The Tao Te Ching

Once beauty is identified as precious,
Ugliness is seen everywhere.
Once the good is held up as an ideal,
The commonplace is considered bad.

Difficult and easy,
Long and short,
High and Low,
Sound and Silence,
Before and After—
Each of them are complementary parts of a bigger unity,
But our conditioned minds don’t perceive it that way.
We drive each aspect as far apart as possible from its complement,
And increasingly obsess over their division.

Therefore, the sage acts without struggle or coercion
And teaches by example and allusion rather than rote and rule.
Things come and he welcomes them.
Things go and he bids them adieu.
He helps with no expectation of gain,
Works with no expectation of reward,
Performs with no anticipation of results,
Completes projects but takes no credit.

Since he takes nothing from the World,
The World takes nothing from him.
And his impact upon the World long endures.

Exalting our superiors invites competition.
Treasuring things that are difficult to obtain encourages theft.
Flaunting objects of desire gives rise to jealousy.

So the sage rules by:
Relaxing the people’s hearts,
Satisfying their needs,
Lessening their wants,
And strengthening their character.

Once he has shown people how to live without craftiness and envy,
Cunning interlopers cannot take advantage of nor trick them.
Living without objective allows us to live in harmony with nature.

Tao is an empty vessel
Yet everything comes from it.
Though utterly fathomless,
It gives rise to everything we perceive

It smooths sharp edges,
It unties the knots,
It softens the glare,
And settles the dirt of daily life.
Profoundly patient,
It seems to have been around forever.
No one knows where it came from.
This is because it preceded the world of forms.

Nature is unsentimental—
It treats the living no different than it treats debris.
Sages are the same: They evaluate everyone impartially.

Nature is like a bellows—
It is empty and yet everything springs from it.
The more pressure put on it, the more it creates.
Man is not like this—
The more he produces, the more exhausted he becomes.

To tap into the Tao, the sage instead turns inward.
There he finds its calm and creative source
At the very center of his being.

The fountain of life which never ceases to flow
Can be thought of as a mysterious sort of womb.
The entrance to this profound mother is the origin of the world.
Her presence stretches in all directions, across all time and space.
She seems to give birth without exerting the slightest effort.

Why is Nature eternal and enduring?
Because it does not have any ends.
Because it lacks any goals,
Nature can never fail to succeed.

Understanding this,
The sage also refuses to contend or compete.
By placing himself in the back,
He soon finds himself out in front.
Because he doesn’t have any expectations,
He doesn’t suffer any disappointments.
Thus, it is only because he lacks any self-interest
That his interests are fulfilled.

It is best to be like water
Water benefits all things,
Yet it does not contend, nor struggle to do so.
Water naturally goes places shunned by most people,
Therefore water is very similar to Tao.
Because it dwells even in low places, it is of benefit to all—
Even the unpopular and rejected.

Be like water:
Dwell low, close to the earth,
Penetrate deeply, and reflect serenely upon your environment,
Benefit and nourish all the things around you,
Communicate clearly and faithfully,
When taking charge, be appropriate,
When serving others, be able,
Do not rush nor tarry.
There is a unique time, rhythm and speed for every action.

The sage does not pit himself against Nature.
Therefore he never finds his path obstructed.

Man is oriented toward excess,
But greed puts a strain on systems,
Destroying them.

An oversharpened blade will be broken
An overflowing vault will be vanquished
An overvalued ego will be brought down.

Do what is necessary, take what you need,
And then get out of the way.
This is the efficient way in which Nature operates.

Can you embrace both the abstract and the concrete,
And see them as two sides of the same oneness?
This will help you maintain integrity
And avoid internal contradiction.

Meditating upon, and subtilizing your inner energy
Allows you to become as pure and receptive as a newborn.
Examining your perceptions of the world
Allows you to cleanse them of all dust and distortion.
Identifying with the people over whom you have influence
Prevents being distracted by your own self-interest.

As temptations avail themselves to you
Can you remain steadfast as a mother bird in her nest?
As you grow wise and knowledgeable about many things,
Can you retain the modesty of an amateur?

Both the Tao and the sage nurture the people
Without assuming any ownership of them.
They act without expecting results,
And lead without controlling.
Human beings call this virtue.
It is the very embodiment of Tao—
Tao manifesting itself via the human heart.