Even the sage has difficulty in knowing this.
The Way of Heaven is to win easily without struggle.
To respond well without words,
To naturally come without special invitation,
To plan well without anxiety.
Heaven's net is vast.
It is loose.
Yet nothing slips through.
74
If the people don't fear death
How will you scare them with death?
If you make the people continuously fear death
By seizing anybody who does something out of the ordinary
And killing them,
Who will dare to move?
There is always an official executioner to handle this.
If you play the role of the official executioner
It is like cutting wood in the capacity of Master Carpenter.
There are few who will not cut their hands.
75
The reason people starve
Is because their rulers tax them excessively.
They are difficult to govern
Because their rulers have their own ends in mind.
The reason people take death lightly
Is because they want life to be rich.
Therefore they take death lightly.
It is only by not living for your own ends
That you can go beyond valuing life.
76
When people are born they are gentle and soft.
At death they are hard and stiff.
When plants are alive they are soft and delicate.
When they die, they wither and dry up.
Therefore the hard and stiff are followers of death.
The gentle and soft are the followers of life.
Thus, if you are aggressive and stiff, you won't win.
When a tree is hard enough, it is cut. Therefore
The hard and big are lesser,
The gentle and soft are greater.
77
The Way of Heaven
Is like stretching a bow.
The top is pulled down,
The bottom is pulled up.
Excess string is removed
Where more is needed, it is added.
It is the Way of Heaven
To remove where there is excess
And add where there is lack.
The way of people is different:
They take away where there is need
And add where there is surplus.
Who can take his surplus and give it to the people?
Only one who possesses the Tao.
Therefore the sage acts without expectation.
Does not abide in his accomplishments.
Does not want to show his virtue.
78
Nothing in the world is softer than water,
Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.
This is because nothing can alter it.
That the soft overcomes the hard
And the gentle overcomes the aggressive
Is something that everybody knows
But none can do themselves.
Therefore the sages say:
"The one who accepts the dirt of the state
Becomes its master.
The one who accepts its calamity
Becomes king of the world.
Truth seems contradictory.
79
After calming great anger
There are always resentments left over.
How can this be considered as goodness?
Therefore the sage keeps her part of the deal
And doesn't check up on the other person.
Thus virtuous officials keep their promise
And the crooked ones break it.
The Heavenly Tao has no favorites:
It raises up the Good.
80
Let there be a small country with few people,
Who, even having much machinery, don't use it.
Who take death seriously and don't wander far away.
Even though they have boats and carriages, they never ride in them.
Having armor and weapons, they never go to war.
Let them return to measurement by tying knots in rope.
Sweeten their food, give them nice clothes, a peaceful abode and a relaxedlife.
Even though the next country can be seen and its doges and chickenscan be heard,
The people will grow old and die without visiting each others land.
81
True words are not fancy.
Fancy words are not true.
The good do not debate.
Debaters are not good.
The one who really knows is not broadly learned,
The extensively learned do not really know.
The sage does not hoard,
She gives people her surplus.
Giving her surplus to others she is enriched.
The way of Heaven is to help and not harm.
English_Ould_TTK
Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse
English by
Herman Ould, 1946
1
The Tao that can be expressed is not the Unchanging Tao;
The name that can be named is not the Unchanging name.
The Unnameable is that from which Heaven and Earth derived, leaving itself unchanged.
Thinking of it as having a name, let it be called the Mother of all things.
He who is without earthly passions and without desire can perceive the profound mystery of that Unmanifested
Existence.
He who has not rid himself of desire can perceive only the Manifest, with its differentiations.
Nevertheless, the Manifest and the Unmanifest are in origin the same.
This sameness is the Mystery of Mysteries, the deep within the deep, the Doorway into all Mystery.
2
Because the world recognized beauty as beauty, ugliness is known to be ugly.
Everyone knows goodness to be goodness, and to know this is to know what is not good.
Similarily, existence implies non-existence;
The hard and the easy complement each other; We recognize what is long by comparison with what is short;
High by comparison with low;
The shrill by comparison with the sonorous.
Before and after, earlier and later, back and front -
All these complelemnt one another.
Therefore the Sage, the self-controled mand, dwells in actionless activity, poised between contraries.
He teaches without employing words.
He beholds al things that have been made - he does not turn his back on them.
He achieves, but does not claim merit;
He does not call attention to what he does, not claim success.
Regarding nothing as his own, he loses nothing that is his.
3
If we donot exalt superior persons into positions of authority,
We shall not arouse jealous conflicts among the people.
If we do not prize unduly such objects as are hard to procure,
We shall do away with thieves.
If we do not make a show of things that excite desire,
The heart sof the people will remain calm and unconfused.
The Sage governs: By emptying people's hearts of desire and their minds of envy, and by filling their stomachs with
what they need;
By reducing their ambitions and by strengthening their bones and sinews;
By striving to keep them without the knowledge of what is evil and without cravings.
Thus are the crafty ones given no scope for tempting interference.
For it is by Non-action that the Sage governs, and nothing is really left uncontrolled.
4
The Tao is like a hollow vessel that yet cannot be filled to overflowing;
For it is bottomless and unfathomable.
Its infinite depth is the source of all things in the world,
The progenitor of all creatures.
Yet how still and changeless it seems!
In it and through it, all sharp edges are blunted, all knots untied; all glaring light softened; all dust smoothed away.
It is a deep and limpid pool that remains so forever.
We do not know whence it came, we only know it is:
Was it too the offspring of something other than itself?
As an image without substance the Tao is before all things that can be conceived.
5
Heaven and Earth do not claim to be kindhearted or pitiful.
