Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching by Ursula K. Le Guin, Laozi, Jerome P. Seaton Page A

talking.
    The things of this world
exist, they are ;
you can’t refuse them.
    To bear and not to own ;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go:
for just letting it go
is what makes it stay.
    ----
    One of the things I read in this chapter is that values and
beliefs are not only culturally constructed but also part of the interplay of
yin and   yang ,
the great reversals that maintain the living balance of the world. To believe
that our beliefs are permanent truths which encompass reality is a sad
arrogance. To let go of that belief is to find safety.

 
3 - Hushing
    Not praising the praiseworthy
keeps people uncompetitive.
    Not prizing rare treasures
keeps people from stealing.
    Not looking at the desirable
keeps the mind quiet.
    So the wise soul
governing people
would empty their minds ,
fill their bellies,
weaken their wishes,
strengthen their bones,
    keep people unknowing,
unwanting ,
keep the ones who do know
from doing anything.
    When you do not-doing ,
nothing’s out of order.
    ----
    Over and over Lao Tzu says wei wu wei :
Do not do. Doing not-doing. To act
without acting. Action by inaction. You do
nothing yet it gets done….
    It’s not a statement susceptible to logical interpretation, or even to a syntactical translation into
English; but it’s a concept that transforms thought radically, that changes
minds. The whole book is both an explanation and a demonstration of it.

 
4 - Sourceless
    The way is empty ,
used, but not used up.
Deep, yes! Ancestral
to the ten thousand things.
    Blunting edge ,
loosing bond,
dimming light,
the way is the dust of the way.
    Quiet ,
yes, and likely to endure.
Whose child? Born
before the gods.
    ----
    Everything Lao Tzu says is elusive. The temptation is to
grasp at something tangible in the endlessly deceptive simplicity of the words.
Even some of his finest scholarly translators focus on positive ethical or
political values in the text, as if those were what’s important in it. And of course the religion called Taoism is full of gods,
saints, miracles, prayers, rules, methods for securing riches, power,
longevity, and so forth—all the stuff that Lao Tzu says leads us away from the
Way.
    In passages such as this one, I think it is the profound
modesty of the language that offers what so many people for so many centuries
have found in this book: a pure apprehension of the mystery of which we are
part.

 
5 - Useful emptiness
    Heaven and earth aren’t humane.
To them the ten thousand things
are straw dogs.
    Wise souls aren’t humane.
To them the hundred families
are straw dogs.
    Heaven and earth act as a bellows:
    Empty yet structured ,
it moves, inexhaustibly giving.
    ----
    The “inhumanity” of the wise soul doesn’t mean cruelty.
Cruelty is a human characteristic. Heaven and earth—that is, “Nature” and its
Way—are not humane, because they are not human. They are not kind; they are not cruel.: those are human attributes. You can only be
kind or cruel if you have, and cherish, a self. You can’t even be indifferent
if you aren’t different. Altruism is the other side of egoism. Followers of the
Way, like the forces of nature, act selflessly.

 
6 - What is complete
    The valley spirit never dies.
Call it the mystery, the woman.
    The mystery ,
the Door of the Woman,
is the root
of earth and heaven.
    Forever this endures, forever.
And all its uses are easy.

 
7 - Dim brightness
    Heaven will last ,
earth will endure.
How can they last so long?
They don’t exist for themselves
and so can go on and on.
    So wise souls
leaving self behind
move forward ,
and setting self aside
stay centered.
Why let the self go?
To keep what the soul needs.

8 - Easy by nature
    True goodness
is like water.
Water’s good
for everything.
It doesn’t compete.
    It goes right
to the low loathsome places ,
and so finds the way.
    For a house ,
the good thing is level ground.
In thinking ,
depth is good.
The good of giving is magnanimity ;
of speaking,