#daodejing

“Up on tiptoes one cannot stand.

Overstepping one cannot walk.”

Self-displayers have no shine.

Self-justifiers gain no preeminence.

Self-congratulators achieve no glory.

Self-aggrandizers accomplish no greatness.

Voyagers on the course call such things as these

spoiled leftovers or tumorous growths—

things that inspire disgust.

That is why those with the course before them

never stay where they are.

Laozi. Daodejing, chapter 24. Translated by Brook Ziporyn, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023.

The ancient adepts of the course—

a mystery so subtle were they,

a pervasiveness so obscure,

that none could really know them.

Precisely because unknowable,

we make tentative descriptions

of their many seemings:

Ready for anything, as if crossing a frozen stream in

winter.

Tentative and unsure, as if fearing their neighbors on

all four sides.

Serious and respectful, like strangers who were only

passing through.

Pliant and fragile, like ice just about to melt.

Solid and weighty, like raw blocks of unhewn wood.

Broad and open, like empty mountain valleys.

Muddled and mixed, like pools of muddy water.

Does anyone still know how to be muddy like that—

so muddy that through stillness

all slowly comes clear?

Does anyone still know how to be settled like that—

so settled that through long waiting

fresh motion slowly emerges?

Those who keep to this course desire no fullness. they are well and truly covered—

for their cover takes no finished shape.

Being favored, as much as being disgraced,

should come as a terrible shock.

But great calamity should be valued

exactly as much as one’s own body.

Why should being favored come as a terrible shock,

just as much as being disgraced?

To be favored is to be subordinated.

To gain it is one shock,

to lose it will be another.

That is why being favored, as much as being disgraced,

should come as a terrible shock.

Why should great calamity be valued

exactly as much as one’s own body?

It is owning a body that makes us

subject to calamities.

If we possessed no body of our own,

what calamity could we have?

So it is that one whose valuing

lies in regarding his own body as the entirety of the

world

may be entrusted with the world.

And one whose cherishing

lies in regarding his own body as the entirety of the

world,

may be given charge of the world.

Laozi. Daodejing, chapter 13. Translated by Brook Ziporyn, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023.