To them all things and all creatures are as straw dogs brought to the sacrifice and afterwards discarded.
Nor is the Sage kindhearted or pitiful.
To him to the people are as straw dogs.
But the space between Heaven and Earth may be likened to a bellows:
It seems empty, and yet it gives all that is required of it.
The more it is worled, the more it yields.
Whereas the force puffed up by words is soon exhausted.
Better to hold fast to that which dwells within the heart.
6
The Spirit of the Valley is undying:
It is the Mysterious Mother.
The Doorway of the Mysterious Mother is the root from which grew Heaven and Earth.
And this Spirit endures unceasingly:
Nourishing and conserving unceasingly,
Without effort,
Itself inexhaustible.
7
Heaven is eternal: the Earth is ever-renewing.
Why?
Surely it is because they do not live for themselves:
That is why they endure.
And so it is with the Sage.
He keeps himself in the background,
And yet he is always to be found in the forefront.
He is ever unmindful of himself,
And yet he is preserved.
Is it not because he seeks no personal success that all his aims are fulfilled?
8
The highest good may be likened to water.
Water benefits all creatures yet does not strive or argue with them.
It rests content in those lowly places which others despise:
Thus it is very near to the Tao.
It is a virtue in a house that it stands firm upon the ground.
It is a virtue in a man that his thoughts should be profound.
In friendship, gentleness and good nature are a virtue.
In speech, it is a virtue to utter truths.
It is a virtue in government that it maintains good order.
It is a virtue in afairs that they should be well-conducted.
It is a virtue in movements and actions that they should be well-timed.
And all these virtues are as the virtue of water,
Which does not contend and therefore can do no wrong.
9
Rather than fill a vessel to overflowing, stop in time.
If you temper a swordblade to razor sharpness, it will blunt the sooner.
If you overload your house with gold and jade, how shall it be guarded?
Wealth and high office breed vanity and toruble, and ruin follows in their train.
Accomplish you task, earn honour but do not claim it;
Then withdraw into the background.
That is Heaven's Way.
10
Can you control the restless physical-being and at the same time hold fast to the Oneness of the Universe?
Can you so regulate your breathing that is becomes soft and effortless like a child's?
Can you sponge away the dust from the surface of the Mysterious Mirror, leaving nothing obscure?
Can you love the people and govern the country while remaining yourself unknown?
Can you, opening and tting Nature's gates, remain passive, playing the woman's part?
Can you penetrate all quarters and understand all creatures, and yet not interfere?
Very well then: Quicken them, nourish them;
Give life to htem, but make no claim on them;
Govern them, but do not be dependent on them;
Be chief among them, but do not order them about.
This is to use the Mysterious Power.
11
Thirty converging spokes combine to form a wheel;
But it is the point of nothingness as the centre that determines the wheel's usefulness.
We fashion clay into a pot;
But it is the nothingness within the walls of clay that gives the vessel its usefulness.
We pierce the walls of a house to make the windows and doors;
And their usefulness consists in their being fitted round nothingness.
Thus we profit not only by what is, but by what is not.
12
The five colours, if unharmonized, confuse the eye;
The five tones, if uncoordinated, offend the ear;
The five tastes, if crudely blended, vitiate the palate.
Unrestraint in hunting and pursuing confounds the mind;
Eagerness in the acquisition of rare goods impedes right action.
That is why the Sage looks within and not without;
He disregards That and nurtures This.
13
"Glory and disgrace are both related to fear;
Fortune and misfortune are both bound up with the body."
What is meant by the saying that glory and disgrace are both related to fear?
The on eis high, the other is low.
If you achieve glory, you fear to lose it.
If you are in disgrace, you fear the hsame of it.
Thus glory and disgrace both involve fear.
What is meant by the saying that fortune and misfortune are bound up with the body?
Fortune and misfortune come to us because we have a body.
If we had no body, how should fortune or misfortune befall us?
Therefore he who is willing to give to the world as much care as he gives to his own body is worthy to govern the
world.
He who gives to the world as much love as he gives to his own body, may be trusted with the ruling of the world.
14
That object upon which you gaze yet do not see is called the Invisible;
That sound to which you listen but do not hear is called the Inaudible;
That thing for which your hand gropes yet fails to touch is calledthe Intangible.
The scruting of these three imponderables cannot be carried further: the mind perceives them blend in One.
This Unity seen from above does not shine,
Nor, seen from below, is it dark.
It goes back through Time in an unbroken chain of countless links
Till it reaches Non-Existence.
It is the Formless Form, the Image of the Unimaginable.
It is the Incrutable.
Advance towards it, and it shows no front;
Follow it, and it shows no front;
Follow it, and it shows no back.
Yet by laying hold of this Ancient Truth you can master your present existence.
For to understand the mystery of the Beginning
Is to hold the key to the Tao.
15
The Wise Men of old were skilled in the Mysteries; their minds were subtle and penetrating, and so profound that
they were scarcely to be understood.
Trying to understand them, this is the picture I call up:
They were cautious, like those who cross a river in winter;
They were reserved, like those who are suspicious of their fellows;
Their behaviour was modest and seemly, like that of one paying a formal visit;
They were yielding, like ice responding to the heat of the sun;
They were simple, like a piece of wood before it is carves;
Yet they were open to receive, like a valley between hills.
Yet they seem to some of us obscure, like a muddy strwam.
How shall water become clear cave by keeping stil?
It is by the still and the motionless that life is quickened.
Those who follow the Tao do not crave replenishment;
Always satisfied but never surfeited, they are ever-renewed.
