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Each week we address one chapter of the Tao Te Ching. The Tao Te Ching can be obscure, especially if you think you're supposed to understand what it's saying! We find it easier and more instructive to simply contemplate how the chapter resonates with your personal experience. Becoming more aware at this fundamental level simplifies life. This approach conforms to the view that true knowing lies within ourselves. Thus, when a passage in the scripture resonates, you've found your inner truth. The same applies for when it evokes a question; questions are the grist for self realization.
Chapter 45
Great perfection seems chipped,
Yet use will not wear it out;
Great fullness seems empty,
Yet use will not drain it;
Great straightness seems bent;
Great skill seems awkward;
Great eloquence seems tongue-tied.Restlessness overcomes cold; stillness overcomes heat.
Limpid and still,
One can be a leader in the empire.Read commentary previously posted for this chapter.
Read notes on translations -
[Note: I italicize phrases I borrow from the chapter, and link to phrases I borrow from other chapters to help tie chapters together. While making it more tedious to read,
the Tao Te Ching is best pondered in the context of the whole.I notice quite a difference between D.C. Lau’s translation and the semi-literal (and semi literate
) one below, i.e., great accomplishment seems vacant and doesn’t harm. Perhaps D.C. Lau’s is easier to understand? I don’t know because I’ve been reading D.C. Lau’s version for so many decades now, and it is music to my ears. When I observe nature (that which is naturally so), it is easy to see, and very comforting to accept, that great perfection seems chipped. Indeed, the small and named perfection pushed by culture suffocates me. Of course, from a symptoms point of view, I’d have to acknowledge that we probably buy into culturally idealize forms of perfection when we wish to be hemmed in. After all, being hemmed in can feel more secure. In short, what to one person is a prison, to another is a fortress.I also notice another clear difference in the last line. Clear and still are closely associated with honesty and in the middle. If restless lies at one end of the spectrum, and stillness at the other, how is still also in the middle? I think of it this way: while neither restless or stillness are in the middle, stillness points to the middle more than restless. The reason: life is, by virtue of its need to survive, biased on the restless side of the ‘middle’. Thus, in the context of life, stillness is more the companion of the middle than restlessness. Boy, that feels like a convoluted way to say something very simple... or is it?
The semi literal translation:
Great accomplishment seems vacant, its use doesn't harm.
Great fullness seems flushed, its use doesn't end.
Great straightness seems bent.
Great cleverness seems clumsy.
Great debate seems slow in speech.
The still surpasses the impetuous, Cold surpasses heat.
Clear and still serves as the middle of all under heaven.The literal Chinese to English translation:
big (large, great) accomplish (result) like (as if) lack (vacancy), its
use not fraud (disadvantage, harm).
big (large, great) full like (as if) rinse (flush, rush), its use not
limit (end, poor).
big (large, great)straight like (as if) bend (bow, crook).
big (large, great) clever like (as if) clumsy (awkward, dull).
big (large, great) argue (debate) like (as if) slow speech.
still surpass (be equal to, can bear) rash (impetuous, restless),
cold surpass (be equal to, can bear) heat (hot, warm, ardent).
clear (unmixed, distinct) still (quiet, calm) serves as heaven under upright
(in the middle, main, honest, correct).
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