Tisra Til
2022-05-17 16:32:23 UTC
Tao Teh Ching, stanza 19
Abandon the separate concepts of holiness and unholiness.
Then all people will be benefited a hundredfold.
Abandon the separate concepts of justice and humanism,
and all people will return to a natural state of harmony.
Abandon the cunningness and cleverness of the mind,
and people will cease to rob and deceive one another.
These things are based on artifice and are thus
inadequate to express the natural virtue of wholeness.
Hence, return to the true self,
to embrace only the one, unadorned nature.
Refine personal preference and desire.
End the endless search for segmented, intellectual knowledge,
and set your mind above worry and vexation.
In this way, one may restore one’s unity
with the perfection of the one great universal life.
Translated by Hua-Ching Ni
Abandon the separate concepts of holiness and unholiness.
Then all people will be benefited a hundredfold.
Abandon the separate concepts of justice and humanism,
and all people will return to a natural state of harmony.
Abandon the cunningness and cleverness of the mind,
and people will cease to rob and deceive one another.
These things are based on artifice and are thus
inadequate to express the natural virtue of wholeness.
Hence, return to the true self,
to embrace only the one, unadorned nature.
Refine personal preference and desire.
End the endless search for segmented, intellectual knowledge,
and set your mind above worry and vexation.
In this way, one may restore one’s unity
with the perfection of the one great universal life.
Translated by Hua-Ching Ni