If kings and lords could take possession of it,
Of their own accord the Ten Thousand Things would pay them homage.
Heaven and Earth would come together,
And sweet rain fall.
Peace and order would spread among the people
Without its being decreed.
When the block is cut, the parts need names.
Are there not already enough names?
One should know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop, one avoids all danger.
Tao in the world is like a river flowing to the sea.
1. i.e. as a very simple, undifferentiated thing.
33
He who knows others is wise;
He who knows himself is enlightened.
Conquering others requires force;
Conquering oneself requires strength.
He who is content is rich.
To act with perseverance requires will-power.
He who stays where he is, endures.
To die but not be forgotten is to enjoy long life.
34
The great Tao flows everywhere,
Going to the left and to the right.
The Ten Thousand Things depend upon it for life;
It denies itself to none of them,
Accomplishing its task
But claiming no credit.
It clothes and feeds the Ten Thousand Things,
Yet does not claim to be their master.
Forever without desire, it may be called small.
The Ten Thousand Things return to it,
Yet it does not claim possession over them:
Thus it may be called great.
Because it never strives for greatness,
It thereby accomplishes greatness.
35
To he who holds the great image,
The whole world will come.
They will come and meet with no harm,
Finding safety, tranquillity and comfort.
Music and food will induce the passer-by to stop,
But when the Tao is spoken of in words, it seems bland and tasteless.
Looked for, it cannot be seen.
Listened for, it cannot be heard.
Use it, and it can never be exhausted.
36
Whatever shrinks
Must first have expanded.
Whatever becomes weak
Must first have been strong.
That which is to be destroyed
Must first have flourished.
In order to receive,
One must first give.
This is called seeing the nature of things.
The soft overcomes the hard, and the weak overcomes the strong.
As fish cannot be taken from the water,
So a ruler should not reveal to the people his means of government.
37
The Tao never acts,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If the ruler were able to hold to it,
The Ten Thousand Things would take shape of their own accord.
If in taking shape desire should arise,
He would quell it by means of the nameless simplicity.
With the nameless simplicity
There will be no desires.
Being free from desire, tranquillity is attained,
And everything beneath Heaven will be at peace.
38
The truly good man is unaware of his goodness,
And thus is good.
The foolish man sets himself to be good,
And so is not good.
The truly good man takes no action,
Yet all things are accomplished.
The foolish man is forever taking action,
And much is left undone.
The truly benevolent man acts without striving to satisfy personal ends;
Yet the seeker of morality acts with an ulterior motive.
And when the follower of rules takes action and no one responds,
He rolls up his shirt-sleeves to impose order by force.
Therefore, when Tao is lost, goodness remains.
When goodness is lost, benevolence remains.
When benevolence is lost, morality remains.
When morality is lost, rules remain.
Merely following rules?is a pretence of trust and loyalty, and is the beginning of confusion.
To seek knowledge of the future is to hold to a false Tao, and is the beginning of folly.
Therefore the superior man holds to the real
And ignores mere appearances;
Takes the fruit and rejects the flower;
Accepts the first and discards the second.
1. i.e. adhering to Confucian Rites.
39
These are the things of ancient times which obtained the One:?br> Heaven obtained the One and became clear;
Earth obtained the One and became stable;
The Gods obtained the One and became divine;
The Valleys obtained the One and became full;
The Ten Thousand Things obtained the One and were made alive;
Kings and lords obtained the One and ruled the empire.
Did they not all become as they are by obtaining the One?
Without clarity,
Heaven would soon shatter.
Without stability,
the Earth would soon split.
Without being divine,
the Gods would soon dissolve.
Without being full,
the Valleys would soon be exhausted.
Without life,
the Ten Thousand Things would soon
perish.
Without kings and lords,
the empire would soon fall.
Therefore the noble has its root in the humble.
The high has its foundation in the low.
This is why kings and lords call themselves orphaned, lonely, and without sustenance.
Thus they regard the humble as their root.
Those who are most praiseworthy
Do not need praise.
They prefer neither to be rare, like jade,
Nor common, like stone.
1. i.e. the Tao.
40
The motion of Tao is to return.
The Way of Tao is to yield.
The Ten Thousand Things have their source in being;
Being arises from non-being.
41
When the superior man hears of the Tao, he practises it diligently.
When the average man hears about the Tao, he follows it only intermittently.
When the foolish man hears of the Tao, he bursts out laughing.
But for this laughter Tao would not be Tao.
Hence, the ancients have said:
The lightest path seems to be dark;
Going forward seems like going back;
The easy way seems to be hard;
The highest Virtue seems empty;
That which is pure seems sullied;
Ample Virtue appears inadequate;
Strength to be had from Virtue seems lacking;
Virtue itself appears unreal.
The greatest space has no corners;
The greatest talent develops slowly;
The loudest sound cannot be heard;
The greatest form has no shape.
Tao is hidden and without a name;
Yet it is Tao which nourishes all things and brings everything to completion.
42
Tao gives birth to one;
One gives birth to two;
Two gives birth to three;?br> And three gives birth to the Ten Thousand Things.
The Ten Thousand Things carry yin and embrace yang;
And by blending these vital forces, they achieve harmony.
The people hate being orphaned, lonely, and without sustenance,
Even though this is how kings and lords describe themselves.
One may gain by losing
And lose by gaining.
I teach what others have taught:
慣hose who are violent do not die a natural death.?br> I shall make this the basis of my teaching.
