Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching Read online

yet the baby penis is erect.

  True and perfect energy!

  All day long screaming and crying,

  but never getting hoarse.

  True and perfect harmony!

  To know harmony

  is to know what’s eternal.

  To know what’s eternal

  is enlightenment.

  Increase of life is full of portent:

  the strong heart exhausts the vital breath.

  The full-grown is on the edge of age.

  Not the Way.

  What’s not the Way soon dies.

  * * *

  As a model for the Taoist, the baby is in many ways ideal: totally unaltruistic, not interested in politics, business, or the properties, weak, soft, and able to scream placidly for hours without wearing itself out (its parents are another matter). The baby’s unawareness of poisonous insects and carnivorous beasts means that such dangers simply do not exist for it. (Again, its parents are a different case.)

  As a metaphor of the Tao, the baby embodies the eternal beginning, the ever-springing source. “We come, trailing clouds of glory,” Wordsworth says; and Hopkins, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” No Peter Pan-ish refusal to grow up is involved, no hunt for the fountain of youth. What is eternal is forever young, never grows old. But we are not eternal.

  It is in this sense that I understand how the natural, inevitable cycle of youth, growth, mature vigor, age, and decay can be “not the Way.” The Way is more than the cycle of any individual life. We rise, flourish, fail. The Way never fails. We are waves. It is the sea.

  56 - Mysteries of power

  Who knows

  doesn’t talk.

  Who talks

  doesn’t know.

  Closing the openings,

  shutting doors,

  blunting edge,

  loosing bond,

  dimming light,

  be one with the dust of the way.

  So you come to the deep sameness.

  Then you can’t be controlled by love

  or by rejection.

  You can’t be controlled by profit

  or by loss.

  You can’t be controlled by praise

  or by humiliation.

  Then you have honor under heaven.

  57 - Being simple

  Run the country by doing what’s expected.

  Win the war by doing the unexpected.

  Control the world by doing nothing.

  How do I know that?

  By this.

  The more restrictions and prohibitions in the world,

  the poorer people get.

  The more experts the country has

  the more of a mess it’s in.

  The more ingenious the skillful are,

  the more monstrous their inventions.

  The louder the call for law and order,

  the more the thieves and con men multiply.

  So a wise leader might say:

  I practice inaction, and the people look after themselves.

  I love to be quiet, and the people themselves find justice.

  I don’t do business, and the people prosper on their own.

  I don’t have wants, and the people themselves are uncut wood.

  * * *

  A strong political statement of the central idea of wu wei, not doing, inaction.

  My “monstrous” is literally “new.” New is strange, and strange is uncanny. New is bad. Lao Tzu is deeply and firmly against changing things, particularly in the name of progress. He would make an Iowa farmer look flighty. I don’t think he is exactly anti-intellectual, but he considers most uses of the intellect to be pernicious, and all plans for improving things to be disastrous. Yet he’s not a pessimist. No pessimist would say that people are able to look after themselves, be just, and prosper on their own. No anarchist can be a pessimist.

  Uncut wood—here likened to the human soul—the uncut, uncarved, unshaped, unpolished, native, natural stuff is better than anything that can be made out of it. Anything done to it deforms and lessens it. Its potentiality is infinite. Its uses are trivial.

  58 - Living with change

  When the government’s dull and confused,

  the people are placid.

  When the government’s sharp and keen,

  the people are discontented.

  Alas! misery lies under happiness,

  and happiness sits on misery, alas!

  Who knows where it will end?

  Nothing is certain.

  The normal changes into the monstrous,

  the fortunate into the unfortunate,

  and our bewilderment

  goes on and on.

  And so the wise

  shape without cutting,

  square without sawing,

  true without forcing.

  They are the light that does not shine.

  * * *

  In the first verse, the words “dull and confused” and “sharp and keen” are, as Waley points out, the words used in chapter 20 to describe the Taoist and the non-Taoists.

  In the last verse most translators say the Taoist is square but doesn’t cut, shines but doesn’t dazzle. Waley says that this misses the point. The point is that Taoists gain their ends without the use of means. That is indeed a light that does not shine—an idea that must be pondered and brooded over. A small dark light.

  59 - Staying on the way

  In looking after your life and following the way,

  gather spirit.

  Gather spirit early,

  and so redouble power,

  and so become invulnerable.

  Invulnerable, unlimited,

  you can do what you like with material things.

