Get rid of holiness
Stop counting on knowledge
And people will be one hundred times better off.
Get rid of humaneness
Stop clinging to duty 5
And people will naturally honor their parents.
Get rid of cleverness
Stop clawing for money
And people will be delivered from thievery.
That advice alone is not enough to follow. 10
On this you can rely:
Realize simpleness
Be more like uncarved wood
Lessen self-awareness
Purge restless thoughts for good 15
***
NOTES
lines 4 and 5, humaneness, duty: See notes to poem 18, line 2.
line 6, honor their parents: See notes to poem 18, line 6.
line 13, uncarved wood: See Introduction section IV.4.
COMMENTARY
Before taking a swipe at any Confucian values in poem 19, Laozi makes sure first to advise against putting Sages on pedestals: Line 1 can also mean “Get rid of sagacity” or “Get rid of the holy ones.” Because if you exalt holiness or knowledge or humaneness or dutifulness as virtues to be inculcated, you will only deepen your own alienation from those very qualities – which you have naturally and could summon readily if you weren’t so self-conscious and self-evaluating and self-interested. This poem’s penultimate line, lessen self-awareness, states the matter as bluntly as possible. The reliable quatrain at the end of this poem is precisely what’s needed to achieve all six of the relinquishings Laozi is urging.
Links To:
The Classic of Dao and De by Laozi: Contents
For more on Daoism, see:
Film Dreams: Frank Capra
Music: KALW Radio Show #3, Ancient China in 20th-Century Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #8, Daoism in Western Music, part 1
Music: SFCR Radio Show #9, Daoism in Western Music, part 2
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 