Easy has little precision unless the difficulty or task has been stated. This is a modest starting point with substantial consequences for interpretation.
It would be possible to develop a broader account of existence from the passage, but that requires further argument. Chapter 2 alone is not a ready explanation of how every event originates. In particular, lacking a resource does not guarantee that the resource will appear. Recognizing a gap and supplying what is missing are different operations. Treating a philosophical pair as a promise of future abundance skips that difference.
Relational judgment still permits disagreement
Wang Bi's commentary associates the opening distinctions with pleasure and aversion, and with judgments of right and wrong. His emphasis on not isolating one side gives the reader a way to examine a narrow assessment. Does calling something good mean that it suits my preference? Does calling it bad mean only that it costs me something? Adding the omitted perspective can make a judgment more accurate.
Consider a hypothetical proposal that saves one organization money by increasing risk for another participant. Restoring that risk to the discussion does not require equal approval of both options. It makes the actual decision clearer. Responsibility, possible alternatives, and the extent of harm still matter. Laozi supplies neither a detailed modern decision table nor an argument that dishonesty should receive the same approval as honesty.
The chapter turns from names to conduct
The second half is essential. It describes the sage's action and teaching, then speaks of producing without possessing, acting without relying on that action for self-assertion, and completing work without occupying its achievement. The sequence takes the reader beyond conceptual pairs. It asks what happens when someone converts the outcome of a shared undertaking into an exclusive claim about himself.
Wang Bi explains the passage about achievement in terms of working through things rather than treating their completion as solely one's own. A modern application would acknowledge labor and the conditions that made it possible. It would also preserve other participants' contributions. This is not a demand to deny one's work, surrender ownership to an exploiter, or pretend that an achievement required no effort. Those conclusions need arguments the chapter does not provide.
Open the grounds of a clear opinion
An opinion can be decisive while remaining open about its grounds. Good for whom? Under what conditions? Compared with which alternative? Those questions do not dissolve a position. They tell the reader what the position means and where it might need correction. A person can revise an unsuitable standard and still oppose a clearly harmful action. Complexity is not an obligation to postpone every decision indefinitely.
Chapter 2 is therefore most useful when it changes the quality of attention. Look at the comparison and what the comparison has excluded. Look at the action and the other contributions that the actor's account has overlooked. The relationship between a name and its opposite becomes a prompt for more precise observation. It need not become a slogan claiming that distinctions, effort, or responsibility no longer matter.
Sources and further reading
A reading of the received Wang Bi text and commentary. Modern examples are illustrative applications, not historical claims or predictions.