53.
If I have even just a little sense
I will walk on the main road
and my only fear will be of straying from it
Keeping to the main road is easy
but people love to be sidetracked
When the court is arrayed in splendor
the fields are full of weeds
and the granaries are bare
Some wear gorgeous clothes
carry sharp swords
and indulge themselves with food and drink
They have more possessions than they can use
They are robber barons
This is far from the Way
54.
What is firmly established cannot be uprooted
What is firmly grasped cannot slip away
It will be honoured from generation to generation
Cultivate Virtue in your self,
and Virtue will be genuine
Cultivate it in the family
and Virtue will be abundant
Cultivate it in the village
and Virtue will remain secure
Cultivate it in the nation
and Virtue will flourish
Cultivate it in the empire
and Virtue will be everywhere
Therefore, just as you may contemplate others,
so through your family one may contemplate other families,
and through your village, one may contemplate other villages,
and through your nation, one may contemplate other nations,
and through your empire, one may contemplate other empires.
How do I know the nature of empires?
By what is inside me
55.
He who is filled with Virtue is like a newborn child
Wasps and serpents will not sting him
Wild beasts will not pounce on him
He will not be attacked by birds of prey
His bones are soft, his muscles weak
but his grip is firm
He does not know the union of male and female,
yet its organ stirs with vitality
This is because his virility is at its height
He screams all day without becoming hoarse
because his harmony is perfect
To Know harmony is to know constancy
To Know constancy is to be enlightened
To rush about is to invite bad omens
If the emotions make calls upon the life-force, rigidity follows
This is not the way of Tao
Whatever is contrary to Tao will not last long
56
Those who know do not tell
Those who tell do not know
Close your mouth
Guard your senses
Temper your sharpness
Simplify your problems
Soften your brightness
Be at one with the dust of the earth
and enter the primal oneness
He who has achieved this state
is beyond love and hate
beyond profit and loss
beyond honour and disgrace
He, therefore is the highest state of man
