Untitled.ipynb

{
 "cells": [
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": 27,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [],
   "source": [
    "import string\n",
    "import re\n",
    "\n",
    "with open('Ursula K Le Guin.md', 'r') as f:\n",
    "    tao_te_ching_md_raw = f.read()\n"
   ]
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": 35,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [
    {
     "data": {
      "text/plain": [
       "\"Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching\\nAn English Version by Ursula K. Le Guin  \\nISBN: 978-1-59030-744-1  \\n\\n\\n# 1\\n## TAOING  \\n\\n```\\nThe way you can go  \\nisn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t the real way.  \\nThe name you can say  \\nisn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t the real name.  \\n\\nHeaven and earth  \\nbegin in the unnamed:  \\nname\\xe2\\x80\\x99s the mother  \\nof the ten thousand things.  \\n\\nSo the unwanted soul  \\nsees what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s hidden,  \\nand the ever-wanting soul  \\nsees only what it wants.  \\n\\nTwo things, one origin,  \\nbut different in name,  \\nwhose identity is mystery.  \\nMystery of all mysteries!  \\nThe door to the hidden.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: A satisfactory translation of this chapter is, I believe, perfectly impossible. It contains the book. I think of it as the Aleph, in Borges\\xe2\\x80\\x99s story: if you can see it rightly, it contains everything.  \\n\\n# 2\\n## SOUL FOOD  \\n\\n```\\nEverybody on earth knowing  \\nthat beauty is beautiful  \\nmakes ugliness.  \\n\\nEverybody knowing  \\nthat goodness is good  \\nmakes wickedness.  \\n\\nFor being and nonbeing  \\narise together;  \\nhard and easy  \\ncomplete each other;  \\nhigh and low  \\ndepend on each other;  \\nnote and voice  \\nmake the music together;  \\nbefore and after  \\nfollow each other.  \\n\\nThat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s why the wise soul  \\ndoes without doing,  \\nteaches without talking.  \\n\\nThe things of this world  \\nexist, they are;  \\nyou can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t refuse them.  \\n\\nTo bear and not to own;  \\nto act and not lay claim;  \\nto do the work and let it go.  \\nfor just letting it go  \\nis what makes it stay.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: One of the things I read in this chapter is that values and beliefs are not only culturally constructed but also part of the interplay of yin and yang, the great reversals that maintain the living balance of the world. To believe that our beliefs are permanent truths which encompass reality is a sad arrogance. To let go of that belief is to find safety.  \\n\\n# 3\\n## HUSHING  \\n\\n```\\nNot praising the praiseworthy  \\nkeeps people uncompetitive.  \\n\\nNot prizing rare treasures  \\nkeeps people from stealing.  \\n\\nNot looking at the desirable  \\nkeeps the mind quiet.  \\n\\nSo the wise soul  \\ngoverning people  \\nwould empty their minds,  \\nfill their bellies,  \\nweaken their wishes,  \\nstrengthen their bones,  \\nkeep people unknowing,  \\nunwanting,  \\nkeep the ones who do know  \\nfrom doing anything.  \\n\\nWhen you do not-doing,  \\nnothing\\xe2\\x80\\x99s out of order.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Over and over Lao Tzu says wei wu wei: Do not do. Doing not-doing. To act without acting. Action by inaction. You do nothing yet it gets done... \\n   It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not a statement susceptible to logical interpretation, or even to a syntactical translation into English; but it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a concept that transforms thought radically, that changes minds. The whole book is both an explanation and a demonstration of it.  \\n\\n# 4\\n## SOURCELESS  \\n\\n```\\nThe way is empty,  \\nused, but not used up.  \\nDeep, yes! ancestral  \\nto the ten thousand things.  \\n\\nBlunting edge,  \\nloosing bond,  \\ndimming light,  \\nthe way is the dust of the way.  \\n\\nQuiet,  \\nyes, and likely to endure.  \\nWhose child? born  \\nbefore the gods.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Everything Lao Tzu says is elusive. The temptation is to grasp at something tangible in the endlessly deceptive simplicity of the words. Even some of his finest scholarly translators focus on positive ethical or political values in the text, as if those were what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s important in it. And of course the religion called Taoism is full of gods, saints, miracles, prayers, rules, methods for securing riches, power, longevity, and so forth -- all the stuff that Lao Tzu says leads us away from the way.  \\n    In passages such as this one, I think it is the profound modesty of the language that offers what so many people for so many centuries have found in this book: a pure apprehension of the mystery of which we are part.  \\n\\n# 5\\n## USEFUL EMPTINESS  \\n\\n```\\nHeaven and earth aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t humane.  \\nTo them the ten thousand things  \\nare straw dogs.  \\n\\nWise souls aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t humane.  \\nTo them the hundred families  \\nare straw dogs.  \\n\\nHeaven and earth  \\nact as a bellows:  \\n\\nEmpty yet structured,  \\nit moves, inexhaustibly giving.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The \\xe2\\x80\\x9cinhumanity\\xe2\\x80\\x9d of the wise soul doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t mean cruelty. Cruelty is a human characteristic. Heaven and earth -- that is, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cNature\\xe2\\x80\\x9d and its Way -- are not humane, because they are not human. They are not kind; they are not cruel; those are human attributes. You can only be kind or cruel if you have, and cherish, a self. You can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t even be indifferent if you aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t different. Altruism is the other side of egoism. Followers of the Way, like the forces of nature, act selflessly.  \\n\\n# 6\\n## WHAT IS COMPLETE  \\n\\n```\\nThe valley spirit never dies.  \\nCall it the mystery, the woman.  \\n\\nThe mystery,  \\nthe Door of the Woman,  \\nis the root  \\nof earth and heaven.  \\n\\nForever this endures, forever.  \\nAnd all its uses are easy.  \\n```\\n\\n# 7\\n## DIM BRIGHTNESS  \\n\\n```\\nHeaven will last,  \\nearth will endure.  \\nHow can they last so long?  \\nThey don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t exist for themselves  \\nand so can go on and on.  \\n\\nSo wise souls  \\nleaving self behind  \\nmove forward,  \\nand setting self aside  \\nstay centered.  \\nWhy let the self go?  \\nTo keep what the soul needs.  \\n```\\n\\n# 8\\n## EASY BY NATURE  \\n\\n```\\nTrue goodness  \\nis like water.  \\nWater\\xe2\\x80\\x99s good  \\nfor everything.  \\nIt doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t compete.  \\n\\nIt goes right  \\nto the low loathsome places,  \\nand so finds the way.  \\n\\nFor a house,  \\nthe good thing is level ground.  \\nIn thinking,  \\ndepth is good.  \\nThe good of giving is magnanimity;  \\nof speaking, honesty;  \\nof government, order.  \\nThe good of work is skill,  \\nand of action, timing.  \\n\\nNo competition,  \\nso no blame.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: A clear stream of water runs through this book, from poem to poem, wearing down the indestructible, finding the way around everything that obstructs the way. Good drinking water.  \\n\\n# 9\\n## BEING QUIET  \\n\\n```\\nBrim-fill the bowl,  \\nit\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll spill over.  \\nKeep sharpening the knife,  \\nyou\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll soon blunt it.  \\n\\nNobody can protect  \\na house full of gold and jade.  \\n\\nWealth, status, pride,  \\nare their own ruin.  \\nTo do good, work well, and lie low  \\nis the way of the blessing.  \\n```\\n\\n# 10\\n## TECHNIQUES  \\n\\n```\\nCan you keep your soul in its body,  \\nhold fast to the one,  \\nand so learn to be whole?  \\nCan you center your energy,  \\nbe soft, tender,  \\nand so learn to be a baby?  \\n\\nCan you keep the deep water still and clear,  \\nso it reflects without blurring?  \\nCan you love people and run things,  \\nand do so by not doing?  \\n\\nOpening, closing the Gate of Heaven,  \\ncan you be like a bird with her nestlings?  \\nPiercing bright through the cosmos,  \\ncan you know by not knowing?  \\n\\nTo give birth, to nourish,  \\nto bear and not to own,  \\nto act and not lay claim,  \\nto lead and not to rule:  \\nthis is mysterious power.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Most of the scholars think this chapter is about meditation, its techniques and fulfillments. The language is profoundly mystical, the images are charged, rich in implications.  \\n\\n# 11\\n## THE USES OF NOT  \\n\\n```\\nThirty spokes  \\nmeet in the hub.  \\nWhere the wheel isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t  \\nis where it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s useful.  \\n\\nHollowed out,  \\nclay makes a pot.  \\nWhere the pot\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not  \\nis where it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s useful.  \\n\\nCut doors and windows  \\nto make a room.  \\nWhere the room isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t,  \\nthere\\xe2\\x80\\x99s room for you.  \\n\\nSo the profit in what is  \\nis in the use of what isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: One of the things I love about Lao Tzu is he is so funny. He\\xe2\\x80\\x99s explaining a profound and difficult truth here, one of those counter-intuitive truths that, when the mind can accept them, suddenly double the size of the universe. He goes about it with this deadpan simplicity, talking about pots.  \\n\\n# 12\\n## NOT WANTING  \\n\\n```\\nThe five colors  \\nblind our eyes.  \\nThe five notes  \\ndeafen our ears.  \\nThe five flavors  \\ndull our taste.  \\n\\nRacing, chasing, hunting,  \\ndrives people crazy.  \\nTrying to get rich  \\nties people in knots.  \\n\\nSo the wise soul  \\nwatches with the inner  \\nnot the outward eye,  \\nletting that go,  \\nkeeping this.  \\n```\\n\\n# 13\\n## SHAMELESS  \\n\\n```\\nTo be in favor or disgrace  \\nis to live in fear.  \\nTo take the body seriously  \\nis to admit one can suffer.  \\n\\nWhat does that mean,  \\nto be in favor or disgrace  \\nis to live in fear?  \\nFavor debases:  \\nwe fear to lose it,  \\nfear to win it.  \\nSo to be in favor or disgrace  \\nis to live in fear.  \\n\\nWhat does that mean,  \\nto take the body seriously  \\nis to admit one can suffer?  \\nI suffer because I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m a body;  \\nif I weren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t a body,  \\nhow could I suffer?  \\n\\nSo people who set their bodily good  \\nbefore the public good  \\ncould be entrusted with the commonwealth,  \\nand people who treated the body politic  \\nas gently as their own body  \\nwould be worthy to govern the commonwealth.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Lao Tzu, a mystic, demystifies political power.  \\n    Autocracy and oligarchy foster the beliefs that power is gained magically and retained by sacrifice, and that powerful people are genuinely superior to the powerless.  \\n    Lao Tzu does not see political power as magic. He sees rightful power as earned and wrongful power as usurped. He does not see power as virtue, but as the result of virtue. The democracies are founded on that view. \\n    He sees sacrifice of self or others as a corruption of power, and power as available to anybody who follows the Way. This is a radically subversive attitude. No wonder anarchists and Taoists make good friends.  \\n\\n# 14\\n## CELEBRATING MYSTERY  \\n\\n```\\nLook at it: nothing to see.  \\nCall it colorless.  \\nListen to it: nothing to hear.  \\nCall it soundless.  \\nReach for it: nothing to hold.  \\nCall it intangible.  \\n\\nTriply undifferentiated,  \\nit merges into oneness,  \\nnot bright above,  \\nnot dark below.  \\n\\nNever, oh! never  \\ncan it be named.  \\nIt reverts, it returns  \\nto unbeing.  \\nCall it the form of the unformed,  \\nthe image of no image.  \\n\\nCall it unthinkable thought.  \\nFace it: no face.  \\nFollow it: no end.  \\n\\nHolding fast to the old Way,  \\nwe can live in the present.  \\nMindful of the ancient beginnings,  \\nwe hold the thread of the Tao.  \\n```\\n\\n# 15\\n## PEOPLE OF POWER  \\n\\n```\\nOnce upon a time  \\npeople who knew the Way  \\nwere subtle, spiritual, mysterious, penetrating,  \\nunfathomable.  \\n\\nSince they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re inexplicable  \\nI can only say what they seemed like:  \\nCautious, oh yes, as if wading through a winter river.  \\nAlert, as if afraid of the neighbors.  \\nPolite and quiet, like houseguests.  \\nElusive, like melting ice.  \\nBlank, like uncut wood.  \\nEmpty, like valleys.  \\nMysterious, oh yes, they were like troubled water.  \\n\\nWho can by stillness, little by little  \\nmake what is troubled grow clear?  \\nWho can by movement, little by little  \\nmake what is still grow quick?  \\n\\nTo follow the Way  \\nis not to need fulfillment.  \\nUnfulfilled, one may live on  \\nneeding no renewal.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: In the first stanza we see the followers of the Way in ancient times or illo tempore, remote and inaccessible; but the second stanza brings them close and alive in a series of marvelous smiles. (I am particularly fond of the polite and quiet houseguests.) The images of the valley and of uncut or uncarved wood will recur again and again.  \\n\\n# 16\\n## RETURNING TO THE ROOT  \\n\\n```\\nBe completely empty.  \\nBe perfectly serene.  \\nThe ten thousand things arise together;  \\nin their arising is their return.  \\nNow they flower,  \\nand flowering  \\nsink homeward,  \\nreturning to the root.  \\n\\nThe return to the root  \\nis peace.  \\nPeace: to accept what must be,  \\nto know what endures.  \\nIn that knowledge is wisdom.  \\nWithout it, ruin, disorder.  \\n\\nTo know what endures  \\nis to be openhearted,  \\nmagnanimous,  \\nregal,  \\nblessed,  \\nfollowing the Tao,  \\nthe way that endures forever.  \\nThe body comes to its ending,  \\nbut there is nothing to fear.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: To those who will not admit morality without a deity to validate it, or spirituality of which man is not the measure, the firmness of Lao Tzu\\xe2\\x80\\x99s morality and the sweetness of his spiritual counsel must seem incomprehensible, or illegitimate, or very troubling indeed.  \\n\\n# 17\\n## ACTING SIMPLY  \\n\\n```\\nTrue leaders  \\nare hardly known to their followers.  \\nNext after them are the leaders  \\nthe people know and admire;  \\nafter them, those they fear;  \\nafter them, those they despise.  \\n\\nTo give no trust  \\nis to get no trust.  \\n\\nWhen the work\\xe2\\x80\\x99s done right,  \\nwith no fuss or boasting,  \\nordinary people say,  \\nOh, we did it.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: This invisible leader, who gets things done in such a way that people think they did it all themselves, isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t one who manipulates others from behind the scenes; just the opposite. Again, it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a matter of \\xe2\\x80\\x9cdoing without doing\\xe2\\x80\\x9d: uncompetitive, unworried, trustful accomplishment, power that is not force. An example or analogy might be a very good teacher, or the truest voice in a group of singers.  \\n\\n# 18\\n## SECOND BESTS  \\n\\n```\\nIn the degradation of the great way  \\ncome benevolence and righteousness.  \\nWith the exaltation of learning and prudence  \\ncomes immense hypocrisy.  \\nThe disordered family  \\nis full of dutiful children and parents.  \\nThe disordered society  \\nis full of loyal patriots.  \\n```\\n\\n# 19\\n## RAW SILK AND UNCUT WOOD  \\n\\n```\\nStop being holy, forget being prudent,  \\nit\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll be a hundred times better for everyone.  \\nStop being altruistic, forget being righteous,  \\npeople will remember what family feeling is.  \\nStop planning, forget making a profit,  \\nthere won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be any thieves and robbers.  \\n\\nBut even these three rules  \\nneedn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be followed; what works reliably  \\nis to know the raw silk,  \\nhold the uncut wood.  \\nNeed little,  \\nwant less.  \\nForget the rules.  \\nBe untroubled.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: This chapter and the two before it may be read as a single movement of thought.  \\n    \\xe2\\x80\\x9cRaw silk\\xe2\\x80\\x9d and \\xe2\\x80\\x9cuncut wood\\xe2\\x80\\x9d are images traditionally associated with the characters su (simple, plain) and p\\xe2\\x80\\x99u (natural, honest).  \\n    \\n# 20\\n## BEING DIFFERENT  \\n\\n```\\nHow much difference between yes and no?  \\nWhat difference between good and bad?  \\n\\nWhat the people fear  \\nmust be feared.  \\nO desolation!  \\nNot yet, not yet has it reached its limit!  \\n\\nEverybody\\xe2\\x80\\x99s cheerful,  \\ncheerful as if at a party,  \\nor climbing a tower in springtime.  \\nAnd here I sit unmoved,  \\nclueless, like a child,  \\na baby too young to smile.  \\n\\nForlorn, forlorn.  \\nLike a homeless person.  \\nMost people have plenty.  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99m the one that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s poor,  \\na fool right through.  \\n\\nIgnorant, ignorant.  \\nMost people are so bright.  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99m the one that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s dull.  \\nMost people are so keen.  \\nI don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have the answers.  \\nOh, I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m desolate, at sea,  \\nadrift, without harbor.  \\n\\nEverybody has something to do.  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99m the clumsy one, out of place.  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99m the different one,  \\nfor my food  \\nis the milk of the mother.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG:  The difference between yes and no, good and bad, is something only the \\xe2\\x80\\x9cbright\\xe2\\x80\\x9d people, the people with the answers, can understand. A poor stupid Taoist can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t make it out.  \\n    This chapter is full of words like huang (wild, barren; famine), tun (ignorant; chaotic), hun (dull, turbid), men (sad, puzzled, mute), and hu (confused, obscured, vague). They configure chaos, confusion, a \\xe2\\x80\\x9cbewilderness\\xe2\\x80\\x9d in which the mind wanders without certainties, desolate, silent, awkward. But in that milky, dim strangeness lies the way. It can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be found in the superficial order imposed by positive and negative opinions, the good/bad, yes/no moralizing that denies fear and ignores mystery.  \\n\\n# 21\\n## THE EMPTY HEART  \\n\\n```\\nThe greatest power is the gift  \\nof following the Way alone.  \\nHow the Way does things  \\nis hard to grasp, elusive.  \\nElusive, yes, hard to grasp,  \\nyet there are thoughts in it.  \\nHard to grasp, yes, elusive,  \\nyet there are things in it.  \\nHard to make out, yes, and obscure,  \\nyet there is spirit in it,  \\nveritable spirit.  \\nThere is certainty in it.  \\nFrom long, long ago till now  \\nit has kept its name.  \\nSo it saw  \\nthe beginning of everything.  \\nHow do I know  \\nanything about the beginning?  \\nBy this.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Mysticism rises from and returns to the irreducible, unsayable reality of \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthis.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d \\xe2\\x80\\x9cThis\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is the Way. This is the way.  \\n\\n# 22\\n## GROWING DOWNWARD  \\n\\n```\\nBe broken to be whole.  \\nTwist to be straight.  \\nBe empty to be full.  \\nWear out to be renewed.  \\nHave little and gain much.  \\nHave much and get confused.  \\n\\nSo wise souls hold to the one,  \\nand test all things against it.  \\n\\nNot showing themselves,  \\nthey shine forth.  \\nNot justifying themselves,  \\nthey\\xe2\\x80\\x99re self-evident.  \\nNot praising themselves,  \\nthey\\xe2\\x80\\x99re accomplished.  \\nNot competing,  \\nthey have in all the world no competitor.  \\n\\nWhat they used to say in the old days,  \\n\\xe2\\x80\\x9cBe broken to be whole,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d  \\nwas that mistaken?  \\nTruly, to be whole  \\nis to return.  \\n```\\n\\n# 23\\n## NOTHING AND NOT  \\n\\n```\\nNature doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t make long speeches.  \\nA whirlwind doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t last all morning.  \\nA cloudburst doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t last all day.  \\nWho makes the wind and rain?  \\nHeaven and earth do.  \\nIf heaven and earth don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t go on and on,  \\ncertainly people don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t need to.  \\n\\nThe people who work with Tao  \\nare Tao people,  \\nthey belong to the Way.  \\nPeople who work with power  \\nbelong to power.  \\nPeople who work with loss  \\nbelong to what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s lost.  \\n\\nGive yourself to the Way  \\nand you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll be at home on the Way.  \\nGive yourself to power  \\nand you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll be at home in power.  \\nGive yourself to loss  \\nand when you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re lost you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll be at home.  \\n\\nTo give no trust  \\nis to get no trust.  \\n```\\n\\n# 24\\n## PROPORTION  \\n\\n```\\nYou can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t keep standing on tiptoe  \\nor walk in leaps and bounds.  \\nYou can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t shine by showing off  \\nor get ahead by pushing.  \\nSelf-satisfied people do no good,  \\nself-promoters never grow up.  \\n\\nSuch stuff is to the Tao  \\nas garbage is to food  \\nor a tumor to the body,  \\nhateful.  \\nThe follower of the Way  \\navoids it.  \\n```\\n\\n# 25\\n## IMAGINING MYSTERY  \\n\\n```\\nThere is something  \\nthat contains everything.  \\nBefore heaven and earth  \\nit is.  \\nOh, it is still, unbodied,  \\nall on its own, unchanging.  \\n\\nall-pervading,  \\never-moving.  \\nSo it can act as the mother  \\nof all things.  \\nNot knowing its real name,  \\nwe only call it the Way.  \\n\\nIf it must be named,  \\nlet its name be Great.  \\nGreatness means going on,  \\ngoing on means going far,  \\nand going far means turning back.  \\n\\nSo they say: \\xe2\\x80\\x9cThe Way is great,  \\nheaven is great,  \\nearth is great,  \\nand humankind is great;  \\nfour greatnesses in the world,  \\nand humanity is one of them.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d  \\n\\nPeople follow earth,  \\nearth follows heaven,  \\nheaven follows the Way,  \\nthe Way follows what is.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: I\\xe2\\x80\\x99d like to call the \\xe2\\x80\\x9csomething\\xe2\\x80\\x9d of the first line a lump -- an unshaped, undifferentiated lump, chaos, before the Word, before Form, before Change. Inside it is time, space, everything; in the womb of the Way.  \\n    The last words of the chapter, tzu jan, I render as \\xe2\\x80\\x9cwhat is.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d I was tempted to say, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cThe Way follows itself,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d because the Way is the way things are; but that would reduce the significance of the words. They remind us not to see the Way as a sovereignty or a domination, all creative, all yang. The Way itself is a follower. Though it is before everything, it follows what is.  \\n\\n# 26\\n## POWER OF THE HEAVY  \\n\\n```\\nHeavy is the root of light.  \\nStill is the master of moving.  \\n\\nSo wise souls make their daily march  \\nwith the heavy baggage wagon.  \\n\\nOnly when safe  \\nin a solid, quiet house  \\ndo they lay care aside.  \\n\\nHow can a lord of ten thousand chariots  \\nlet his own person  \\nweigh less in the balance than his land?  \\nLightness will lose him his foundation,  \\nmovement will lose him his mastery.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: I take heaviness to be the root matters of daily life, the baggage we bodily beings have to carry, such as food, drink, shelter, safety. If you go charging too far ahead of the baggage wagon you may be cut off from it; if you treat your body as unimportant you risk insanity or inanity.  \\n    The first two lines would make a nice motto for the practice of T\\xe2\\x80\\x99ai Chi.  \\n\\n# 27\\n## SKILL  \\n\\n```\\nGood walkers leave no track.  \\nGood talkers don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t stammer.  \\nGood counters don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t use their fingers.  \\nThe best door\\xe2\\x80\\x99s unlocked and unopened.  \\nThe best knot\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not in a rope and can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be untied.  \\n\\nSo wise souls are good at caring for people,  \\nnever turning their back on anyone.  \\nThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99re good at looking after things,  \\nnever turning their back on anything.  \\nThere\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a light hidden here.  \\n\\nGood people teach people who aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t good yet;  \\nthe less good are the makings of the good.  \\nAnyone who doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t respect a teacher  \\nor cherish a student  \\nmay be clever, but has gone astray.  \\nThere\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a deep mystery here.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The hidden light and the deep mystery seem to be signals, saying \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthink about this\\xe2\\x80\\x9d -- about care for what seems unimportant. In a teacher\\xe2\\x80\\x99s parental care for the insignificant student, and in a society\\xe2\\x80\\x99s respect for mothers, teachers, and other obscure people who educate, there is indeed illumination and a profoundly human mystery. Having replaced instinct with language, society, and culture, we are the only species that depends on teaching and learning. We aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t human without them. In them is true power. But are they the occupations of the rich and mighty?  \\n\\n# 28\\n## TURNING BACK  \\n\\n```\\nKnowing man  \\nand staying woman,  \\nbe the riverbed of the world.  \\nBeing the world\\xe2\\x80\\x99s riverbed  \\nof eternal unfailing power  \\nis to go back again to be newborn.  \\n\\nKnowing light  \\nand staying dark,  \\nbe a pattern to the world.  \\nBeing the world\\xe2\\x80\\x99s pattern  \\nof eternal unerring power  \\nis to go back again to boundlessness.  \\n\\nKnowing glory  \\nand staying modest,  \\nbe the valley of the world.  \\nBeing the world\\xe2\\x80\\x99s valley  \\nof eternal inexhaustible power  \\nis to go back again to the natural.  \\n\\nNatural wood is cut up  \\nand made into useful things.  \\nWise souls are used  \\nto make into leaders.  \\nJust so, a great carving  \\nis done without cutting.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The simplicity of Lao Tzu\\xe2\\x80\\x99s language can present an almost impenetrable density of meaning. The reversals and paradoxes in this great poem are the oppositions of the yin and yang -- male/female, light/dark, glory/modesty -- but the \\xe2\\x80\\x9cknowing and being\\xe2\\x80\\x9d of them, the balancing act, results in neither stasis nor synthesis. The riverbed in which power runs leads back, the patterns of power lead back, the valley where power is contained leads back -- to the forever new, endless, straightforward way. Reversal, recurrence, are the movement, and yet the movement is onward.  \\n\\n# 29\\n## NOT DOING  \\n\\n```\\nThose who think to win the world  \\nby doing something to it,  \\nI see them come to grief.  \\nFor the world is a sacred object.  \\nNothing is to be done to it.  \\nTo do anything to it is to damage it.  \\nTo seize it is to lose it.  \\n\\nUnder heaven some things lead, some follow,  \\nsome blow hot, some cold,  \\nsome are strong, some weak,  \\nsome are fulfilled, some fail.  \\n\\nSo the wise soul keeps away  \\nfrom the extremes, excess, extravagance.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: For Lao Tzu, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cmoderation in all things\\xe2\\x80\\x9d isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t just a bit of safe, practical advice. To lose the sense of the sacredness of the world is a mortal loss. To injure our world by excesses of greed and ingenuity is to endanger our own sacredness.  \\n\\n# 30\\n## NOT MAKING WAR  \\n\\n```\\nA Taoist wouldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t advise a ruler  \\nto use force of arms for conquest;  \\nthat tactic backfires.  \\n\\nWhere the army marched  \\ngrow thorns and thistles.  \\nAfter the war  \\ncome the bad harvests.  \\nGood leaders prosper, that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s all,  \\nnot presuming on victory.  \\nThey prosper without boasting,  \\nor domineering, or arrogance,  \\nprosper because they can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t help it,  \\nprosper without violence.  \\n\\nThings flourish then perish.  \\nNot the Way.  \\nWhat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not the Way  \\nsoon ends.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: This first direct statement of Lao Tzu\\xe2\\x80\\x99s pacifism is connected in thought to the previous poem and leads directly to the next.  \\n    The last verse is enigmatic: \\xe2\\x80\\x9cThings flourish then perish\\xe2\\x80\\x9d -- How can this supremely natural sequence not be the Way? I offer my understanding of it in the note on the page with chapter 55, where nearly the same phrase occurs.  \\n\\n# 31\\n## AGAINST WAR  \\n\\n```\\nEven the best weapon  \\nis an unhappy tool,  \\nhateful to living things.  \\nSo the follower of the Way  \\nstays away from it.  \\n\\nWeapons are unhappy tools,  \\nnot chosen by thoughtful people,  \\nto be used only when there is no choice,  \\nand with a calm, still mind,  \\nwithout enjoyment.  \\nTo enjoy using weapons  \\nis to enjoy killing people,  \\nand to enjoy killing people  \\nis to lose your share in the common good.  \\n\\nIt is right that the murder of many people  \\nbe mourned and lamented.  \\nIt is right that a victor in war  \\nbe received with funeral ceremonies.  \\n```\\n\\n# 32\\n## SACRED POWER  \\n\\n```\\nThe way goes on forever nameless.  \\nUncut wood, nothing important,  \\nyet nobody under heaven  \\ndare try to carve it.  \\nIf rulers and leaders could use it,  \\nthe ten thousand things  \\nwould gather in homage,  \\nheaven and earth would drop sweet dew,  \\nand people, without being ordered,  \\nwould be fair to one another.  \\n\\nTo order, to govern,  \\nis to begin naming;  \\nwhen names proliferate  \\nit\\xe2\\x80\\x99s time to stop.  \\nIf you know when to stop  \\nyou\\xe2\\x80\\x99re in no danger.  \\n\\nThe Way in the world  \\nis as a stream to a valley,  \\na river to the sea.