Tao Te Ching chapters 28 to 36: original text, transliteration, translation and line by line commentary

The heaviest word here is not shou, to keep, but zhi, to know: one must first know the strong side clearly before there is any talk of keeping to the soft. The three pairs in the chapter share one mold, and each ends with fu gui, returning.

This is a place with a serious textual problem: the Mawangdui silk manuscripts record only two pairs, the second being know the bright, keep to disgrace, and the quotation in the Tianxia chapter of the Zhuangzi agrees. For that reason Yi Shunding and Ma Xulun suspected that the lines keep to the dark and return to the limitless were a gloss that slipped into the main text. The Wang Bi text records all three pairs as this page does, and readers should know that both readings exist.

Pu 樸 is the uncarved block, qi 器 is a vessel that has taken shape: uncarved wood can still become anything, but once carved into a basin it is only a basin.

Zhi 制 originally means cutting cloth, so the greatest cutting does not cut apart is a deliberate paradox: the greatest cut is the cut that does not sever. Whether the zhi in the sage uses it points to the vessel or to the uncarved block is disputed among commentators. Wang Bi leans toward the uncarved block.

These four characters link back to the qi, vessel, at the end of chapter 28: there the vessel was something people carve out, here the world is also a kind of vessel, but a sacred one. Wei 為 here means to fashion, to shape a thing according to one's own will.

Shen 神 can be read in two directions, and the major commentaries do not agree. Read close to the characters, the world is a thing with spirit, something alive with a rhythm of its own. Read through later usage, from the Han dynasty onward shen qi became a stock phrase for the throne, and this very line is the source of that allusion.

The four listed pairs are the proof: the ten thousand things already come divided into opposing pairs, so whoever tries to shape them all into one form is fighting half of what is in their hands.

The last pair is where the texts differ. Wang Bi has some are broken, some brought down 或挫或隳, two halves that both mean ruin and so make no contrast. Heshang Gong has some are lifted, some brought down 或載或隳, raising and toppling. The silk manuscripts have some are built up, some fall 或培或墮.

Huan 還 means to return, and hao 好 here means tends to, easily, usually. Two readings: whatever one causes returns to the one who caused it, or such an affair easily reverses direction. Both rest on the law that whatever is pushed to its extreme turns back.

Jing ji 荊棘 are thorny shrubs that grow in abandoned fields, so the following line describes land with no one left to plow it. A textual note: one of the two silk manuscripts lacks the line after a great campaign there are sure to be years of famine, so some scholars suspect it is a later gloss that slipped into the main text.

Guo 果 here means bringing the matter to its end and then stopping. The five clauses beginning guo er all hang on that word: no swagger, no claiming credit, no arrogance, acting only because there was no other way, and never taking it as a footing for strength.

The closing line is a general proposition, not one limited to weapons. The proof is that it recurs almost word for word at the end of chapter 55. Zhuang 壯 is the peak of strength, and from a peak there is only one direction left to go. This is called being contrary to the Tao is here a description, not an accusation.

The first character of the chapter is among the most debated in the whole book. The received text has jia 佳, fine. Wang Niansun of the Qing dynasty held it to be a copyist's error for wei 唯, an empty particle that opens a sentence, and the silk manuscripts read fu bing zhe, with no jia at all. This page follows the received text.

The middle of the chapter moves into the system of Zhou dynasty ritual: the left belongs to yang and matches auspicious affairs, the right belongs to yin and matches inauspicious ones. The gentleman normally honors the left, and when he takes up arms the place of honor shifts to the right, meaning the ceremony itself has already filed the affair under the inauspicious. The supreme general stands on the right, the place reserved for the chief mourner.

This chapter does not end with a proposition about the Tao but with a rule about how to arrange a ceremony, and that is where it differs from every other chapter.

An important textual note: in the Wang Bi commentary as it survives today, chapter 31 alone has no commentary at all. From this Yi Shunding and Ma Xulun inferred that part of the middle section was originally a gloss that merged into the main text, though this remains a hypothesis. One more variant: for they are mourned with grief and sorrow 以哀悲泣之, the silk manuscripts read 以悲哀莅之, attend to them with sorrow and grief.

