Knowing harmony say entireness
Knowing entireness say luminous
In accord with giving birth say happy
The mind results in animus, say strong.
Things reach the prime and then grow old?
What is called this is without tao.
What is without tao comes to an early end.
56
Those who know are without words
Those with words are without knowing.
Corking its bottle
Obstructing its door
Blunting its sharpness
Untying its tangles
Harmonizing its brightness
Being together with the dusty earth
Appropriately called insightful togetherness.
So one cannot obtain it yet be attached
One cannot obtain it yet be detached
One cannot obtain it yet benefit
One cannot obtain it yet be harmed
One cannot obtain it yet treasure
One cannot obtain it yet consider as common.
So it acts as the treasure of the world.
57
When governing the nation happens correctly
Surprising use of strategy happens.
Absent of effort grabbing the world happens.
Why do I know this is so?
This just happens.
The world has an abundance of prohibitions and taboos
Yet people become increasingly inadequate
People have an abundance of beneficial tools
Confusion multiplies in the families of the nation
Men have an abundance of skills and cleverness
Surprising things arise and multiply
Laws and decrees multiply conspicuously
Robbers and thieves are present in abundance.
So sages say
I am absent of action yet people transform themselves
I am fond of stillness yet people correct themselves
I am absent of effort yet people are of themselveswealthy
I am absent from desire yet people of themselvesexhibit true nature.
58
They who administrate are covered, muffled
Their people are pure, honest
They who administrate are exacting, scrutinizing
Their people are incomplete, deficient.
Such misfortune!
The place of happiness place is to lean upon it
Such happiness!
The place of misfortune is to be suppressed.
Who knows its limit?
It is absent from the correct.
The correct returns, acting surprising
The valued returns, acting as evil spirits.
The dirt in the eye of men,
It is solid, everyday, long-lasting.
Appropriately it happens that sages are
Square yet without cutting
Pointed yet without piercing
Straight yet not unbridled
Bright yet not dazzling.
59
In governing people
Noone compares efforts of the heavens to restraint.
In the end only restraint is appropriately called quickly resolving
What is called quickly resolving has heavy accumulation of ideal.
Following heavy accumulation of ideal
Comes absence of lacking conquering
Following absence of lacking conquering
Noone knows limits
When noone knows limits
Presence of a nation can happen.
In the presence of the mother of a nation
Growth and longevity may happen.
Appropriately called
Deep roots, firm stalks, growth, life, longevity,looking at tao.
60
Governing a great nation looks like cooking tiny fish.
When it happens that tao is present in the world
What is clever lacks spirit
What is not clever lacks spirit
What has spirit is not wounding man
What has no spirit is not wounding man.
Sages also are not wounding man.
In the end both are without wounding each other
So ideal is reached, merges, comes within.
61
Those which are great nations flow and spread lower
The intersection of the world
The female of the world.
The female entirely conquers the male through stillness
It happens that stillness acts lower.
So when a great nation is lower than a tiny nation
It next grabs the tiny nation
When a tiny nation is lower than a great nation
It next grabs the great nation.
So some are lower and it happens they grab
Some are lower and yet they grab.
Without fail a great nation desires to bring together and rear others
Without fail a tiny nation desires to enter into the efforts of others.
In the end for both of these to acquire their desired position
Those which are great appropriately act low.
62
That which is tao is treasurehouse for the 10000 things
Treasure of the valuing man
Place of refuge for the man who is not valuing.
Embellished words can cause respect to be marketed
Doing valued things can cause lavish praise to enter
Men who are not valuing, why be rejecting their presence?
So establish the emperor
Install three ministers
Even though it happens
That the gift of the large jade disk is precededby a team of horses
It can not compare to sitting, emulating this tao.
Why did it happen that in ancient times
There were those who treasured this tao?
Did they go without saying
Seek and finding happens
Possess faults and escape from the anomalous happens?
So it acts as the treasure of the world
63
Acting absent of acting
Effort absent of effort
Tasting absent of tasting
Great, small, abundant, few
Repay hatred, ideal happens.
Planning the difficult relates to what is easy
Acting great relates to what is small
The difficult efforts of the world seed doing related to what is easy
The great efforts of the world seed doing relatedto what is small.
Appropriately it happens
That sages eventually lack great action
So they are able to perfect what is great.
In the end light promises seed scanty belief
Abundant easiness seeds abundant difficulty.
Appropriately it happens
That sages see all things as being equally difficult
So eventually an absence of difficulty is with them.
64
What is peaceful is easily maintained
What is not begun is easily planned
What is fragile is easily shattered
What is tiny is easily scattered.
Acting relates to the not yet present
Governing relates to the not yet confused.
A tree as big as the embrace of a man is born relating to very tinyshoots
A nine story tower is raised relating to a pile of earth
A journey of a thousand li begins in relating to where you stand.
Those who act are spoiling
Those who take hold of are losing
Appropriately it happens that sages are absent of action
So there is an absence of spoiling
Are absent of taking hold of
So there is an absence of losing.
The following of people of effort in the entire
Relates to perfecting part yet spoiling
Following care throughout as if just beginning
Comes an absence of spoiling effort.
Appropriately it happens that sages
Desire without desiring
Are without treasuring goods difficult to obtain
Learn without learning
Return to the place where the collective mind passes
And come to support the self-nature of the 10000things
Yet without venturing to act.
