Verses from the Tao Te Ching

1-5 11-19 29-37 80 [1] Description lies: the map is not the territory. The way that can be named is not the eternal way. Nameless, it begets heaven and earth. Named, it illuminates each process, generates every thing. Persisting without desire we penetrate its mystery. Persisting with desire we grasp its outer play. The two aspects are one; we call them two to speak at all, of change. Where they fuse we find mystery: profound, dynamic, the doorway to all, subtle and wonderful.

[18] When people lose the way do-gooders and moralists come into fashion, authorities and specialists, hypocrisy. When the larger family's coherence fails managers and the managed replace it. When the commonweal is disordered loyal bureaucrats appear.

[19] Without authorities and specialists everyone would be a hundred ways wiser. Without benevolence and righteousness people would rediscover caring, the familial bond. Without power-schemes and profiteering there'd be no thugs and thieves. These three ways to run things grasp at externals, don't work. Be simple, true to yourself; let go selfishness and greed.

[2] Everyone knows beauty as beauty because they know ugliness, knows good as good by knowing bad. So it goes: life and death beget each other, hard makes easy and vice-versa, high and low arise by contrast, long and short are co-configured, sound and silence make the music, before and after follow from each other. Therefore the wise practice inaction, teach without talking about it. Everything comes to pass Some think they can control what goes on. I don't think anyone can. The flow is sacred, digests all volition: observe it perturb it, try to hold it lose it. So sometimes ahead and sometimes behind, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, sometimes on top of it, sometimes under. So don't strain, spend too much, be smug.

[29]

[30] To govern by the way

Everything comes to pass in its time, dynamic and unauthored, proceeding despite expectations. Take what happens naturally, go on: no one knows how or why, it lasts forever.

To govern by the way stop running the world by force. It's likely to backfire. Where the troops go, disorder follows; raising a mighty army ruins the economy. A good commander just wants to get it over with, doesn't exploit his victory. Get it over with and don't brag, get it over with but not for glory, get it over with only because there's no choice, get it over with but don't exploit it. Overdevelopment hastens decline, goes against the way. What's against the way fails early.

[3] To cure rivalry, give no rewards for being superior; to stop theft, stop gathering treasures; to clear confusion, stop inflaming lust. So wise governance leaves people's minds receptive, keeps them fed, quiets ambition and strengthen spine, leaves them not knowing and not wanting, keeps the knowing from presumptuous action. If nothing is done, all will go well.

[31] Fine weapons still bode ill. The world itself hates them. If you grasp the way you won't stand their use. Decent people lean to the left at home, but bow to the right for war. Military arms are tools for misfortune, not for good will, to be used under absolute necessity, without satisfaction or glory. Peace is the prize, a victory is a disaster. Why glorify mass murder? Glorifying killing unfits you for the world. In happy times we watch comedies; in sad times, the news. When the commander-in-chief is up front, the high brass beside him, you know a funeral's going on. The victory celebration is a funeral service. When many are murdered you should grieve bitterly; every victor responsible

[4] The way is an empty vessel, used but never filled: unfathomable, the source of all. It blunts sharpness, untangles knots, softens the glare, lays the blowing dust. Deep hidden, always here. I don't know how it came to be, preceding the divine.

[5] Heaven and earth act but don't care, treat everything like flowers by the grave. The wise act without caring, treat everyone like flowers by the grave. The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows: empty

is like a bellows: empty it retains its power, moving more it yields more. Much talk leads to exhaustion. Keep to the core.

every victor responsible presides over a funeral.

[32] Eternal, nameless, the way. Though the blank page is modest, it's nobody's servant. If rulers could obey it the world would yield to them, earth and heaven would merge and the sweet dew fall, and people live in harmony without orders from above. When emptiness is inscribed names and distinctions appear. When they start to appear, isn't it time to stop? Knowing when to stop keeps you out of danger. The way is to the world as the sea to its rivers.

[11] Spokes join the rim to the hub, but the wheel's use depends on the hole in the center. We make a bowl from clay, but emptiness makes it useful. We cut out doors and windows, but vacancy makes the room habitable. So what's there is advantageous, but what's not is what makes it useful.

