A few more translations of the Tao – we are closing up the gap to 81 verses. After this, I intend to carefully read the writings of Chaung, a rival interpretation, write an essay on my experience of the Tao, offer the manuscript to a Chinese speaking friend, and finally come back, make another draft, write a light commentary, and consider the book done.
The “try and you’ll fail” logic of these verses is troubling, and I don’t think we should translate them into terms that readily make sense to us, but keep them starkly paradoxical.
These verses express wisdom. Again and again the verses are phrases as advice to kings, so we must spiritualize that, being not quite kings ourselves!
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64.
That at peace is easy to hold
The not yet is readily prepared for
The brittle is quickly smashed
The vague is with a word dispersed.
Approach your problems before they’re established
Manage them before they’re trouble
A hug-wide tree grows from a sprout
A nine story tower comes from small shovels of dirt
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single footstep.
Try and you’ll fail
Grab and it slips
Thus the holy man
Who doesn’t try
Doesn’t fail
He doesn’t grab
It doesn’t slip.
The people, always chasing their business,
Are ever close to success but inevitably fail.
Be careful all the way to the end
As you were in the beginning
And you won’t ruin your business.
The sage who doesn’t desire desires
Who doesn’t seek rare treasures
He reminds the people what they missed
He helps them find themselves
--Yet without daring to do a single thing!
65.
Those ancients
Skilled at the Tao
They didn’t enlighten the people
Who were too simple for that
The people are difficult to rule
When they know too much
Accordingly, rule the people with cleverness
And you rule to their ruin
Govern naively
And you rule to their fortune
He who knows this balanced pair
Holds the template.
The standard template is a profound power
Profound power goes deep and far
All things regress to their godhood.
Thus the great balance.
66.
The rivers seek the sea
To be kings of a hundred valleys;
Because they lower themselves
They are kings over a hundred valleys.
Wanting to stand above the people
You must lower your speech.
Wanting to lead
You must follow them.
Thus if the stage stands above the people
They don’t feel his weight
He stays first by doing no harm
The world rejoices and praises him endlessly.
Because he doesn’t compete, the world can’t beat him.
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