Under heaven, nothing is more yielding and weak than water.
Yet for attacking the hard and strong, nothing can surpass,
Because of its nothing-ness and ease.
Of weakness and loss through death, superior to strength.
Of flexible, superior to firm
Under heaven, none do not know; none can do.
Because of this, the holy person says,
Receiving the humiliation of the country means mastering the country.
Receiving the country’s misfortune serves all under heaven great.
Straight and honest words seem inside out.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Word for Word
Limits: Translations, even the nearly literal one above, lose some of the original meaning due to the cultural context of contemporary words. Studying the numerous synonym-like meanings of the Chinese characters in the Word-for-Word translation mitigates this. (Click graphic at right for on-line Word-for-Word.)
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
Archive: Characters and past commentary
Corrections?
Yet for attacking the hard and strong, nothing can surpass,
Because of its nothing-ness and ease.
“Because of” connects these two lines, but doesn’t flow all that smoothly. I tried other ways to put ‘because of‘, e.g., by reason of; thanks to; owing to; on account of; as a consequence of; as a result of. I don’t feel any to be much better, so I’ll leave it be. Sure, I could rewrite the whole thing to make it flow smoother, but then I might sacrifice the literal too much for my liking. For example,
Yet for attacking the hard and strong, nothing can surpass,
How is this so? Because of its nothing-ness and ease.
Or better perhaps…
Yet for attacking the hard and strong,
Nothing can surpass, because of its nothing-ness and ease.
This may flow better, but it doesn’t correspond to the Chinese character arrangement. Of course, this could be the miscopy result of a drowsy transcriber and has remained such ever since. Who knows? More importantly, who cares!
Reflections:
We all clearly know how well water symbolizes deep spiritual qualities for which we yearn. Some of us know this as an ideal, as an explicit metaphor. Others know this intuitively, implied by their attraction to it. I mean, who does not enjoy and appreciate a babbling brook, a river, a lake, the sea, raindrops, etc.
Naturally, this friendly side of water can vanish when, for example, it floods and the experience becomes too awesome. Here the friendly side of nature submerges as our biology (fear of loss) swamps spiritual intuitions. Biology keeps our mortal feet firmly on the ground. Not surprisingly, such bio-hoodwinking makes these next lines particularly difficult to ‘know’.
Of weakness and loss through death, superior to strength.
Of flexible, superior to firm
Think of the importance that youth (especially) places on achieving short-term goals. The ‘benefit of loss, failure, weakness’ are anathema to accomplishing goals, or so the bio-hoodwink dictates, and therefore not what young minds look upon favorably… well, okay… old minds too.
Yet, we soon begin to sense intuitively the ‘superior’ quality of the weakness side, even if we are incapable of acting accordingly… again the bio-hoodwink calls the shots. This all goes to demonstrate the tell-it-like-it-is reality in which the Tao Te Ching excels.
Under heaven, none do not know; none can do.
This parallels my view that, We only understand what we already know. Naturally, this reality is also anathema to us. Our sense of free will, whether explicit or implied, screams otherwise. Surely, we feel, we can teach the ignorance out of people. Again, the bio-hoodwink rules. Chapter 65 sheds light on this hoodwink; a light that predates biological science. Instead, it refers to the “ancients adept in the way”: Of ancients adept in the way, none ever use it to enlighten people, They will use it in order to fool them.
Now, what is more adept in the way than biology, evolution, etc. Of course, these are modern concepts, but they all refer to Nature, and there is nothing more “adept in the way” than Nature! The point here is that 2,500+ years ago, folks did not perceive life in a scientific context as we do now. Yet, the wise and observant saw the same reality and spoke to it… “of ancients adept in the way…”.
Straight and honest words seem inside out because our biology is telling us that we are somebody that matters, that we can survive and win at this game of life. The last thing evolution is going to do for a living organism is have it evolve a capability to know that it is going to die within a cosmic eye blink of its birth. Yet, we are eventually capable of knowing! I see this as saying that not even Nature can hide the truth of the way it is for very long. Only in youthful years does it succeed, and for the process of evolution that is actually all that matters anyway. Because the elderly finally ‘get it’ is of little consequence to biological evolution. However, this is not so with cultural evolution. That is why there is hope for our species overall as the median age of the human population continues to increase.
See also, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 60; And Then There Was Fire; Who are you?
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