the short of it:
Lao Tsu’s after-class advice (for special students only).
67. Three Precious Things.
While all the world says I am great, I am, to all appearance, an incompetent creature. But, indeed, if I am great, I appear, for this very reason, to be an incompetent creature. Those who come up to the (vulgar) standard have existed for a long time as small [people].
As for me, I have three precious things which I hold fast and prise. The first is called compassions, the second is called economy, and the third is called not daring to take the precedence of the world (humility). Being compassionate, I can therefore be brave. Being economical, I can therefore be liberal. Not daring to take the precedence of the world, I can therefore become the chief of all the perfect ones.
But in the present day [people] give up compassion and cultivate only courage. They give up economy and aim only at liberality. They give up the last place and only seek the first. It is their death. Compassion is that which is victorious in the attack, and secure in the defence. When Heaven, would save a [person], it encircles [them] with compassion.
67. ‘Three Precious Things.’
67.1 All the world says that, while my Tao is great, it yet appears to be inferior (to other systems of teaching). Now it is just its greatness that makes it seem to be inferior. If it were like any other (system), for long would its smallness have been known!
67.2 But I have three precious things which I prize and hold fast. The first is gentleness; the second is economy; and the third is shrinking from taking precedence of others.
67.3 With that gentleness I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour. Now-a-days they give up gentleness and are all for being bold; economy, and are all for being liberal; the hindmost place, and seek only to be foremost; -(of all which the end is) death.
67.4 Gentleness is sure to be victorious even in battle, and firmly to maintain its ground. Heaven will save its possessor, by [their] (very) gentleness protecting [them].
67. The Three Treasures.
67.1 All in the world call me great; but I resemble the unlikely. Now a [person] is great only because [they resemble] the unlikely. Did [they] resemble the likely, how lasting, indeed, would [their] mediocrity be!
67.2 I have three treasures which I cherish and prize. The first is called compassion. The second is called economy. The third is called not daring to come to the front in the world.
67.3 The compassionate can be brave; the economical can be generous; those who dare not come to the front in the world can become perfect as chief vessels.
67.4 Now, if people discard compassion and are brave; if they discard economy and are generous; if they discard modesty and are ambitious, they will surely die.
67.5 Now, the compassionate will in attack be victorious, and in defence firm. Heaven when about to save one will with compassion protect [them].
the long of it:
Chapter 67 might be the most interesting chapter of the whole Tao Te Ching. In a rare show of intimacy, Lao Tsu draws back the curtain and turns off the microphone. He’s talking as himself, using his low voice, and giving us personal advice.
Out of the above translations, only Suzuki doesn’t try to equivocate away Lao Tsu’s claim to fame. He says rather obviously, I am great. There is no doubt, and only one caveat: we wouldn’t guess it to look at him. But that’s the secret to greatness -not greatness.
The secret to Lao Tsu’s success is in the second stanza. But this is not the same paradoxical advice he’s been feeding us. It’s his own personal habits that work for him. It may not work for us. That’s why he gives us three and not two examples. These are not universal paradoxes.
His primary tool is compassion, which gets the most attention this chapter. But he also uses economy and a third unspecified thing. It’s akin to humility or modesty, but neither exactly. It’s more like an avoidance of greatness (“…my reluctance to try to become preeminent in the world.”) (Ames 183).
Then he tells us what could be construed as a very subtle paradox: the ends he’s achieved (bravery, generosity, and some sort of greatness) can be easily achieved without these afore-mentioned means. But they all lead to death.
Bravery without compassion is just aggression. Generosity without economy is just waste. And ambition without (un-ambition?) is, well, dangerous.
best for last.
And as if he hasn’t already sold us, Lao Tsu claps the symbols at the end with an example that accounts for all three attributes: “The compassionate will in attack be victorious, and in defence firm. Heaven when about to save one will with compassion protect” (Suzuki).
Wu’ cheng says “the last section only mentions compassion because it includes the other two” (Pine 135). After all, aggressive compassion is almost a synonym for economical generosity. And the third thing was never specified to begin with. It’s a little bit of a leap but not unreasonable to intuit Lao Tsu’s meaning: if we can do the first two, the third will take care of itself (“it is Heaven that will save [them]” -Wang Bi 174).
In short, greatness is irrelevant for the aggressively compassionate, because they are already taken care of.
Astonishingly, Lao Tsu exemplifies all this in his legend. First, he wrote the book, even though he told us in Chapter 1 you can’t write stuff like this down. This was his aggressive compassion. Second, he wrote a very small amount (at someone’s request), and then gave it away (Lau 9). This was his generous economy.
But the end is the kicker. He did it anonymously. This was his reluctance to claim greatness. No one knows for sure if he wrote this thing or not. But whose name is on the cover of the most published book in history over two thousand years later? Hint: not Confucius.
Extra Credit.
The first stanza is wrought with the most mystery. Here is Robert Henricks commentary:
“In lines 1-4 the author plays on the double meaning of hsiao: it means ‘to be like’ (or resemble), but it also means ‘small.’ Therefore these lines could also read, ‘The whole world says that i’m great (=large, ta); Great, yet unlike everyone else (=that I’m not small), that I am therefore able to be Great (=large). Were I like everyone else (=were I small), for a long time now I’d have seemed insignificant” (Henricks 160).
Lao Tsu was clearly the Shakespeare of ancient Chinese. Except for the very few people who still read that language (if any), the rest of us are going to have to work harder to discover his genius.
-TB
Works cited
Lao-tzu. Lau, D.C. Tao Te Ching. United Kingdom: Penguin Publishing Group, 1963.
Lao Tzu. Pine, Red. Lao-tzu’s Taoteching. United States: Mercury House, 1996.
