From start to finish and finish to start
The circle rounding perfectly.
66
Why are rivers and seas lords of the waters?
Because they afford the common level
And so become lords of the waters.
The common people love a sound man
Because he does not talk above their level,
Because, though he lead them,
He follows them,
He imposes no weight on them;
And they in turn, because he does not impede them,
Yield to him, content:
People never tire of anyone
Who is not bent upon comparison.
67
Everyone says that my way of life is the way of a simpleton.
Being largely the way of a simpleton is what makes it worth while.
If it were not the way of a simpleton
It would long ago have been worthless,
These possessions of a simpleton being the three I
choose
And cherish:
To care,
To be fair,
To be humble.
When a man cares he is unafraid
When he is fair he leaves enough for others,
When he is humble he can grow;
Whereas if, like men of today, he be bold without caring,
Self-indulgent without sharing,
Self-important without shame,
He is dead.
The invincible shield
Of caring
Is a weapon from the sky
Against being dead.
68
The best captain does not plunge headlong
Nor is the best soldier a fellow hot to fight.
The greatest victor wins without a battle:
He who overcomes men understands them.
There is a quality of quietness
Which quickens people by no stress:
'fellowship with heaven,' as of old,
Is fellowship with man and keeps its hold.
69
The handbook of the strategist has said:
'Do not invite the fight, accept it instead,'
'Better a foot behind than an inch too far ahead,'
Which means:
Look a man straight in the face and make no move,
Roll up your sleeve and clench no fist,
Open your hand and show no weapon,
Bare your breast and find no foe.
But as long as there be a foe, value him,
Respect him, measure him, be humble toward him;
Let him not strip from you, however strong he be,
Compassion, the one wealth which can afford him.
70
My way is so simple to feel, so easy to apply,
That only a few will feel it or apply it.
If it were not the lasting way, the natural way to try,
If it were a passing way, everyone would try it.
But however few shall go my way
Or feel concerned with me,
Some there are and those are they
Who witness what they see:
Sanity is a haircloth sheath
With a jewel underneath.
71
A man who knows how little he knows is well,
A man who knows how much he knows is sick.
If, when you see the symptoms, you can tell,
Your cure is quick.
A sound man knows that sickness makes him sick
And before he catches it his cure is quick.
72
Upon those who defy authority
It shall be visited,
But not behind prison walls
Nor through oppression of their kin;
Men sanely led
Are not led by duress.
To know yourself and not show yourself,
To think well of yourself and not tell of yourself,
Be that your no and your yes.
73
A man with outward courage dares to die,
A man with inward courage dares to live;
But either of these men
Has a better and a worse side than the other.
And who can tell exactly to which qualities heaven objects?
Heaven does nothing to win the day,
Says nothing-Is echoed,
Orders nothing-Is obeyed,
Advises nothing-Is right:
And which of us, seeing that nothing is outside the vast
Wide-meshed net of heaven, knows just how it is cast?
74
People starve
If taxes eat their grain,
And the faults of starving people
Are the fault of their rulers.
That is why people rebel.
Men who have to fight for their living
And are not afraid to die for it
Are higher men than those who, stationed high,
Are too fat to dare to die.
75
Death is no threat to people
Who are not afraid to die;
But even if these offenders feared death all day,
Who should be rash enough
To act as executioner?
Nature is executioner.
When man usurps the place,
A carpenter's apprentice takes the place of the master:
And 'an apprentice hacking with the master's axe
May slice his own hand.'
76
Man, born tender and yielding,
Stiffens and hardens in death.
All living growth is pliant,
Until death transfixes it.
Thus men who have hardened are 'kin of death'
And men who stay gentle are 'kin of life.'
Thus a hard-hearted army is doomed to lose.
A tree hard-fleshed is cut down:
Down goes the tough and big,
Up comes the tender sprig.
77
Is not existence
Like a drawn bow?
The ends approach,
The height shortens, the narrowness widens.
True living would take from those with too much
Enough for those with too little,
Whereas man exacts from those with too little
Still more for those with too much.
Now what man shall have wealth enough to share with all men
Save one who can freely draw from the common means?
A sane man needs no better support, no richer reward,
Than this common means,
Through which he is all men's equal.
78
What is more fluid, more yielding than water?
Yet back it comes again, wearing down the rigid strength
Which cannot yield to withstand it.
So it is that the strong are overcome by the weak,
The haughty by the humble.
This we know
But never learn,
So that when wise men tell us,
'He who bites the dust
Is owner of the earth,
He who is scapegoat
Is king,'
They seem to twist the truth.
79
If terms to end a quarrel leave bad feeling,
What good are they?
So a sensible man takes the poor end of the bargain
Without quibbling.
It is sensible to make terms,
Foolish to be a stickler:
Though heaven prefer no man,
A sensible man prefers heaven.
80
If a land is small and its people are few,
With tenfold enough to have and to do,
And if no one has schooled them to waste supply
In the country for which they live and would die,
Then not a boat, not a cart
Tempts this people to depart,
Not a dagger, not a bow
Has to be drawn or bent for show,
People reckon by knots in a cord,
Relish plain food on the board,
Simple clothing suits them well,
And they remain content to dwell
In homes their customs can afford.
Though so close to their own town another town grow
They can hear its dogs bark and its roosters crow,
Yet glad of life in the village they know,
Where else in the world shall they need to go?
81
Real words are not vain,
Vain words not real;
And since those who argue prove nothing
A sensible man does not argue.
A sensible man is wiser than he knows,
While a fool knows more than is wise.
