(The author believes the only “true” translation of the Tao must be a mistranslation, for, as 老子 himself said, 道可道非常道, or ‘Tao as Tao not eternal Tao’. Enjoy this ongoing mistranslation!)
66.
How is it that the rivers and seas are able to become king over the hundred valleys? It is as a result of their ability to flow downward. In this way, they become as kings.
Similarly, when a saint wants the people to be raised up, this must be done through words that lower; wants the people first, must be done by putting the body last.
Is according to the saint that the government stands over them, yet the people are not burdened, the office is put before them, yet the people are not harmed.[1]
All of which is made possible because this is a joyful push by the politburo and by no means a hateful one. Accordingly, no one can therefore argue, causing, all under heaven to be unable to find anything to complain about concerning the politburo’s most recent re-education campaign.
67.
All around the world, people are saying my Tao is so big that it does not resemble the Tao. Men promise its greatness, causing it to not resemble itself. The Tao that seems like it resembles the Tao, from ancient times up even through today, how fine and detailed that man who can follow it is![2]
I have three treasures that I will hold and protect against the fingers of history. The first is my kindness and benevolence, the second is to be temperate and economical, and the third is to never attempt to be the most important person in the world. Because I am kind, I am capable of bravery. Because I am temperate, I am capable of extensive generosity. Because I do not dare to be first under heaven, I am able to build a really long utensil.
These days, it’s considered bold to be gentle, and people give away money just to laugh in the face of other people’s faces. They declare themselves first in everything from arithmetic to the alchemical arts. Death!
The benevolent one wins even on the battlefield, focusing on defense, his army becomes strong. [3]
Heaven will rescue it with the tender love of its gently decaying force.
68.
Those who are good at being scholars are not valiant.[4] Those who are good at warfare are not rage-filled.[5] Those who are good at achieving a ball-crushing victory are not there.[6] Those who are good at using people for themselves live as if they were less than the worst among them. This is called the virtue of not quarreling, the power of using people, the ridgepole that suits the heavens of antiquity.
69.
Use weapons? Have words: I do not dare to become owner but rather to be a slaughtering guest. Not advance a cun but retreat a chi. This is called walking without walking, seizing without the use of your arms, discarding a friendship without making an enemy, arresting a felon without the use of weapons. Disaster is not great to the slight enemy. This puny enemy who can nearly lose without losing is my treasure. For although it seems that both sides are putting up great resistance to the others’ army, those are grieving the most are they who will win.
70.
My words are very easy to know, and very easy to do. Though, in all the world, you people cannot know it, and cannot practice it. These words have an ancient source, and so the affairs of men have a lord, which just so happens to be my greatly esteemed knowledge. It is because they do not know these things, that men do not know me, for people like me are rare, and consequently my people obtain a high price at the marketplace. [7] According to this particular cornhole of a sage, quilt of coarse cloth is cherished over jade.
71.
Those who know that they do not know are upholding the way. Those who do not know what they know are sick in the head. The sacred person’s not sick as a result of his greater sickness of being. Other men are deeply disturbed as a result of their overall health.
72.
The people don’t fear great authority, and consequently, greater authority arrives to crush them into a scattering of tiny morsels!
Those who are without a sense of familiarity with some place could make that place into a home as a result of its strangeness, as a result of not being disgusted by others could then grow a life with them. All you got to do is not be disgusted by people, and you won’t be disgusted by people.
This is all according to how the saint knows themselves but doesn’t see themselves. Saints love themselves but do not value themselves as some precious artifact. Causing us all to then be able to go mutually obtain the cheap trinket together.
73.
Those who are brave enough to dare to do what others won’t, will kill easily, while those who are brave to not dare to do what others demand, will live. Of these two things, both may lead to good or to harm.
Heaven’s hateful, but whose to say why?
God’s way is facile, but He always wins; doesn’t have a mouth to talk with, and yet people are always trying to hold conversations with Him; doesn’t summon the world to His bedroom, and yet here we all are in His bedroom. The demonstrations He offers of His power are like a caterpillar’s sneeze, and yet His plans are skillful and effective. His celestial net is vast, clear, and effective. In the end we will all become trapped in it to rot quickly and then be dispersed within the soil.
74.
What’s the point of trying to frighten people with death who are not afraid of death? If the people are always afraid of death and become strange, then who dares to arrest and kill them? There are often slain killers, and husbands and murderers kill them. The great master of the husband’s generation did not hurt his handcuffs.[8]
75.
The people suffer from a famine because of extraordinarily high grain taxes sent down from the tax collector.[9] The people are difficult to rule because those above them are making it so, and so they are difficult to govern.[10] The people die frivolous deaths because they seek the substance of life, and so their deaths are as nothing.[11] Those who just have nothing in terms of the doing of life are talented at living valuable lives.
76.
