Tao Te Ching (Translated by Sam Hamill) - Lao Tzu [12]
Words have ancestry.
Actions have masters.
Truly, not knowing this
is not knowing me.
Rare, the ones who know me.
So I am valued.
Therefore the sage wears rough clothes
and conceals jade within.
Chih (”Understand”): The root word is an “arrow” or a “dart,” combined with a “mouth,” and means “to perceive,” “to know,” “to comprehend.” To comprehend is to place the arrow of consciousness and comprehension at the center of the target.
71.
Knowing naïve not-knowing is best.
Not knowing real knowing is an affliction.
So the sage remains unafflicted
because he treats disease as disease,
and hence is free of affliction.
72.
When people don’t feel threatened by power,
a greater power follows.
Don’t squeeze people’s lives.
Don’t oppress them.
If they are not oppressed,
they will not resist.
Therefore the sage knows himself
without parading it,
loves himself
without treasuring himself.
Thus he discards one, choosing the other.
73.
Courageous daring leads to death.
Courage not to dare leads to life.
Both of these things
sometimes benefit
and sometimes injure.
Heaven has its dislikes,
and who knows the reason?
Even the sage finds this difficult.
Heaven’s Tao does not contend,
yet skillfully conquers,
does not speak, yet answers,
is not called, but come naturally,
is patient, but very resourceful.
Heaven’s net is vast, vast,
widely meshed,
yet nothing escapes it.
Min (“People”): The root word here is “family” or “clan.” Master K’ung said, “Governments rise and governments fall; only the family is forever.” “People” is a family.
74.
If people don’t fear death,
why threaten them with death?
Suppose people always fear death
and wage violence,
and we seize and execute them for it—
who dares to do it?
There’s always the official executioner.
Taking the executioner’s place
is like taking the place of a great woodcarver—
taking the place of a great artisan,
rare is the one who escapes without self-inflicted wounds.
75.
People are starving
because those in high office
keep raising taxes paid in grain.
So people go hungry.
Starving people are difficult to govern
because those in power are meddlesome.
Therefore people grow unruly.
The reason people take death lightly
is because they strive for a fullest life,
so make light of death.
Really, only by not pursuing life
can one live a worthy life.
76.
People are born soft and weak.
We die stiff and unyielding.
Everything—grass, trees—
begins life soft and tender,
and dies, decaying, rotting.
Therefore the hard, the unyielding
are death’s companion.
The weak and pliant belong to life.
The unyielding army cannot prevail.
Unbending trees are felled.
The great unyielding belong below,
the pliant and tender above.
77.
Heaven’s way is like stringing a bow:
drawing down the higher,
raising the lower.
Possessing abundance? Diminish it.
Not enough? Supplement it.
Heaven’s way reduces surplus
and supplements insufficiency.
The way of people is not like that,
taking tribute from the poor,
providing for the prosperous.
Who possesses abundance
to offer to the world?
Only those possessed of Tao.
Therefore the sage
acts without presumption,
accomplishes without acclamation,
not wanting to reveal his skill.
78.
Nothing under heaven
is as yielding as water.
And yet in attacking the hard,
the unyielding,
nothing can surpass it.
Nothing can take its place.
The weak overcomes the strong,
the soft surpasses the hard.
In all the world, there’s no one
who doesn’t know this,
but no one can master the practice.
Therefore the sage declares,
“Accept a country’s disgraces
and be called its lord of soil;
embrace a country’s misfortune
and be called the world’s king.”
True words appear paradoxical.
Ho (“Harmonize”): The element “mouth” is the radical again in this character, which also means “peace” or “conciliation.” Harmony is achieved by lending our voice to others in more than a merely musical way.
79.
Try