Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching Read Free

honest).

 
20 - Being different
    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.

 
21 - The empty heart
    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.

 
22 - Growing downward
    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.

23 - Nothing and not
    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.

24 - Proportion
    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.

 
25 - Imagining mystery
    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