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The second verse connects to the uncut, the uncarved, the unusable, to the idea of the unnamed presented in the first chapter: \\xe2\\x80\\x9cname\\xe2\\x80\\x99s the mother of the ten thousand things.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d You have to make order, you have to make distinctions, but you also have to know when to stop before you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve lost the whole in the multiplicity of parts. The simplicity or singleness of the Way is that of water, which always rejoins itself.  \\n\\n# 33\\n## KINDS OF POWER  \\n\\n```\\nKnowing other people is intelligence,  \\nknowing yourself is wisdom.  \\nOvercoming others takes strength,  \\novercoming yourself takes greatness.  \\nContentment is wealth.  \\n\\nBoldly pushing forward takes resolution.  \\nStaying put keeps you in position.  \\n\\nTo live till you die  \\nis to live long enough.  \\n```\\n\\n# 34 \\n## PERFECT TRUST  \\n\\n```\\nThe Great Way runs  \\nto left, to right,  \\nthe ten thousand things  \\ndepending on it,  \\nliving on it,  \\naccepted by it.  \\n\\nDoing its work,  \\nit goes unnamed.  \\nClothing and feeding  \\nthe ten thousand things,  \\nit lays no claim on them  \\nand asks nothing of them.  \\nCall it a small matter.  \\nThe ten thousand things  \\nreturn to it,  \\nthought it lays no claim on them.  \\nCall it great.  \\n\\nSo the wise soul  \\nwithout great doings  \\nachieves greatness.  \\n```\\n\\n# 35\\n## HUMANE POWER  \\n\\n```\\nHold fast to the great thought  \\nand all the world will come to you,  \\nharmless, peaceable, serene.  \\n\\nWalking around, we stop  \\nfor music, for food.  \\nBut if you taste the Way  \\nit\\xe2\\x80\\x99s flat, insipid.  \\nIt looks like nothing much,  \\nit sounds like nothing much.  \\nAnd yet you can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t get enough of it.  \\n```\\n\\n# 36\\n## THE SMALL DARK LIGHT  \\n\\n```\\nWhat seeks to shrink  \\nmust first have grown;  \\nwhat seeks weakness  \\nsurely was strong.  \\nWhat seeks its ruin  \\nmust first have risen;  \\nwhat seeks to take  \\nhas surely given.  \\n\\nThis is called the small dark light:  \\nthe soft, the weak prevail  \\nover the hard, the strong.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: There is a third stanza in all the texts:  \\n\\n```\\n    Fish should stay underwater:  \\n    the real means of rule  \\n    should be kept dark.  \\n```\\n\\nOr, more literally, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthe State\\xe2\\x80\\x99s sharp weapons ought not to be shown to the people.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d This Machiavellian truism seems such an anticlimax to the great theme stated in the first verses that I treat it as an intrusion, perhaps a commentator\\xe2\\x80\\x99s practical example of \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthe small dark light.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d  \\n\\n# 37\\n## OVER ALL  \\n\\n```\\nThe Way never does anything,  \\nand everything gets done.  \\nIf those in power could hold to the Way,  \\nthe ten thousand things  \\nwould look after themselves.  \\nIf even so they tried to act,  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99d quiet them with the nameless,  \\nthe natural.  \\n\\nIn the unnamed, in the unshapen,  \\nis not wanting.  \\nIn not wanting is stillness.  \\nIn stillness all under heaven rests.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Here the themes of not doing and not wanting, the unnamed and the unshapen, recur together in one pure legato. It is wonderful how by negatives and privatives Lao Tzu gives a sense of serene, inexhaustible fullness of being.  \\n\\n# 38\\n## TALKING ABOUT POWER  \\n\\n```\\nGreat power, not clinging to power,  \\nhas true power.  \\nLesser power, clinging to power,  \\nlacks true power.  \\nGreat power, doing nothing,  \\nhas nothing to do  \\nLesser power, doing nothing,  \\nhas an end in view.  \\n\\nThe good the truly good do  \\nhas no end in view.  \\nThe right the very righteous do  \\nhas an end in view.  \\nAnd those who act in true obedience to law  \\nroll up their sleeves  \\nand make the disobedient obey.  \\n\\nSo: when we lose the Way we find power;  \\nlosing power we find goodness;  \\nlosing goodness we find righteousness;  \\nlosing righteousness we\\xe2\\x80\\x99re left with obedience.  \\n\\nObedience to law is the dry husk  \\nof loyalty and good faith.  \\nOpinion is the barren flower of the Way,  \\nthe beginning of ignorance.  \\n\\nSo great-minded people  \\nabide in the kernel not the husk,  \\nin the fruit not the flower,  \\nletting the one go, keeping the other.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: A vast, dense argument in a minimum of words, this poem lays out the Taoist values in steeply descending order: the Way and its power; goodness (humane feeling); righteousness (morality); and -- a very distance last -- obedience (law and order). The word I render as \\xe2\\x80\\x9copinion\\xe2\\x80\\x9d can be read as \\xe2\\x80\\x9cknowing too soon\\xe2\\x80\\x9d: the mind obeying orders, judging before the evidence is in, closed to fruitful perception and learning.  \\n\\n# 39\\n## INTEGRITY  \\n\\n```\\nThose who of old got to be whole:  \\n\\nHeaven through its wholeness is pure;  \\nearth through its wholeness is steady;  \\nspirit through its wholeness is potent;  \\nthe valley through its wholeness flows with rivers;  \\nthe ten thousand things through their wholeness live;  \\nrulers through their wholeness have authority.  \\nTheir wholeness makes them what they are.  \\n\\nWithout what makes it pure, heaven would disintegrate;  \\nwithout what steadies it, earth would crack apart;  \\nwithout what makes it potent, spirit would fail;  \\nwithout what fills it, the valley would run dry;  \\nwithout what quickens them, the ten thousand things would die;  \\nwithout what authorizes them, rulers would fall.  \\n\\nThe root of the noble is in the common,  \\nthe high stands on what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s below.  \\nPrinces and kings call themselves  \\n\\xe2\\x80\\x9corphans, widowers, beggars,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d  \\nto get themselves rooted in the dirt.  \\n\\nA multiplicity of riches  \\nis poverty.  \\nJade is praised as precious,  \\nbut its strength is being stone.  \\n```\\n\\n# 40\\n## BY NO MEANS  \\n\\n```\\nReturn is how the Way moves.  \\nWeakness is how the Way works.  \\n\\nHeaven and earth and the ten thousand things  \\nare born of being.  \\nBeing is born of nothing.  \\n```\\n\\n# 41\\n## ON AND OFF  \\n\\n```\\nThoughtful people hear about the Way  \\nand try hard to follow it.  \\nOrdinary people hear about the Way  \\nand wander onto it and off it.  \\nThoughtless people hear about the Way  \\nand make jokes about it.  \\nIt wouldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be the Way  \\nif there weren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t jokes about it.  \\n\\nSo they say:  \\nThe Way\\xe2\\x80\\x99s brightness looks like darkness;  \\nadvancing on the Way feels like retreating;  \\nthe plain Way seems hard going.  \\nThe height of power seems a valley;  \\nthe amplest power seems not enough;  \\nthe firmest power seems feeble.  \\nPerfect whiteness looks dirty.  \\nThe pure and simple looks chaotic.  \\n\\nThe great square has no corners.  \\nThe great vessel is never finished.  \\nThe great tone is barely heard.  \\nThe great thought can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be thought.  \\n\\nThe Way is hidden  \\nin its namelessness.  \\nBut only the Way  \\nbegins, sustains, fulfills.  \\n```\\n\\n# 42\\n## CHILDREN OF THE WAY  \\n\\n```\\nThe Way bears one.  \\nThe one bears two.  \\nThe two bear three.  \\nThe three bear the ten thousand things.  \\nThe ten thousand things  \\ncarry the yin on their shoulders  \\nand hold in their arms the yang,  \\nwhose interplay of energy  \\nmakes harmony.  \\n\\nPeople despise  \\norphans, widowers, outcasts.  \\nYet that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s what kings and rulers call themselves.  \\nWhatever you lose, you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve won.  \\nWhatever you win, you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve lost.  \\n\\nWhat others teach, I say too:  \\nviolence and aggression  \\ndestroy themselves.  \\nMy teaching rests on that.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Beginning with a pocket cosmology, this chapter demonstrates the \\xe2\\x80\\x9cinterplay of energy\\xe2\\x80\\x9d of yin and yang by showing how low and high, winning and losing, destruction and self-destruction, reverse themselves, each turning into its seeming opposite.  \\n\\n# 43\\n## WATER AND STONE  \\n\\n```\\nWhat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s softest in the world  \\nrushes and runs  \\nover what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s hardest in the world.  \\n\\nThe immaterial  \\nentres  \\nthe impenetrable.  \\n\\nSo I know the good in not doing.  \\n\\nThe wordless teaching,  \\nthe profit in not doing -not many people understand it.  \\n```\\n\\n# 44\\n## FAME AND FORTUNE  \\n\\n```\\nWhich is nearer,  \\nname or self?  \\nWhich is dearer,  \\nself or wealth?  \\nWhich gives more pain,  \\nloss or gain?  \\n\\nAll you grasp will be thrown away.  \\nAll you hoard will be utterly lost.  \\n\\nContentment keeps disgrace away.  \\nRestraint keeps you out of danger  \\nso you can go on for a long, long time.  \\n```\\n\\n# 45\\n## REAL POWER  \\n\\n```\\nWhat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s perfectly whole seems flawed,  \\nbut you can use it forever.  \\nWhat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s perfectly full seems empty,  \\nbut you can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t use it up.  \\n\\nTrue straightness looks crooked.  \\nGreat skill looks clumsy.  \\nReal eloquence seems to stammer.  \\n\\nTo be comfortable in the cold, keep moving;  \\nto be comfortable in the heat, hold still;  \\nto be comfortable in the world, stay calm and clear.  \\n```\\n\\n# 46\\n## WANTING LESS  \\n\\n```\\nWhen the world\\xe2\\x80\\x99s on the Way,  \\nthey use horses to haul manure.  \\nWhen the world gets off the Way,  \\nthey breed warhorses on the common.  \\n\\nThe greatest evil: wanting more.  \\nThe worst luck: discontent.  \\nGreed\\xe2\\x80\\x99s the curse of life.  \\n\\nTo know enough\\xe2\\x80\\x99s enough  \\nis enough to know.  \\n```\\n\\n# 47\\n## LOOKING FAR  \\n\\n```\\nYou don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have to go out the door  \\nto know what goes on in the world.  \\nYou don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have to look out the window  \\nto see the way of heaven.  \\nThe farther you go,  \\nthe less you know.  \\n\\nSo the wise soul  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t go, but knows;  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t look, but sees;  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t do, but gets it done.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: We tend to expect great things from \\xe2\\x80\\x9cseeing the world\\xe2\\x80\\x9d and \\xe2\\x80\\x9cgetting experience.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d A Roman poet remarked that travelers change their sky but not their soul. Other poets, untraveled and inexperienced, Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson, prove Lao Tzu\\xe2\\x80\\x99s point: it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s the inner eye that really sees the world.  \\n\\n# 48\\n## UNLEARNING  \\n\\n```\\nStudying and learning daily you grow larger.  \\nFollowing the Way daily you shrink.  \\nYou get smaller and smaller.  \\nSo you arrive at not doing.  \\nYou do nothing and nothing\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not done.  \\n\\nTo run things,  \\ndon\\xe2\\x80\\x99t fuss with them.  \\nNobody who fusses  \\nis fit to run things.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The word shi in the second stanza, my \\xe2\\x80\\x9cfuss,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is troublesome to the translators. Carus\\xe2\\x80\\x99s quite legitimate translation of it is \\xe2\\x80\\x9cdiplomacy,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d which would give a stanza I like very much:  \\n\\n```\\n    To run things,  \\n    be undiplomatic.  \\n    No diplomat  \\n    is fit to run things.  \\n```\\n\\n# 49\\n## TRUST AND POWER  \\n\\n```\\nThe wise have no mind of their own,  \\nfinding it in the minds  \\nof ordinary people.  \\n\\nThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99re good to good people  \\nand they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re good to bad people.  \\nPower is goodness.  \\nThey trust people of good faith  \\nand they trust people of bad faith.  \\nPower is trust.  \\n\\nThey mingle their life with the world,  \\nthey mix their mind up with the world.  \\nOrdinary people look after them.  \\nWise souls are children.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The next to last line is usually read as saying that ordinary people watch and listen to wise people. But Lao Tzu has already told us that most of us wander on and off the Way and don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t know a sage from a sandpile. And surely the quiet Taoist is not a media pundit.  \\n    Similarly, the last line is taken to mean that the wise treat ordinary people like children. This is patronizing, and makes hash out of the first verse. I read it to mean that the truly wise are looked after (or looked upon) like children because they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re trusting, unprejudiced, and don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t hold themselves above or apart from ordinary life.  \\n\\n# 50\\n## LOVE OF LIFE  \\n\\n```\\nTo look for life  \\nis to find death.  \\nThe thirteen organs of our living  \\nare the thirteen organs of our dying.  \\nWhy are the organs of our life  \\nwhere death enters us?  \\nBecause we hold too hard to living.  \\n\\nSo I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve heard  \\nif you live in the right way,  \\nwhen you cross country  \\nyou needn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t fear to meet a mad bull or a tiger;  \\nwhen you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re in a battle  \\nyou needn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t fear the weapons.  \\nThe bull would find nowhere to jab its horns,  \\nthe tiger nowhere to stick its claws,  \\nthe sword nowhere for its point to go.  \\nWhy? Because there\\xe2\\x80\\x99s nowhere in you  \\nfor death to enter.  \\n```\\n\\n# 51\\n## NATURE, NURTURE  \\n\\n```\\nThe Way bears them;  \\npower nurtures them;  \\ntheir own being shapes them;  \\ntheir own energy completes them.  \\nAnd not one of the ten thousand things  \\nfails to hold the Way sacred  \\nor to obey its power.  \\n\\nTheir reference for the Way  \\nand obedience to its power  \\nare unforced and always natural.  \\nFor the Way gives them life;  \\nits power nourishes them,  \\nmothers and feeds them,  \\ncompletes and matures them,  \\nlooks after them, protects them.  \\n\\nTo have without possessing,  \\ndo without claiming,  \\nlead without controlling;  \\nthis is mysterious power.  \\n```\\n\\n# 52\\n## BACK TO THE BEGINNING  \\n\\n```\\nThe beginning of everything  \\nis the mother of everything.  \\nTruly to know the mother  \\nis to know her children,  \\nand truly to know the children  \\nis to turn back to the mother.  \\nThe body comes to its ending  \\nbut there is nothing to fear.  \\n\\nClose the openings,  \\nshut the doors,  \\nand to the end of life  \\nnothing will trouble you.  \\nOpen the openings,  \\nbe busy with business,  \\nand to the end of life  \\nnothing can help you.  \\n\\nInsight sees the insignificant.  \\nStrength knows how to yield.  \\nUse the way\\xe2\\x80\\x99s light, return to its insight,  \\nand so keep from going too far.  \\nThat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s how to practice what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s forever.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: This chapter on the themes of return and centering makes circles within itself and throughout the book returning to phrases from other poems, turning them round the center. A center which is everywhere, a circle whose circumference is infinite...  \\n\\n# 53\\n## INSIGHT  \\n\\n```\\nIf my mind\\xe2\\x80\\x99s modest,  \\nI walk the great way.  \\nArrogance  \\nis all I fear.  \\n\\nThe great way is low and plain,  \\nbut people like shortcuts over the mountains.  \\n\\nThe palace is full of splendor  \\nand the fields are full of weeds  \\nand the granaries are full of nothing.  \\n\\nPeople wearing ornaments and fancy clothes,  \\ncarrying weapons,  \\ndrinking a lot and eating a lot,  \\nhaving a lot of things, a lot of money:  \\nshameless thieves.  \\nSurely their way  \\nisn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t the way.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: So much for capitalism.  \\n\\n# 54\\n## SOME RULES  \\n\\n```\\nWell planted is not uprooted,  \\nwell kept is not lost.  \\nThe offerings of the generations  \\nto the ancestors will not cease.  \\n\\nTo follow the way yourself is real power.  \\nTo follow it in the family is abundant power.  \\nTo follow it in the community is steady power.  \\nTo follow it in the whole country is lasting power.  \\nTo follow it in the world is universal power.  \\n\\nSo in myself I see what self is,  \\nin my household I see what family is,  \\nin my town I see what community is,  \\nin my nation I see what a country is,  \\nin the world I see what is under heaven.  \\n\\nHow do I know the world is so?  \\nBy this.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: I follow Waley\\xe2\\x80\\x99s interpretation of this chapter. It is Tao that plants and keeps; the various kinds of power belong to Tao; and finally in myself I see the Tao of self, and so on.  \\n\\n# 55 \\n## THE SIGN OF THE MYSTERIOUS  \\n\\n```\\nBeing full of power  \\nis like being a baby.  \\nScorpions don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t sting,  \\ntiger\\xe2\\x80\\x99s don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t attack,  \\neagles don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t strike.  \\nSoft bones, weak muscles,  \\nbut a firm grasp.  \\nIgnorant of the intercourse  \\nof man and woman,  \\nyet the baby penis is erect.  \\nTrue and perfect energy!  \\nAll day long screaming and crying,  \\nbut never getting hoarse.  \\nTrue and perfect harmony!  \\n\\nTo know harmony  \\nis to know what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s eternal.  \\nTo know what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s eternal  \\nis enlightenment.  \\nIncrease of life is full of portent:  \\nthe strong heart exhausts the vital breath.  \\nThe full-grown is on the edge of age.  \\nNot the Way.  \\nWhat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not the Way soon dies.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: As a model for the Taoist, the baby is in many ways ideal: totally unaltruistic, not interested in politics, business, or the proprieties, weak, soft, and able to scream placidly for hours without wearing itself out (its parents are another matter). The baby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s unawareness of poisonous insects and carnivorous beasts means that such dangers simply do not exist for it. (Again, its parents are a different case.)  \\n    As a metaphor of the Tao, the baby embodies the eternal beginning, the ever-springing source. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cWe come, clouds of glory,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d Wordsworth says; and Hopkins, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cThere lives the dearest freshness deep down things.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d No Peter Pan-ish refusal to grow up is involved, no hunt for the fountain of youth. What is eternal is forever young, never grows old. But we are not eternal.  \\n    It is in this sense that I understand how the natural, inevitable cycle of youth, growth, mature vigor, age, and decay can be \\xe2\\x80\\x9cnot the Way.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d The Way is more than the cycle of any individual life. We rise, flourish, fail. The Way never fails. We are waves. It is the sea.  \\n\\n# 56\\n## MYSTERIES OF POWER  \\n\\n```\\nWho knows  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t talk.  \\nWho talks  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t know.  \\nClosing the openings,  \\nshutting doors,  \\n\\nblunting edge,  \\nloosing bond,  \\ndimming light,  \\nbe one with the dust of the way.  \\nSo you come to the deep sameness.  \\n\\nThen you can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be controlled by love  \\nor by rejection.  \\nYou can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be controlled by profit  \\nor by loss.  \\nYou can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be controlled by praise  \\nor by humiliation.  \\nThen you have honor under heaven.  \\n```\\n\\n# 57\\n##  BEING SIMPLE  \\n\\n```\\nRun the country by doing what\\xe2\\x80\\x99s expected.  \\nWin the war by doing the unexpected.  \\nControl the world by doing nothing.  \\nHow do I know that?  \\nBy this.  \\n\\nThe more restrictions and prohibitions in the world,  \\nthe poorer people get.  \\nThe more experts the country has  \\nthe more of a mess it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s in.  \\nThe more ingenious the skillful are,  \\nthe more monstrous their inventions.  \\nThe louder the call for law and order,  \\nthe more the thieves and con men multiply.  \\n\\nSo a wise leader might say:  \\nI practice inaction, and the people look after themselves.  \\nI love to be quiet, and the people themselves find justice.  \\nI don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t do business, and the people prosper on their own.  \\nI don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have wants, and the people themselves are uncut wood.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: A strong political statement of the central idea of wu wei, not doing, inaction.  \\nMy \\xe2\\x80\\x9cmonstrous\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is literally \\xe2\\x80\\x9cnew.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d New is strange, and strange is uncanny. New is bad. Lao Tzu is deeply and firmly against changing things, particularly in the name of progress. He would make an Iowa farmer look flighty. I don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t think he is exactly anti-intellectual, but he considers most uses of the intellect to be pernicious, and all plans for improving things to be disastrous. Yet he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not a pessimist. No pessimist would say that people are able to look after themselves, be just, and prosper on their own. No anarchist can be a pessimist.  \\n    Uncut wood -- here likened to the human soul -- the uncut, uncarved, unshaped, unpolished, native, natural stuff is better than anything that can be made of it. Anything done to it deforms and lessens it. Its potentiality is infinite. Its uses are trivial.  \\n\\n# 58\\n## LIVING WITH CHANGE  \\n\\n```\\nWhen the government\\xe2\\x80\\x99s dull and confused,  \\nthe people are placid.  \\nWhen the government\\xe2\\x80\\x99s sharp and keen,  \\nthe people are discontented.  \\nAlas! misery lies under happiness,  \\nand happiness sits on misery, alas!  \\nWho knows where it will end?  \\nNothing is certain.  \\n\\nThe normal changes into the monstrous,  \\nthe fortunate into the unfortunate,  \\nand our bewilderment  \\ngoes on and on.  \\n\\nAnd so the wise  \\nshape without cutting,  \\nsquare without sawing,  \\ntrue without forcing.  \\nThey are the light that does not shine.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: In the first verse, the words \\xe2\\x80\\x9cdull and confused\\xe2\\x80\\x9d and \\xe2\\x80\\x9csharp and keen\\xe2\\x80\\x9d are, as Waley points out, the words used in chapter 20 to describe the Taoist and the non-Taoists.  \\n    In the last verse most translators say the Taoist is square but doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t cut, shines but doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t dazzle. Waley says that this misses the point. The point is that Taoists gain their ends without the use of means. That is indeed a light that does not shine -- an idea that must be pondered and brooded over. A small dark light.  \\n\\n# 59\\n## STAYING ON THE WAY  \\n\\n```\\nIn looking after your life and following the way,  \\ngather spirit.  \\nGather spirit early,  \\nand so redouble power,  \\nand so become invulnerable.  \\n\\nInvulnerable, unlimited,  \\nyou can do what you like with material things.  \\nBut only if you hold to the Mother of things  \\nwill you do it for long.  \\nHave deep roots, a strong trunk.  \\nLive long by looking long.  \\n```\\n\\n# 60\\n## STAYING PUT  \\n\\n```\\nRule a big country  \\nthe way you cook a small fish.  \\n\\nIf you keep control by following the Way,  \\ntroubled spirits won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t act up.  \\nThey won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t lose their immaterial strength,  \\nbut they won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t harm people with it,  \\nnor will wise souls come to harm.  \\nAnd so, neither harming the other,  \\nthese powers will come together in unity.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Thomas Jefferson would have liked the first stanza.  \\n   \\xe2\\x80\\x9cTroubled spirits\\xe2\\x80\\x9d are kwei, ghosts, not bad in themselves but dangerous if they possess you. Waley reads the second stanza as a warning to believers in Realpolitik: a ruler \\xe2\\x80\\x9cpossessed\\xe2\\x80\\x9d by power harms both the people and his own soul. Taking it as counsel to the individual, it might mean that wise souls neither indulge nor repress the troubled spirits that may haunt them; rather, they let those spiritual energies be part of the power they find along the way.  \\n\\n# 61\\n## LYING LOW  \\n\\n```\\nThe polity of greatness  \\nruns downhill like a river to the sea,  \\njoining with everything,  \\nwoman to everything.  \\n\\nBy stillness the woman  \\nmay always dominate the man,  \\nlying quiet underneath him.  \\n\\nSo a great country  \\nsubmitting to small ones, dominates them;  \\nso small countries,  \\nsubmitting to a great one, dominate it.  \\n\\nLie low to be on top,  \\nbe on top by lying low.  \\n```\\n\\n# 62\\n## THE GIFT OF THE WAY  \\n\\n```\\nThe way is the hearth and home  \\nof the ten thousand things.  \\nGood souls treasure it,  \\nlost souls find shelter in it.  \\n\\nFine words are for sale,  \\nfine deeds go cheap;  \\neven worthless people can get them.  \\n\\nSo, at the coronation of the Son of Heaven  \\nwhen the Three Ministers take office,  \\nyou might race out in a four-horse chariot  \\nto offer a jade screen;  \\nbut wouldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t it be better to sit still  \\nand let the Way be your offering?  \\n\\nWhy was the Way honored  \\nin the old days?  \\nWasn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t it said:  \\nSeek, you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll find it.  \\nHide, it will shelter you.  \\nSo it was honored under heaven.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: I think the line of thought throughout the poe has to do with true reward as opposed to dishonorable gain, true giving as opposed to fake goods.  \\n\\n# 63\\n## CONSIDER BEGINNINGS  \\n\\n```\\nDo without doing.  \\nAct without action.  \\nSavor the flavorless.  \\nTreat the small as large,  \\nthe few as many.  \\n\\nMeet injury  \\nwith the power of goodness.  \\n\\nStudy the hard why it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s easy.  \\nDo big things while they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re small.  \\nThe hardest jobs in the world start out easy,  \\nthe great affairs of the world start small.  \\n\\nSo the wise soul,  \\nby never dealing with great things,  \\ngets great things done.  \\n\\nNow, since taking things too lightly makes them worthless,  \\nand taking things too easy makes them hard,  \\nthe wise soul,  \\nby treating the easy as hard,  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t find anything hard.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Waley says that this charmingly complex chapter plays with two proverbs. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cRequite injuries with good deeds\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is the first. The word te, here meaning goodness or good deeds, is the same word Lao Tzu uses for the Power of the Way. (\\xe2\\x80\\x9cPower is goodness,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d he says in chapter 49.) So, having neatly annexed the Golden Rule, he goes on to the proverb about \\xe2\\x80\\x9ctaking things too lightly\\xe2\\x80\\x9d and plays paradox with it.  \\n\\n# 64\\n## MINDFUL OF LITTLE THINGS  \\n\\n```\\nIt\\xe2\\x80\\x99s easy to keep hold of what hasn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t stirred,  \\neasy to plan what hasn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t occurred.  \\nIt\\xe2\\x80\\x99s easy to shatter delicate things,  \\neasy to scatter little things.  \\nDo things before they happen.  \\nGet them straight before they get mixed up.  \\n\\nThe tree you can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t reach your arms around  \\ngrew from a tiny seedling.  \\nThe nine-story tower rises  \\nfrom a heap of clay.  \\nThe ten-thousand-mile journey  \\nbegins beneath your foot.  \\n\\nDo, and do wrong;  \\nHold on, and lose.  \\nNot doing, the wise soul  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t do it wrong,  \\nand not holding on,  \\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t lose it.  \\n(In all their undertakings,  \\nit\\xe2\\x80\\x99s just as they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re almost finished  \\nthat people go wrong.  \\nMind the end as the beginning,  \\nthen it won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t go wrong.)  \\n\\nThat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s why the wise  \\nwant not to want,  \\ncare nothing for hard-won treasures,  \\nlearn not to be learned,  \\nturn back to what people overlooked.  \\nThey go along with things as they are,  \\nbut don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t presume to act.  \\n```\\n\\n# 65\\n## ONE POWER  \\n\\n```\\nOnce upon a time  \\nthose who ruled according to the Way  \\ndidn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t use it to make people knowing  \\nbut to keep them unknowing.  \\n\\nPeople get hard to manage  \\nwhen they know too much.  \\nWhoever rules by intellect  \\nis a curse upon the land.  \\nWhoever rules by ignorance  \\nis a blessing on it.  \\nTo understand these things  \\nis to have a pattern and a model,  \\nand to understand the pattern and the model  \\nis mysterious power.  \\n\\nMysterious power  \\ngoes deep.  \\nIt reaches far.  \\nIt follows things back,  \\nclear back to the great oneness.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Where shall we find a ruler wise enough to know what to teach and what to withhold? \\xe2\\x80\\x9cOnce upon a time,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d maybe, in the days of myth and legend, as a pattern, a model, an ideal?  \\n    The knowledge and the ignorance or unknowing Lao Tzu speaks of may or may not refer to what we think of as education. In the last stanza, by power he evidently does not mean political power at all, but something vastly different, a unity with the power of the Tao itself.  \\n    This is a mystical statement about government -- and in our minds those two realms are worlds apart. I cannot make the leap between them. I can only ponder it  \\n\\n# 66\\n## LOWDOWN  \\n\\n```\\nLakes and rivers are lords of the hundred valleys.  \\nWhy? Because they\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll go lower.  \\nSo they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re the lords of the hundred valleys.  \\n\\nJust so, a wise soul,  \\nwanting to be above other people,  \\ntalks to them from below  \\nand to guide them  \\nfollows them.  \\n\\nAnd so the wise soul  \\npredominates without dominating,  \\nand leads without misleading.  \\nAnd people don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t get tired  \\nof enjoying and praising  \\none who, not competing,  \\nhas in all the world  \\nno competitor.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: One of the things I love in Lao Tzu is his good cheer, as in this poem, which while giving good counsel is itself a praise and enjoyment of the spirit of yin, the water-soul that yields, follows, eludes, and leads on, dancing in the hundred valleys.  \\n\\n# 67\\n## THREE TREASURES  \\n\\n```\\nEverybody says my way is great  \\nbut improbable.  \\n\\nAll greatness  \\nis improbable.  \\nWhat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s probable  \\nis tedious and petty.  \\n\\nI have three treasures.  \\nI keep and treasure them.  \\nThe first, mercy,  \\nthe second, moderation,  \\nthe third, modesty.  \\nIf you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re merciful you can be brave,  \\nif you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re moderate you can be generous,  \\nand if you don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t presume to lead  \\nyou can lead the high and mighty.  \\n\\nBut to brave without compassion,  \\nor generous without self-restraint,  \\nor to take the lead,  \\nis fatal  \\n\\nCompassion wins the battle  \\nand holds the fort;  \\nit is the bulwark set  \\naround those heaven helps.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: The first two verses of this chapter are a joy to me.  \\n    The three final verses are closely connected in thought to the next two chapters, which may be read as a single meditation on mercy, moderation, and modesty, on the use of strength, on victory and defeat.  \\n\\n# 68\\n## HEAVEN\\xe2\\x80\\x99S LEAD  \\n\\n```\\nThe best captain doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t rush in front.  \\nThe fiercest fighter doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t bluster.  \\nThe big winner isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t competing.  \\nThe best boss takes a low footing.  \\nThis is the power of noncompetition.  \\nThis is the right use of ability.  \\nTo follow heaven\\xe2\\x80\\x99s lead  \\nhas always been the best way.  \\n```\\n\\n# 69\\n## USING MYSTERY  \\n\\n```\\nThe expert in warfare says:  \\nRather than dare make the attack  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99d take the attack;  \\nrather than dare advance an inch  \\nI\\xe2\\x80\\x99d retreat a foot.  \\n\\nIt\\xe2\\x80\\x99s called marching without marching,  \\nrolling up your sleeves without flexing your muscles,  \\nbeing armed without weapons,  \\ngiving the attacker no opponent.  \\nNothing\\xe2\\x80\\x99s worse than attacking what yields.  \\nTo attack what yields is to throw away the prize.  \\n\\nSo, when matched armies meet,  \\nthe one who comes to grief  \\nis the true victor.  \\n```\\n\\nUKLG: A piece of sound tactical advice (practiced by the martial arts, such as Aikido, and by underground resistance and guerilla forces), which leads to a profound moral warning. The prize thrown away by the aggressor is compassion. The yielder, the griever, the mourner, keeps that prize. The game is loser takes all.  \\n\\n# 70\\n## BEING OBSCURE  \\n\\n```\\nMy words are so easy to understand,  \\nso easy to follow,  \\n\\nand yet nobody in the world  \\nunderstands or follows them.  \\n\\nWords come from an ancestry,  \\ndeeds from a mastery:  \\nwhen these are unknown, so am I.  \\n\\nIn my obscurity  \\nis my value.  \\nThat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s why the wise  \\nwear their jade under common clothes.  \\n```\\n\\n# 71\\n## THE SICK MIND\\n\\n```\\nTo know without knowing is best.\\nNot knowing without knowing it is sick.\\n\\nTo be sick of sickness\\nis the only cure.\\n\\nThe wise aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t sick.\\nThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99re sick of sickness,\\nso they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re well.\\n```\\n\\nUKLG: What you know without knowing you know it is the right kind of knowledge. Any other kind (conviction, theory, dogmatic belief, opinion) isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t the right kind, and if you don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t know that, you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll lose the Way. This chapter is an example of exactly what Lao Tzu was talking about in the last one -- obscure clarity, well-concealed jade.\\n\\n# 72\\n## THE RIGHT FEAR\\n\\n```\\nWhen we don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t fear what we should fear\\nwe are in fearful danger.\\nWe ought not to live in narrow houses,\\nwe ought not to do stupid work.\\n\\nIf we don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t accept stupidity\\nwe won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t act stupidly.\\nSo, wise souls know but don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t show themselves,\\nlook after but don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t prize themselves,\\nletting the one go, keeping the other.\\n```\\n\\n# 73\\n## DARING TO DO\\n\\n```\\nBrave daring leads to death.\\nBrave caution leads to life.\\nThe choice can be the right one\\nor the wrong one.\\n\\nWho will interpret\\nthe judgment of heaven?\\nEven the wise soul\\nfinds it hard.\\n\\nThe way of heaven\\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t compete\\nyet wins handily,\\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t speak\\nyet answers fully,\\ndoesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t summon\\nyet attracts.\\nIt acts\\nperfectly easily.\\n\\nThe net of heaven\\nis vast, vast,\\nwide-meshed,\\nyet missing nothing.\\n```\\n\\n# 74\\n## THE LORD OF SLAUGHTER\\n\\n```\\nWhen normal, decent people don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t fear death,\\nhow can you use death to frighten them?\\nEven when they have a normal fear of death,\\nwho of us dare take and kill the one who doesn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t?\\nWhen people are normal and decent and death-fearing,\\nthere\\xe2\\x80\\x99s always an executioner.\\nTo take the place of that executioner\\nis to take the place of the great carpenter.\\nPeople who cut the great carpenter\\xe2\\x80\\x99s wood\\nseldom get off with their hands unhurt.\\n```\\n\\nUKLG: To Lao Tzu, not to fear dying and not to fear killing are equally unnatural and antisocial. Who are we to forestall the judgment of heaven or nature,\\nto usurp the role of \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthe executioner\\xe2\\x80\\x9d? \\xe2\\x80\\x9cThe Lord of Slaughter\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is Waley\\xe2\\x80\\x99s grand translation.\\n\\n# 75\\n## GREED\\n\\n```\\nPeople are starving.\\nThe rich gobble taxes,\\nthat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s why people are starving.\\n\\nPeople rebel.\\nThe rich oppress them,\\nthat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s why people rebel.\\n\\nPeople hold life cheap.\\nThe rich make it too costly,\\nthat\\xe2\\x80\\x99s why people hold it cheap.\\n\\nBut those who don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t live for the sake of living\\nare worth more than the wealth-seekers.\\n```\\n\\nUKLG: How many hundreds of years ago was this book written? And yet still this chapter must be written in the present tense.\\n\\n# 76\\n## HARDNESS\\n\\n```\\nLiving people\\nare soft and tender.\\nCorpses are hard and stiff.\\nThe ten thousand things,\\nthe living grass, the trees,\\nare soft, pliant.\\nDead, they\\xe2\\x80\\x99re dry and brittle.\\n\\nSo hardness and stiffness\\ngo with death;\\ntenderness, softness,\\ngo with life.\\n\\nAnd the hard sword fails,\\nthe stiff tree\\xe2\\x80\\x99s felled.\\nThe hard and great go under.\\nThe soft and weak stay up.\\n```\\n\\nUKLG: In an age when hardness is supposed to be the essence of strength, and even the beauty of women is reduced nearly to the bone, I welcome this reminder that tanks and tombstones are not very adequate role models, and that to be alive is to be vulnerable.\\n\\n# 77\\n## THE BOW\\n\\n```\\nThe Way of heaven\\nis like a bow bent to shoot:\\nits top end brought down,\\nits lower end raised up.\\nIt brings the high down,\\nlifts the low,\\ntakes from those who have,\\ngives to those who have not.\\n\\nSuch is the Way of heaven,\\ntaking from people who have,\\ngiving to people who have not.\\nNot so the human way:\\nit takes from those who have not\\nto fill up those who have.\\nWho has enough to fill up everybody?\\nOnly those who have the Way.\\n\\nSo the wise\\ndo without claiming,\\nachieve without asserting,\\nwishing not to show their worth.\\n```\\n\\n# 78\\n## PARADOXES\\n\\n```\\nNothing in the world\\nis as soft, as weak, as water;\\nnothing else can wear away\\nthe hard, the strong,\\nand remain unaltered.\\nSoft overcomes hard,\\nweak overcomes strong.\\nEverybody knows it,\\nnobody uses the knowledge.\\n\\nSo the wise say:\\nBy bearing common defilements\\nyou become a sacrificer at the altar of earth;\\nby bearing common evils\\nyou become a lord of the world.\\n\\nRight words sound wrong.\\n```\\n\\n# 79\\n## KEEPING THE CONTRACT\\n\\n```\\nAfter a great enmity is settled\\nsome enmity always remains.\\nHow to make peace?\\nWise souls keep their part of the contract\\nand don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t make demands on others.\\nPeople whose power is real fulfill their obligations;\\npeople whose power is hollow insist on their claims.\\n\\nThe Way of heaven plays no favorites.\\nIt stays with the good.\\n```\\n\\nUKLG: This chapter is equally relevant to private relationships and to political treaties. Its realistic morality is based on a mystical perception of the fullness of the Way.