The four opening characters can be broken in two ways, since classical Chinese had no punctuation: read straight through as the Tao is forever nameless, or broken as the Tao is constant, nameless, taking chang, constant, as a separate attribute as in chapters 1 and 16.

Xiao 小, small, is not about physical size: the uncarved block is called small because it has no name, and what has no name cannot be measured or ranked, so no one can make it a servant. As long as it remains uncarved it is beyond anyone's command. Once it has become a vessel it has an owner.

Zhi 制 originally means cutting cloth, so once cutting begins, names arise means that the moment one starts to cut and carve, names come into being. The chapter does not reject division. It only sets the condition of knowing where to stop.

The closing simile can be read in two opposite directions. The Tao in the world is like the rivers and seas to the streams and valleys, and all things flow down to the Tao. Or, keeping to the word order, streams and valleys comes first, so the Tao is like the streams and valleys within the rivers and seas, seeping into every place. Nothing in the line forces either direction, so the library records both and leaves readers to weigh them.

These eight characters are the most quoted in Vietnamese and also the most often cut in half: people take one who knows others is clever to praise a good judge of character and drop the second half, yet the weight of the line lies in that second half.

Zhi 智, cleverness, is never a pure compliment in this book: chapter 18 sets it beside great hypocrisy, chapter 19 places it inside the call to abandon sageliness and discard cleverness. Ming 明 is always a good word and chapter 16 has already defined it: to know the constant is called enlightenment. So the two halves differ in direction, not in degree: cleverness goes outward and needs an external object to examine, enlightenment turns inward and is its own source of light.

Li 力 is force, something that can be measured and compared. Qiang 強, strong, is where one must pause, because the word qiang is almost always criticized in this book: chapter 30 has just said bring it to its end without relying on strength, chapter 36 right after this says the soft and weak overcome the hard and strong, and chapter 42 says the violent and forceful do not die a natural death.

Commentators answer differently, and three answers stand out. First, qiang here carries its original sense of inner firmness, a different direction from the strength that relies on force. Second, in the self-cultivation line of Heshang Gong, this chapter concerns guarding oneself, so qiang means the power of self-mastery. Third, in the textual-criticism line, chapter 33 consists of aphorism-like propositions that may have circulated on their own before entering the book.

All three agree on one point: what is praised is the strength to overcome oneself, so quoting the first half and stopping there ends up praising exactly what the whole book criticizes.

The first half redefines fu 富, rich: wealth is measured not by the amount one owns but by the distance between what one has and what one still wants.

The second half can be read two ways. Reading 強 as qiang in the sense of exerting effort, striving on means pressing forward with effort, and the whole clause praises one who has will. Reading it in the sense of hard and forced, it becomes acting in a forced, strained way, and the clause takes on a critical tone. Most commentators follow the first reading, and this page transliterates it as cưỡng hành, but the second has its own logic, since the other three clauses of the chapter all rank the use of force lower.

Suo 所 is a place, the proper position of a thing. Not losing one's place means enduring, by the same law seen in the phrase each returns to its root in chapter 16.

The final line has the most significant variant in the chapter, and it changes the meaning entirely. The received text has wang 亡, to perish, while the silk manuscripts have wang 忘, to be forgotten. With 亡, one dies but the true part of oneself does not perish. With 忘, one dies but is not forgotten by the world. The second is close to ordinary speech, the first is what later Taoist practice traditions held onto. There is also a third reading: shou 壽, long life, is redefined just like fu above, measured by what in oneself is never lost rather than by a count of years. All three readings have their followers, and the library does not choose on the reader's behalf.

Fan 汎 pictures water spreading over the whole surface with no bank to hold it back. Some texts write 氾 or 泛. It can go to the left and to the right means it can be anywhere, worth noting because the pair left and right was just used in chapter 31 to separate auspicious from inauspicious affairs.

