Friday, March 21, 2008

Some Chinese Wisdom

High Virtue is non-virtuous;
Therefore it has Virtue.

Low Virtue never frees itself from virtuousness;
Therefore it has no Virtue.

High Virtue makes no fuss and has no private ends to serve.
Low Virtue not only fusses, but also serves private ends.

Failing Tao, man resorts to Virtue.
Failing Virtue, man resorts to humanity.
Failing humanity, man resorts to morality.
Failing morality, man resorts to ceremony.

Now, ceremony is the merest husk of faith and loyalty.
It is the beginning of all confusion and disorder.

Tao te Ching (38)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's cool stuff. Hmmm...somewhere I hear the sound of one hand clapping.

John said...

beautiful. I'm guessing that didn't come from a fortune cookie with your lucky lotto numbers. Source?