The Nature of Humanity
Translation by Tree Buffalo
The nature of the Universe can be compared to the stretching of a bow.
When high, pull down.
When low, raise up.
Diminish things that have too much, and supplement things that don’t have enough.
That’s the nature of the Universe: to repossess the surplus and replenish the insufficient.
The nature of humanity is not like this.
It diminishes the insufficient and replenishes the abundant.
Who can possess the abundant and offer it to everything beneath?
Only those who embody the nature of the Universe.
This is why the wise person acts without expecting credit, and accomplishes without dwelling on it.
They do not wish to seem superior.
Read some of the first English translations of Chapter 77 here.