Everyone in the world sees beauty as beauty.
That’s why we have ugliness.
They see goodness as goodness.
That’s why we have evil.
Being and non-being generate each other. 5
Difficult and easy finalize each other.
Long and short rate each other.
High and low size each other.
Before and after locate each other.
Treble and bass harmonize each other. 10
Therefore
The Sage relies on non-action to run affairs
Practicing wordless scriptures.
The ten thousand things come and none are turned aside.
They are produced but not owned 15
Assisted but with no claim laid upon them.
The achievement completed, the Sage moves on.
By not staying, the Sage never goes away.
***
NOTES
lines 9 and 10: In the original, line 10 precedes line 9. I have taken the liberty of switching them here.
lines 15 and 16: These lines also appear in poem 51 and are referenced in poems 10 and 34.
COMMENTARY
Instead of just loving and protecting the beautiful and the good, we name and categorize them – a reduction that then obliges us to deal with their categorical opposites, ugliness and evil. The litany of mutually connected opposites that follows in poem 2 is on one level a reminder of the Yin-Yang polarity, an automatic state of mutuality (see Introduction section IV.1). Significantly, Laozi links the Sage here with non-action (see Introduction section IV.3). That reliance on non-action, wordless scriptures, is the devotion to being empty, which empowers the Sage to engage others selflessly: producing without owning, assisting without laying claims. This form of creativity, clearly valued by Laozi, is referenced in three other poems of the Dao De Jing. In poem 34, we are told that Dao produces life, that it clothes and feeds the ten thousand things but claims no ownership over them. Poem 51 is all about how Dao and De do these things, while poem 10 instructs you to do them. Here in poem 2, it’s the Sage doing them. The Sage, following Dao, experiences the effects of De and lives a life of natural accomplishment, like a tree bearing fruit – and that includes making no claims on the produce produced.
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 