Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (2 page)

So the wise soul
watches with the inner
not the outward eye
,
letting that go,
keeping this.

To be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.
To take the body seriously
is to admit one can suffer.

What does that mean
,
to be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear?
Favor debases
:
we fear to lose it,
fear to win it.
So to be in favor or disgrace
is to live in fear.

What does that mean
,
to take the body seriously
is to admit one can suffer?
I suffer because I’m a body
;
if I weren’t a body,
how could I suffer?

So people who set their bodily good
before the public good
could be entrusted with the commonwealth
,
and people who treated the body politic
as gently as their own body
would be worthy to govern the commonwealth.

Lao Tzu, a mystic, demystifies political power.

Autocracy and oligarchy foster the beliefs that power is
gained magically and retained by sacrifice, and that powerful people are
genuinely superior to the powerless.

Lao Tzu
does not see political power as magic. He sees rightful power as earned and
wrongful power as usurped. He does not see power as virtue, but as the result
of virtue. The democracies are founded on that view.

He sees
sacrifice of the self or others as a corruption of power, and power as
available to anybody who follows the Way. This is a radically subversive
attitude. No wonder anarchists and Taoists make good friends.

Look at it: nothing to see.
Call it colorless.
Listen to it: nothing to hear.
Call it soundless.
Reach for it: nothing to hold.
Call it intangible.

Triply undifferentiated
,
it merges into oneness,
not bright above,
not dark below.

Never, oh!
never
can it be named.
It reverts, it returns
to
unbeing.
Call it the form of the unformed
,
the image of no image.

Call it unthinkable thought.
Face it: no face.
Follow it: no end.

Holding fast to the old Way
,
we can live in the present.
Mindful of the ancient beginnings
,
we hold the thread of the Tao.

Once upon a time
people who knew the Way
were subtle, spiritual, mysterious, penetrating, unfathomable.

Since they’re inexplicable
I can only say what they seemed like
:
Cautious, oh yes, as if wading through a winter river.
Alert, as if afraid of the neighbors.
Polite and quiet, like houseguests.
Elusive, like melting ice.
Blank, like uncut wood.
Empty, like valleys.
Mysterious, oh yes, they were like troubled water.

Who can by stillness, little by little
make what is troubled grow clear?
Who can by movement, little by little
make what is still grow quick?

To follow the Way
is not to need fulfillment.
Unfulfilled, one may live on
needing no renewal.

In the first stanza we see the followers of the Way in
ancient times or
illo
tempore,
remote and inaccessible; but the second stanza brings
them close and alive in a series of marvelous similes. (I am particularly fond
of the polite and quiet houseguests.) The images of the valley and of uncut or
uncarved
wood will recur again and again.

Be completely empty.
Be perfectly serene.
The ten thousand things arise together
;
in their arising is their return.
Now they flower
,
and flowering
sink homeward,
returning to the root.

The return to the root
is peace.
Peace: to accept what must be
,
to know what endures.
In that knowledge is wisdom.
Without it, ruin, disorder.

To know what endures
is to be openhearted
,
magnanimous,
regal,
blessed,
following the Tao,
the way that endures forever.
The body comes to its ending
,
but there is nothing to fear.

To those who will not
admit morality without a deity to validate it, or spirituality of which man is
not the measure, the firmness of Lao Tzu’s morality and the sweetness of his
spiritual counsel must seem incomprehensible, or illegitimate, or very
troubling indeed.

True leaders
are hardly known to their followers.
Next after them are the leaders
the people know and admire
;
after them, those they fear;
after them, those they despise.

To give no trust
is to get no trust.

When the work’s done right
,
with no fuss or boasting,
ordinary people say,
Oh, we did it.

This invisible leader,
who gets things done in such a way that people think they did it all
themselves, isn’t one who manipulates others from behind the scenes; just the
opposite. Again, it’s a matter of “doing without doing”: uncompetitive,
unworried, trustful accomplishment, power that is not force. An example or
analogy might be a very good teacher, or the truest voice in a group of singers.

In the degradation of the great way
come benevolence and righteousness.
With the exaltation of learning and prudence
comes immense hypocrisy.
The disordered family
is full of dutiful children and parents.
The disordered society
is full of loyal patriots.

Stop being holy, forget being prudent
,
it’ll be a hundred times better for everyone.
Stop being altruistic, forget being righteous
,
people will remember what family feeling is.
Stop planning, forget making a profit
,
there won’t be any thieves and robbers.

But even these three rules
needn’t be followed; what works reliably
is to know the raw silk
,
hold the uncut wood.
Need little
,
want less.
Forget the rules.
Be untroubled.

This chapter and the two before it may be read as a single
movement of thought.

“Raw silk” and “uncut wood” are images traditionally
associated with the characters
su
(simple, plain) and
p’u
(natural, honest).

How much difference between yes and no?
What difference between good and bad?

What the people fear
must be feared.
O desolation!
Not yet, not yet has it reached its limit!

Everybody’s cheerful
,
cheerful as if at a party,
or climbing a tower in springtime.
And here I sit unmoved
,
clueless, like a child,
a baby too young to smile.

