One who assists the ruler of men by means of the way does not intimidate the empire by a show of arms. This is something which is liable to rebound.
Where troops have encamped
there will brambles grow.
In the wake of a mighty army
bad harvests follow without fail.
One who is good aims only at bringing his campaign to a conclusion and dare not thereby intimidate. Bring it to a conclusion but do not boast. Bring it to a conclusion but do not brag. Bring it to a conclusion but do not be arrogant. Bring it to a conclusion but only when there is no choice. Bring it to a conclusion but do not intimidate.
A creature in its prime doing harm to the old
is known as going against the way.
That which goes against the way will come to an early end.
There exists between the myriad creatures and the way a diffused grey band which comprises the limits of humanity: the point or space in which the elastic between the body and the mind will likely snap. To stay within this limit is traditionally called virtue, mediocrity, or weakness. To attempt to go beyond it is traditionally called hubris, greatness, or foolishness.
The sage—the one aligned with the way, the one who is good—does not attempt to go beyond the grey space, but not through virtue, mediocrity, or weakness. She can go beyond and in a sense has. But her going beyond is a going beyond within, a going beyond through the eye in the mirror; whereas a Herculean going-beyond necessitated actions in the world which overwhelmed the world and in the overwhelment apotheosized and destroyed the hero. The sage—in contrast to the virtuous, the mediocre, the weak—has seen and so experienced the grey and the white-black way that is walked beyond; she has seen but does not go. She does not go, not from fear or indolence, but because she sees that not-going weighs equally to going on the scales of heaven and earth. Because this weighing is the same to her, she is a sage. She does not walk the way, but allows the way to walk her. The one who walks is the hero; the one who is walked is the sage.
Hubris, excess, arrogance, transgression … what, then, is their use? Are they to be scorned, as the virtuous, mediocre, or weak might scorn them? Are they to be dubiously praised, as the hero, artist, or common fool might praise them? The sage does neither. The sage sees the way—its mute and equal acceptance of conformance and transgression; she sees heaven and earth and the myriad creatures and the diversity among them: those who stay still, on land; those who must venture forth, on the dark whale-ridden waters of the open sea. She is neither. She is of air, and belongs to nothing and everything, no one and everyone.
The traditional western hero goes on an Odyssean journey, dies, and is merged with the gods. But in the breakdown of tradition, the gods, and individual heroism, only the future, humanity, and mass democracy remain. So individual humans can be anti-heroes, but only humanity can be the hero—extending itself to and past the limits of itself, thereby giving itself over to the earth, and becoming divine … not a divinity of the heavens but, quite literally, a divinity of land. Anonymous, mute, amoral, cycloid, transmuted, diffused, nameless; now not schizophrenically in relation to the way, but harmonious with it.
So as God became silent, humanity, if it is capable of spiritual evolution, might become silent. Not a silence of absolute muteness, but the silence of trees … of trees that have been conscious and may very well—who knows?—retain that consciousness. A shimmering emptiness of light.
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