The river and sea can serve as king for a hundred valleys,
Using their adeptness in being below.
Hence, they can support a hundred valleys as king.
Accordingly, a wise person,
Desiring to be above the people, must using speech, be below.
Desiring to be ahead of the people, must using life, be behind.
Accordingly, a wise person,
Dwells above, yet the people are not weighed down,
Dwells ahead, yet the people are not impaired.
Accordingly, all under heaven cheerfully push forward,
. . . yet never tire.
Using such non-contention,
Is the reason, under heaven, nothing can contend with it.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Word for Word
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Corrections:
I don’t’ know how the “to” crept into Line 2… but it’s gone now. I also moved the comas in Lines 5 and 6 before “must” where they serve their purpose better.
Reflections:
Lines 5 & 6 caught my eye today, apart from their grammatical problem.
Desiring to be above the people, must using speech, be below.
Desiring to be ahead of the people, must using life, be behind.
These lines call life like it is. Instinct urges all hierarchical animals, including human’s desire, to be above and to be ahead of others. This is simply social survival. In the real world, this can often play out in subtle ways. Some will ‘claw’ their way up, others get ahead using feigned mannerisms of be below and be behind.
Ethics is using speech and using life to accomplish our desired end to be above and ahead. Just saying please and thank you are obvious ways of using speech. Bringing patience to bear in virtually every action is certainly a key way of using life. The most effective ‘Taoist’ use of these occurs when done with deep sincerity. On the other hand, there is the more cynical and manipulative use of these to win the day. Such would only appear to be non-contention. Scratch the surface and there is bound to be some clawing taking place. 😉
The more listening, watching, tasting, etc., that precedes action-in-each-moment, the more likely you are to be using life to follow (be behind). This is how one ‘flows’ in the moment. Of course, desire is all too often pulling us out of our flowing moment. The formula, desire = need + thought suggest where and how we get too far ahead of ourselves. Chapter 71, nails it: Realizing I don’t’ know is better; not knowing this knowing is disease. This obviously offers us a way to return despite the distracting pleasures and pains of the moment. I find it boils down to what I truly want of life. Alas, what I truly want of life is hard to review when distracted. Is this not simply a tug-of-war between what I truly want of life and life’s distractions?
Mistakes and failure sow the seeds of success
Dwells above, yet the people are not weighed down,
Dwells ahead, yet the people are not impaired.
Success in raising children or teaching anyone anything lies in allowing for mistakes. Although, encouraging mistakes is more sincere when, in self-honesty, we realize that without failures, there can be no success. Mistakes are an essential ingredient of the learning curve. Due to thought and projection of our life onto other people (e.g., our children, ‘students’, etc.) we easily try to ‘help’ them avoid making their mistakes; often the same mistakes we made growing up.
Truth is, such ‘help’ is a hindrance weighing them down. We are trying to ease our own fear of failure through ‘helping’ others avoid failure. This usually fails because one can’t understand what one doesn’t already know; and one can’t know without making the mistakes. (See One only understands what one already knows.) Finally, there is also the fact that it is easier for us to ‘help’ other people avoid their mistakes than to be self-honest enough to diligently face our own ongoing ‘mistakes’.
What can contend with nothing?
Asking, “What can contend with nothing?” is being a bit facetious, I suppose. Naturally, the answer is nothing! That reveals one subtle secret of non-contention. This may help to see these last two lines from a slightly different angle.
Using such non-contention,
Is the reason, under heaven, nothing can contend with it.
The void, emptiness, fear, nothing, silence, all correlate. (See Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations) These are the features nature uses — or ‘the Tao’ if you like — to hoodwink all under heaven cheerfully push forward, yet never tire. The vacuum passively attracts all under heaven into the game of existence. Modeling that as best we can works wonders… and to be sure, a little goes a long way. Chapter 7 hints at how this can manifest itself:
Leave a Reply