Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

16

He who is open-eyed is open-minded

He who is open-minded is open-hearted,

He who is open-hearted is kingly,

He who is kingly is godly,

He who is godly is useful,

He who is useful is infinite,

He who is infinite is immune,

He who is immune is immortal.*

=-=-=-

*23*

*Nature does not have to insist,

Can blow for only half a morning,

Rain for only half a day,

And what are these winds and these rains but natural?

If nature does not have to insist,

Why should man?

It is natural too

That whoever follows the way of life feels alive,

That whoever uses it properly feels well used,

Whereas he who loses the way of life feels lost,

That whoever keeps to the way of life

Feels at home,

Whoever uses it properly

Feels welcome,

Whereas he who uses it improperly

Feels improperly used:

'Fail to honor people,

They fail to honor you.*

-=-=-=

*28*

*'One who has a man's wings

And a woman's also

Is in himself a womb of the world'

And, being a womb of the world,

Continuously, endlessly,

Gives birth;

One who, preferring light,

Prefers darkness also

Is in himself an image of the world

And, being an image of the world,

Is continuously, endlessly

The dwelling of creation;

One who is highest of men

And humblest also

Is in himself a valley of the world,

And. being a valley of the world,

Continuously, endlessly

Conducts the one source

From which vessels may be usefully filled;

Servants of the state are such vessels,

To be filled from undiminishing supply.*

-=-=-=

*31*

*Even the finest arms are an instrument of evil,

A spread of plague,

And the way for a vital man to go is not the way of a soldier.
But in time of war men civilized in peace

Turn from their higher to their lower nature.

Arms are an instrument of evil,

No measure for thoughtful men

Until there fail all other choice

But sad acceptance of it.

Triumph is not beautiful.

He who thinks triumph beautiful

Is one with a will to kill,

And one with a will to kill

Shall never prevail upon the world.

It is a good sign when man's higher nature comes forward,

A bad sign when his lower nature comes forward,

When retainers take charge

And the master stays back

As in the conduct of a funeral.

The death of a multitude is cause for mourning:

Conduct your triumph as a funeral.*

=-=-=-

38

Here is what happens:

Losing the way of life, men rely first on their fitness;

Losing fitness, they turn to kindness;

Losing kindness, they turn to justness;

Losing justness, they turn to convention.

Conventions are fealty and honesty gone to waste,

They are the entrance of disorder.

False teachers of life use flowery words

And start nonsense.

The man of stamina stays with the root

Below the tapering,

Stays with the fruit

Beyond the flowering:

He has his no and he has his yes.*

-=-=-=

*50*

*Death might appear to be the issue of life,

Since for every three out of ten being born

Three out of ten are dying.

Then why

Should another three out of ten continue breeding death?

By use of sheer madness to multiply.

But there is one out of ten, they say, so sure of life

That tiger and wild bull keep clear of his inland path.

Weapons turn from him on the battle-field,

No bull-horn could tell where to gore him,

No tiger-claw where to tear him,

No weapon where to enter him.

And why?

Because he has no death to die.*

-=-=-=

51

Be parent, not possessor,

Attendant, not master,

Be concerned not with obedience but with benefit,

And you are at the core of living.*

-=-=-=-=

*52*
*The source of life

Is as a mother.

Be fond of both mother and children but know the mother dearer

And you outlive death.

Curb your tongue and senses

And you are beyond trouble,

Let them loose

And you are beyond help.

Discover that nothing is too small for clear vision,

Too insignificant for tender strength~

Use outlook

And insight,

Use them both

And you are immune:

For you have witnessed eternity.*

-=-=-=

*54*

*'Since true foundation cannot fail

But holds as good as new,

Many a worshipful son shall hail

A father who lived true.'

Realized in one man, fitness has its rise;

Realized in a family, fitness multiplies;

Realized in a village, fitness gathers weight;

Realized in a country, fitness becomes great;

Realized in the world, fitness fills the skies.

And thus the fitness of one man

You find in the family he began,

You find in the village that accrued,

You find in the country that ensued,

You find in the world's whole multitude.

How do I know this integrity?

