Tao Te Ching (Le Guin Translation) : A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way

Notes
Concerning This Version This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text with each character followed by a transliteration and a translation. My gratitude to him is unending. To have the text thus made accessible was not only to have a Rosetta Stone for the book itself, but also to have a touchstone for comparing other English translations one with another. If I could focus on which word the translators were interpreting, I could begin to understand why they made the choice they did. I could compare various interpretations and see why they varied so tremendously; could see how much explanation, sometimes how much bias, was included in the translation; could discover for myself that several English meanings might lead me back to the same Chinese word. And, finally, for all my ignorance of the languag... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Book 2, Chapter 81 : Telling it True
True words aren’t charming, charming words aren’t true. Good people aren’t contentious, contentious people aren’t good. People who know aren’t learned, learned people don’t know. Wise souls don’t hoard; the more they do for others the more they have, the more they give the richer they are. The Way of heaven profits without destroying. Doing without outdoing is the Way of the wise. The next little country might be so close the people could hear cocks crowing and dogs barking there, but they’d get old and die without ever having been there. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Book 2, Chapter 80 : Freedom
Let there be a little country without many people. Let them have tools that do the work of ten or a hundred, and never use them. Let them be mindful of death and disinclined to long journeys. They’d have ships and carriages, but no place to go. They’d have armor and weapons, but no parades. Instead of writing, they might go back to using knotted cords. They’d enjoy eating, take pleasure in clothes, be happy with their houses, devoted to their customs. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Book 2, Chapter 79 : Keeping the Contract
After a great enmity is settled some enmity always remains. How to make peace? Wise souls keep their part of the contract and don’t make demands on others. People whose power is real fulfill their obligations; people whose power is hollow insist on their claims. The Way of heaven plays no favorites. It stays with the good. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Book 2, Chapter 78 : Paradoxes
Nothing in the world is as soft, as weak, as water; nothing else can wear away the hard, the strong, and remain unaltered. Soft overcomes hard, weak overcomes strong. Everybody knows it, nobody uses the knowledge. So the wise say: By bearing common defilements you become a sacrificer at the altar of earth; by bearing common evils you become a lord of the world. Right words sound wrong. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Hardness
Living people are soft and tender. Corpses are hard and stiff. The ten thousand things, the living grass, the trees, are soft, pliant. Dead, they’re dry and brittle. So hardness and stiffness go with death; tenderness, softness, go with life. And the hard sword fails, the stiff tree’s felled. The hard and great go under. The soft and weak stay up. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Sign of the Mysterious
Being full of power is like being a baby. Scorpions don’t sting, tigers don’t attack, eagles don’t strike. Soft bones, weak muscles, but a firm grasp. Ignorant of the intercourse of man and woman, yet the baby penis is erect. True and perfect energy! All day long screaming and crying, but never getting hoarse. True and perfect harmony! To know harmony is to know what’s eternal. To know what’s eternal is enlightenment. Increase of life is full of portent: the strong heart exhausts the vital breath. The full-grown is on the edge of age. Not the Way. What’s not the Way soon dies. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

What is Complete
The valley spirit never dies. Call it the mystery, the woman. The mystery, the Door of the Woman, is the root of earth and heaven. Forever this endures, forever. And all its uses are easy. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Living with Change
When the government’s dull and confused, the people are placid. When the government’s sharp and keen, the people are discontented. Alas! misery lies under happiness, and happiness sits on misery, alas! Who knows where it will end? Nothing is certain. The normal changes into the monstrous, the fortunate into the unfortunate, and our bewilderment goes on and on. And so the wise shape without cutting, square without sawing, true without forcing. They are the light that does not shine. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Right Fear
When we don’t fear what we should fear we are in fearful danger. We ought not to live in narrow houses, we ought not to do stupid work. If we don’t accept stupidity we won’t act stupidly. So, wise souls know but don’t show themselves, look after but don’t prize themselves, letting the one go, keeping the other. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)