  But only if you hold to the Mother of things

  will you do it for long.

  Have deep roots, a strong trunk.

  Live long by looking long.

  60 - Staying put

  Rule a big country

  the way you cook a small fish.

  If you keep control by following the Way,

  troubled spirits won’t act up.

  They won’t lose their immaterial strength,

  but they won’t harm people with it,

  nor will wise souls come to harm.

  And so, neither harming the other,

  these powers will come together in unity.

  * * *

  Thomas Jefferson would have liked the first stanza.

  “Troubled spirits” are kwei, ghosts, not bad in themselves but dangerous if they possess you. Waley reads the second stanza as a warning to believers in Realpolitik: a ruler “possessed” by power harms both the people and his own soul. Taking it as counsel to the individual, it might mean that wise souls neither indulge nor repress the troubled spirits that may haunt them; rather, they let those spiritual energies be part of the power they find along the way.

  61 - Lying low

  The polity of greatness

  runs downhill like a river to the sea,

  joining with everything,

  woman to everything.

  By stillness the woman

  may always dominate the man,

  lying quiet underneath him.

  So a great country

  submitting to small ones, dominates them;

  so small countries,

  submitting to a great one, dominate it.

  Lie low to be on top,

  be on top by lying low.

  62 - The gift of the way

  The way is the hearth and home

  of the ten thousand things.

  Good souls treasure it,

  lost souls find shelter in it.

  Fine words are for sale,

  fine deeds go cheap;

  even worthless people can get them.

  So, at the coronation of the Son of Heaven

  when the Three Ministers take office,

  you might race out in a four-horse chariot

  to offer a jade s
creen;

  but wouldn’t it be better to sit still

  and let the Way be your offering?

  Why was the Way honored

  in the old days?

  Wasn’t it said:

  Seek, you’ll find it.

  Hide, it will shelter you.

  So it was honored under heaven.

  * * *

  I think the line of thought throughout the poem has to do with true reward as opposed to dishonorable gain, true giving as opposed to fake goods.

  63 - Consider beginnings

  Do without doing.

  Act without action.

  Savor the flavorless.

  Treat the small as large,

  the few as many.

  Meet injury

  with the power of goodness.

  Study the hard while it’s easy.

  Do big things while they’re small.

  The hardest jobs in the world start out easy,

  the great affairs of the world start small.

  So the wise soul,

  by never dealing with great things,

  gets great things done.

  Now, since taking things too lightly makes them worthless,

  and taking things too easy makes them hard,

  the wise soul,

  by treating the easy as hard,

  doesn’t find anything hard.

  * * *

  Waley says that this charmingly complex chapter plays with two proverbs. “Requite injuries with good deeds” is the first. The word te, here meaning goodness or good deeds, is the same word Lao Tzu uses for the Power of the Way. (“Power is goodness,” he says in chapter 49.) So, having neatly annexed the Golden Rule, he goes on to the proverb about “taking things too lightly” and plays paradox with it.

  64 - Mindful of little things

  It’s easy to keep hold of what hasn’t stirred,

  easy to plan what hasn’t occurred.

  It’s easy to shatter delicate things,

  easy to scatter little things.

  Do things before they happen.

  Get them straight before they get mixed up.

  The tree you can’t reach your arms around

  grew from a tiny seedling.

  The nine-story tower rises

  from a heap of clay.

  The ten-thousand-mile journey

  begins beneath your foot.

  Do, and do wrong;

  Hold on, and lose.

  Not doing, the wise soul

  doesn’t do it wrong,

  and not holding on,

  doesn’t lose it.

  (In all their undertakings,

  it’s just as they’re almost finished

  that people go wrong.

  Mind the end as the beginning,

  then it won’t go wrong.)

  That’s why the wise

  want not to want,

  care nothing for hard-won treasures,

  learn not to be learned,

  turn back to what people overlooked.

  They go along with things as they are,

  but don’t presume to act.

  65 – One power

  Once upon a time

  those who ruled according to the Way

  didn’t use it to make people knowing

  but to keep them unknowing.

  People get hard to manage

  when they know too much.

  Whoever rules by intellect

  is a curse upon the land.

  Whoever rules by ignorance

  is a blessing on it.

  To understand these things

  is to have a pattern and a model,

  and to understand the pattern and the model

  is mysterious power.

  Mysterious power

  goes deep.

  It reaches far.

