True words aren’t catchy.
Catchy words aren’t true.
Good people don’t argue.
People who argue aren’t good.
Wise people don’t rely on education. 5
Educated people don’t know much.
Sages don’t hoard, they give to others.
That’s how they get more for themselves.
By giving, they grow richer.
The Dao of Heaven helps, not harms. 10
Sages, following Dao, work without contention.
***
NOTES
lines 3 and 4: These lines about argumentation summarize the remarks about De and non-contention in poems 63 and 68.
COMMENTARY
Although non-contention is the theme of poem 81, Laozi waits until the end to say it. He begins instead by going into the things that make people contentious – linguistic games, argumentation, the limits of education. “It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue,” Oscar Wilde said, agreeing with Zhuangzi in his 1890 review of one of the first English translations of that Sage’s book.[1] He was also agreeing with Laozi, who speaks in poem 68 of De’s independence from contention, and here in line 3 observes, Good people don’t argue. Line 4 adds, People who argue aren’t good, and poem 63 explains why: If you’re treated badly, De is your response. It is only the De-less who ever argue. And of course nobody is less De-less than the Sage is. With that type of individual, a fully realized personality, in thrall to nothing, open to all, the Dao De Jing offers a final paradox typical of Sages, how they grow richer by giving, and reminds us that the way to get things done is to help and not harm, to work and not contend.
FOOTNOTE
1. Oscar Wilde, “A Chinese Sage” in The Artist as Critic. Richard Ellmann, editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 225.
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 