Translation
The heavy is the root of the light,
The still is the ruler of the restless.
Because of this, the gentleman throughout the day, never abandons seriousness.
Although, he flourishes, watches, enjoys and dwells detached.
How wasteful to be in charge, yet take life lightly.
Light follows the loss of the root.
Restless follows the loss of the gentleman.
1) heavy (important; repeat) do (act as; be, mean; support) light (softly) root (cause; origin), 重为轻根，(chóng wéi qīng gēn,)
2) still (quiet; calm) do (act as; be, mean; support) rash (impetuous; restless) sovereign (gentleman, supreme ruler). 静为躁君。(jìng wéi zào jūn.)
3) <grm> is (yes <frml> this; that) use (<v> take <p> according to; because of <adj> so as to <conj> and) gentleman end (eventually; entire; all) day go (be current; prevail; do) no (not) leave (off, from) weight (degree of seriousness; propriety). 是以君子终日行不离轻重。(shì yĭ jūn zĭ zhōng rì xíng bù lí qīng zhòng.)
4) though (although; even if) have (there is; exist) grow luxuriantly (flourish, honor) watch a swallow (comfort, enjoy) manage (dwell; live) aloof (detached). 虽有荣观燕处超然。(suī yŏu róng guān yān chŭ chāo rán.)
5) how (why, to no avail) ten thousand (myriad) a war chariot of host (owner) <conj.> and (yet, but) use (<v> take <p> according to; because of <adj> so as to <conj> and) body (life; personally) light (softly) land under heaven. 奈何万乘之主而以身轻天下。(nài hé wàn chéng zhī zhŭ ér yĭ shēn qīng tiān xià.)
6) light (softly) standard (norm; rule > imitate; follow) lose (miss; let slip) root (cause; origin), 轻则失根，(qīng zé shī gēn,)
7) rash (impetuous; restless) standard (norm; rule > imitate; follow) lose (miss; let slip) gentleman. 躁则失君。(zào zé shī jūn.)
Third Pass: Chapter of the Month
Corrections?
None this time
Reflections:
I can’t help but feel an emotional yearning for the ‘good’ over the ‘bad’. Peace on earth and good will to man is a comforting ideal to entertain, if not cling to for dear life. This chapter reminds us there is no ‘one’ without the ‘other’ — heavy vs. light, still vs. restless. Of course, it doesn’t end there. Our thinking mind is trapped in a virtual world of ostensible opposites. We spend our waking and dreaming lives waging a kind of war in this cognitive duality. Believing this duality is reality only exacerbates the struggle. Fortunately, there is a natural order and process that when honestly embraced can establish a truce in this war.
The heavy is the cause of the light.
The still is the ruler of the restless.
It helps to ponder other opposites as well. Take chapter 40…
Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations can deepen the sense of this process by neutralizing the inherent word bias though which we view life. Having correlates to wealth’ and gain; death correlates to poverty and loss. By stringing these basic words together as a correlation statement, we can gain a deeper and universal insight into the natural process. For example, ‘wealth divides as it gains’; ‘poverty unites as it loses’. The former is the yang side of the process; the later is the yin side of the process. Civilization is certainly yang — a manifestation of the wealth divides as it gains side of the cycle. The resulting imbalance is palpable even if we lack awareness of this cycle per se. We, like the building imbalance of magma beneath a volcano, or the building pressure of tectonic plates, only experience the imbalance but are unaware of the overall process driving destiny.
Our biology innately biases us to see death and nothing as the ‘bad’ side of reality’s coin. We do all we can to favor ‘having’ and ‘living’, and avoid ‘losing’ and ‘dying’… and there-in begins our troubles. Being thus biologically biased in one direction is only truly balanced and healthful in the wild. In the wild, nature constantly pulls us back to the natural median with a balancing dose of ‘losing’ and ‘dying’, i.e., the metaphorical equivalent of hardship and insecurity. Nature in the wild continually thwarts ‘more is better’ survival instincts driving life.
