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

honesty;
of government, order.
The good of work is skill ,
and of action, timing.
    No competition, so no blame.
    ----
    A clear stream of water runs through this book, from poem to
poem, wearing down the indestructible, finding the way around everything that
obstructs the way. Good drinking water.

 
9 - Being quiet
    Brim-fill the bowl ,
it’ll spill over.
Keep sharpening the blade ,
you’ll soon blunt it.
    Nobody can protect
a house full of gold and jade.
    Wealth, status, pride ,
are their own ruin.
To do good , work well, and lie low
is the way of the blessing.

10 - Techniques
    Can you keep your soul in its body ,
hold fast to the one,
and so learn to be whole?
Can you center your energy ,
be soft, tender,
and so learn to be a baby?
    Can you keep the deep water still and clear ,
so it reflects without blurring?
Can you love people and run things ,
And do so by not doing?
    Opening, closing the Gate of Heaven ,
can you be like a bird with her nestlings?
Piercing bright through the cosmos ,
can you know by not knowing?
    To give birth, to nourish ,
to bear and not to own,
to act and not lay claim,
to lead and not to rule:
this is mysterious power.
    ----
    Most of the scholars think this chapter is about meditation,
its techniques and fulfillments. The language is profoundly mystical, the
images are charged, rich in implications.
    The last verse turns up in nearly the same words in other
chapters; there are several such “refrains” throughout the book, identical or
similar lines repeated once or twice or three times.

 
11 - The uses of not
    Thirty spokes ,
meet in the hub.
Where the wheel isn’t
is where it’s useful
    Hollowed out ,
clay makes a pot.
Where the pot’s not
is where it’s useful.
    Cut doors and windows
to make a room.
Where the room isn’t ,
there’s room for you.
    So the profit in what is
is in the use of what isn’t.
    ----
    One of the things I love about Lao Tzu is he is so funny. He’s
explaining a profound and difficult truth here, one of those counter-intuitive
truths that, when the mind can accept them, suddenly double the size of the
universe. He goes about it with this deadpan simplicity, talking about pots.

 
12 - Not wanting
    The five colors
blind our eyes.
The five notes
deafen our ears.
The five flavors
dull our taste.
    Racing, chasing, hunting ,
drives people crazy.
Trying to get rich
ties people in knots.
    So the wise soul
watches with the inner
not the outward eye ,
letting that go,
keeping this.

13 - Shameless
    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.

 
14 - Celebrating mystery
    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