Bellies Over Minds
Translation by Tree Buffalo
Picking the most talented people to reward turns life into a competition for everyone else.
Prioritizing the richest people in the world encourages theft among the poorest people at home.
Showcasing desire and idealization of what people don’t have sows the seeds of discontent and anxiety over what they do have.
Knowing this, wise rulers fill bellies over minds and strengthen bones over ambition.
They free people from desire with simplicity and protect them from the hawkers of knowledge that seek to complicate things.
They practice non-action, the best action, which leaves nothing unregulated and no one ungoverned.
Read some of the first English translations of Chapter 3 here.
