Tao Te Ching chapters 64 to 72: original text, transliteration, translation and line by line commentary

The first four lines form a ladder: at rest, easy to hold. No sign yet, easy to plan for. Still brittle, easy to break apart. Still small, easy to scatter. The character zhao 兆 originally meant the crack on a heated tortoise shell used in divination, and by extension the first sign of a matter not yet formed.

One character that does not appear in that line in the Wang Bi text is nonetheless the key to the chapter: ji 幾, which in ancient scholarship means the sprout, the point where something has just begun to emerge, the not yet completed. The Guodian bamboo slips write the fourth line as its ji is easily scattered, using 幾 outright where the Wang Bi text has 微. In the middle of the chapter the same character appears again in just as it is about to be completed, with the sense of nearly, about to.

Three parallel clauses: a tree that fills the arms' embrace grows from a sprout as fine as a hair tip, a nine-storey terrace rises from basket after basket of earth, a journey of a thousand miles begins right beneath one's feet. The third is the most quoted line in the whole book, and also the most misread. Today it is cited as a rousing call to get started. Read in the flow of the chapter, it means the opposite. The three clauses sit inside a passage saying that the great arises from the small and one must therefore be careful from the very start: above them are four lines on handling a matter before it has taken shape, and directly below them comes those who act upon it ruin it, those who grasp it lose it. The passage warns rather than exhorts, and it ends with be as careful at the end as at the beginning.

The Guodian text writes the third clause quite differently: a height of a hundred ren begins beneath one's feet. Written that way, all three clauses are images of the great growing from the small, with no image of a journey at all. In that same text, this passage and the passage on those who act ruin it stand in two different places among the slips, showing that chapter 64 of the received text is a composite chapter.

The character wei 為 here does not refer to every action but to intervening according to one's own will. The character zhi 執 means to grip tightly, to hold on stubbornly. The sage escapes both because he does not put himself in a position where there is something to ruin or something to lose. What replaces acting is the character fu 輔 in the closing line, originally the wooden brace fixed beside a cart axle to keep it from slipping, that is, merely supporting what already exists so that it runs in its own direction.

People fail not at the hardest point but when the task is nearly done, when the difficulty has passed and attention has slackened. The four characters as careful at the end as at the beginning close the chapter into a circle. As for the final line, returns to what everyone else has passed over, if the character guo 過 is read as passing by, the meaning is to return to the place everyone has stepped past. If it is read as fault, the meaning is to correct the place where everyone goes wrong. Both readings are possible on the face of the text.

This is the most dangerous line in the nine chapters, and its crudest reading is: Laozi advocates keeping the people ignorant so that they are easier to rule. It must be said plainly that this reading really exists in the history of commentary and was not invented by modern readers. It goes back to the Legalists, where Han Fei read Laozi as a technique of statecraft. On the Confucian side, Zhu Xi criticised precisely this passage. And in the twentieth century, when Chinese scholars debated what they called the policy of keeping the people ignorant, chapter 65 was always cited as the first piece of evidence.

But the character yu 愚, read within the book's own context, does not mean stupidity. Wang Bi's commentary is direct: ming 明 means seeing many cunning and deceitful schemes and thereby covering over one's own simplicity, while yu means not relying on one's knowledge, keeping to what is genuine, and following what is natural. It is the very character Laozi applies to himself in chapter 20. The two readings have not been reconciled, because the three characters lead them back to simplicity still have the shape of something done by those above to those below.

The character zhi 智 in this book almost always carries a negative shade: cunning, scheming, of the same family as the word for wisdom in chapter 18. The line the people are hard to govern because their cleverness is too great does not say that intelligent people are hard to govern. It says that when those above and those below both compete in calculation, governing turns into a contest of tricks. The two characters ji shi 稽式 mean a standard against which to measure. The Heshang Gong text writes 楷式, kai shi. The line running counter to things divides at the character fan 反: read as opposite, the mysterious Te runs against the grain of things. Read as 返, the mysterious Te returns to the root together with things, which matches chapter 16. The two characters were used interchangeably in the Warring States period, so neither reading can be ruled out.

Rivers and seas can be king of the hundred valleys not because they are stronger or higher, but only because they lie lowest of all, so every stream flows to them of its own accord. That kingship is not seized and is not conferred by anyone. It is the natural consequence of where they stand.

Whoever wishes to be above the people places his words below them, and whoever wishes to be ahead of the people places his own person behind them. The sign is that he is above and the people do not feel the weight, in front and the people do not feel crowded out. The closing line repeats chapter 22 almost verbatim, and its argument is not that refusing to contend is noble, but that when one does not contend there is no longer any place for others to contend against.

