The Dao of Heaven is like pulling a bow.
The top end comes down and the bottom end goes up.
It takes away from those with surplus to spare
and gives to those who are short.
The way of Heaven takes away from those with surplus to spare
and gives to those who are short.
The way of men is just the opposite.
It takes away from those who are short
and offers to those who have more than enough.
The Sage does his work but is not arrogant.
He accomplishes but will not dwell on his accomplishments.
He does not want to show off his accomplishments.
78
Water and the Paradoxes of Life
Nothing under heaven is weaker than water.
Yet nothing however proficient in attacking the strong can win over water.
The reason is that nothing can lay a handle on water.
The weak overcomes the strong;
The soft overcomes the hard.
All under heaven know about this dictum
but few people can put it into practice.
That is why the Sage says:
"Those who take what other people discard as garbage
is the lord of Society.
Those who love the nation when it is in the grip of misfortune
can claim to be the king."
What is right often seems to be wrong.
79
Do Good Deeds; Blame No One
Trying to neutralize a wrong with another wrong will never work,
because there is bound to be some wrong left over.
To return grievance or wrong with benevolence is
the way to absolve a grievance.
The Sage only sees to it that what is agreed is carried out;
He will not lay the blame on anyone.
The virtuous one only enforces contracts.
The non-virtuous one imposes his will.
The Way of Heaven will not favor any one in particular,
But it will favor those who do good deeds.
80
A Peaceful, Rich, But Simple Life
For a small country with a small population,
Let there be no need to use labor-saving gadgets.
Let people love to die where they are born
and not want to migrate to a distant land.
Let there be no need to use boats for long trips.
Although the country has armed forces ready to protect the country,
Let there be no need to display the military strength.
Let the people find happiness in a simple life.
Let people enjoy their good foods and fine clothing.
Let them settle down peacefully and follow their traditions happily.
Let neighboring nations eye one another,
and hear the calls of poultry and dogs from the other nation.
Let their people find sufficiency in their own lands.
Till their death let there be no need to interact.
81
Doing One抯 Duty
Truthful words may not be fine to hear.
Words that are fine to hear may not be truthful.
Good people will not want to argue
or to defend themselves by word of mouth.
Those who love to argue with others or to defend their beliefs
are likely to be not so good.
Those with insight need not be well versed in different things.
Those who are well versed in different kinds of knowledge may not really know.
The Sage does not set out to accumulate a fortune or merit.
Yet as he serves the people, he becomes richer;
and as he gives to people, he gets more.
The way of heaven is to benefit, not hurt.
The way of the Sage is to do his duty, and not to contest or struggle.
English_Hogan_TTK
Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse
English interpretation by
Ron Hogan, ~2000
Vorwort/Foreword
"Ancient Chinese Secret, Huh?"
In the spring of 1994, I was handed a master's degree in film studies and politely invited not to return to graduate school in the fall. So I went to work at Dutton's, a fantastic indie bookstore in Brentwood, less than a mile from the Simpson condo, but that's another story. Doug, the owner, lets his employees borrow books from the inventory, on the principle that you can sell books better if you know them better, and that's how I discovered the Tao Te Ching (or TTC, as I'll abbreviate it from now on).
Oh, I knew about the book beforehand. I knew it existed, anyway, and I knew it was a classic of Eastern philosophy. But that's all I knew. Not that there's that much to know after that, about all anybody can really say about Lao Tzu is that according to legend, about six centuries before Christ, he got fed up with the royal court's inability to take his advice and decided to leave. Then, the story goes, he was stopped at the Great Wall by a guard who begged him to write down some of his teachings for posterity, and the result was this slim volume. Once I actually started to read the thing, I was hooked. Here was a book that managed to say with clarity what I'd been struggling to figure out about spirituality for several years.
The TTC I found at Dutton's was written by Stephen Mitchell, a version which remains popular nearly twenty years after its original composition. Having read a couple dozen translations since, it's still one of the most accessible versions I've seen, but even then, I found his style a bit too refined, too full of a certain "wisdom of the ancients" flavor. For example, here's how Mitchell starts the first chapter:
"The Tao that can be named
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name."
At the time, I was newly infatuated with the writing of Quentin Tarantino and David Mamet, so my dream version of a TTC reflected the simplicity and grit of their dialogue:
"If you can talk about it, it ain't Tao.
If it has a name, it's just another thing."
Anyway, I grabbed a couple other translations and started looking at the different ways they expressed the same sentiments--or, as I quickly discovered, how much poetic license Mitchell and other translators were willing to take with the original text. I don't think this necessarily matters all that much; many current English- language versions are by people who don't know Chinese well, if at all, and I can't read or speak it myself. To that extent, then, we're *all* (unless we're fluent in Chinese, that is) at the mercy of, at best, a secondhand understanding of what Lao Tzu said.
Once I thought I had a rough idea what was behind the words, though, I went about rephrasing the chapters in my own voice. My guiding principle was to take out as much of the "poetry" as possible, to make the text sound like dialogue, so the reader could imagine someone telling him or her what Tao's all about. You can't take the "poetry" out completely, because the TTC is always going to have those lines about Tao being an "eternal mystery" and whatnot.
But the beauty of the book isn't in its language, at least not for me--it's in the practical advice Lao Tzu offers us about how to live a productive, meaningful life on a day to day basis. What I wanted to do was to make that advice as clear to a modern American reader as it would have been to the guard who first asked Lao Tzu to write it down.