  It follows things back,

  clear back to the great oneness.

  * * *

  Where shall we find a ruler wise enough to know what to teach and what to withhold? “Once upon a time,” maybe, in the days of myth and legend, as a pattern, a model, an ideal?

  The knowledge and the ignorance or unknowing Lao Tzu speaks of may or may not refer to what we think of as education. In the last stanza, by power he evidently does not mean political power at all, but something vastly different, a unity with the power of the Tao itself.

  This is a mystical statement about government-and in our minds those two realms are worlds apart. I cannot make the leap between them. I can only ponder it.

  66 – Lowdown

  Lakes and rivers are lords of the hundred valleys.

  Why? Because they’ll go lower.

  So they’re the lords of the hundred valleys.

  Just so, a wise soul,

  wanting to be above other people,

  talks to them from below

  and to guide them

  follows them.

  And so the wise soul

  predominates without dominating,

  and leads without misleading.

  And people don’t get tired

  of enjoying and praising

  one who, not competing,

  has in all the world

  no competitor.

  * * *

  One of the things I love in Lao Tzu is his good cheer, as in this poem, which while giving good counsel is itself a praise and enjoyment of the spirit of yin, the water-soul that yields, follows, eludes, and leads on, dancing in the hundred valleys.

  67 – Three treasures

  Everybody says my way is great

  but improbable.

  All greatness

  is improbable.

  What’s probable

  is tedious and petty.

  I have three treasures.

  I keep and treasure them.

  The first, mercy,

  the second, moderation,

  the third, modesty.

  If you’re merciful you can be brave,

  if you’re moderate you can be generous,

  and if you don’t presume to lead

  you can lead the high and mighty.

  But to be brave without compassion,

  or generous without self-restraint,

  or to take the lead,

  is fatal.

  Compassion wins the battle

  and holds the fort;

  it is the bulwark set

  around those heaven helps.

  * * *

  The first two verses of this chapter are a joy to me.

  The three final verses are closely connected in thought to the next two chapters, which may be read as a single meditation on mercy, moderation, and modesty, on the use of strength, on victory and defeat.

  68 – Heaven’s lead

  The best captain doesn’t rush in front.

  The fiercest fighter doesn’t bluster.

  The big winner isn’t competing.

  The best boss takes a low footing.

  This is the power of noncompetition.

  This is the right use of ability.

  To follow heaven’s lead

  has always been the best way.

  69 – Using mystery

  The expert in warfare says:

  Rather than dare make the attack

  I’d take the attack;

  rather than dare advance an inch

  I’d retreat a foot.

  It’s called marching without marching,

  rolling up your sleeves without flexing your muscles,

  being armed without weapons,

  giving the attacker no opponent.

  Nothing’s worse than attacking what yields.

  To attack what yields is to throw away the prize.

  So, when matched armies meet,

  the one who comes to grief

  is the true victor.

  * * *

  A piece of sound tactical advice (practiced by the martial arts, such as Aikido, and by underground resistance and guerrilla forces) , which leads to a profound moral warni
ng. The prize thrown away by the aggressor is compassion. The yielder, the griever, the mourner, keeps that prize. The game is loser take all.

  70 – Being obscure

  My words are so easy to understand,

  so easy to follow,

  and yet nobody in the world

  understands or follows them.

  Words come from an ancestry,

  deeds from a mastery:

  when these are unknown, so am I.

  In my obscurity

  is my value.

  That’s why the wise

  wear their jade under common clothes.

  71 – The sick mind

  To know without knowing is best.

  Not knowing without knowing it is sick.

  To be sick of sickness

  is the only cure.

  The wise aren’t sick.

  They’re sick of sickness,

  so they’re well.

  * * *

  What you know without knowing you know it is the right kind of knowledge. Any other kind (conviction, theory, dogmatic belief, opinion) isn’t the right kind, and if you don’t know that, you’ll lose the Way. This chapter is an example of exactly what Lao Tzu was talking about in the last one--obscure clarity, well concealed jade.

  72 – The right fear

  When we don’t fear what we should fear

  we are in fearful danger.

  We ought not to live in narrow houses,

  we ought not to do stupid work.

  If we don’t accept stupidity

  we won’t act stupidly.

  So, wise souls know but don’t show themselves,

  look after but don’t prize themselves,

  letting the one go, keeping the other.

  73 – Daring to do

  Brave daring leads to death.