Heaven is enduring, Earth is ancient.
Why is the Creation enduring and ancient?
Because it lives not alone, nor for itself.
Thus Heaven and Earth are always living.
Therefore 5
Sages keep to the background
Yet remain at the forefront.
They discount themselves
Yet they are preserved.
Isn’t it this very lack of self-interest 10
Which enables their self-realization?
***
NOTES
lines 3 and 4: More literally, “Because they [Heaven and Earth] do not live for themselves. Thus they always live.”
COMMENTARY
In poem 4 Laozi posits Dao as the source of the Creation, and here he tells us that Heaven and Earth exist not for themselves but to follow Dao, which is always there, and so they always live. By proceeding to discuss the Sages and their self-realization, the clear implication is that the better we are at following Dao, the longer we can live too (see Introduction section IV.6). And not just live, but thanks to De, become most fully ourselves as well. The fact that the poem never explicitly mentions Dao or De is a stylistic device that recurs in the Dao De Jing.
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 