TEN
Can you seamlessly integrate body and mind?
Can you concentrate your vital force into the suppleness of an infant?
Can you cleanse your inner mirror until spotless?
Can you love the people and govern them without interfering?
When the gates of Heaven open and close, can you take the female role?
When your understanding is perfected, can you remain detached?
Originate and nurture. Originate but do not possess.
Benefit but not for reward. Guide but do not control.
This is subtle excellence.
ELEVEN
Thirty spokes of a wheel converge on the hub: it is the emptiness that makes it useful.
Clay is molded for a pot: it is the emptiness that makes it useful.
Doors and windows are cut in a house: it is the emptiness that makes them useful.
Thus, substance has value and emptiness is useful.
TWELVE
The five colors blind our eyes. The five tones deafen our ears.
The five tastes dull our palates. Racing and hunting make us crazy.
Rare goods weigh us down.
Therefore the sage stays with the belly and not the eyes,
accepts the one and rejects the other.
THIRTEEN
Favor and disgrace are both disturbing. Honor is as troublesome as one's body.
What is meant by "Favor and disgrace are both disturbing?"
Favor granted is as intrusive as disgrace suffered.
That is what is meant by "Favor and disgrace are both disturbing."
What is meant by "Honor is as troublesome as one's body?"
One's body is the source of trouble. What trouble would one have without a body?
Thus, the ones who see the world as their body are fit to care for the world.
The ones who put aside attachment to a personal self can be trusted with the world.
FOURTEEN
Look for it and you will not see it. Then you will call it invisible.
Listen for it and you will not hear it. Then you will call it inaudible.
Reach for it and you will not touch it. Then you will call it intangible.
These three cannot apprehend it. It is Oneness Itself.
Above, it is not bright. Below, it is not dark.
Barely perceptible, it has no name. then it returns to the Void.
Shape without shape, Form without form, it is misty and obscure.
If you wish to confront it, you will find it has no front.
If you wish to follow it, you will find it has no back.
Remain centered in the Eternal Way, and thereby gain a sane perspective toward the present.
To know the Primal Origin is the essence of the Way.
FIFTEEN
The ancients who pursued the Way were subtle, mysterious, profoundly perceptive,
and too deep to be fully comprehended. At best, there remain these descriptions:
Cautious, as if crossing frozen water. Alert, as if in fear of surrounding danger.
Considerate, as a visiting guest. Supple, like ice ready to melt.
Plain, like an uncarved block. Open, like a valley. Obscure, like troubled waters.
Who, by becoming still, can let the mud settle and the water clear?
Who then, from perfect stillness, can return to flowing movement?
Those who pursue the Way do not want fullness.
Avoiding fullness, they can empty out and renew themselves.
SIXTEEN
Become thoroughly empty. Be steadily quiet.
All things rise and then return. They flourish and return, each one to its source.
This return to the source is called "peace." It is also called "the Way of Nature."
The Way of Nature is eternal. Knowledge of the eternal is enlightenment.
Ignorance of the eternal is dangerous. To know the eternal is to be open-minded.
To be open-minded is to be impartial. To be impartial is to be universal.
To be universal is to be divine. To be divine is to be one with the Way.
To be one with the Way is to be eternal.
Though the body will dissolve, the Way remains forever.
SEVENTEEN
The best leaders are barely perceived. Next best are the ones loved and respected.
Next are the ones feared. Finally, there are the ones despised.
When one does not trust, one will not be trusted.
But after the best leaders do their work with hardly a word, the people say, "We did it!"
EIGHTEEN
When the Way was lost, there arose doctrines of goodness and duty.
Cleverness came and so did wit, and with them came great hypocrisy.
When pure love departed from the family,
it was replaced with codes of responsibility and obedience.
When chaos replaces harmony in a country, we hear about "dedicated governors."
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© Copyright 1995 by Bob Gonzalez