Because it could all begin in me.*

-=-=-=

*56*

*Those who know do not tell,

Those who tell do not know.

Not to set the tongue loose

But to curb it,

Not to have edges that catch

But to remain untangled,

Unblinded,

Unconfused,

Is to find balance,

And he who holds balance beyond sway of love or hate,

Beyond reach of profit or loss,

Beyond care of praise or blame,

Has attained the highest post in the world.

-=-=-=

*57*

*A realm is governed by ordinary acts,

A battle is governed by extraordinary acts;

The world is governed by no acts at all.

And how do I know?

This is how I know.

Act after act prohibits

Everything but poverty,

Weapon after weapon conquers

Everything but chaos,

Business after business provides

A craze of waste,

Law after law breeds

A multitude of thieves.

Therefore a sensible man says:

If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves,

If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves,

If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves,

If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.*

-=-=-=-=

*60*

*Handle a large kingdom with as gentle a touch as if you were cooking

small fish.

-=-=-=-=

*61*

*A large country is the low level of interflowing rivers.

It draws people to the sea-end of a valley

As the female draws the male,

Receives it into absorbing depth

Because depth always absorbs.

And so a large country, inasfar as it is deeper than a small country,

Absorbs the smallOr a small country, inasfar as it is deeper than a large country,

Absorbs the large.

Some countnes consciously seek depth into which to draw others.

Some countries naturally have depth into which to draw others:

A large country needs to admit,

A small country needs to emit,

And so each country can naturally have what it needs

If the large country submit.*

-=-=-=

62

'Only pursue an offender to show him the way.'

What men in all the world could have more wealth than

they?*

-=-=-=

*63*

*Men knowing the way of life

Do without acting,

Effect without enforcing,

Taste without consuming;

'Through the many they find the few,

Through the humble the great;'

They 'respect their foes,'

They 'face the simple fact before it becomes involved,

Solve the small problem before it becomes big.'

The most involved fact in the world

Could have been faced when it was simple,

The biggest problem in the world

Could have been solved when it was small.

The simple fact that he finds no problem big

Is a sane man's prime achievement.

If you say yes too quickly

You may have to say no,

If you think things are done too easily

You may find them hard to do:

If you face trouble sanely

It cannot trouble you.*
-=-=-=-=

64

Most people who miss, after almost winning,

Should have 'known the end from the beginning.'

A sane man is sane in knowing what things he can spare,

In not wishing what most people wish,

In not reaching for things that seem rare.

The cultured might call him heathenish,

This man of few words, because his one care

Is not to interfere but to let nature renew

The sense of direction men undo.*

-=-=-=

*67*

*Everyone says that my way of life is the way of a simpleton.

Being largely the way of a simpleton is what makes it worth while.

If it were not the way of a simpleton

It would long ago have been worthless,

These possessions of a simpleton being the three I

choose

And cherish:

To care,

To be fair,

To be humble.

When a man cares he is unafraid

When he is fair he leaves enough for others,

When he is humble he can grow;

Whereas if, like men of today, he be bold without caring,

Self-indulgent without sharing,

Self-important without shame,

He is dead.

The invincible shield

Of caring

Is a weapon from the sky

Against being dead.*

-=-=-=

*70*

*My way is so simple to feel, so easy to apply,

That only a few will feel it or apply it.

If it were not the lasting way, the natural way to try,

If it were a passing way, everyone would try it.

But however few shall go my way

Or feel concerned with me,

Some there are and those are they

Who witness what they see:

Sanity is a haircloth sheath

With a jewel underneath.*

-=-=-=-=

*71*

*A man who knows how little he knows is well,

A man who knows how much he knows is sick.

If, when you see the symptoms, you can tell,

Your cure is quick.

A sound man knows that sickness makes him sick

And before he catches it his cure is quick.*

-=-=-=-=

72

To know yourself and not show yourself,

To think well of yourself and not tell of yourself,

Be that your no and your yes.*

-=-=-=-=

*73*

*A man with outward courage dares to die,

A man with inward courage dares to live;

But either of these men

Has a better and a worse side than the other.

And who can tell exactly to which qualities heaven objects?

