When you stop extolling the best among you
People’s contentions will cease.
When you stop prizing rarities
People’s thieveries will cease.
When you stop displaying what everyone wants 5
People’s confusions will cease.
Therefore
When Sages assume rulership
They empty people’s minds and fill their stomachs
Soften their ambitions and put steel in their spines. 10
The people stay innocent and free of longings
While no conniver dares take any advantage.
Act without action, and nothing is out of place.
***
NOTES
line 3, prizing rarities: Such enthusiasms are also decried in poems 12 and 64.
line 9: See poem 12 for a variation of this line.
line 10, put steel in their spines: More literally, “strengthen their bones.”
line 13, act without action: This advice also appears in poem 63.
COMMENTARY
The first part of poem 3 deals with the theme of mutuality, which also frames poems 1 and 2. Here Laozi reminds us that our respectable social pleasures are attended by disreputable social pains. The second part of poem 3 raises the question of how Sages would rule, making this poem one of many in the Dao De Jing dealing with government. Sages rule by enabling others to be more like Sages: The mind emptied, the body cared for, the personal agendas relinquished, the strength to persevere enhanced. That last is perhaps the most important of all, with the power of constancy made plain in poems 1, 16, and 55. When we are constant in such a state, naturalness and innocence prevail. As in poem 2, this discussion of the Sage leads inevitably to non-action (see Introduction section IV.3), with the last line urging the course of acting without action.
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 