And some are the destroyers, and othersthey destroy.
So now you know why
the sage abandons greed,
all false charm -
and every last iota of pride.
30
The Emperor's advisors will never recommendviolence
if they know what the Tao is.
If you use the strategy of warfare
it can only result in revenge.
After troops have tramped by
only weeds and nettles grow in thebroken ground.
There can be no harvest,
and everyone is left starving.
If you need to take action, only dowhat is necessary.
Never abuse your power.
And if you're successful, don't besmug;
If you are a success, don't trumpetit -
If you think you've won, never overdoit -
Those who use force soon end up withoutit -
And this is not the Way.
And if you do not follow the Way, youwill die.
31
The guide who walks the Way
Never resorts to violence.
The sage goes to the left side of theEmperor;
while the man of war goes to the right.
Weapons are terrible things -
and no sage will have anything todo with them,
unless there is no alternative.
The sage wants peace and quiet.
No victory is free of grief,
and so to celebrate one is to glory
in the death of innocent people.
No one who revels in death like this
can be true to the Way
or is fit to rule in our world.
At glad times, the place of honouris on the left:
after disaster, it is on the right.
So in the army, the officers standto the left
while the general stands to the right.
So the whole things is staged likea funeral.
When a war kills many, we must mournfor them -
And if you win the war, you must grieveit.
32
The Tao has no name
it is a cloud that has no shape.
If a ruler
follows it faithfully,
then every living thing under heavenwill say yes to him.
Heaven and earth make love,
And a sweet dew-rain falls.
The people do not know why,
But they are gathered together likemusic.
Things have been given names from thebeginning.
We need to know when we have enoughnames: this is wisdom.
At the beginning of time
The sage gave names to everything- see, and unseen.
A ruler who walks the Way
Is like a river reaching the sea
Gathering the waters of the streams
into himself,
as he goes.
33
When you know the true being of another,
You can judge -
And if you truly know the Tao
you will be in the light.
It takes force to control people:
but if I am humble, I can never beovercome.
If you know what you have is enough
you will be satisfied.
But if you think you don't have enough
then you will never have enough!
If you follow the Tao, what you arewill last.
You will live, and live, and outliveyourself again.
34
The Great Tao goes everywhere
past your left hand and your right-
filling the whole of space.
It is breath to every thing, and yetit asks for nothing back;
It feeds and creates everything, butit will never tell you so.
It nurtures all things
without lording it over anything.
It names itself in the lowest of thelow.
It holds what it makes,
Yet never fights to do so:
that is why we call it Great.
Why? Because it never tires to be so.
35
Everyone will gather to the man
Who rules in the light of the One.
To trust such a being is to live
In true happiness and healing.
Good food and sweet music
May make you stop -
You listen, in passing.
But the Tao: how does it seem?
Oh, tasteless and shapeless by comparison.
You cannot even hear it.
It is even worth trying to?
Yes, my friend
because it is unending.
36
What is going to be diminished
Must first be allowed to inflate.
Whatever you want to weaken
Must first be convinced of its strength.
What you want to overcome
You must first of all submit to .. .
What you want to take over
You must first of all give to -
This is called discerning.
You see, what is yielding and weak
Overcomes what is hard and strong:
(And just as a fish can't be seen
when he stays down in the deep
don't show your power to anyone).
37
The Tao goes on forever
wu-wei - doing nothing
And yet everything gets done.
How? It does it by being,
And by being everything it does.
If people and rulers go by this
then every living thing will be well.
And if parts still want to separate
the true leader will use
the centrifugal weight
of this original
unnameable Oneness.
It is simple:
If no one wants anything for themselves
then there can be peace
and all things will know peace
the way music
ends in peace.
38
The highest kind of man
Has innate goodness,
And that is what he rules with.
The lesser man brags about how goodhe is -
And isn't much good, I can tell you.
A man of Te rules by wu-wei
Doing nothing for himself or of himself.
The lesser man acts from his ego
And what he wants is gratification.
A man who rules with compassion
Acts through it - and no one evenrealizes.
A legal man acts judiciously
But he is still serving his own ends.
And the rigid man uses laws
And if people don't like it, force.
If the true Tao is lost
then morality takes its place.
If that fails, we have 'conscience'.
When that fades, we get 'justice'.
When that disappears, we have the statusquo.
Confusion reigns. No one knows
what's going on. Forecasts
and prophecies abound -
and they are merely a gloss on theTao,
they are the root of all
twisted guidance.
So the sage only looks at what is reallyreal.
He doesn't just look at the surface-
He blows away the dust and drinksthe water . . .
He doesn't just go for the flower
But also for the roots and the fruit.
Blow away the dust, now:
Come to the living water.
39
From its first days, the universe camefrom the One:
The heavens are one, and clear, andround because of it
The earth is one, and is its firminfused foundation . . .
The spirit force is one, with allit brings into being -
The valley is a oneness, and so itflows and renews all things,
Everything is one - every living thingis one, and alive!
Kinds and lords are one in a kingdomthat is one:
And they can only rule truly becauseof the One.
If Heaven wasn't clear, then the skywould fall down.
If the earth cannot be peaceful, itwill tear itself apart.
If the Spirit cannot bless, then noone will believe in it -
If the valley can't rebirth, thenthe valley will run dry.
If life can't be itself, then lifewill be nothing:
And if the king is nothing, then theworld will be at war.
