Very little is known about the author of the DAO DE JING, which is attributed to Lao-zi. According to the historian Sima Qian who wrote about 100 BC, Lao-zi lived during the sixth century BC in the state of Chu in China and in the imperial capital Luoyang held the office of shi which in ancient China meant a keeper of the archives and sacred books who also may have been skilled in astrology and divination.
Sima Qian wrote how Lao-zi once met with Confucius, whom he criticized for pride and ambition. However, Confucius told his disciples, “I know how birds can fly, how fish can swim, how animals can run. Yet the runner may be trapped; the swimmer may be hooked; and the flyer may be shot by an arrow. But who knows how dragons ride on winds through clouds into heaven? Today I have seen Lao-zi and can compare him only to a dragon.”
According to legend, when in old age Lao-zi was leaving Chu he was stopped by the guardian of the pass into the state of Ch’in and asked to write down his wisdom. After three days he produced the book of about 5,250 characters known as the DAO DE JING.
Lao zi on morality
Superior power does not emphasize its power,
and thus is powerful.
Inferior power never forgets its power,
and thus is powerless.
Superior power never interferes nor has an ulterior motive.
Inferior power interferes and has an ulterior motive.
Superior humanity takes action but has no ulterior motive.
Superior morality takes action and has an ulterior motive.
Superior custom takes action, and finding no response,
stretches out arms to force it on them.
Therefore when the Way is lost, power arises.
When power is lost, humanity arises.
When humanity is lost, morality arises.
When morality is lost, custom arises.
Now custom is a superficial expression
of loyalty and faithfulness, and the beginning of disorder.
Foreknowledge is the flowering of the Way
and the beginning of folly.
Therefore the mature dwell in the depth, not in the thin,
in the fruit and not in the flowering.
They reject one and accept the other.
There are easier ways to communicate what you are trying to say rather than using symbolism that is irrelevant. Things should be simple. Conversation not difficult.
I may be lost but this has nothing to do with whether or not what you copied has any direct meaning for you. Your answer suggests it doesn’t. Don’t feel bad, it is just business as usual within the Great Beast.
Not good for the Great Beast but good for common folk familiar with its ways and its effect on our psych. It always appears as strange talk when people ask if others practice what they preach. I agree its not only considered strange but often even absurd. People have been killed for less.
It’s human nature to talk about things as if we understood them.
I’m not contradicting the Dao I just asked if you understood it. the Dao is fine, I was asking about you. There is no competition with me, only with yourself and its a tough war as my war is with me.
When the mind is properly adjusted
And quietly applied
The Way is attainable;
But when you are too fervently bent
On it, your body grows tired;
When your body is tired, your spirit
Becomes weary.
When your spirit is weary, your discipline
Will relax, and with relaxation of
Discipline, there follows many distractions.
Be calm and pure, and the Way will be gained.
As you know from all the threads on the Great Beast, it is the psychological effects of society as a whole on the individual. Individuality, Black Sheep, or whatever words you wish to describe man’s need for the experience of himself, “I Am”, is against the ways of the Great Beast. Society is a reflection of man’s “being” taken as a whole spanning the gap between compassion to cruelty for example… The trends move in cycles as suggested by the Book of Ecclesiastes.
The real individual, and not just the rebel, presents the possibility of the change of being,“awakening” that would be by definition against the status quo of the Great Beast that functions through our suggestibility.
So the Great Beast offers forms of secular ethics and platitudes that follow the normal cycles of what we call “good and bad.” The individual begins to realize that the variability of the human condition is an indication of what we are, our “being.” So in the effort to experience the reality of the situation and what lies behind this variability, questions are raised annoying the Great Beast which favors results of suggestibility and platitudes in our collective attempt to reconcile what we call ‘good and bad" thereby retaining the normal cycles in response to nature’ needs.