ChineseStudy

41. Hearing the Way

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English translation

When the best students hear of the Way, they diligently put it into practice. When average students hear of it, they seem to remember it and then forget it. When lesser students hear of it, they laugh aloud.

Understanding the Way is shown less by what one claims to grasp than by whether one lives it. What lies beyond familiar habits can easily look absurd to a shallow view.

If it were not laughed at, it would not be worthy of being called the Way.

The Way often runs against conventional instinct and opinion. Being mocked shows that it does not simply flatter familiar judgments.

Thus an old saying goes: the bright Way seems dim; the advancing Way seems to retreat; the level Way seems uneven. The highest virtue seems like a valley; the purest white seems stained; abundant virtue seems insufficient; established virtue seems lax; plain truth seems changeable. The greatest square has no corners; the greatest vessel takes long to complete; the greatest sound is scarcely heard; the greatest image has no fixed shape. The Way is hidden and has no name.

These apparent contradictions warn against judging by appearances alone. What is truly broad and deep often makes no display, produces no hurried result, and cannot be confined by limited names and forms.

The Way alone is good at providing for all things and bringing them to fulfillment.

Here “providing” means giving and sustaining. The Way claims nothing as its own, yet allows each thing the conditions to grow and become complete.

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