Blog summary by Month

 

Blogs for August 2021:

Index

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

THE TAO TEH KING, OR THE TAO AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 2

3) Thus it is that dignity finds its (firm) root in its (previous)
meanness, and what is lofty finds its stability in the lowness (from
which it rises). Hence princes and kings call themselves 'Orphans,'
'Men of small virtue,' and as 'Carriages without a nave.' Is not this
an acknowledgment that in their considering themselves mean they see
the foundation of their dignity? So it is that in the enumeration
of the different parts of a carriage we do not come on what makes
it answer the ends of a carriage. They do not wish to show themselves
elegant-looking as jade, but (prefer) to be coarse-looking as an (ordinary)
stone.