Wealth

Chapter 53: Excess Wealth is Contrary to the Tao or True Nature

¹ If I suddenly became known and put into a position to conduct a government according to the Brahma, I would be most afraid of a boastful display.

² The Brahma is very level and easy. But people love the by-ways.

³ The people’s courtyards and buildings are all well-kept. But their fields are ill-cultivated and their granaries very empty. They:

• wear elegant and ornamented robes,
• carry a sharp sword at their girdle,
• pamper themselves in eating and drinking, and
• have a superabundance of property and wealth.

Such princes may be called robbers and boasters. This is contrary to the Tao surely!

Chapter 54: The Effect of the Tao or True Nature

¹ What the Tao’s skillful planter plants can never be uptorn. What his skilful arms hold can never be take away from him.

² When the Tao or True Nature is nursed within one’s self, his vigour becomes real. When a family has the Tao, they will get riches! When the community has the Tao, it will thrive. When the Tao is seen throughout the state, it will have good fortune. When the Tao is employed in the kingdom, everyone will thrive all-around.

³ In this way the effect will be seen in the person in his observing his different cases, as well as in:

• the family
• the neighbourhood
• the state and
• the kingdom

⁴ Through this method of observation, I am sure that this effect will hold.

Chapter 55: Having Versus Not Having the Tao or True Nature

¹ He who has the Tao or True Nature in himself is like an infant.

• Poisonous insects will not sting him
• Fierce beasts will not seize him
• Birds of prey will not strike him

² The infant’s bones are weak and its sinews soft, but yet its grasp is firm.

• It does not know yet the union of male and female. Yet its virile member may be excited. This shows the perfection of its physical essence.
• All day long it will cry without its throat becoming hoarse. This shows the harmony in its constitution.

³ The secret of the unchanging Tao is shown to those who know this harmony. This knowledge leads to wisdom.

All the life-increasing arts turn to evil.

⁴ When things have become strong, they then become old which is then contrary to the Tao or True Nature. Whatever is contrary to the Tao soon ends.

Chapter 57: Pranayama

¹ The Tao or True Nature, which originated all natures under the sky, is to be considered as the mother of them all.

² When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When a person knows that he is the child of the Tao, he guards the qualities of the tao that belong to him. He will be from all peril to the end of his life.

³ If he keeps his mouth closed and nostrils shut, then all his life he will be exempt from laborious exertion.

If he keeps his mouth open and breathes out the promotion of his own selfish affairs, this his life will not have safety.

⁴ The secret of clear-sightedness is the perception of what is small. The secret of strength is the guarding of what is soft and tender.

⁵ Whoever has the light of the Tao or True Nature can revert back to it. His body will ward all blight.

Chapter 81: Selflessness

¹ Sincere words are not fine. Fine words are not sincere.

Those who are skilled in the Tao do not dispute about it. The disputatious are not skilled in the Tao.

Those who know the Tao are not extensively learned. The extensively learned* do not know the Tao.

² The sage does not accumulate for himself.

• The more he spends for others, the more does he possess.
• The more he gives to others, the more he has himself.

³ With all the sharpness of the Way of Heaven, it injures not. With all the doing in the way of the sage, he does not strive.