Heaven does nothing to win the day,

Says nothing-Is echoed,

Orders nothing-Is obeyed,

Advises nothing-Is right:

And which of us, seeing that nothing is outside the vast

Wide-meshed net of heaven, knows just how it is cast?*

-=-=-=

*74*

*People starve

If taxes eat their grain,

And the faults of starving people

Are the fault of their rulers.

That is why people rebel.

Men who have to fight for their living

And are not afraid to die for it

Are higher men than those who, stationed high,

Are too fat to dare to die.*

-=-=-=

NOTES

Herrymon Maurer in a postscript to The Old Fellow, his fictional

portrait of Laotzu, notes how closely the way of life according to

Laotzu relates to the principles of democracy. Maurer is right that

democracy cannot be a successful general practice unless it is first a

true individual conviction. Many of us in the West think ourselves

believers in democracy if we can point to one of its fading flowers

even

while the root of it in our own lives is gone with worms. No one in

history has shown better than Laotzu how to keep the root of democracy

clean. Not only democracy but all of life, he points out, grows at

one's

own doorstep. Maurer says, "Laotzu is one of our chief weapons against

tanks, artillery and bombs." I agree that no one has bettered the

ancient advice:

"Conduct your triumph as a funeral."

=-=-=-

A CONVERSATION WITH VANDAM AND THROWING ANGRY STONES INTO THE RIVER

Vandam approaches and looks at me with a kind of respect and disgust, in equal mixture.

- What’s the deal?

- I want to ask you something, but not here...

- Do you have what I need?

- Yes, I answer, removing the package from inside the lining and giving it to him.

Vandam greedily reaches out and takes the package, which he checks on the run. It's not full, but it's
satisfying. He motions to me to go to the forest. We climb slowly, very slowly.

- Where did you grab it from?

- A worker had forgotten it...

- You’re lying!

- Then, what does it matter where I got it from?

- That's right. It doesn't matter.

- I came here…
– You were very brave to come all the way here, adoptee. The last time you went to the boss'. So far, no
one has dared to go to the boss'. An adopted never has the guts. Adoptees are fearful bitches. One step
towards them and they run away.

- I am not a scared bitch.

– What do you want to ask me? If I go to church?

I go when I want. The father does not force me. If

he tries to force me, I ain't coming at all.

- I want to know the truth.

– The truth? he asks me in amazement, finding a way to sit on a trunk overturned by the wind.

We enter the edge of the forest and look towards the tectonic tongue of the other Valley. In front of us
we had left the curtain of two or three trees so as not to be noticed. Vandam lights a cigarette and looks
a few times towards me, as if not knowing how to begin.

– Toni, this life is a whore, he starts shooting

first smoke… I lived in Bucharest for a long time

after I ran away from the center and did everything.

I don't know who my parents are. I have no idea and I don't I want to meet them someday, because I'm
going to kill them. I stick the knife in them, because they left me on the street with the hustlers and the
whores. The hustlers gave me glue to sniff, and the whores gave me food and clothes. Sniffing glue
makes you spin like a toy, like the one with a broken spring. And moving your body back and forth in a
complete disarray.

- And why did the hustlers gave you glue?

- To make money. The jerks made money off

my back: they made me beg, they made me dance, they made me do other things.

- Who am I?

– An adopted. Your real parents abandoned you, and the people here raised you. You are some
adopted, and we are the squatters. We are waiting to be leaving. When, I don't know. We are in transit,
like in an immigrants’ camp. The Father told me that life it's not a joke. At least, I can do it right from
now on, not to be a jerk anymore.

- And where is my family?

– Your family is far away. The only one who may

know, where is your family, is the Father. But he doesn't always know either. Maybe you should ask him
if your parents left a word with the Father...”

I feel like everything around me is falling apart; it

break the usual order of my world, first the vault, with an infernal noise, then the walls, one by one

one. Nothing is true. I don't have parents, nor do I have a family. Cami is not my sister, Luci is not my
brother, Dinu is not my brother. I'm just a stranger among so many other strangers.

- It's not worth crying, Toni, Vandam tells me,

smoking quietly. Life is a joke. Only you can make it

not to be one. That's what he said. Otherwise, you will be nothing but just another adopted sucker.