Everything has both yin and yang init -
and from their rise-and-fall-couplingcomes new life.
The highest authority needs the basementas its base,
And the depths are the foundationof the heights.
That is why rulers call themselveslonely,
like souls in a wilderness who haveno home.
And, in doing so, don't they see then
that their roots lie with the people?
To see yourself as extraordinary
is to stand out like jade among ordinarystones;
but what people ignore - the lonely,and the worthless
is the rock a true leader finds himselfon.
You see, you win by losing - and youlose by succeeding.
40
The Tao moves
in every direction at once -
its essence is fluid and yielding.
It is the marker of everything underthe sun:
And everything comes
out of nothing.
41
When the wisest student hears about theTao,
He follows it without ceasing
When the average student hears aboutit
He follows too, but not all the time. . .
And when the poor student gets windof it
he laughs at it like an idiot!
And if he didn't, then it wouldn'tbe the Tao!
That is why the ancient ones said:
The path that is bright seems dull,
And the one who is going towards theTao
Seems, in fact, to be going backwards-
And those who think that the Way iseasy
Will find it extremely hard.
The greatest virtue is to be emptylike a valley.
Those who think they are perfect neverare -
those who feel that they are feelinadequate to the task,
and morals seem to be no more thana contrivance.
A great square has no corners:
A great work is never done with;
A great shout comes from a whisper,
And the greatest of forms
is beyond shape.
Tao without substance -
Invisible -
Ever-creating
Forever creating
42
The Tao
gives birth to the One:
The One
gives birth tot he two;
The Two
give birth to the three -
The Three give birth to every livingthing.
All things are held in yin, and carryyang:
And they are held together in the ch'iof teeming energy.
43
The very softest thing of all
can ride like a galloping horse
through the hardest of things.
Like water, like water penetratingrock.
And so the invisible enters in.
That is why I know it is wise
to act by doing nothing.
And how few, how very few understandthis!
People teach in the world
what I know to be true:
if you live violently
that is how you will die.
44
What really matters most,
Your image or your soul?
What do you care about
You money, or your life?
What's actually the best,
Making it - or losing?
If you pour all your energy into onething,
You're sure to harm the rest of yourbeing
And if you invest it all in profit-
You'll end up losing the whole lot.
If you're not always wanting, you canbe at peace.
And if you're not always trying tobe someone
You can be who you really are
and go the whole way.
45
A great thing done is never perfect -
But that doesn't mean it fails: itdoes what it is.
Real richness means to act as if youhad nothing,
Because then you will never be drainedof it.
The greatest straightness seems bend,
The greatest ability seems awkward,
And the greatest speech, like a stammering.
Act calmly, not coldly.
Peace is greater than anger.
Tranquillity and harmony
are the true order of things.
46
'When the Tao runs the world,
the horses work the farms.'
Without Tao
the horses are led into war along theborders.
You see, if people want more and more
it can only lead to disaster.
Greed
is the seed of apocalypse -
it is the rocket-fuel of selfishness:
me, me, me!
If people could only be glad with allthey have,
if they only knew it, they'd be happy.
47
Without going anywhere,
you can know the whole world.
Without even opening your window,
you can know the ways of Heaven.
You see: the further away you go, theless you know
The sage doesn't need to travel around:
Why? Because he can still understand.
He sees without needing 'to see',
He never does anything, and yet
it all happens.
48
Usually, people read because they wantto know -
but the more you study the Tao, theless you want knowledge.
And as you want less and less, youcome closer to not-doing.
Wu-wei - this is the way to get thingsdone.
The best way to run the world
is to let it take its course
- and to get yourself
out of the way of it!
49
'The sage is never opinionated,
He listens to the mind of the people.'
I am kind to people when they are kindto me.
I am kind to them even if they hateme.
Virtue - te - is its own reward.
I trust those who trust me,
I also trust those who have no faithin me:
What I give, I receive.
A sage is self-effacing and mindfulof offence.
He sets himself as his own example.
How shall I treat you, my son?
Like a child.
50
In the normal way of things
every three in ten live long,
while every three in ten die young-
and for those just passing throughtheir lives
(that is, every three in ten) thechances are the same.
Why is this?
Well, it all depends on how identified
they are with the mundane world ofmatter.
People who know how to live
will never do things that threatentheir lives,
any more than a traveler who knows
will run into a tiger or a wild buffalo.
Living well is like wearing
a kind of armour that nothing canpenetrate.
Living badly is like being attacked!
A practiced sage is invulnerable toattacks
that punch like a buffalo's horn,
that claw like a leaping tiger -
or that stab like a knife in the back.
And why is this?
Because he is impeccable.
51
Everything streams from the Tao,
Everything is nurtured by Te
Everything is made out of substance.
Everything is created by the Tao ofNature
- and from everything on earth thatsurrounds it.
So every living thing
should bow to the Tao,
the Tao and its Virtue
because they are what it is.
Everything that breathes comes fromthe Tao,
And the Virtue feeds and takes careof it.
They grace things without possessingthem,
They benefit everything but ask fornothing back,
They give themselves into everythingwithout seeking control.
This is the essence
of the original intention.
52
Every living thing
Comes from the Mother of Us All:
If we can understand the Mother
Then we can understand her children;
And if we know ourselves as children
We can see the source is Her.