The two characters bu xiao 不肖 that open the chapter originally mean not resembling, not fitting any mould. It was a term people used to abuse the worthless, and Laozi takes it up and turns it over: precisely because it is great, it resembles nothing. Then comes the strangest place in the entire book: a list of three treasures, numbered one, two, three, something done nowhere else in the eighty-one chapters. The first treasure is ci 慈: not benevolence in the moral sense of the Confucians, but the natural love of a mother for her child, which keeps no account and asks for no return.

The character jian 儉 means sparing, not using everything up, not laying everything out. It is not only thrift with possessions but sparing one's strength, one's words, even one's talent, in the same vein as the character se 嗇 in chapter 59. The line with frugality one can be generous sounds like a paradox, but the argument rests on reserves: use sparingly and much remains, and when much remains it can reach far.

The character xian 先 here means being first in the world, that is, taking the leading place, the exposed place, the place every spearhead aims at. The two characters bu gan 不敢 do not denote fear but knowing which places one should not step into. The same two characters close chapter 64 and open the words of the strategist in chapter 69.

The answering clause, one can become the chief of all things, is read in different ways. Reading qi zhang 器長 together, the chief of all vessels and talents, the meaning is that precisely by not seizing the front one becomes the leader. Reading cheng qi 成器 together, that is, things that have already taken form, with 長 as their elder, the meaning shifts to the relation between what has not yet taken form and what has, matching the character pu 樸, the uncarved block, in chapters 28 and 32.

These four characters overturn a common assumption: people think courage springs from boldness, and the book says courage springs from compassion. A mother who is normally timid will, when her child is in danger, rush into a place from which even the brave retreat. That courage is not for defeating anyone. It only shields what she loves. The next line is a warning of rare violence: abandon compassion and choose bravery, abandon frugality and choose generosity, abandon the rear and choose the front, and that is death, because bravery, generosity and precedence are fruit, not root. As for the closing line, when Heaven means to save someone, it shields him with compassion, commentators of the naturalist school read tian as the rhythm of heaven and earth, and those of the religious school read it as Heaven protecting the compassionate.

A textual discrepancy must be recorded plainly. The received Wang Bi text opens the chapter with a skilled warrior is not belligerent, and the Mawangdui silk manuscripts likewise write 善為士者. But the line also circulates in another form, a skilled fighter is not belligerent. The latter has an obvious weakness: the very next line is already a skilled fighter does not lose his temper, so opening the chapter with 善戰者 gives the first two lines the same subject. The character shi 士 in the Warring States period referred to a man versed in warfare, not the Confucian scholar of later usage.

The character yu 與 in the third line is glossed by Wang Bi with a single word: contend, that is, confront. One skilled at defeating the enemy does not fight him but makes the fight not happen. The first three lines all point to one thing, dropping the hot temper, because belligerence, anger and confrontation all let the other side set one's rhythm.

The last five characters can be divided in two ways. Reading matching Heaven, the utmost of antiquity in one breath, the meaning is matching the utmost standard of Heaven in ancient times. The silk manuscripts write this is called matching Heaven, the utmost of antiquity, divided into two clauses, and they also give the middle line as only this is called using others, without the two characters 之力. The Guodian text does not contain this chapter.

The chapter opens with the four characters the strategists have a saying, meaning that Laozi is quoting someone else rather than speaking in his own voice: this chapter is not the book's own treatise on war, but the book borrowing a ready-made saying from the military profession to carry on its own business. The host 主 is the side that initiates, the side that actively sends out troops. The guest 客 is the side that responds. To accept the role of guest means not to open the matter but only to respond, and that is exactly the third treasure of chapter 67 restated in the language of the soldier.

The next four clauses are the hardest part of the chapter, all four with the same shape, doing without having anything to do it with. The character xing 行 in the first clause appears twice with two readings and two meanings, so it is very easy to misread: the first is read hành, to march. The second is read hàng, ranks. The character 扔 is written thus in the Wang Bi text, and some copies write 仍. As for the overall sense there are two lines of reading: the first takes the four clauses to describe the emptiness of a side that knows how to keep itself, showing no formation, revealing no hand, not setting the other party up as an enemy to be fought. The second takes them to describe the futility of zeal when there is nothing real to fight.

Having just said retreat a foot, the book immediately says no calamity is greater than underestimating the enemy. One retreats not out of contempt for the opponent. One retreats precisely out of respect for the opponent, because it is the one who underestimates the enemy who dares to advance recklessly. The character ji 幾 in the following line is again the character met in chapter 64, meaning nearly, about to.