\\n\\n# 80\\n## FREEDOM\\n\\n```\\nLet there be a little country without many people.\\nLet them have tools that do the work of ten or a hundred,\\nand never use them.\\nLet them be mindful of death\\nand disinclined to long journeys.\\nThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99d have ships and carriages,\\nbut no place to go.\\nThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99d have armor and weapons,\\nbut no parades.\\nInstead of writing,\\nthey might go back to using knotted cords.\\nThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99d enjoy eating,\\ntake pleasure in clothes,\\nbe happy with their houses,\\ndevoted to their customs.\\n\\nThe next little country might be so close\\nthe people could hear cocks crowing\\nand dogs barking there,\\nbut they\\xe2\\x80\\x99d get old and die\\nwithout ever having been there.\\n```\\n\\nUKLG: Waley says this endearing and enduring vision \\xe2\\x80\\x9ccan be understood in the past, present, or future tense, as the reader desires.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d This is always true of the vision of the golden age, the humane society.\\n   Christian or Cartesian dualism, the division of spirit or mind from the material body and world, existed long before Christianity or Descartes and was never limited to Western thought (though it is the \\xe2\\x80\\x9ccraziness\\xe2\\x80\\x9d or \\xe2\\x80\\x9csickness\\xe2\\x80\\x9d that many people under Western domination see in Western civilization). Lao Tzu thinks the materialistic dualist, who tries to ignore the body and live in the head, and the religious dualist, who despises the body and lives for a reward in heaven, are both dangerous and in danger. So, enjoy your life, he says; live in your body, you are your body; where else is there to go? Heaven and earth are one. As you walk the streets of your town you walk on the Way of heaven.\\n\\n# 81\\n## TELLING IT TRUE\\n\\n```\\nTrue words aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t charming,\\ncharming words aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t true.\\nGood people aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t contentious,\\ncontentious people aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t good.\\nPeople who know aren\\xe2\\x80\\x99t learned,\\nlearned people don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t know.\\n\\nWise souls don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t hoard;\\nthe more they do for others the more they have,\\nthe more they give the richer they are.\\nThe Way of heaven profits without destroying.\\nDoing without outdoing\\nis the Way of the wise.\\n```\\n\\n# NOTES\\n\\n## Concerning This Version\\n\\nThis is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text with each character followed by a transliteration and a translation. My gratitude to him is unending.\\n\\n## Sources\\n\\n## Notes on Some Choices of Wording\\n\\n## The Two Texts of the Tao Te Ching\\n\\n## Notes on the Chapters\\n\""
      ]
     },
     "execution_count": 35,
     "metadata": {},
     "output_type": "execute_result"
    }
   ],
   "source": [
    "tao_te_ching_md_raw"
   ]
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": 29,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [
    {
     "data": {
      "text/plain": [
       "[(0, \"Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching\"),\n",
       " (1, 'An English Version by Ursula K. Le Guin'),\n",
       " (2, 'ISBN: 978-1-59030-744-1'),\n",
       " (3, ''),\n",
       " (4, ''),\n",
       " (5, '# 1'),\n",
       " (6, '## TAOING'),\n",
       " (7, ''),\n",
       " (8, '```'),\n",
       " (9, 'The way you can go')]"
      ]
     },
     "execution_count": 29,
     "metadata": {},
     "output_type": "execute_result"
    }
   ],
   "source": [
    "tao_te_ching_md = map(string.strip, tao_te_ching_md_raw.split('\\n'))\n",
    "\n",
    "list(zip(range(10),tao_te_ching_md[:10]))"
   ]
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": 42,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [
    {
     "name": "stdout",
     "output_type": "stream",
     "text": [
      "1\n",
      "TAOING\n"
     ]
    },
    {
     "data": {
      "text/plain": [
       "['# 1',\n",
       " '# 2',\n",
       " '# 3',\n",
       " '# 4',\n",
       " '# 5',\n",
       " '# 6',\n",
       " '# 7',\n",
       " '# 8',\n",
       " '# 9',\n",
       " '# 10',\n",
       " '# 11',\n",
       " '# 12',\n",
       " '# 13',\n",
       " '# 14',\n",
       " '# 15',\n",
       " '# 16',\n",
       " '# 17',\n",
       " '# 18',\n",
       " '# 19',\n",
       " '# 20',\n",
       " '# 21',\n",
       " '# 22',\n",
       " '# 23',\n",
       " '# 24',\n",
       " '# 25',\n",
       " '# 26',\n",
       " '# 27',\n",
       " '# 28',\n",
       " '# 29',\n",
       " '# 30',\n",
       " '# 31',\n",
       " '# 32',\n",
       " '# 33',\n",
       " '# 34',\n",
       " '# 35',\n",
       " '# 36',\n",
       " '# 37',\n",
       " '# 38',\n",
       " '# 39',\n",
       " '# 40',\n",
       " '# 41',\n",
       " '# 42',\n",
       " '# 43',\n",
       " '# 44',\n",
       " '# 45',\n",
       " '# 46',\n",
       " '# 47',\n",
       " '# 48',\n",
       " '# 49',\n",
       " '# 50',\n",
       " '# 51',\n",
       " '# 52',\n",
       " '# 53',\n",
       " '# 54',\n",
       " '# 55',\n",
       " '# 56',\n",
       " '# 57',\n",
       " '# 58',\n",
       " '# 59',\n",
       " '# 60',\n",
       " '# 61',\n",
       " '# 62',\n",
       " '# 63',\n",
       " '# 64',\n",
       " '# 65',\n",
       " '# 66',\n",
       " '# 67',\n",
       " '# 68',\n",
       " '# 69',\n",
       " '# 70',\n",
       " '# 71',\n",
       " '# 72',\n",
       " '# 73',\n",
       " '# 74',\n",
       " '# 75',\n",
       " '# 76',\n",
       " '# 77',\n",
       " '# 78',\n",
       " '# 79',\n",
       " '# 80',\n",
       " '# 81']"
      ]
     },
     "execution_count": 42,
     "metadata": {},
     "output_type": "execute_result"
    }
   ],
   "source": [
    "chapter_heading_pattern = re.compile(r'# (?P<chapter>[\\d]{1,2})[ ]*')\n",
    "print re.search(chapter_heading_pattern, tao_te_ching_md[5]).groupdict()['chapter']\n",
    "chapter_name_pattern = re.compile(r'##[ ]*(?P<chapter_name>(?:[ ]*\\w+)*)[ ]*')\n",
    "print re.search(chapter_name_pattern, tao_te_ching_md[6]).groupdict()['chapter_name']\n",
    "filter(lambda line: re.search(chapter_heading_pattern, line), tao_te_ching_md)"
   ]
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": 41,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [
    {
     "data": {
      "text/plain": [
       "[('1', 'TAOING'),\n",
       " ('2', 'SOUL FOOD'),\n",
       " ('3', 'HUSHING'),\n",
       " ('4', 'SOURCELESS'),\n",
       " ('5', 'USEFUL EMPTINESS'),\n",
       " ('6', 'WHAT IS COMPLETE'),\n",
       " ('7', 'DIM BRIGHTNESS'),\n",
       " ('8', 'EASY BY NATURE'),\n",
       " ('9', 'BEING QUIET'),\n",
       " ('10', 'TECHNIQUES'),\n",
       " ('11', 'THE USES OF NOT'),\n",
       " ('12', 'NOT WANTING'),\n",
       " ('13', 'SHAMELESS'),\n",
       " ('14', 'CELEBRATING MYSTERY'),\n",
       " ('15', 'PEOPLE OF POWER'),\n",
       " ('16', 'RETURNING TO THE ROOT'),\n",
       " ('17', 'ACTING SIMPLY'),\n",
       " ('18', 'SECOND BESTS'),\n",
       " ('19', 'RAW SILK AND UNCUT WOOD'),\n",
       " ('20', 'BEING DIFFERENT'),\n",
       " ('21', 'THE EMPTY HEART'),\n",
       " ('22', 'GROWING DOWNWARD'),\n",
       " ('23', 'NOTHING AND NOT'),\n",
       " ('24', 'PROPORTION'),\n",
       " ('25', 'IMAGINING MYSTERY'),\n",
       " ('26', 'POWER OF THE HEAVY'),\n",
       " ('27', 'SKILL'),\n",
       " ('28', 'TURNING BACK'),\n",
       " ('29', 'NOT DOING'),\n",
       " ('30', 'NOT MAKING WAR'),\n",
       " ('31', 'AGAINST WAR'),\n",
       " ('32', 'SACRED POWER'),\n",
       " ('33', 'KINDS OF POWER'),\n",
       " ('34', 'PERFECT TRUST'),\n",
       " ('35', 'HUMANE POWER'),\n",
       " ('36', 'THE SMALL DARK LIGHT'),\n",
       " ('37', 'OVER ALL'),\n",
       " ('38', 'TALKING ABOUT POWER'),\n",
       " ('39', 'INTEGRITY'),\n",
       " ('40', 'BY NO MEANS'),\n",
       " ('41', 'ON AND OFF'),\n",
       " ('42', 'CHILDREN OF THE WAY'),\n",
       " ('43', 'WATER AND STONE'),\n",
       " ('44', 'FAME AND FORTUNE'),\n",
       " ('45', 'REAL POWER'),\n",
       " ('46', 'WANTING LESS'),\n",
       " ('47', 'LOOKING FAR'),\n",
       " ('48', 'UNLEARNING'),\n",
       " ('49', 'TRUST AND POWER'),\n",
       " ('50', 'LOVE OF LIFE'),\n",
       " ('52', 'BACK TO THE BEGINNING'),\n",
       " ('53', 'INSIGHT'),\n",
       " ('54', 'SOME RULES'),\n",
       " ('55', 'THE SIGN OF THE MYSTERIOUS'),\n",
       " ('56', 'MYSTERIES OF POWER'),\n",
       " ('57', 'BEING SIMPLE'),\n",
       " ('58', 'LIVING WITH CHANGE'),\n",
       " ('59', 'STAYING ON THE WAY'),\n",
       " ('60', 'STAYING PUT'),\n",
       " ('61', 'LYING LOW'),\n",
       " ('62', 'THE GIFT OF THE WAY'),\n",
       " ('63', 'CONSIDER BEGINNINGS'),\n",
       " ('64', 'MINDFUL OF LITTLE THINGS'),\n",
       " ('65', 'ONE POWER'),\n",
       " ('66', 'LOWDOWN'),\n",
       " ('67', 'THREE TREASURES'),\n",
       " ('69', 'USING MYSTERY'),\n",
       " ('70', 'BEING OBSCURE'),\n",
       " ('71', 'THE SICK MIND'),\n",
       " ('72', 'THE RIGHT FEAR'),\n",
       " ('73', 'DARING TO DO'),\n",
       " ('74', 'THE LORD OF SLAUGHTER'),\n",
       " ('75', 'GREED'),\n",
       " ('76', 'HARDNESS'),\n",
       " ('77', 'THE BOW'),\n",
       " ('78', 'PARADOXES'),\n",
       " ('79', 'KEEPING THE CONTRACT'),\n",
       " ('80', 'FREEDOM'),\n",
       " ('81', 'TELLING IT TRUE')]"
      ]
     },
     "execution_count": 41,
     "metadata": {},
     "output_type": "execute_result"
    }
   ],
   "source": [
    "chapter_pattern = re.compile(r'# (?P<chapter>[\\d]{1,2})[ ]*\\n##[ ]*(?P<chapter_name>(?:[ ]*\\w+)*)[ ]*\\n')\n",
    "chapter_matches = re.findall(chapter_pattern, tao_te_ching_md_raw)\n",
    "[match for match in chapter_matches]"
   ]
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": null,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [],
   "source": []
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",
   "execution_count": null,
   "metadata": {},
   "outputs": [],
   "source": []
  }
 ],
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   "language": "python",
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    "version": 2
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   "file_extension": ".py",
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   "nbconvert_exporter": "python",
   "pygments_lexer": "ipython2",
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