if you take love into the fight
you will win
I was just looking through the Thomas Meyer Daode Jing for the line about the dao being every day a reduction, whereas with ordinary affairs every day means an accumulation of more knowledge. I couldn't find the quote, and maybe it's from the T'ai chi Classics. I will have to look another time. Anyway, it doesn't matter as I found this instead on page 86.
Thanks to Steven for his pointer to the verse I was after (see comment). Had a look in the Stephen Aldiss / Stanley Lombardo translation, which is another favourite, partially due to the wonderful calligraphy in the edition. Here is verse 48 from there.
Pursue knowledge, gain daily.
Pursue TAO, lose daily.
Lose and then lose,
Arrive at non-doing.
Non-doing, and nothing not done.
1 comment:
Chapter 48 is the one you are after.
Meyer is a bit unorthodox on that one.
The Feng Gia-fu / Jane English translation is probably more accurate:
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.
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