Lao Tzu, Chapter 18

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 18

After the great way had been forgotten,
there was benevolence and rectitude.
Intelligence and knowledge appeared,
and there was great falseness.
The six relationships fell out of harmony,
and there was love and filial piety. 
Families lost the nation to confusion,
and there were loyal ministers. 

<– Chapter 17

Table of Contents

Chapter 19 –>

Lao Tzu, Chapter 17

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 17

The best ruler?
His people know he exists.
The next best?
They love and praise him.
The next,
they are afraid of.
The next,
they despise.

If his belief is not enough,
he will not find enough belief.
But at ease, he values words.

His accomplishment is to complete his work simply;
each of the hundred families says,
“We follow ourselves.”

<– Chapter 16

Table of Contents

Chapter 18 –>

John Ruskin: “the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects”

John Ruskin

The chapter “Of the Foreground” in the first volume of John Ruskin’s Modern Painters ends:

One lesson, however, we are invariably taught by all, however approached or viewed, that the work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects; that the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; and that to the rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in the kindling of the daystar. (3.492 — 93)

For more about and by John Ruskin, please see:
John Ruskin, Giotto, and William Henry Fox Talbot.

Another quote from John Ruskin:
John Ruskin: “You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him”

John Ruskin: “You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him”

Self Portrait
by John Ruskin

John Ruskin had some typically heterodox thoughts on perfection that go well beyond the usual — and often excellent — thought that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”

. . . no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. This for two reasons, both based on everlasting laws. The first, that no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure; that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution. . . . The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change.

––John Ruskin; The Stones of Venice (II, chapter 6)

In the same book, The Stones of Venice, he makes a different ethical point when he says,

Lao Tzu, Chapter 16

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 16

Reach to the farthest end of emptiness;
maintain unmoving stillness.

If I look at many things as combined,
then I see them correspond.
For things grow — they flourish —
but they return, revert to their root.
Returning to the root is “stillness” —
It’s a return to one’s nature.

To return to one’s nature is to become eternal;
to know the eternal is called “enlightenment.”
Not knowing the eternal — “error” — brings disaster,
but knowing the eternal makes one all-encompassing.

To be all-encompassing means to be impartial;
to be impartial means to be kingly;
to be kingly means to be divine;
to be divine means to accord with Tao;
to accord with Tao means to be everlasting.

It means to go to the end of one’s life free from peril.

<– Chapter 15

Table of Contents

Chapter 17 –>

Lao Tzu, Chapter 15

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 15

Of old, those who were skilled at being were masters.
They were subtle and could penetrate deeply into natures;
they were too profound to be recognizable.
And, in fact, just because they couldn’t be recognized,
serious effort should be made to describe their appearance.

Cautious, as if wading in an icy stream;
watchful, alert to all four sides,
courteous, like a guest.

Dissolving like ice that’s about to melt;
solid like uncut wood;
open like a valley;
obscure as if muddied.

Who can be where it’s muddied?
It’s clarified, slowly, by stillness.
Who can be when they’re still?
It comes to life by patient movement.

Commit to this way
of not wanting fullness.
Exactly because of not being full,
you won’t grow old but will always renew.

<– Chapter 14

Table of Contents

Chapter 16 –>

Lao Tzu, Chapter 14

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 14

We look at it and can’t see its name,
so we say it’s invisible.
We listen to it and can’t hear its name,
so we say it’s inaudible.
We touch it and can’t catch hold of its name,
so we say it’s formless.

These three qualities can’t be further investigated,
for the reason that each has merged and become a unity.
Its above is not bright;
its below is not dark;
Completely continuous, it cannot be given a name.
It reverts, returning to non-being.

This is referred to as not having a form of its own,
not having a being of its own;
This is called “vague” and “elusive.”

In front, you will not see its face;
follow it and you won’t see its back.

Hold fast to the ancients’ way
in order to grasp its here and now, its existence.
You can know its ancient origin.
This is called the way’s main thread.