Living people are flexible and weak, while the hand of death is firm and strong. Grass and wood are also tender and brittle, and in death withered and rotten. Therefore, the solid forceful person is death’s companion, and the gentle and weak person is the companion of life. It is as a result of the army’s strength that they are exterminated. It is as a result of the wood’s strength that it’s broken into tiny chips and splayed out on an otherwise barren lawn. The strong and great dwell below. The weak dwell above.
77.
Heaven’s Tao is like a stretched bow? Lofty persons restrain it. Lowly persons lift it. They who have more than they need do damage to it. They who have nothing mend it. Heaven’s Tao does damage to they who have a surplus and cares for those who do not have enough. So it is that the way of the people is not this way. They harm those who have nothing and protect those who have more than they need. Who can receive great wealth as a result of their tender care of the universe? Only Tao people.
To be in accordance with the sacred person is to not rely on others, your contribution complete to not dwell on its completion—that through not desiring victory to find yourself victorious.
78.
In our universe nothing’s as tender and weak as water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong as the rioting hordes there is nothing better, for according to its not being is also according to the ease with which it acts as a stick of destruction. Those who excel in weakness are strong, and those who excel in gentleness are tough as erotic jelly. We all know the power of erotic jelly but are not able to make ourselves just so. Accordingly, the sage says: ‘To receive a nation of dirt is to be called the society’s minister of agriculture. The one who accepts the responsibility of caring for an inauspicious land is called a king to the world.’ Just words seem paradoxical.
79.
In the wake of peace’s great grievances, there will be resentment. Because the agreement of each failed to perform, there will be resentment due to the loss of the contract. Once resentment is formed, how can we complain and complain, and report complaints to our half-blind superiors. After all, the damage has already formed. How can HR’s mediation of resentment ever be considered good? Can peace ever be good?
It is as a result of gnawing concerns such as these that the sage keeps a tight hold on the more unusual portions of the record of their agreement, and does not insist on the speedy fulfillment of it by the other party.[12] He who has the attributes of the Tao regards only the conditions of the agreement in toto, while he who has not those attributes regards only the conditions favorable to himself. The Way of Heaven is without kissing or other small affections but is always directed at good people.[13]
80.
A small country has a small population. Therefore it also has a squad of avenging angels working out of a secret chamber hidden inside a hollow mountain who call themselves super-people, though it only uses the services of these extraordinary citizens in times of extreme calamity, but these specially gifted individuals bring on the wrath of beings from other planets and dimensions who shower the aforementioned small country in incendiaries and other horrors, causing the people to focus on their own death while not migrating far from home. Although you have a boat sedan chair, you never ride in it. Although you have magical shell armaments, you never display them. Many years from now, when this small country has become once again a place of quiet, tie the rope and use it as a lasso to wrastle up the cattle for a great feast.
That food’s sweet, that clothing beautiful. The people who actually live their lives are powerful indeed, and those who are absolute nobodies are happy as well. The neighboring countries are all watching and listening to the sounds of the chicken-dog as it yelps from its podium.
The people all die of old age, but it is not like a coming departure.
81.
Trustworthy words are not beautiful. Beautiful words are not to be trusted. People who are good at something have no need for debating. People who debate are not good at something. They who know are not learned. They who are learned do not know.
The sacred person does not accumulate flashy trinkets, and is therefore a human being, who will improve over time as a result of all she has given to her long-suffering family. Heaven’s way is the beneficial one, but it will not harm you, even though it gives you many things. The sacred person of the Tao exists, yet without having to struggle for anything.
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[1] The saintly government official is indeed in front of the people, but all the same, even if he giggles and pokes them repeatedly in their belly button, then pauses, and while staring this person directly in the eyes, slowly twists his finger back and forth in their belly button in a perverse manner, they will still come to no harm.
[2] While its loving center melts in the mouth of the children and the people weep large tears and stamp their feet in their humiliation.
[3] Succoring the wounds of an enemy even after he has dismembered the arm.
[4] But closer to donkeys braying in their beds.
[5] As for example are milk-hungry infants.
[6] Also, for your reference, there is no need to further humiliate these dogs after you have already destroyed them.
[7] Like, really, really, really, really, really rare.
[8] They were soft, colorful, and elastic, like the handcuffs of children.
[9] It is for this reason that the belly of the people aches and their feet are like rotten sticks.
[10] As they wander the same small patch of linoleum in ever tightening circles.
[11] Think of the notorious actors of Hollywood, California, and the ultimate fate of these actors, or perhaps you disagree with the basic facts of mortality.
[12] How will the American president Barack Obama be judged as regards his wisdom, I wonder? In comparison to the baby-creature that follows him, alas!
[13] Even if that saint is actually a tiny person recklessly living inside the eyeball of another man.
Gabriel Boyer has been making up stories about himself for as long as he can remember. There was never a time he was not fully seated in his various delusions. He continues to delude himself daily. You can read more about him here.
