63. Difficulty
Practice no-action;
Attend to do-nothing;
Taste the flavorless,
Magnify the small,
Multiply the few,
Return love for hate.
Deal with the difficult while it is yet easy;
Deal with the great while it is yet small;
The difficult develops naturally from the easy,
And the great from the small;
So the gentle, by dealing with the small,
Achieve the great.
Who finds it easy to promise finds it hard to be trusted;
Who takes things lightly makes things difficult;
The gentle recognize difficulty, and so have none.
64a. Care at the Beginning
What lies still is easy to grasp;
What lies far off is easy to anticipate;
What is brittle is easy to shatter;
What is small is easy to disperse.
Yet a tree broader than a man
can embrace is born of a tiny shoot;
A dam greater than a river
can overrun starts with a clod of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
begins at the spot under one's feet.
Therefore deal with things before they happen;
Create order before there is confusion.
64b. Care at the End
He who acts, spoils;
He who grasps, loses.
People often fail on the verge of success;
Take care at the end as at the beginning,
So that you may avoid failure.
The gentle desire no-desire,
Value no-value,
Learn no-learning,
And return to the places people have forgotten;
They would help all people to become natural,
But then they would not be natural.
65. Subtlety
The ancients did not seek
to rule people with knowledge,
But to help them become natural.
It is difficult for knowledgeable people
to become natural;
So to use law to control a nation
weakens the nation,
But to use nature to control a nation
strengthens the nation.
Understanding these two paths
is understanding subtlety;
Subtlety runs deep, ranges wide,
Dissolves confusion and preserves peace.
66. Lead by Following
The river carves out the valley by flowing beneath it.
Thereby the river is the master of the valley.
In order to master people
One must speak as their servant;
In order to lead people
One must follow them.
So when the gentle rise above the people,
They do not feel oppressed;
And when the gentle stand before the people,
They do not feel hindered.
So support for the gentle does not fail,
They do not contend, and none contend against them.
67. Three Treasures
All the world says,
"I am important;
I am distinguished from all the world.
I am separate because I am distinguished,
Were I common, I would be unimportant."
Yet here are three treasures
That I cherish and commend to you:
The first is compassion,
By which one finds courage.
The second is reserve,
By which one finds strength.
And the third is commonality,
By which one finds influence.
Those who are courageous, yet careless,
Strong, yet impetuous,
Or influential, yet separate,
Cannot endure.
68. Compassion
Compassion is the finest weapon and best defence.
If you would establish harmony,
Compassion must surround you like a fortress.
Furthermore,
A good soldier does not inspire fear;
A good fighter does not display aggression;
A good conqueror does not favor battle;
A good leader does not exercise force.
This is the value of commonality;
This is how to win the cooperation of others;
This to how to build the same harmony that is in nature.
69. Reserve
There is a saying among soldiers:
It is easier to lose a yard than take an inch.
In this way one may deploy troops
without marshalling them,
Bring weapons to bear without exposing them,
Engage the foe without invading them,
And exhaust their strength without fighting them.
Still there is nothing worse
than misunderstanding your foe;
To do so endangers all of these treasures;
When a well-matched force opposes yours,
Find a way for them to live.
70. Individuality
My words are easy to understand
And my actions are easy to perform
Yet none other can understand or perform them.
My words have meaning; my actions have reason;
Yet these cannot be known and I cannot be known.
We are each unique, and thereby valuable;
Though the gentle wear coarse clothes,
their hearts are jade.
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71. Limitation
Those who know their limits are healthy;
Those Who ignore their limits are sick.
The gentle know this sickness as a limit,
And so become immune.
72. Revolution
When people have nothing to lose,
Then revolution will result.
Do not take away their lands,
And do not destroy their livelihoods;
If your burden is not heavy they will not shirk it.
Gentle rulers maintain themselves but exact no tribute,
Value themselves but require no honors,
Ignore appearance and accept substance.
73. Fate
The brave and bold perish;
The brave and subtle profit.
The subtle profit where the bold perish
For fate does not honor daring.
And even the gentle dare not tempt fate.
Fate does not attack, yet all things succumb to it;
It does not ask, yet all things answer it;
It does not call, yet all things meet it;
It does not plan, yet it determines all things.
Fate's net is vast and its mesh is coarse,
Yet none escape it.
74. Execution
If people were not afraid of death,
Then what would be the use of an executioner?
If people feared only death,
No one would dare disobey.
Again what would be the use of an executioner?
People fear death because death is an instrument of fate.
When people are killed by execution rather than by fate,
This is like carving wood in place of the carpenter.
Those who carve wood in place of the carpenter
Often lose their fingers.
75. Rebellion
When rulers take grain so that they may feast,
Their people become hungry;
When rulers take action to serve their own ambition,
Their people become rebellious;
When rulers take lives
so that their own lives are maintained,
Their people no longer fear death.
When people act without regard for their own lives
They overcome those who value only their own lives.
76. Flexibility
A newborn is soft and tender,
A crone, gnarled and stiff.
Plants and animals, in life, are supple and succulent;
In death, withered and dry.
So softness and tenderness are attributes of life,
Hardness and stiffness, attributes of death.
Just as a sapless tree will split and decay
So an inflexible force will meet defeat;
The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground
While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above.
77. Need
Is the action of nature not unlike drawing a bow?
What is higher is pulled down,
and what is lower is raised;
What is taller is shortened,
and what is thinner is broadened;
Nature's motion decreases those
who have more than they need
And increases those
who need more than they have.
It is not so with men.
Men decrease those
who need more than they have
And increase those
who have more than they need.
To give away what you do not need is flow.
So the gentle give without expectation,
Accomplish without claiming credit,
And desire no ostentation.
78. Yielding
Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water,
Yet nothing can better overcome the hard and strong,
For they can neither control nor destroy it.
The soft overcomes the hard,
The yielding overcomes the strong;
Every person knows this,
But few practice it.
Who attends to the people
would regulate the land and grain;
Who attends to the state
would regulate the whole world;
Truth is easily obscured by rhetoric.
79. Reconciliation
When conflict is reconciled, some hard feelings remain;
This is dangerous.
The gentle accept less than is due
And do not blame or punish;
For harmony seeks accord
Where justice seeks payment.
The ancients said: "Nature is impartial;
Therefore it serves those who serve all."
80. Small Places
Let your community be small, with only a few people;
Keep tools in abundance, but do not depend upon them;
Appreciate your life and be content with your home;
Sail boats and ride horses, but don't go too far;
Keep weapons and armor, but do not employ them;
Let everyone read and write,
Eat well and make beautiful things.
Live peacefully and delight in your own society;
Dwell within cock-crow of your neighbors,
But maintain your independence from them.
81. The Enlightened
Honest people use no rhetoric;
Rhetoric is not honesty.
Wise people are not cultured;
Culture is not wisdom.
Content people are not rich;
Riches are not contentment.
So the gentle do not serve themselves;
The more they do for others, the more they are satisfied;
The more they give, the more they receive.
Nature flourishes at the expense of no one;
So the gentle benefit all and contend against none.
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