58. Fortune and Misfortune
Text
English translation
Original Chinese text
其政闷闷,其民淳淳;其政察察,其民缺缺。
English translation
When government is relaxed and unobtrusive, the people are honest and warmhearted; when government scrutinizes everything, the people become evasive and deficient.
Giving people reasonable space can foster trust and simplicity. Constant inspection and fault-finding instead teach people to protect themselves and work around the rules.
Original Chinese text
祸兮福之所倚,福兮祸之所伏。
English translation
Misfortune is where good fortune finds support; good fortune is where misfortune lies hidden.
Fortune and misfortune are not fixed. Circumstances and human responses can turn one into the other, calling for caution in ease and steadiness in hardship.
Original Chinese text
孰知其极?
English translation
Who can know where these reversals will end?
Because fortune and misfortune lean upon each other, their transformations have no easily known endpoint. Immediate gain or loss is therefore a poor basis for final judgment.
Original Chinese text
其无正。
English translation
There is no fixed standard within them.
Continuing the previous thought, fortune and misfortune can reverse. What now seems settled or normal may not remain so.
Original Chinese text
正复为奇,善复为妖。
English translation
What is normal may turn strange; what is good may turn harmful and distorted.
When conditions change or something is carried too far, what was once right and beneficial can reverse. Judgment must attend to context and measure.
Original Chinese text
人之迷,其日固久。
English translation
People have been confused about this for a very long time.
People often treat present fortune and misfortune, or good and bad, as permanent absolutes, and so miss the complex process by which things change.
Original Chinese text
是以圣人方而不割,廉而不刿,直而不肆,光而不燿。
English translation
Therefore the sage is square without cutting, has edges without wounding, is upright without pressing others, and gives light without dazzling.
Firm character need not become harshness. Mature integrity keeps its principles and its measure, illuminating matters without overpowering other people.