Tao Te Ching Ch 39

The Door of all Wonders: 

The Commentary on the Tao Te Ching

by Nirguna, Chor-kok Lam

Chapter 39

Those who have attained the One since ancient times:

The sky in virtue of the One is limpid;

The earth in virtue of the One is settled;

The angels in virtue of the One are efficacious;

The valley in virtue of the One is full;

All creatures in virtue of the One are alive;

The lords and princes in virtue of the One can rule the world righteously.

It is the One that makes them what they are.

Without being limpid, the sky might split;

Without being settled, the earth might sink;

Without being efficacious, 

the angels might disappear;

Without being full, the valley might run dry;

Without being alive, all creatures might perish;

Without being righteous, 

the lords and princes might fall.

Hence, the superior must have the inferior as its root;

The high must have the low as its base.

Thus the lords and princes refer to themselves as

“solitary”, “desolate”, and “not good”.

This is taking the inferior as the root, is it not?

Hence seeking renown will have no renown.*

Do not wish to be precious like jade, 

but to be tough like stone.

*Another translation:

"Hence the highest renown is without renown."

Review

“Those who have attained the One since ancient times:”

    “The One” means “Tao”, the Truth, the origin of all beings. From ancient times without beginning, Tao has ever existed. All creatures come forth by manifestation of Tao only. If Tao is prevalent, all beings would be in their proper order as the best functioning and existence. The sky is clear. The earth is stable and calm. All the gods, or the angels, the messengers of Tao are efficacious to manifest themselves to serve people for their benefit. Tao manifests as Living God to interact with the creatures with harmony and peace. People will be contented with their life. The valley will be full of water to give nourishment to all beings due to good climate. The ruling class, i.e. the lords and princes, will govern the country with righteousness without corruption and exploitation, which is how Lao Tzu depicts:

“Those who have attained the One (Truth) since ancient times:

The sky in virtue of the One is limpid;

The earth in virtue of the One is settled;

The angels in virtue of the One are efficacious;

The valley in virtue of the One is full;

All creatures in virtue of the One are alive;

The lords and princes in virtue of the One can rule the world righteously.

It is the One that makes them what they are.”

    “The One” is the Truth. The Truth is one only, without second, third or many. Who can make all creaures live in harmony, peace and satisfaction? Can anyone whether great lord or prince do so? No one, only if anyone lives in accordance with the Truth. However, the Truth has been lost since long. It is not prevalent everywhere. According to ancient Chinese scripture, Confucius in his Analects commented that he did not see any person really righteous. People did not know morality. They were immoral. Therefore, Confucius tried hard to tell people abiding by the right code of conduct in life.

    According to the ancient Hindus scripture, our world has been divided into four periods:

(1)Satya Yuga/Krita Yuga: From the very beginning, the first period of creation is called Satya yuga or Krita Yuga. In Sanskrit, “Satya” means “Truth”, “yuga” means “period” while “Krita” means “full”. This is the first period of creation where the Truth manifests itself in full. People during this period are all young, healthy and good-looking. They like studying spiritual knowledge and have much wisdom. They are honest and righteous with compassion. There is no need to tell people what is moral and immoral. The environment is clean and fresh with good climate. The Truth as the Light is full among all creatures. There is no darkness as people living in the sun.

(2)Treta Yuga: After the end of the Satya Yuga, the second period is Treta Yuga. “Treta” means “divided by three”. In this period, there is three-fourth of the Truth and one-fourth of ignorance among all beings. Darkness, ignorance and evil exist among people and the environment. There is immorality, illnesses and afflictions in people’s life, though people in majority are moral with good deeds. Conflicts and wars start a little more in this period.

(3)Dwapar Yuga: After the end of Treta Yuga, the third period is Dwapar Yuga. “Dwapar” means “divided by two”. In this period, the Truth is half and darkness is half among all creatures. People generally are ignorant and lazy. There are more immoralities, diseases, afflictions and sorrows in life. Conflicts and wars are more frequent in this period.

(4)Kali Yuga: After the end of Dwapar Yuga, the fourth period is Kali Yuga. “Kali” means “darkness”. In this period, there is only one-fourth of the Truth among all creatures, while there is three-fourth of darkness and ignorance among all creatures. People mostly are evil-minded with sinful ideas and acts. They have very little conscience. They mostly love sensual enjoyments. They do not like to study ancient scriptures and spiritual wisdom. They like eating, drinking and gossiping. They are fond of greed and lust without any idea of self-control. No matter how people seek their sensual pleasure, pain and sorrow is prevalent among people. The environment is polluted. People’s mind is also polluted. Conflicts and wars easily happen. This is the last period of the whole creation. The end of this period is total destruction as there is no better alternative than destroying the worst of all creation.