65
Those ancients who valued acting in tao
Did not come to be luminous
People attaining it came to be foolish.
The difficulty with governing people?
It happens that what is wise is abundant.
So if it happens that wisdom governs the nation
It is the enemy of the nation
If it does not happen that wisdom governs the nation
It is the good luck of the nation
Those who know both these things
Also investigate the patterns of entireness
To know and investigate patterns
Is appropriately called insightful ideal.
Insightful ideal goes with the penetrating, with the far-reaching
With it things go with turning back
And will reach the great alignment.
66
In the place of rivers and seas
The ability to act as that which is the king ofone hundred valleys happens
It happens they value being low
So the ability to act as the king of one hundredvalleys happens.
Appropriately it happens that
Desire to be above people seeds the occurrence ofwords being low
Desire to precede people seeds the occurrence ofthe body following
Appropriately it happens that sages
Dwell above yet people lack heaviness
Dwell in front yet people are without being heldback
Appropriately it happens
That the world joyfully supports them yet withouttiring.
It happens they lack contention
So in the world noone is able to be contending with them.
67
In the world each says
My tao is great and seems to lack resemblance
In the end only great therefore seems to lack resemblance.
It looks like resemblance goes with the long-lasting
With what is tiny as well.
In the end I possess three principles I am obtaining yet defending
One, say compassion
Two, say thrift
Three say lack of venturing to act to precede theworld.
Compassion, so be able to be brave
Thrift, so be able to expand
Lack venturing to act to precede the world
So be able to perfect tools of growth.
Right now, abandon compassion just to be brave
Abandon thrift just to expand
Abandon being behind just to precede
Death goes with these.
In the end with compassion
A war happens and next comes conquering
Keeping to it happens and next comes solidity.
The heavens attain helping
It happens that compassion is defending.
68
Those who value acting as sergeants lack ferocity
Those who value war lack anger
Those who value conquering lack engagement
Those who value using men are acting low.
Appropriately called ideal of lacking being contending
Appropriately called strength to be using men
Appropriately called distributing the ancient limit of the heavens.
69
Strategists possess words
I am without venturing to act as lord yet act asguest
Without venturing to enter an inch yet fall backa foot.
Appropriately called
Going absent of going
Grabbing absent of an arm
Throwing absent of opposition
Taking hold of absent of an enemy.
No misfortune is greater than relating to light opposition
Light opposition severs and destroys my principles.
So when opposing strategies escalate each other
Conquering goes with those who mourn.
70
My words
Are very easy to know
Are very easy to practice.
In the world
Noone is able to know
Noone is able to practice.
Words possess an ancestor
Efforts possess a sovereign.
In the end only with absence of knowledge
Appropriate lack of self-knowledge happens
Knowledge of that which is the self is rare
And then that which is the self is treasured.
Appropriately it happens that sages have
A covering of coarse cloth
A bosom of jade.
71
Knowing, lack of knowing
Better, lack of knowing
Knowing, a disease.
In the end only when the disease is sick
Appropriate lack of the disease happens.
Sages lack the disease
It happens the disease was sick.
Appropriately lack of the disease happens.
72
People lack respect for impressive strength
And then greatly impressive strength is reached.
An absence of improper familiarity for what is their place of residence
An absence of detesting what is their place of living
In the end only without detesting
Appropriate lack of detesting happens.
Appropriately it happens that sages
Know themselves without displaying themselves
Are fond of themselves without treasuring themselves.
So detach from that, grab this.
73
Bravery in relation to venturing, next comes being killed
Bravery in relation to lack of venturing, next comes being mobile
Each of these two benefits some, harms some.
The place of the heaves dislikes
Who knows why it is so?
Appropriately it happens that sages see it just as difficult.
The tao of the heavens
Without contending yet values conquering
Without words yet values responding
Without summoning yet attracts to itself
Is easy-natured yet values a place for everything.
The net of the heavens is vast, expansive
A coarse mesh yet without loss.
74
When people lack respect for death
How does it happen that death looks threatening?
Suppose people entirely respect death
Yet there are those who act strange.
I may obtain hold of them yet who would venture to be killing them?
Entireness possesses that which is the master killer, killing.
In the end taking the place
Of that which is the master killer, killing
Is appropriately called
Taking the place of the great carpenter, carving.
In the end take the place of the great carpenter, carving
It is rarely true that a lack of wounding the hand goes with this.
75
The hunger of people
It happens that those above feed by taxing abundantly
Appropriately hunger happens.
The difficulty in governing people
It happens that those above possess action
Appropriately the difficulty in governing happens.
The lightness of people at death
It happens that those above reach for the thicknessof life
Appropriately lightness at death happens.
In the end only those who are absent of acting to live
Are appropriately wise in relating to treasuring life.
76
The life of man is also yielding, weak
His death is also rigid, unyielding.
The 10000 things, the grass and trees
Their living is also yielding, fragile
Their dying is also dried up, withered.
So that which is rigid, unyielding is the pupil of dying
That which is yielding, weak is the pupil of living
Appropriately it happens that
With unyielding soldiers, next comes lack of conquering
With an unyielding tree, next comes being attacked.
Dwelling in the unyielding and great is worse
Dwelling in the yielding and supple is better.
77
The tao of the heavens, it is just like opening up a bow
With that which towers being restrained
That which is lowered being lifted