1. Perhaps 憈wo?is 憂on-being? and 憈hree? 慴eing? or 憈wo? 憏in? and 憈hree? 憏ang? But see also Wilhelm (1985, 21 and 73) who suggests that 憃ne?is the unity in which all opposites are 慽ntermingled? and which generates 憈wo?慳s antithesis (the opposites of light and dark, male and female ?). From these pairs of opposites the phenomenal world is born as the Three? (p. 21) However we understand the numbers, this part of the chapter points to the multiplicity of things having their source in the undifferentiated Tao.
43
Under Heaven, it is the softest things which overcome the hardest things.
That which has no substance can penetrate where there is no room.
Thus I know the benefit of non-action.
Few in the world understand the advantage of
Teaching without words and accomplishing without action.
44
Fame or self: which is the most dear?
Self or wealth: which has most value?
Gain or loss: which is worse?
Attachment to things results in wasteful expense.
The more that is hoarded, the heavier the loss.
Know contentment and thus never be disappointed;
Know when to stop and thus avoid all danger.
This is the way to last forever.
45
Great accomplishment seems inadequate,
But its usefulness will last forever.
Great fullness seems empty,
But using it cannot exhaust it.
Great straightness seems crooked.
Great skill seems awkward.
Great surplus seems deficient.
Great eloquence seems to stammer.
Movement overcomes cold.
Stillness overcomes heat.
Being calm and tranquil one can become ruler of the world.
46
When Tao is present in the world
Racehorses are taken off to work in the fields.
When Tao is absent from the world
War-horses are bred in the countryside.
There is no crime greater than having desires.
No disaster is greater than not being content with one抯 lot.
The worst misfortune is to be greedy.
He who is content with what he has
Has enough.
47
Without going out of doors
One can know the whole world.
Without looking through the window
One can see the Way of Heaven.
The further one goes,
The less one knows.
Thus the Sage knows without going out;
Understands without looking;
And accomplishes without acting.
48
In pursuit of knowledge, something new is learned every day.
In pursuit of the Tao, something is abandoned every day.
Do less and less
Until non-action is achieved.
Do nothing, and nothing remains undone.
All things can be accomplished by not acting.
The empire can never be governed by taking action.
49
The Sage has no mind of his own;
He makes the mind of the people his mind.
Treat well those who are good;
Treat well those who are not good.
Thus everyone will become good.
Trust those who are sincere;
Trust those who are not sincere.
Thus everyone will become sincere.
When dealing with the world, the Sage blends his mind harmoniously with the mind of the people.
The people all watch him and listen to his words.
He accepts them all as his children.
50
Between being born and dying
Three out of ten are companions of life;
Three out of ten are companions of death.
And three out of ten in their lives progress from activity to death;
Why is this?
Because they strive too intensely after life.?br>
It is well known that those who know how to live properly can go out
Without fear of meeting rhinoceros or tiger.
Caught in the fray, weapons cannot harm them.
The rhinoceros cannot gore them with its horn;
The tiger cannot maul them with its claws;
And weapons can find no place to pierce.
Why is this?
For them there is no such thing as death.
1. All translators find these lines particularly hard to interpret. 慣hree out of ten?presumably means 憃ne third?(see Lau 1963, 57). Henricks notes (1990, 122) that these lines can be taken to mean 憆oughly speaking, one-third of humanity seems to be born to ?live a long time no matter what they do; another third seems born fated to ?die young no matter what they do; and, finally, another third can live long or die young depending on how they live, but they hasten their journey to death with their anxiety to hold on to life? (Henricks, reluctantly, favours a different interpretation, based on his own, different, preferred translation of this chapter. His reasons for preferring his different translation are quite involved and technical, and cannot be gone into here. See Henricks 1990, 123.)
51
Tao gives rise to all things;
Virtue nourishes them;
Environment shapes them;
Circumstances complete them.
Therefore the Ten Thousand Things
Respect Tao and honour Virtue.
No one commands that
Tao be respected and Virtue honoured.
Doing so comes spontaneously.
So it is that all things arise from Tao;
They are nourished by Virtue,
Grown and nurtured,
Given shelter and comfort,
Matured and protected.
Tao produces them but does not possess them;
Accomplishes without taking credit;
Guides without interfering.
This is called mystical Virtue.
52
All things under Heaven have the same source;
This may be called the Mother of the Ten Thousand Things.
Knowing the mother,
One may know the children.
Knowing the children,
One may keep to the mother,
And to the end of one抯 days, never meet with danger.
Whosoever closes the mouth
And ts the doors?br> Will be free from trouble throughout his life.
But whosoever opens the mouth
And adds to his affairs,
To the end of his days, will be beyond hope.
To see the small is to be enlightened.
To keep to the weak is to be strong.
Use the light of your intellect,
But return to enlightenment,
And thus avoid misfortune.
This is called practising the constant.
1. of the senses.
53
Having just a little intelligence
I would keep to the main road,?br> My only fear that I might stray from it.
It is easy to keep to the main road,
But the people prefer the by-ways.
When the court is maintained in lavish splendour,
The fields are full of weeds
And the granaries are empty.
Some wear extravagant clothes
And carry sharp swords.
They consume food and drink to excess
And accumulate more wealth and possessions than they can find use for.
This is called robbery and extravagance,
And is contrary to Tao.
1. i.e. follow Tao.
54
What is well-planted cannot be uprooted;
What is grasped tightly cannot slip away;
Just as ancestral sacrifices will never be suspended.
Cultivate Tao in yourself
And Virtue will be real.
Cultivate it in the family
And Virtue will be plentiful.
Cultivate it in the community
And Virtue will increase.
Cultivate it in the state
And Virtue will flourish.
Cultivate it in the world
And Virtue will be universal.
Hence, judge a person as a person,
A family as a family,
A community as a community,
A state as a state,
The world as a world.
How do I know the world is like this?
Through observation.
