Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
Chapter 54Planting Well
Chapter 54
Well planted is not easily uprooted,
Well taken care of is not easily taken away
And will be honored from generation to generation.
Cultivated in yourself, goodness becomes real.
Cultivated in your family it grows,
Cultivated in your village it multiplies,
Cultivated in your country it flourishes,
Cultivated in the world it brings goodness everywhere.
We understand others through understanding ourselves,
Other families through understanding our own family,
Other communities through understanding our own community,
Other countries through understanding our own country.
How do we know this is true?
By seeing into our own experience.
Commentary
“The family is society in embryo; it is the native soil… so that within a small circle a basis of moral practice is created, and this is later widened to include human relationships in general.”
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“To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”
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“Trust in self interest, spread one’s awesomeness over the enemy... Victory can be known. It cannot be made… And so the superior military cuts down strategy. Its inferior cuts down alliances. Its inferior cuts down the military. The worst attacks walled cities.”
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“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
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“The reality of the Tao lies in concern for the self. Concern for the state is irrelevant, and concern for the world is cowshit. From this standpoint, the emperor’s work is the sage’s hobby and is not what develops the self or nourishes life.”
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“We cultivate the Tao in the world by letting things change without giving orders Lao-tzu asks how we know that those who cultivate the Tao prosper and those who ignore the Tao perish. We know by comparing those who don’t cultivate the Tao with those who do.”
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“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
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“Why so quick to remove a speck from your eye, when If it's your mind, you put off the cure till next year?”
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“It is called, ‘consummation of incomparable enlightenment.’ attained by freedom from separate personal selfhood and by cultivating all kinds of goodness… though there is no goodness; such is merely a name.”
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“When someone uses laws to restrict the world, might to compel it, knowledge to silence it, and majesty to impress it, there are always those who don’t follow. When someone rules by means of the Tao, the world follows without thinking.”
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“First improve yourself, then reach out to others and to later generations bequeath the noble, pure, and kindly Tao. Thus blessings reach your descendants, virtue grows, beauty lasts, and worship never ends.”
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“When the stains from old habits are exhausted the original light appears, blazing through your skull, not admitting any other matters. Vast and spacious, like sky and water merging during autumn, like snow and moon having the same color, this field is without boundary, beyond direction, magnificently one entity without edge or seam.”
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“Humankind is called to co-create. With nature’s help, humankind can set into creation all that is necessary and life-sustaining.”
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“Just as a circle embraces all that is within it, so does the God-head embrace all. No one has the power to divide this circle, to surpass it, or to limit it.”
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“Those who plant something well, plant it without planting. Thus it is never uprooted. Those who hold something well, hold it without holding. Thus it is never taken away.”
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“We are all meant to be mothers of God...for God is always needing to be born.”
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“And who understands? Not me, because if I did I would forgive it all.”
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“All good activity in life depends on discretion, the highest virtue — that natural tendency toward the most rational and sure actions.”
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“Things are done quickly enough if done well. If just quickly done, they can be quickly undone.”
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“I never doubted… that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem’d the essentials of every religion.”
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“Philosophy is really homesickness: the urge to be at home everywhere.”
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“Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman - a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.”
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“There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which... is within the souls of men.”
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“The consciousness of each of us is evolution looking at itself and reflecting upon itself. With that very simple view… a new light – inexhaustibly harmonious – bursts upon the world, radiating from ourselves.”
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“The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.”
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“All women are not Helen but have Helen in their hearts.”
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“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
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“Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.”
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“Instead of only criticizing your culture, you should devote your mind and body to practicing this simple way. Then society and culture will grow out of you.”
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“My ultimate dream is to sow seeds in the desert. To revegetate the deserts is to sow seed in people's hearts.”
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“We always plant our feet carefully because we know the faces of future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground.”
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“If you do not start at home, you have no hope of helping the world… the first step is learning to rule your household, your immediate world…. If you do so, then the next step will come naturally. If you don't, then your contribution to this world will only be further chaos.”
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Comments (1)
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Shan Dao
7 years ago
Some scholars think this chapter was added later by someone with a more Confucian point of view. Le Guin points out how it feels much more conventional and predictable than normal for Lao Tzu and Red Pine how it mirrors the basic Confucian teachings in the Great Learning. The Gibbs/Cheng commentary describes is as “too forceful” and “discordant with the teachings of Lao Tzu.” In our view, it may just be demonstrating the breadth and interrelatedeness of wisdom.
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