Civilization’s fundamental objective has always been to optimize ‘having’ and ‘living’, i.e., the metaphorical equivalent of comfort and security. Nonetheless, hunter-gatherer instincts underlie and drive our civilized lives. Civilization can’t eradicate instinct; it can only redirect its now unbalanced expression in atavistic ways. Given this, is it any surprise there is much imbalance along with a growing list of negative side effects? Simply put, our instincts evolved for survival in the wild, not in civilization’s rapacious drive to maximize human comfort and security. The disconnecting, unbalancing results we experience are the price nature charges us. (See The Tradeoff.)
Because of this, the noble man throughout the day never abandons seriousness.
This line and the observations of chapter 40 above help put the brakes on ideals run amuck. Indeed, ‘peace on earth’ is only possible if there is also ‘war on earth’… metaphorically if not in reality. This is a very hard pill to swallow when every instinct says that having, living, flourishing, and enjoying must be our priority. Only with an always-present serious sense of the primordial value of nothing, death, stillness, and heavy can I see beyond my own projected self-interest… Nearly rising beyond oneself as chapters 52 (see below) and 16 put it.
We innately want to avoid the heavy, serious, and all-to-sober side of life. We want our pleasure, carefree and happy. That is fixed in instinct and natural in the wild, but in civilization, we find ourselves at a loss. The ‘meaning of life’ is not so viscerally felt for us as it was for our distant hunter-gatherer ancestors. We sense a wasteful life and scurry about rushing to fill it with meaningful ‘havings’ and ‘doings’.
How wasteful to be in charge, yet take life lightly.
Light follows the loss of the cause.
Restless follows the loss of the ruler.
Life in the wild was the ruler we have lost to varying degrees. Civilization removes much of the deep survival causes driving life in the wild (hunt and gather circumstances), and so our lives are too light, and without core meaning.
How are we to feel core life meaning without returning to the old ways — hunting and gathering? First, realize the solutions to our life’s problems have not panned out as we had hoped… year after year, solution after solution. Next, it helps to look in another direction than the direction we’ve always been headed. As chapter 40 said, “In the opposite direction, of the way moves.” Chapter 52 lays it out well.
Chapter 52, along with most of the Tao Te Ching, shows us a way to feel meaning (see the ‘Meaning of Life’) without returning to our ancestral ways. The difficulty lies in the fact that nature isn’t forcing us by dint of circumstance to live meaningful and balanced lives. The bad news: We must draw upon our free will to do so — ha, ha, ha! The good news: We have some degree of what I call ‘pseudo-free will’. It ain’t perfect, but at least it is something. (See A case for ‘pseudo-free will’ in Free Will: Fact or Wishful Thinking?
Second Pass: Work in Progress
Issues:
Line 2 & 7: D.C. Lau uses ‘lord’ to translate jūn (君) sovereign; supreme ruler (e.g., lord is restless… lord is lost). This may be a little too weak; supreme ruler hits the nail on the head. For now, I left off supreme just to make it read better, but the idea is that heavy and still are fundamental—it is the bottom line.
Line 3: D.C. Lau uses gentleman to translate jūnzǐ (君子) man of noble character, gentleman. This weakens line 3 somewhat too. Noble character is the key word. The gentleman may or may not be of noble character. People often use clothing and etiquette to pass themselves off as ‘ladies and gentlemen’. Noble character is a simple and straightforward description, even if the true meaning of noble lies in the eye of the beholder.
Commentary:
An active awareness of the ‘fundamental’, or cause as I translate it here, is necessary to maintain balance, and balance is essential for my sense of well-being. Anyone who does advanced yoga postures that require balance certainly experiences this principle physically. Honestly, I find the principle applies to every facet of well-being, of life (1).
A sense of well-being is not ‘fun’ or ‘pleasure’, nor is it necessarily ‘sorrow’ and ‘pain’. Although, a sense of equanimity in sorrow and pain brings me closer to a sense of balance than the desire for, or even the experience of, fun and pleasure.