Therefore a sensible man does not devise resources:
The greater his use to others
The greater their use to him,
The more he yields to others
The more they yield to him.
The way of life cleaves without cutting:
Which, without need to say,
Should be man's way.
English_Byrn_TTK
Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse
English interpretation by
Tormond Byrn, 1997
1
The way that can be told of is hardly aneternal, absolute, unvarying one;
the name that can be coded and given is noabsolute name.
Heaven and earth sprang from something else:the bright nameless;
the named is but the said mother that rearsthe ten thousand creatures of heaven and earth, each after its kind.
He that rids himself of base desire can seethe secret essences;
he that didn't and reached high being, hecan see outcomes.
Still the two are the same; the secret andits manifestations came from the same ground, the same mould, but anywaysound different -
they're given different names where theyappear.
They can both be called the cosmic mystery,awesome deep
or rather more secret than so-called mystery.
There's the deeper mystery: the gate and doorwayfrom which issued all secret essences, yes, all subleties,
and the subtle mysterial opening homewards.
Call it the door mystery or golden secretof all life.
2
When the people of the world see beauty asbeauty,
the notion of ugliness pops up along withthat
And equally if every one recognize virtueas virtue, if they all know the good as good, the recognition of adjacentevil is wont to rise.
So: Being and not-yet-being interdepend ingrowth; grow out of another, they can produce each other.
And hard and easy interdepend in completion;
long and short interdepend. They test eachother in contrast.
High and low determine one another and interdependor distinguish each other in position. So it seems.
Pitch and mode give harmony to one another;tones, sound and voice interdepend in basic, functional harmony;
Front and back give sequence to one another.
The couples follow each other - interdependin company, so to speak.
From this the wise man relies on doing nothingin the open, it's wu-wei. And he spreads doctrines without true or falsewords, by oddly wordless influence.
All things appear, and he hardly turns awayfrom the creatures worked on by him:
Some he gives solid, good life, he hardlydisowns his chosen ones.
He hardly takes possession of anyone underfair conditions.
He rears his sons in earthly ways, but neitherappropriates nor lays blatant claim to any one.
He acts, but doesn't rely on his outer, visiblesmartness or miracle-working ability. He very often claims no credit.
At times he controls them, but hardly leanson any of them.
Because he lays claim to no credit, the handycredit can hardly be taken away from him.
Yes, for the very reason that he hardly callsattention to what he does, he isn't ejected at once.
3
Stop looking for rare, moral persons (hsien)to put in power.
There will be jealousies among people, jealousiesand strife.
If we cease to set store by products thatare hard to get, there will be less outright thieves.
If the people never see such things as excitedesire, their hearts can remain placid and undisturbed.
Therefore the wise one rules by emptyingtheir hearts [like the clown]. He fills their bellies, weakens their brightnessand toughens their bones,
ever striving to make the people withoutknowledge.
He sees to it that if there are any who arebright and clever, they dare not interfere.
Through his non-do actions all [such subjection]runs well [for some time].
4
Dao is like an empty vessel that yet canbe drawn from
without ever needing to be filled.
It's without bottom;
the very breeder of all things in the world.
In it all sharpness is blunted,
all tangles untied,
all glare tempered,
all turmoil smoothed.
It's like a deep pool that never dries.
Was it too the child of something else?
We can hardly tell.
A substanceless image of all things seemedto exist before the progenitor that we hardly know of.
5
The universe seems without mercy, quite ruthless;
in that wider perspective all things arebut as ritual straw dogs.
The wise man too is hard as nail; to himthe people are but as straw dogs to throw.
Yet heaven and earth and all that lies betweenis like a bellows;
empty, yet yielding a supply that hardlyfails.
Work it, and more comes out.
Whereas the force of words is soon spent.
It seems far better to keep what's in theheart.
So hold to the heart core and a regular mean.
6
The valley spirit never dies.
It's named the mystic woman.
And the gate of the profound woman is theroot that heaven and earth sprang from.
It's there within us all the while;
draw upon it as you will,
you can never wear it out.
7
Heaven is always, the earth, too.
How can it be?
Well, they don't live only for themselves;
that's why they live long.
So the wise man puts himself last, and findshimself in the foremost place,
puts himself in the background; yet alwayscomes to the fore.
He keeps well fit; looks on his body almostas accidental, outer, something to be well taken care of;
still it always there, and always remains.He remains in the open by it, too.
He hardly strives for great personal ends;
his main ends seem fulfilled.
8
The highest good is like that of water.
The goodness of water is that it benefitsthe ten thousand creatures; yet itself hardly ever scrambles -
it seems quite content with the places thatall men disdain.
It's this that can make water so near tosome dao.
And if men think the ground the best placefor building a house upon,
if among thoughts they value those that areprofound,
if in friendship they value gentleness;
in words, truth, or sincere faithfulness,
in government, [bugbear] order;
in deeds: competence, ability, effectiveness;
in actions: timeliness and being properlytimed -
In each case it's because they prefer thingsthat hardly lead to strife, and therefore hardly go much astray or amiss.
9
Stretch a bow to the full, and you'll endup wishing you'd stopped in time; to hold and fill to overflowing isn'tquite as able as to stop in time.
Temper a sword-edge to its very sharpest,and you'll find it soon grows dull.
When gold and jade fills your hall, can itbe well guarded any more?
To be proud with things and glory given,could bring ruin. Wealth and place breed insolence and could slowly harmand ruin:
If your work is done, withdraw!
That's heaven's way. It can be opposed tolots of ways of man.
10
Can you keep the unquiet physical-soul fromstraying, hold fast to the unity and middle, and never quit it?
