Daodejing, Verse 27

Daodejing - Other Voices

The Vital Secret
Verse 27 of the Dao De Jing focuses on actions that leave no trace - unseen - unnoticed - seamless. That is the theme of its first stanza. But the second stanza takes us in a very different direction. These stanzas appear so unrelated that I am simply unable to discover a common element that unites this Verse. As has been noted elsewhere in this series, the original Dao De Jing had no chapter divisions. It is possible that this division is arbitrary.

The theme of leaving no trace is linked to the philosophy of wu wei - no action, yet nothing is left undone. This is the Way itself. Looking out onto the world itself, the natural world, unaffected by the actions of human beings, there is no doer, yet nothing is left undone. For much of the Dao, this perfect, but ever-changing natural world is the model on which the Dao De Jing is constructed.

The first stanza again describes one’s passage through life as a traveller. Addis and Lombardo translates Verse 27 as:

Good travellers leave no tracks.
Good words leave no trace.
Good counting needs no markers.

Good doors have no bolts
Yet cannot be forced.
Good knots have no rope
But cannot be untied.

Thus the door to the Way (Tao/Dao) is never locked. Nothing is truly tied but everything is changed when it is cut into its parts (untying the knot), for the sum of an object will always transcend its division into its parts. Everything, as it is, is the perfection of this moment. Nothing needs to be forced, nothing calls for itself to be untied. No enduring distinction is made.

Verse 27 continues:

In this way the Sage
Always helps people
And rejects none,
Always helps all beings,
And rejects none.
This is called practicing brightness.

The first part of the first stanza established the underlying philosophy and the second part of the first stanza describes the action that naturally follows.

The second stanza seems to contradict the first, for in this stanza a distinction is made, between the “good” person and the “bad” person. But, if we look just a little harder, we can see that there is a fundamental equality presented here as well. Let’s take a look at this stanza.

Therefore the good person
Is the bad person’s teacher,
And the bad person
Is the good person’s resource.

Not to value the teacher,
Not to love the resource,
Causes great confusion even for the intelligent.

The “good person”, through her understanding of the Dao is well positioned to be the teacher of the person who is open to hearing about the Dao. Thus, without the “bad person”, we could not have the self-reflected existence of the “good person”. They are complimentary entities that form a single harmonious energy. Teacher and resource become one in the living transaction of the moment. The teacher learns from the “bad person”, who is thus the resource for the good, and the “good person” becomes the essential resource for the “bad person”. Seeing how these seemingly opposing qualities create each other requires clear intelligence. This is the challenge of this Verse.

And the stanza concludes:

This is called the vital secret.

Once we truly see how the good learns from the bad and the bad learns from the good and this is truly a single illuminating cycling energy, we are liberated from attaching ourselves to any side of the false polarity. We are free to “help all people and reject none.”
~ from The Liberation Blog, author Eric Gross, original post date: 1/2/10 ~

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.