I grit my teeth and stand up. I don't care what Vandam does anymore. I want to walk so far and

get so tired that I don't think anymore that I am an abandoned child by his parents. That I wouldn't have
a family. How could they behave so naturally without letting me to suspect, for a moment, that they are
not my parents, but only people who welcomed me into their lives, because my people have abandoned
me?! They did it that way so that I don't miss my family. And yet, even though I do obvious get the love,
I feel betrayed. I feel soiled, trampled on. I arrive near the stone piles, deposited by rain on the bank of
the stream. A feeling of revolt and hatred invades me. I hate the valley, I hate people, I hate this unruly
stream who doesn't even understand what's happening to me which jingles as always, as if mocking my
crying, my helplessness. I grab rocks and start throwing them at it, in anger. "Want frogs?", I shouted.
Then, I didn't know if I addressed it, or myself. "You got used to jokes and laughs... Now you're going to
get a few stones in your head, to get “happy childhood” out of your head, once and for all!". I threw
stones until I fell, exhausted on those cold pebbles, next to a careless stream, which just continued its
flow.

=-=-=0

DIALOGUE BETWEEN TONI AND CAMI, SURROUNDED BY CURTAINS F SNOW, REAL OR IMAGINARY

- I'm waiting here, for her.

- She won't come.

- How do you know?

Dinu was already close to home. He looked back again, and when he turned towards me it seemed like
he was saying something. Now, the snow falls on me, furiously. I'm going to stay here all night.
Something, as hard as steel, is creeping into my mind and forces me to make this decision, which no one
else could force me to change it. Not even death. And I think she has just felt this thing, and that’s why
she comes out. She calls my name several times, but I don't answer her. If she really wants to

to find me, she must look for me through the curtains of snow that wrap and unfold around me,
between heaven and earth. I guess she flutters like a huge moth around me, as I keep hearing her
desperate shouting near me:

- Toni! Why are you hiding from me?

I could say one word and she wouldn't walk by me, again, so many times. But an impossible barrier fell
between us. I feel that fierceness again, as it creeps into my unhappy heart, into my jaw and into my
fists. If she is my family…
- I am your family, Toni. I am mother, father, brother, sister. I'm looking for you and I can't find you. But I
want to find you, Toni. I owe you a huge debt.

If she is my family, if she wants to play this unhappy game, then be it! I can play it in any weather, even
under oppressing snow.

The darkness has fell upon us for good, but the white gurgles everywhere. The only one feeling that
dominates me, and does me good, is anger. Why does she dare to look for me? Why is my family looking
for me? Why just now? I have sad, tragic questions, which gathered all the unhappiness in the world. I
don't want any kind of communication. I don't want a date. No! Especially with a family that abandoned
their child. Especially with a mother who didn't want to know about me at the very beginning. I don't
want to see my mother like that.

- Better go! I shouted, and my howl got smothered by the snowy curtains of the night. Leave, and don't
come back! Stop looking for me because you won’t find me! I'll always hide, you hear me? I will hide in
the hills, in the valleys, in the woods, in the trenches that make up the church site, and you will never
know where I am. You will cry, just as I am crying now, too.

- Toni, I heard you. You are around here somewhere... You must be very nearby. Toni, stay where you
are because I will find you, Mother will find you, baby. I miss you. I miss you for so many years and I
can't heal until we meet. Allow me to

meet you please!

- You are a murderous mother! I call after her, hidden behind a high snow curtain, which covered the
main road and is coming crushing down in threatening waves.

- Toni! she calls me, heartbreakingly, in the night of our village. You are flesh of my flesh, you are blood
of my blood, you are a soul from my soul. I want you back! I was wrong, oh, how I was wrong, but I want
you back.

- You’re just saying that.

- Where are you?

- Right here…

- Why can't I see you?

- Because I wasn't born yet... I'm in your belly, so close, and you don't want me. Why don’t you want
me?!