[12] The spectrum blinds the eye, harmony deafens the ear, seasonings deaden taste. Getting ahead in the rat-race makes you crazy, treasure-hunting leads you astray. Pay attention to your belly, not your eyes. Let go without, take hold within.

[33] To know others is to be clever, to know yourself is to be enlightened. Force serves to overcome others, you need strength to best yourself. If you're satisfied with what you have, you're rich; persevering, you become a person of purpose. If you don't lose your place, you'll keep going; if you live till you die you'll have a long life.

[13] Hero or goat, the shock's the same. High status is a calamity. What do I mean, the shock's the same? When people rise, they go crazy; when they fall, they go crazy; when they're on top, they're afraid of falling. That's what I mean, the shock's the same.

[34] The way pervades everything, embracing left and right. All owe everything to it yet it rules over no one.

Why should status be a calamity? We hurt only because we have bodies; if we didn't, how could we hurt? That's why status is a calamity. Let someone who values himself more than control over anything run things, trust her to take care of everything if she knows how to care for herself.

yet it rules over no one. It does its work without claim or pride, provides for all without lording over any. So call it humble; yet since it claims no lordship when all turn to it, call it great. Because it doesn't strive for greatness, it achieves it.

[14] What we look at but can't see we call invisible, What we listen to but can't hear we call inaudible, what we touch but can't feel we call infinitesimal. These three qualities are unfathomable, collapse together in the null set, defining the universe. Its heights aren't bright, its depths aren't dark. It keeps changing, can't be named, becomes nothing again. Call it the shapeless shape, the formless image, indeterminable, unimaginable. Confront it, you can't see the front. Follow it, you can't see the rear. Grasp the ancient way to direct today's affairs, Knowing the ancient beginning is known as the heart of the way.

[35] Grasp the formless form and the world comes to you. All come to you unharmed for peace, security, rest. Music and tidbits tempt the passerby to pause. By mouth the way is tasteless, it can't be seen, it can't be heard. but use doesn't exhaust it,

[36] To breathe in, first breathe out; to weaken something, first make it strong; to overthrow something, set it up; to take, start by giving. This is subtle vision: yielding water dissolves the hardest stone. Leave the fish in the deep, don't display power's workings.

[15] The old masters of the way were deft and subtle in grasping its mystery, too deep to be known. As they were unknown, I'll try to sketch one: tentative, as if wading a winter stream; hesitant, sensing danger in the neighborhood;

hesitant, sensing danger in the neighborhood; respectful, like a guest; self-effacing, like melting ice; as empty as a blank page, a vacant lot, murky as a mudpuddle. Who can let the murk settle and grow clear? Who can go limp to slowly stir to life? If you know the way you don't want to be complete. It's because you're not done that you can wear yourself and still be in the making.

[37] The way never acts yet leaves nothing undone. If rulers could grasp it, we'd all govern our own changes. After this transformation if desire stirred I'd bury it in the blank page. The blank page is free of purpose. If you're free of purpose and keep still, the world will settle in its own accord.

[16] Try your hardest to grow empty, hold fast to stillness. All things are active at once, watch them go through their cycles. After flourishing, everything returns to its root. Returning to the root is known as stillness, it rejoins you with your destiny. Rejoining your destiny is the underlying order; it's wise to be aware of this. Ignorant of the order, you run blindly into disaster. Knowing it, you embrace everything. Embracing all, you treat all with justice. Judging justly [fits you to govern, makes you heavenly,]* opens the way to the way forever, leaving you safe for life. * This is thought to be a late interpolation. [80] The best state is small, without too many people, who have every tool they might need and don't use much, have good transportation and prefer to walk, can defend themselves and aren't aggressive. Their food, their dress, their homes and ways are simple and individual in grace. They cherish their traditions, revive old crafts, satisfy the generations: their children stay on, with other states like this so near that one can hear the barking dog, the crowing cock across the way, yet never get round to visiting, content.

[17] At first, at best, people hardly notice a leader. Next they adore and acclaim him, then come to fear him, in the end despise him.

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in the end despise him. Thus lost faith breeds lost faith. Be nondirective, make your few words precious. When the work is done, end gained, everyone will say: We did it by ourselves, naturally.