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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Tao Te Ching · 20 of 81

Chapter 20

When we renounce learning we have no troubles. The (ready) ‘yes,’ and (flattering) ‘yea;’— Small is the difference they display. But mark their issues, good and ill;— What space the gulf between shall fill?

What all men fear is indeed to be feared; but how wide and without end is the range of questions (asking to be discussed)!

The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence. I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos.

Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer. (Thus) I alone am different from other men, but I value the nursing-mother (the Tao).

Asked of Guide

Why does the speaker say he is 'listless and still' while everyone else seems content?

The speaker says he is “listless and still” because he has renounced learned cleverness and social pretenses, so his desires have not shown themselves; he experiences emptiness like “an infant which has not yet smiled.” This emptiness contrasts with the crowd’s apparent satisfaction and marks his choice to value the Tao as “the nursing-mother.”

That quiet state is presented as deliberate and rooted in humility: he calls his mind “that of a stupid man” and accepts seeming foolishness rather than display. The chapter echoes Chuang Tzu’s celebration of simplicity and the inscrutable source of action, where being different and unadorned aligns one with the original way.

Guide is the guide inside the Gnosis app, where every book on these shelves is free to read. Guide is the part you pay for — your guide has read all of them, and answers about the passage you’re actually on. Ask your guide your own question.

Echoes elsewhere

Chuang Tzu · Taoism21. The grandest forms of active force From Tâo come, their only source. Who can of Tâo the nature tell? Our sight it flies, our touch as well. Eluding sight, eluding touch, The fo Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist · Buddhismsubtle. No one can measure these three to their ultimate ends, Therefore they are fused to one. It is up, but it is not brightened; It is down, but it is not obscured. It stretches Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought · Esotericcall it the form of the formless, the image of the imageless, the fleeting and the indeterminable. There is something chaotic, yet complete, which existed before heaven and earth.