Heaven and Earth are not humane.
To them, the ten thousand things are straw dogs.
Sages are not humane.
To them, the masses are straw dogs.
Between Heaven and Earth is space 5
Which is like a bellows:
Empty yet never spent.
When you work with it, more comes out.
Talking about it only wears you down.
You’re better off keeping to the center. 10
***
NOTES
lines 1 and 3, humane: The references to humaneness are a rebuke to Confucian values, which extol ren, showing humaneness and compassion to others. Poems 18 and 19 display a similar attitude. Poems 8 and 38, however, recognize the value of humaneness and praise ren.
lines 2 and 4, straw dogs: Traditional ceremonial objects, initially treated with reverence but later discarded and trampled underfoot.
COMMENTARY
While Laozi esteems humane acts in poems 8 and 38, he has little use for ren as an ethic or a value, principally because such ideas are just that, ideas – projections superimposed on reality, rather than reality itself. The ancient Sages came to an understanding of Dao through stillness and through observing the processes of the natural world, and none of that involves ren. Rather, they were brought, as the second part of this poem references, to the contemplation of emptiness and the recognition of its creative power. Above all, they arrived at unity (see Introduction section IV.8), seeing it as the true nature of reality – the center to which you’re better off keeping.
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 