- I can't tell you now... Thousands of thoughts have passed through my head, I cried out to God, it
seemed no one heard me, that everything was lost, and I wanted you. You don't even know how much I
wanted you. That's why I think the miracle of your birth happened. Otherwise…

- You are a liar and a pretender. You only want

to meet me and have a peaceful conscience. But for eleven years you didn't want to know about me.
You abandoned me and you didn't care about what I ate, what I was wearing and where I sleep. You
took care of your life, and you threw mine away in the trash.
- Toni, I was wrong! I was unforgivably wrong! Forgive me! Forgive me! Please forgive your guilty
mother!

- You are not my mother! I couldn’t even

remember your smile This is a sure sign. Other people are my mother and my father. Them,

some strangers, welcomed me and became my family, and you, my family, became strangers to me.

– But your sister is not to blame, Toni. Come at least

for her!

- My sister?

- Yes, Toni. You have a sister. And she doesn't have a brother to defend her. Come for her!

Either Cami is very intelligent and surprises me

with her skillfully interpreted scene, or my disposition not to give into my mother's pleas no longer
works, other than as a disarticulated mechanism. I want to fight it and I can't. I lose my rebellion, my
fierceness. And something remains that simply terrifies me. The desire to hug my mother, remains. In
the end, it turns out that I'm just a child; a child who needs a mother to hug him. Can I be blamed of
wanting to be hugged? I was totally fighting this weakness, which I could see

in the abandoned children from the Valley. The weakness of holding unto mother Siţa’s hand, or the
women’s hands from this village, those who came from the Valley, bringing food for us. I'm sick of
missing my mother and I want to hold her hand. I missed this simple thing so much that it seemed
natural to do it myself, as all the children around me did, as a daily consolation or as a medicine. I'm sick
of missing mother and I need her caress. I think I was about five years old, when a woman held me
tightly in her arms and caressed me. Was her my mother? Could she? Or just other murderous mother
who, while embracing me, embraced her murdered child?

I didn't realize until now how weak I was, enough to beg for a hug. But Cami knows. She hugs me and
holds me in her lap, which feels like it is quite a long time, while the curtains of snow wrap and unfold

without ceasing, as if the contraction of a huge womb wants to give birth to waves of whiteness. Cami
holds me tight, and I feel like I could forgive my mother. Maybe for the first time, after everything I had
learned, I feel that I can forgive her and go hand in hand with her wherever she takes me in the world.
And that's because I trust that my mother loves me and that there must have been something very
unfortunate that happened to her, to be eleven years late into my life. I am still one

child, who can still cry and forgive.

And then a dog starts howling, sadly and lonely. His shrill howl extends through the neck and penetrates
like a knife through the snow curtains, into your intestines, your bones, your marrow.

=-=-=

THE FEELINGS FOR CAMI

Cami had remained in my soul as a reconciliation.

And, above all, I remembered the moment when we held hands. I think that's why I was trying

to keep as much as possible in my immediate memory her smile. I felt that her smile was an undefined
inner connection with that exuberant Cami, sometimes silent, sometimes playful, but also possessing a
great ambition to succeed in being human. That Cami appeared often in my thoughts, offering me a
mental comfort which nothing else could. Every moment when her smile was opening inside me was the
equivalent of holding hands. So, I had the feeling that there was someone who loved me. Someone who
knew that it is not at all easy to be alone in a world so foreign, in a world that, many years ago, threw
me like garbage, out of its womb.

I was looking for the moments when no one could see or hear me, and I was talking to her: "Isn't that
right, Cami, that all this will pass, and we will be adults, we will meet and we will laugh a lot at the
unfortunate events of life? I miss the Valley, Cami. I miss Father Nicolae. And do you know why Cami?
Because I miss my father. The stranger, who says he is my father, considers me as his adversary. Here,
my life is a rough fight, Cami. A fight which I do not know when and how it will end".

-=-=-=-

ON HUMILIATION

I wanted to know how to fight, because I had observed that life is a fight and if you don't know how to
fight, then humiliation is reserved for you as the only way to integrate into society. Humiliation at
school, humiliation in the family, humiliation on the street. I wanted to escape, to run somewhere
where there is no more humiliation, but unfortunately such a place did not exist in our world.

=-=-=