The character 衣 is used here as a verb, to cover, to cloak, so clothes and nourishes means sheltering while feeding. The Heshang Gong text has loves and nourishes 愛養. The four characters without acting as master appear twice, once when giving and once when receiving.

The chapter deliberately places two opposite names on the same object: the Tao deserves to be called small because it demands nothing, and deserves to be called great because the ten thousand things all return to it. Both names are right for the same reason: it does not act as master.

The closing line is a pattern of argument that runs through the book, that precisely by not doing a thing one accomplishes it. It appeared in chapter 7 and returns in chapters 63 and 66.

Da xiang 大象 is the great image, and chapter 41 tells what the book means by it: the great image has no form. So the great image is another name for the Tao.

Zhi 執, to hold, needs care, because the very same character was just criticized in chapter 29 in the line whoever grasps it loses it. Wang Bi explains: holding what has form leads to loss, since gripping it tightly breaks it, but what has no form has nothing to break, so it can be held.

The preceding line sets up an everyday scene for contrast: by the roadside there are strings and flutes and fragrant food, and a traveler passing by stops at once. But he is only a passing traveler, someone going by, and he stops only for a moment.

The received text has the Tao leaving the mouth 道之出口, the silk manuscripts have the Tao put into words 道之出言. The chapter does not say the Tao is bland. It says the Tao, once put into words, is bland. The last three clauses build up and then reverse: not enough to see, not enough to hear, yet in use it can never be used up.

The whole chapter stands or falls on one character: gu 固.

The first reading, as a law of nature. Gu keeps its ordinary sense of already, necessarily. Read this way the four clauses are four descriptive propositions, not instructions: a thing about to contract has necessarily been stretched to its limit, a thing about to weaken has already reached the peak of strength. Chapter 36 then merely restates what chapter 30 just said in the six characters when a thing reaches its full vigor it grows old, and it teaches how to read the signs, not how to act. Wang Bi explains it in this direction.

The second reading, as a technique for managing people. Gu is read as interchangeable with gu 姑, meaning for the time being, first. Read this way the four clauses become four instructions: if you want to take from someone, first give to them. Han Feizi in his chapter Yu Lao already cited this chapter in that direction, and from then on many have read the Tao Te Ching as a book of stratagems.

Neither reading can refute the other from the characters alone, so three points are offered for readers to weigh. The line right after the four clauses is the soft and weak overcome the hard and strong, a proposition about a law, not a trick. In all four clauses gu follows bi 必, which marks necessity. But the last two lines of the chapter pull firmly toward affairs of state, so the other reading also has something to hold onto. The Mawangdui silk manuscripts write gu 古 instead of 固 in all four clauses, which does not settle the debate but shows that the character was already unstable in the oldest copy.

Wei ming, subtle light, is the chapter's title in the Heshang Gong chapter scheme, and it too splits along the same two readings. In the law reading, the subtle light is the sight that sees the small, recognizing the seed of a reversal before it shows. In the technique reading, the subtle light becomes hidden cunning, and the word ming drifts far from the ming of chapter 33.

The line the soft and weak overcome the hard and strong is not this chapter's private conclusion. The same idea returns in chapters 43, 76 and 78. Sheng 勝 here does not mean winning a contest but outlasting, remaining at the end: what is stretched to its limit is near its turning point, while what is soft and weak still has room to go on. The line is about rhythm, not about battle, and it is the very reason for the choice made in chapter 28 at the top of this page.

The last two lines form a pair: the fish and the deep, the sharp instrument and outsiders. A fish that leaves the deep dies, not because the deep is precious but because outside it the fish cannot live.

Li qi 利器 is a sharp instrument, and the word qi appears again, the same word that has run all the way from chapter 28 to here. Commentators understand it differently. It may be weapons and punishments, linking to chapters 30 and 31. It may be the ruler's power of decision, the reading of Han Feizi, who cited this very line to discuss the art of holding power. Or, following Wang Bi, it is the instrument used to benefit the state, which people learn to counter once it is shown. The second reading is what gave chapter 36 its reputation as a chapter of stratagems.