<– Chapter 13

Table of Contents

Chapter 15 –>

Lao Tzu, Chapter 13

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 13

Honored, we fear dishonor.
Highly esteemed, misfortune becomes inseparable from our selves.

What does it mean when I say, “Honored, we fear dishonor?”
Honor makes one low:
Getting it brings apprehension.
Losing it brings apprehension;
so being honored means fearing dishonor.

Why do I say that high esteem is like a misfortune?
Having an ego causes great troubles:
it makes me act conscious of my self
when I’d had no sense of it;
so I have troubles.

Someone who respects himself in this way,
by serving heaven in the world,
can be trusted with the world.

Someone who loves himself in this way,
by serving heaven in the world,
can be trusted with the world.

<– Chapter 12

Table of Contents

Chapter 14 –>

Lao Tzu, Chapter 12

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 12

The five colors make one’s eyes blind.
The five tones make one’s ears deaf.
The five flavors make one’s palate dull.
Racing around hunting in a field makes one’s heart wild.
Goods that are hard to get impede one’s actions.

Therefore, the sage tends the stomach and not the eye;
therefore, he leaves the one and holds to the other.

<– Chapter 11

Table of Contents

Chapter 13 –>

Kai Wright’s “Drifting Toward Love”

Book Review

Kai Wright,
Drifting Toward Love: Black, Brown, Gay,
and Coming of Age on the Streets of New York
Beacon Press, Boston, 2008
ISBN 978-0-8070-7968-3

This is an important book.

Why would I — a dead, white male, a baby boomer — say that about a book from a culture so totally different?

Because when I was a teenager, growing up gay in a white slum in Buffalo, the Stonewall Riots were some 10 years off in the future and inaccessible to me — and, anyway, they were unthinkable. I drifted, lost, making bad choices and acting destructively — of myself and of others.

Kai Wright writes about black and brown kids today in Brooklyn. You might think they’d have a big advantage — with one of the most vibrant, openly gay cultures in the world right next to them in Manhattan, only a subway ride away. But in their social reality, the white, liberated gay culture might as well be on the other side of the world for all the good it would do them in terms of providing scenarios they can choose from. It’s as inaccessible to them now, for a different reason, as it was to me then.

Lao Tzu, Chapter 11

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 11

Thirty spokes unite at a hub;
it’s the emptiness there that makes the wheel usable.

Shape clay to make a bowl;
it’s the empty space inside that makes the bowl usable.

Cut out doors and windows;
their emptiness makes the room usable.

Thus,
the ways a thing exists make it have benefit;
the ways it doesn’t exist make it usable.

<– Chapter 10

Table of Contents

Chapter 12 –>

Lao Tzu, Chapter 10

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 10

Carrying your spiritual soul and your physical soul together,
you can keep them as one—without letting them separate.

Gathering your chi,
you can make yourself soft like a newborn child.

You can wash out your vision and purify it without fault.

As heaven’s gate opens and closes,
you can be like a female bird.

With clear understanding,
you can penetrate the four directions with no action.

He produces things and nourishes them.
He produces but doesn’t claim possession.
He acts but doesn’t take credit.
He leads but doesn’t dominate.

Such instances of the ways may seem obscure.

<– Chapter 9

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Chapter 11 –>

Plato and Protagoras: “. . . of things that are, how they are . . .”

How can we know what Plato really thought?

He never (almost never) spoke for himself. He wrote “dialogues” in which the only voices belong to the characters. We know what Meno, Protagoras, Theaitetos, and the others say — but what does Plato say?

Lao Tzu, Chapter 9

Tao Te Ching —
The Classic about Ways And Instances

Lao Tzu

(Translated, with comments, by William P. Coleman)

Chapter 9

Keeping on until it’s full is not as good as stopping.
Something hammered until sharp cannot stay sharp long.
If you fill a hall with gold and jade, no one can guard it.
Pride justified in wealth brings disaster.

With the work completed, a person steps back
— that is the way of heaven.

<– Chapter 8

Table of Contents

Chapter 10 –>