To gain insight

 

If I in an insignificant manner have knowledge,

I walk in the great reason;

it is only assertions;

this I fear.

The great reason is very plain, 

but the people like by-paths.

The palace is very splendid,

the fields very weedy granariesvery empty.

To wear ornaments gaudy colors to carry sharp swords,

to be excessive in drinking eating,

wealth treasure to have in abundance,

this called robbers's pride,

anti-reason indeed.

Return to the origin

 

The world takes its beginning,

thereby becomes the world's mother.

When one knows one's mother,

in turn it knows its son.

When it knows its son, 

in turn he keeps to his mother.

To the end of life he is not in danger.

Closes his mouth shuts his sense-gates,

to the end of life not is troubled.

Opens his mouth, meddles with affairs,

in the end of life not can he be saved.

To see smallness is called enlightenment.

To keep one's tenderness is called strength.

Employ light, reverts goes home to its enlightenment

does not surrender his person to perdition.

This is called practising the eternal.

To nurse virtue

 

Reason gives life to them

Virtue nurses them.

Concrete things shape them.

Energy completes them.

Therefore the ten thousand things

no one not honors reason and esteems virtue.

Reason's honorableness virtue's esteemableness,

however, no one it commands,

but always they are spontaneous.

Therefore reason gives life to them,

virtue nurses them, raises them,

nurtures them, completes them,

matures them, rears them, protects them,

to give life to but not to own,

to make but not to claim;

to raise but not to rule;

this is called profound virtue.

Esteem life

 

Going forth is life
coming home is death.

Life's pursuers ten you have three.

Death's pursuers ten you have three.

Of the people who from their life

are moving to their death place,

also in ten you have three.

Now what is the reason?

Because they live life's intensity.

Indeed I hear:

ably manages his life,

the one on land he travels,

not he meets the rhinoceros, the tiger, 

coming among soldiers,

not shun arms and weapons.

The rhinoceros has no place where to insert its horn.

The tiger has no place where to put his claws.

Soldiers have no place where to let enter their blades.

Now what is the reason?

Because he has no death's place.

Trust in virtue

The holy man has no fixed heart.

In the hundred families their heart he finds his own heart.

Good ones I treat with goodness them.

Not good ones I also treat with goodness them.

Virtue is good.

The faithful ones, I treat faithfully them.

The unfaithful ones I also treat faithfully them.

Virtue is faithful.

The holy man lives in the world,

cautiously, as cautiously dealing with the world.

He universalises his heart.

The hundred families all fix upon their ears eyes.

The holy man all treats as children them.

 

To forget knowledge

Attend to learning daily he gains.

Practises reason daily he diminishes.

He diminishes himself and again he diminishes.

Thus attains unto non-doing.

He does non-doing yet there is nothing undone.

To take the empire always he uses non-diplomacy

When using diplomacy not is he fit thereby to take the empire.

 

Seeing the distant

 

Not going out of the door 

I know the world.

Not peeping through the window 

I see heaven's reason.

One goes out more and more to the distance,

one's knowledge more and more grows little.

Therefore the holy man

not goes about but he knows.

Not he sees but he defines

Not he labors but he completes.

To moderate desires

 

The world has reason,

curb race horses for hauling dung.

The world has no reason,

war horses are raised in the common.

Sin there is none greater than to desire.

Misfortune there is none greater than not to know contentment

Calamity there is none greater than desire for gaining.

Therefore knows contentment's contentment is always contented.

Grand virtue

 

Great perfection seems imperfect.

Its function not is worn out.

Great fulness seems empty.

Its function is not exercised.

Great straightness seems crooked.

Great skill seems clumsy.

Great eloquence seems stammering.

Motion conquers cold.

Quietude conquers heat.

Purity clearness are the world's standard.

Setting up precepts

 

Name and person which nearer?

Person and treasure, which more?

Gain and loss, which is more painful?

Extreme fondness surely greatly wastes.

Much hoarding surely intense loss.

Know contentment not is despised.

know when to stop is not endangered.

He will be able thereby to last to continue.

The universal function

 

The world's most tender, 
gallops and courses over the world's most hard.

The not having existence 

enters the impenetrable.

I therefore know the not-doing's having advantage,
the not-speaking's doctrine,
the not-doing advantage in the world
few obtain them.