The smart know others.
The wise know themselves.
The strong conquer others.
The powerful conquer themselves.
When you’ve got enough 5
You’ve got all the stuff.
To act with power takes resolve.
To remain centered gives endurance.
To die and still not end is to live the longest life.
***
NOTES
lines 5 and 6: More literally, “Knowing sufficiency, one has everything.”
COMMENTARY
Rejecting the smart and the strong in favor of the wise and the powerful, Laozi uses poem 33 to return the subject to yourself and who you want that self to be. Without the discipline to know and conquer yourself, you’ll always be in thrall to some attachment or aversion, which will only make it harder to know when you’ve got enough. Therefore Laozi closes by praising resolution and endurance, and reminding us of the primacy of unity (see Introduction section IV.8), here referenced as remaining centered. In poems 15 and 17 he is dismissive of the notion of leaving any kind of a legacy, so when he describes dying without ending, Laozi has something else in mind – which is why Daoist Sages came to be called immortals (see Introduction section IV.6).
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 