Tao Te Ching (Translated by Sam Hamill) - Lao Tzu [13]
and surely there will be a surplus of enmity.
How can this be good?
Therefore the sage keeps the ledger,
managing credits and debits
without placing claims on anyone.
Thus the virtuous attend to contracts
while those without virtue collect taxes.
Heaven’s Tao plays no favorites,
but always sides with the good.
80.
Imagine a small country with few people.
Let them have thousands of weapons
and not employ them.
Let people consider death
and not move far way.
Although there are boats and carriages,
there is no place to ride them.
Although there is armor and weaponry,
there is no reason to wear them.
Let people return to knotting ropes for counting,
relishing their food,
beautifully clothed,
content in their homes,
joyous in daily practice.
With neighboring countries,
they see each other’s chickens
and hear their dogs,
yet people will grow old and die,
having never gone to visit.
81.
Sincere words are not beautiful.
Beautiful words are not sincere.
The good aren’t persuasive.
The persuasive aren’t good.
The wise are not academic.
The academic are not wise.
The sage does not hoard,
and thereby bestows.
The more he lives for others,
the greater his life;
the more he gives to others,
the greater his abundance.
Heaven’s Tao benefits
without injuring.
The sage’s Tao accomplishes
without contesting.
About the Translator
Sam Hamill has translated more than two dozen books from ancient Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Latin, and Estonian. He has published fourteen volumes of original poetry, including Almost Paradise: New and Selected Poems and Translations, and four collections of literary essays, most recently Avocations. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Mellon Fund. He was recently awarded the Decoración de la Universidad de Carabobo in Venezuela, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry from Washington Poets Association, and the PEN American Freedom to Write Award. He cofounded and served as Editor at Copper Canyon Press for thirty-two years and is presently the Director of Poets Against War. He divides his time between Port Townsend, Washington, and Buenos Aires.
About the Calligrapher
Kazuaki Tanahashi, a Japanese-trained calligrapher, is the pioneer of the genre of “one stroke painting” as well as the creator of multicolor enso (Zen circles). Tanahashi’s brushwork has been shown in solo exhibitions in galleries, museums, and universities all over the world.
Selected Books by Sam Hamill
POETRY
Destination Zero: Poems 1970–1995
Gratitude
Dumb Luck
Almost Paradise: New and Selected Poems and Translations
ESSAYS
Bashō’s Ghost
A Poet’s Work: The Other Side of Poetry
POETRY IN TRANSLATION
The Art of Writing: Lu Chi’s Wen Fu
Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese
The Erotic Spirit: An Anthology of Poems of Sensuality, Love, and Longing
The Essential Chuang Tzu
Love Poems from the Japanese
Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings by Bashō
Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing
The Poetry of Zen, with J. P. Seaton
River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko, with Keiko Matsui Gibson
The Spring of My Life
The Sound of Water: Haiku by Bashō, Buson, and Issa
For more information please visit www.shambhala.com.
Excerpt from Cold Mountain Poems by Han Shan, edited and translated by J. P. Seaton
eISBN 978-0-8348-2187-3
Introduction
Han Shan and Shih Te have been the most popular icons of Mahayana Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism in particular, for more than a thousand years. Their poetry traveled to Japan nearly as quickly as Zen itself, and there, as in China, it inspired a popular and long-lasting tradition of paintings, and of rubbings from stone-carved images of their figures. Like those images, the poetry of Han Shan and Shih Te has survived everywhere into the present century. They are poets to laugh with, to make friends with, and to