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Translation by Nina


	Dao De Jing Chapter 64 What's peaceful is easy to manage. What's not yet been decided is easy to plot a course for. What's soft and flexible is easy to style. What's within reach is easy to scatter. These actions come from dealing with what hasn't yet come about - curing problems before they've become chaotic. A tree trunk large enough to wrap your arms around started to grow from a small shoot. A building nine stories high began from a small pile of dirt. A journey of one thousand miles begins from where one stands. One who acts with motives will destroy it. One who clings to it will find themselves removed from it. It's right for a wise person to take no motivated actions. Therefore, she's without destroying, without clinging. Therefore, she's without anything to lose. Overseeing her affairs as they progress, she's as attentive at the beginning as she is at completion. In this way she's without destruction of her affairs. A wise person prefers not to have desires and not to value possessions that are hard to come by. Teaching by learning, and remembering the many situations she went through in the past. It just seems right, therefore, for a wise person to be able to assist all living things with their own nature, but she won't be willing to use her ability to interfere. Commentary: 64 ~ Taking little steps -What's peaceful is easy to manage. -What's not yet been decided is easy to plot a course for. -What's soft and flexible is easy to style. -What's within reach is easy to scatter. -These actions come from dealing with what hasn't yet come about - curing problems before they've become chaotic. Instead of looking at what's far away, it might be better to look at what's right in front of us. If we take a moment to listen to the peaceful silence, things tend to get more in perspective. If we don't make up our minds in advance about how things MUST go, but remain flexible, it's easier to adapt to what might happen. By dealing with the things within our reach instead of dwelling on things outside of our reach right now, we can handle them more easily. -A tree trunk large enough to wrap your arms around started to grow from a small shoot. -A building nine stories high began from a small pile of dirt. -A journey of one thousand miles begins from where one stands. Nothing that exists happened overnight. Everything follows a slow, natural progression of growth. In our modern society we tend to forget that, and look for immediate results. -One who acts with motives will destroy it. -One who clings to it will find themselves removed from it. In our big rush to get to something done, we can end up destroying the beauty of it because of our motivations and expectations. Everyone's had those times when they wish they would have moved slower in a situation instead of rushing head on. If we cling to the idea of what we want desperately, we find that the need to cling in itself removes our objective ever further away. -It's right for a wise person to take no motivated actions. -Therefore, she's without destroying, without clinging. -Therefore, she's without anything to lose. When the journey in itself becomes enjoyable, then the motivation to get somewhere other than where you are at this moment becomes laughable. That doesn't mean you're not moving forward - we're always moving forward. But when you take that last shaded pathway, enjoying the leaves and branches over your head, then unexpectedly find yourself at the mountaintop - you haven't destroyed anything inside or outside of yourself, and there's nothing you have to cling to. Therefore, there's nothing that's been lost along the way. -Overseeing her affairs as they progress, she's as attentive at the beginning as she is at completion. -In this way she's without destruction of her affairs. Being attentive to each seemingly insignificant step along the way, nothing gets destroyed in the process. -A wise person prefers not to have desires and not to value possessions that are hard to come by. When Laozi says that a wise person prefers not to have desires, there are many interpretations of what that means. Some think he's suggesting that desires are a "bad" thing, and they go about their lives trying to eliminate desires. I think Laozi was suggesting that a wise person doesn't have desires that take her away from appreciating all the beauty around her at any given moment. -Teaching by learning, and remembering the many situations she went through in the past. -It just seems right, therefore, for a wise person to be able to assist all living things with their own nature, but she won't be willing to use her ability to interfere. We all keep learning by our previous experiences in life. Sometimes it's beneficial to look back on when we were in a similar situation and recognize what steps we might have taken that prevented us from getting where we wanted to go. Once you've traveled a path and know the pitfalls, you can try to assist others up the same path. However, a wise person knows when to let others learn for themselves and not try to rush them along. She'll highlight signposts along the way, but would never interfere with their own natural progression. \| BY: Nina \| Guodian Laozi \| DDJ Concordance \| Comparisons \| From the DIO Forum \| BY: Bao Pu \| By: Joshua \| \| Return Home \| Laozi's Dao De Jing \| Your Dao De Jing \| Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) \| Links \| Meditation \| Dao (Tao) is Open Forum \| Book List \| Other Stuff \|