I worked through the first twenty chapters, then put the rough draft up on my website under a pseudonym I used online back in those days. A bunch of fan mail came in, so I kept plugging away at the text, then my hard drivecollapsed and all my files were completely erased. I was freelancing pretty steadily then, and what little free time I had I spent building my own website, so the TTC went on hold. I got an occasional email asking about the other chapters, and I developed a stock answer. When it was time for me to finish the job, I told people, I would.
Years went by. I'd left LA for San Francisco, then moved up to Seattle, chasing after big dotcom money. It was great for a while, but as Lao Tzu says, "If you give things too much value, you're going to get ripped off." In the middle of the worst of the frustration, I rediscovered the Tao Te Ching, and realized I needed to finish what I started.
I dug out all my old copies of the TTC and went shopping for more versions, some of which were even better than the ones I'd found the first time. Brian Browne Walker's translation comes close to the modern oral quality I was striving for, though his voice is still much more of an "Eastern sage" voice than mine. David Hinton is somewhat more poetic, but I think he does a wonderful job of capturing what Lao Tzu may have actually sounded like to his contemporaries. And Ursula K. LeGuin strikes a balance between the modern and classical voices that gave me a new perspective on Tao; her commentaries on several chapters are enlightening as well.
I wish I could say that I wrote the remaining sixty-one chapters in a hurried creative frenzy, but things took a little longer than I thought. I got distracted by the decision to move to New York City, and though I did get some work done on the book, it was a little over a year later, when (and, yes, I know how cliched this sounds) the planes crashed into the World Trade Center and I realized I'd still been wasting too much of my life on things that didn't pan out. Instead of talking about getting serious about my life, it was time to actually do it. (Living through the following two and a half years has also made me appreciate chapters 30 and 31 a lot more, for reasons that will become readily apparent.)
So here you are--with my own name attached, as the pseudonym has long since fallen away. From a scholar's point of view, this TTC is unfaithful to the original text on more than one occasion, if not in every single line. Case in point: in chapter 20, Lao Tzu didn't exactly say, "Don't spend too much time thinking about stupid shit." For all the liberties I've taken with his words, however, I've made every attempt to stay true to his message, and I hope you'll find something useful in my efforts.
1
If you can talk about it,
it ain't Tao.
If it has a name,
it's just another thing.
Tao doesn't have a name.
Names are for ordinary things.
Stop wanting stuff;
it keeps you from seeing what's real.
When you want stuff,
all you see are things.
Those two sentences
mean the same thing.
Figure them out,
and you've got it made.
2
If something looks beautiful to you,
something else must be ugly.
If something seems good,
something else must seem bad.
You can't have
something without nothing.
If no job is difficult,
then no job is easy.
Some things are up high
because other things are down low.
You know you're listening to music
because it doesn't sound like noise.
All that came first,
so this must be next.
The Masters get the job done
without moving a muscle
and get their point across
without saying a word.
When things around them fall apart,
they stay cool.
They don't own much,
but they use whatever's at hand.
They do the work
without expecting any favors.
When they're done,
they move on to the next job.
That's why their work is so damn good.
3
If you toss compliments around freely,
people will waste your time
trying to impress you.
If you give things too much value,
you're going to get ripped off.
If you try to please people,
you'll just make them pissed.
The Master leads
by clearing the crap
out of people's heads
and opening their hearts.
He lowers their aspirations
and makes them suck in their guts.
He shows you how to forget
what you know and what you want,
so nobody can push you around.
If you think you've got the answers,
he'll mess with your head.
Stop doing stuff all the time,
and watch what happens.
4
How much Tao is there?
More than you'll ever need.
Use all you want,
there's plenty more
where that came from.
You can't see Tao, but it's there.
Damned if I know where it came from.
It's just always been around.
5
Tao's neutral:
it doesn't worry about good or evil.
The Masters are neutral:
they treat everyone the same.
Lao Tzu said Tao is like a bellows:
It's empty,
but it could help set the world on fire.
If you keep using Tao, it works better.
If you keep talking about it,
it won't make any sense.
Be cool.
6
Tao is an eternal mystery,
and everything starts with Tao.
Everybody has Tao in them.
They just have to use it.
7
Tao never stops. Why?
Because it isn't trying to accomplish anything.
The Masters hang back.
That's why they're ahead of the game.
They don't hang on to things.
That's how they manage to keep them.
They don't worry
about what they can't control.
That's why they're always satisfied.
8
"Doing the right thing" is like water.
It's good for all living things,and flows without thinking about where it's going
...just like Tao.
Keep your feet on the ground.
Remember what's important.
Be there when people need you.
Say what you mean.
Be prepared for anything.
Do whatever you can,
whenever it needs doing.
If you don't
compare yourself to others,
nobody can compare to you.
9
If you drink too much, you get drunk.
The engine won't start
if you're always tinkering with it.
If you hoard wealth,
you fall into its clutches.
If you crave success,
hyou succumb to failure.
Do what you have to do,
then walk away.
Anything else will drive you nuts.
10
Can you hold on to your ego
and still stay focused on Tao?
Can you relax your mind and body
and brace yourself for a new life?
Can you check yourself
and see past
what's in front of your eyes?
Can you be a leader
and not try to prove you're in charge?
Can you deal with what's happening
and let it happen?
Can you forget what you know
and understand what's real?