Forlorn, forlorn.
Like a homeless person.
Most people have plenty.
I’m the one that’s poor
,
a fool right through.

Ignorant, ignorant.
Most people are so bright.
I’m the one that’s dull.
Most people are so keen.
I don’t have the answers.
Oh, I’m desolate, at sea
,
adrift, without harbor.

Everybody has something to do.
I’m the clumsy one, out of place.
I’m the different one
,
for my food
is the milk of the mother.

The difference between yes and no, good and bad, is something
only the “bright” people, the people with the answers, can understand. A poor
stupid Taoist can’t make it out.

This chapter is full
of words like
huang
(wild,
barrenl
famine),
tun
(ignorant;
chaotic),
hun
(dull,
turbid),
men
(sad, puzzled, mute),
and
hu
(confused,
obscured, vague). They configure chaos, confusion, a “
bewilderness
”
in which the mind wanders without certainties, desolate, silent,
awkward
. But in that milky, dim strangeness
lies
the way. It can’t be found in the superficial order
imposed by positive and negative opinions, the good/bad, yes/no moralizing that
denies fear and ignores mystery.

The greatest power is the gift
of following the Way alone.
How the Way does things
is hard to grasp, elusive.
Elusive, yes, hard to grasp
,
yet there are thoughts in it.
Hard to grasp, yes, elusive
,
yet there are things in it.
Hard to make out, yes, and obscure
,
yet there is spirit in it,
veritable spirit.
There is certainty in it.
From long, long ago till now
it has kept its name.
So it saw
the beginning of everything.

How do I know
anything about the beginning?
By this.

Mysticism rises from
and returns to the irreducible, unsayable reality of “this.” “This” is the Way.
This is the way.

Be broken to be whole.
Twist to be straight.
Be empty to be full.
Wear out to be renewed.
Have little and gain much.
Have much and get confused.

So wise souls hold to the one
,
and test all things against it.

Not showing themselves
,
they shine forth.
Not justifying themselves
,
they’re self-evident.
Not praising themselves
,
they’re accomplished.
Not competing
,
they have in all the world no competitor.

What they used to say in the old days
,
“Be broken to be whole,”
was that mistaken?
Truly, to be whole
is to return.

Nature doesn’t make long speeches.
A whirlwind doesn’t last all morning.
A cloudburst doesn’t last all day.
Who makes the wind and rain?
Heaven and earth do.
If heaven and earth don’t go on and on
,
certainly people don’t need to.

The people who work with Tao
are Tao people
,
they belong to the Way.
People who work with power
belong to power.
People who work with loss
belong to what’s lost.

Give yourself to the Way
and you’ll be at home on the Way.
Give yourself to power
and you’ll be at home in power.
Give yourself to loss
and when you’re lost you’ll be at home.

To give no trust
is to get no trust.

You can’t keep standing on tiptoe
or walk in leaps and bounds.
You can’t shine by showing off
or get ahead by pushing.
Self-satisfied people do no good
,
self-promoters never grow up.

Such stuff is to the Tao
as garbage is to food
or a tumor to the body
,
hateful.
The follower of the Way
avoids it.

There is something
that contains everything.
Before heaven and earth
it is.
Oh, it is still,
unbodied
,
all on its own, unchanging,

all-pervading
,
ever-moving.
So it can act as the mother
of all things.
Not knowing its real name
,
we only call it the Way.

If it must be named
,
let its name be Great.
Greatness means going on
,
going on means going far,
and going far means turning back.

So they say: “The Way is great
,
heaven is great,
earth is great,
and humankind is great;
four
greatnesses
in the world,
and humanity is one of them.”

People follow earth
,
earth follows heaven,
heaven follows the Way,
the Way follows what is.

I’d like to call the “something” of the first line a lump—an
unshaped, undifferentiated lump, chaos,
before
the
Word, before Form, before Change.
Inside it is time, space,
everything; in the womb of the Way.

The last words of the
chapter,
tzu
jan
,
I render
as “what is.” I was tempted to say, “The Way follows itself,” because the Way
is the way things are; but that would reduce the significance of the words.
They remind us not to see the Way as
a sovereignty
or
a domination, all creative, all yang. The Way itself is a follower. Though it
is before everything, it follows what is.

Heavy is the root of light.
Still is the master of moving.

So wise souls make their daily march
with the heavy baggage wagon.

Only when safe
in a solid, quiet house
do they
lay
care aside.

How can a lord of ten thousand chariots
let his own person
weigh less in the balance than his land?
Lightness will lose him his foundation
,
movement will lose him his mastery.

I take heaviness to be the root matters of daily life, the
baggage we bodily beings have to carry, such as food, drink, shelter, safety.
If you go charging too far ahead of the baggage wagon you may be cut off from
it; if you treat your body as unimportant you risk insanity or inanity.

The first two lines
would make a nice motto for the practice of
T’ai
Chi.

Good walkers leave no track.
Good talkers don’t stammer.
Good counters don’t use their fingers.
The best door’s unlocked and unopened.
The best knot’s not in a rope and can’t be untied.