I suppose this has to do with the fact that pleasure instinctively pulls us (all animals) and pain instinctively repels us. Either direction upsets balance, but naturally we preferentially seek ways that favor pleasure (comfort and security) and do all we can to avoid pain. Indeed, instinct drives all animals to get as much from life as they can and pay as little for that as possible. Humans have the unique ability to succeed in that pursuit—to a fault! I regard this relentless quest to control life, to maximize comfort and security, as the ‘prime directive’ of civilization—the raison d’être. Ironically then, civilization’s quest creates its quandary.
We all know that too much of a good situation is unavoidably problematic. Or rather, we all ‘know’ this quirk of the ‘good’ until it threatens what we personally favor. Then a blind spot of sorts takes hold (see also, John Cleese’s A lecture on Creativity). Blindly just going with the ‘flow’ easily throws us off balance from time to time.
When feeling out of sorts, it’s our natural inclination to pursue pleasure (comfort and safety) even more. In the wild, this would nudge us back to balance in naturally moderate ways. In civilization, this often turns out to be fighting fire with fire. It becomes a vicious circle as we unwittingly attempt to rebalance life by increasing our comfort and security (e.g., shopping, eating, sex, work, travel, music,… ) to ease the pain often wrought by excessive comfort and security.
To put this in simple ‘Tao speak’: In seeking to control life, we loose life; in maximizing comfort and security, we loose comfort and security; in chasing pleasure, we loose pleasure. Balance alone causes our sense of well being.
This pursuit of pleasure and control always ends with an equal measure of pain and chaos, which maintains overall balance in a slightly ironic and futile round-about way. Long ago, I adopted this motto: “short term pleasure spawns long term pain; short term pain spawns long term pleasure”. It helps me avoid getting swept up in civilization’s short-sighted prime directive.
D.C. Lau’s translation differs some from mine in the parable-like heavily laden carts example. I would interpret his as saying that unlike a traveler who can lock his stuff up and night and rest worry free, there is no where to ‘lock up’ your life and be worry free. Although, I suppose that is one purpose of alcohol and opiates. Of course, the more ‘high’ you get, the more vulnerable you become to thieves and robbers. The only true safety lies in the still and the heavy.
Suggested Revision:
The heavy is the cause of the light.
The still is the ruler of the restless.
Because of this, the noble man throughout the day never abandons seriousness.
Even if he flourishes, watches, enjoys and dwells detached.
How wasteful to be in charge, yet take life lightly.
Light follows the loss of the cause.
Restless follows the loss of the ruler.
(1) Perhaps that’s why words fail to describe ‘it’. If ‘this’ is everywhere and underlies everything, what word can encompass that? Descriptive words (adjectives and such) are the ‘dialectic’; they require an opposite to impart meaning. See Dialectic and Heraclitus (especially).
First Pass: Chapter of the Week
The gentleman when traveling all day can at least let his guard down when he puts his ‘stuff’ safely away. How is the ruler able to put his stuff away? The poignant comparison here is that limited sense of responsibility allows one to rest, albeit somewhat obliviously. Children are another example of this. Becoming an adult means having an increasing sense of responsibility for what lies outside of your direct sights (experience). I doubt there is an end to this either. Circumstances keep bringing us to maturity over our entire life time. I expect that if I were to live a thousand years my sense of responsibility would still be increasing.
To be clear, ‘sense of responsibility’ does not mean acting upon anything. If anything, it probably means ‘knowing when to stop‘. Another word for ‘sense of responsibility’ would be ‘breadth of awareness’. Children can be ‘worry free’ because their breath of awareness is nescient.
The only sane way of dealing with the difficulty of deepening sense of responsibility is stillness and the heavy. The memory of an old silver back gorilla at the zoo comes to mind. He was heavy and still – ‘grounded’ I’d have to say. They young juvenile gorillas were just the opposite, restless and light. Nature’s model applies to us all, regardless of the species to which we belong.