    Darkness is prevalent in the last period. The destroying force of ignorance continues unless people try to strive hard in life to seek the Truth and abide in the Truth. Without the Truth, the world is going to destruction. All beings get worse and worse till the end, which is the same as Lao Tzu tells us here in this Chapter in the Tao Te Ching:

“Without being limpid, the sky might split;

Without being settled, the earth might sink;

Without being efficacious,

 the angels might disappear;

Without being full, the valley might run dry;

Without being alive, all creatures might perish;

Without being righteous, 

the lords and princes might fall.”

    How can people be saved from the calamities of the age of darkness? Lao Tzu tells all of us should be humble to the Truth. We are not going to be humble to the evil-minded people or to be humble to strong and unrighteous force, but only to be humble to the Truth, nothing else. Seek the Truth and get to know what it is and live according to it. Do not make our limited body, the sense of great ego dominate in our life but let the Truth be our master instead. Without humility, we do not know what we are lacking and cannot improve ourselves to be better beings of existence.

    Pride is dangerous to prevent us from going deeper in our real nature. Pride is something dealing with the outside world and people but the Truth is silent inside us without any room for pride to accommodate. Therefore, Lao Tzu says to be humble is our base, our foundation of existence. The higher the position the people have, the more humility they should remind themselves to stay along. To be proud and arrogant will make people forget the Truth and be blind to their own demerits. The message of Lao Tzu is great because he tells us to be humble in order to upgrade ourselves spiritually, thus Lao Tzu says:

“Hence, the superior must have the inferior as its root;

The high must have the low as its base.

Thus the lords and princes refer to themselves as

“solitary”, “desolate”, and “not good”.

This is taking the inferior as the root, is it not?”

    In ancient China, we had good culture of humility among people. The lords and princes addressed themselves as “solitary”, “desolate” and “not good”. They were taught not to boast themselves as their positions had been very high already. They should address themselves as the lower-graded. People of lower positions also humbled themselves when dealing with people as the right code of conduct in the ancient Chinese culture, but nowadays most Chinese cannot get used to this culture of humility anymore.

    The giant monster of Kali Yuga has grown up more and more now. People nowadays think that to be proud and arrogant is much better than to be humble. They think to bully is much better than to be bullied. Our human relation does not stress on harmony but a zero-sum game only. It is one of the signs of Kali Yuga.

    In the Quran, Allah tells us that the Jinns whom Allah created as the superior beings before the creation of human went astray and fell down because of their pride. They thought they were higher than human and should not bow down to Adam the newly created human by Allah when Allah ordered all the angels and Jinns to bow down to Adam. Jinns are made of smokeless fire, while human are made of clay. The fallen Jinns called “Iblis” in Arabic, which means “the one who is far away from the Truth”. What makes the fallen Jinns called Iblis, “far away from the Truth”? The Quran tells us the answer:

    “When We (Allah) said to the angels, “Bow down before Adam,” they all bowed down except for Iblis. He refused and acted proudly and became an unbeliever.” (Quran 2:34)

    Personally I am so surprised that how Lao Tzu stresses on the virtue of humility so much so much throughout the whole Tao Te Ching when I know the story of fallen Jinns in the Quran. Lao Tzu tells us the Truth. He also tells us the highest virtue of the Truth is humility. He tells us not to seek the outward fame, honor and recognition but enrich ourselves truly with the real essence of purity inward us, thus Lao Tzu says:

“Hence seeking renown will have no renown.”

    Lao Tzu tells us not to seek renown because it will induce us to seek the pride which is good for nothing in spirituality. Pride in the form of renown is falsehood not the Truth. As Lao Tzu has mentioned, the Truth is the greatest and also the smallest. The real honor is no honor in this world but the actual fullness of the Truth inward us. This is the Real and Highest Renown, thus another translation and interpretation of this verse:

“Hence the Highest Renown is without renown.”

    Then Lao Tzu tells us further not to pose ourselves as someone great and outstanding like  precious jade, but we all should make ourselves pure and modest as  raw stone, thus Lao Tzu says:

“Do not wish to be precious like jade,

 but to be tough like stone.”

   The Truth in its purity is like  raw stone. After carving with artificial hypocrisy, cleverness and sharpness, outward beauty comes, but it is only pride and falsehood without purity. Hence Lao Tzu tells us to seek our origin to be tough like  raw stone.