Experience
|
No need to leave your door,
To
know the whole world.
No need to peer through
your
windows,
To
know the
Way of
Heaven.
The
further you go,
the less you know.
Therefore
the Sage knows without
going;
Names
without seeing;
And
completes without
doing
a thing.
Corrected
with the Mawangtui texts |
Knowledge
|
Those who work at their studies
Increase day after day;
Those
who have heard the Tao
Decrease day after day.
They decrease and decrease,
till
they get to the point where they do nothing.
They
do
nothing
and yet there is nothing left undone.
When someone wants to take control of the world,
He must always be unconcerned with affairs.
For in a case where he is concerned with affairs,
He
will be unworthy as well,
of taking control of the world
Corrected
with the Mawangtui texts
|
The world of others
|
The
Sage
constantly has no mind of his own.
He takes
the mind of the common people as his mind.
Those
who are good,
he regards
as good.
Those
who are not good,
he regards
also
as
good.
In
this way he attains goodness.
Those
who are
trustworthy,
he trusts.
Those
who are not
trustworthy,
he
also
trusts.
[In
this way] he gets their trust.
As for
the
Sage's
presence in the world -
he is one with it.
And
with the World he merges his mind.
The
common people all fix their eyes and ears on him.
And
the Sage treats them all as
his
children.
Corrected
with the Mawangtui texts
|
|
Life and death
|
We come out into life and go back
in death.
The
companions of life are thirteen;
The
companions of death are thirteen;
And
yet people, becuse they regard life as LIFE,
In all of their actions move forard to the thirteen
that belong to the realm of death.
Now,
why is this so?
Because they
regard as LIFE.
You
have no doubt heard of those
who
are good at holding on to life:
When they walk through
hills,
They do not avoid rhinoceros or tiger.
When they go to battle,
They do not put on armor or
shields:
The
rhinoceros
has no place to probe with its horn;
The tiger
has
no place to
put its
claws;
And weapons
find
no place to
hold their
blades.
Now,
why is this
so?
Because
there is no place
for death in them.
Corrected
with the Mawangtui texts
|
