The Tao te Ching – Verse 2

Translation used: Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo

Recognize beauty and ugliness is born.
Recognize good and evil is born.

Ku yu wu hsiang sheng
Is and Isn’t produce each other.

    Hard depends on easy,
    Long is tested by short,
    High is determined by low,
    sound is harmonized by voice,
    After is followed by before.

Therefore the Sage is devoted to non-action,
Moves without teaching,
creates ten thousand things without instruction,
Lives but does not own,
Acts but does not presume,
Accomplishes without taking credit.

When no credit is taken,
Accomplishment endures.

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Again the Tao talks about how everything comes from one source… ugliness and beauty, good and evil… it’s all the same as it comes from the same source and only name-giving separates it from the source… and each other.

Being and non-being follow each other in the circle of rebirth and non-thought. This is Tao.

One state of being can only be defined by another… to define what is hard we have to have defined easy. We cannot call something “hard” if we do not know what “easy” is. And who defines this? Is something really hard? Who says so? Who says that running a 10 mile race has to be hard? It’s only as hard as you allow it to be… through practise and love everything become effort less…. and so the “law of least effort” is born… everything we do with love and devotion is easy…. but what is easy… who defines easy…. and the circle goes on…

The wise man lives in a state of non-action. He lives the Tao. He lives his life as an example… people wish to imitate him but at the same time he does not teach… he lives… by example…. lives but does not own does not mean that he has no possessions… it means he’s not attached to his possessions. He eats to sustain himself… he sleeps to rest… he listens but does not make assumptions and he never judges… he lives in perfect balance and never praises himself for being enlightened… why would someone praise themselves for being awake…. ?

Only through living the Tao he endures… and he has his ultimate reward… without looking for other praise… he’s living is life perfectly but does not boast.