The closing line, the side that knows sorrow prevails, is understood differently by commentators. Reading the character ai 哀 as compassion, the side that still grieves over the deaths of men prevails, linking directly to the compassion of chapter 67. Reading it as grief, the side that has been wronged, the side that suffers will prevail. Some commentators also read 哀 as interchangeable with 愛.

This chapter is short, and its voice is unlike any other chapter: from the beginning of the book to this point the writer has spoken of the Tao, of the ten thousand things, of governing, and here the writer speaks of himself and of not being understood. The two opening lines are a pair of opposites set so close together as to be provoking, but they are not a complaint: the simple is hard to believe because people go looking for the complicated.

Zong 宗 is the source, the ancestor. Jun 君 is the master, that which takes the lead. Whoever fails to grasp that source understands each sentence as he hears it, yet understands nothing when they are put together. The next line has two characters zhi close together with two meanings: wu zhi is not knowing that source, bu wo zhi is not understanding me.

These four characters are where the whole book lets slip something it usually keeps hidden: the writer knows he is speaking into a void. The character xi 希 means few, sparse, the very character used in chapter 14. The matching clause, those who take me as their model are precious, has two readings: taking the character ze 則 as a verb, to take as a model and follow, gives those who understand me are few and those who follow me are precious. Taking it as a conjunction, meaning therefore, gives those who understand me are few, and therefore I am precious. The first keeps the parallelism, so most commentators follow it. This line is not self-pity: it is the stance of one who knows that what he says will not be received, and says it anyway.

He 褐 is a garment of coarse hemp, the clothing of farm labourers and servants. The character bei 被 here means to wear on one's body, not the passive marker it has become in modern Vietnamese. The point to get right: this line does not teach hiding one's talent while waiting to be appreciated. The coarse cloth is only the consequence of that person not putting himself on display. The world looks at the clothing and ranks accordingly, and the jade is still there.

These four characters have three readings, and all three are in circulation: to know what one does not know, that is, to know the limits of one's knowledge. To know and yet regard oneself as not knowing, that is, not to rely on one's knowledge. And to know what cannot be known, a metaphysical reading. With the following clause as its counterpart, the first two readings both hold up. The third breaks the parallelism, so few follow it. The Mawangdui silk manuscripts write to know that one does not know is esteemed, using the character shang 尚, esteemed, in place of 上, above, and give the second clause as not to know and think oneself knowing is a sickness indeed.

The character bing 病 appears seven times in the chapter, changing function each time. The pair bing bing consists of one character as a verb and one as a noun: to treat sickness as sickness. The argument closes on itself very neatly: the sickness here is thinking oneself knowing, and whoever realises he has that sickness is cured in the very moment of realising it. The final line repeats the previous clause word for word, and many textual critics consider the repetition a redundancy introduced by later copyists.

The character wei 威 appears twice with two different meanings. The first wei is the authority of those who hold power, that is, punishment and coercion. The second, the great wei, is understood differently by commentators: some read it as the authority of Heaven, that is, disaster. Some read it as the uprising of the people. Both readings lead to the same argument: the more those above use authority, the more it wears away, and once the people are no longer afraid, what comes next can no longer be controlled by anyone. This is where the book speaks of the limits of ruling by fear, linking back to chapter 17.

The Wang Bi text writes wu xia 無狎. The character 狎 originally means excessive familiarity turning into disrespect, and here commentators read it as encroaching on the places where the people dwell. The Heshang Gong text writes 無狹, which plainly means to make narrow, so the sense is clearer and not a few follow that text.

The character yan 厭 is used with two meanings in two consecutive lines, and that is the subtle point of the chapter. In do not press down on the lives they live, the character is read as to press, to oppress, interchangeable with 壓. In the following line, the first occurrence is still to oppress, and the second shifts to the sense of growing weary: it is only because those above do not press down that the people do not grow weary of them. Lose that shift of meaning and the line becomes a meaningless tautology.

The character jian 見 here must be read as xian, in the sense of appearing, showing, that is, the sense of 現: knowing oneself without displaying oneself, loving oneself without exalting oneself. One frequent confusion needs to be cleared up: the line he who knows himself is enlightened, is not in this chapter but in chapter 33, where it is paired with he who knows others is wise. The four characters closing the chapter, discards that and takes this, repeat exactly the four characters that close chapters 12 and 38: that is the part shown outside, this is the part kept within.