Whenever people try to rule the world
And conform it to their order
I see that they never know any real success.
The world is the vessel of Shen.
Stop doing things to it! 5
The more you do to it, the more you ruin it.
The more you grasp at it, the more you are deprived.
That’s why some lead and some follow
Some expand and some contract
Some are forceful and some are weak 10
Some succeed and some succumb.
Therefore
The Sage drops overindulgence
Drops extravagance
Drops lavishness. 15
***
NOTES
line 4, Shen: Spirit. See Introduction section IV.2.
COMMENTARY
Just as poems 6 and 39 associate Shen with valleys, poem 29 sees the whole world as a vessel of Spirit: an animate material world given meaning and unity by Spirit. Which means no human mentality can understand all the interconnected and interdependent things that the world is doing. So when we start forcing the world onto the Procrustean bed of our own limited minds, there is of course no way that can work. The real task is to live up to your values, to change yourself so you can work with the world instead of against it. That’s why Laozi segues from the world to human nature and the different methods people have for coping. And because partial methods can yield only partial success, he concludes by reminding us of how Sages approach all this, by dealing with fundamentals and getting out from under the ego and its accoutrements.
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 