True Words Are Not Beautiful
At the end of a long walk, you don't make a speech.
You sit down, take off your shoes, and are quiet for a while.
信言不美，美言不信。
xìn yán bù měi, měi yán bù xìn.
Words that can be trusted are not beautiful; beautiful words cannot be trusted.
善者不辯，辯者不善。
shàn zhě bù biàn, biàn zhě bù shàn.
The good do not argue; those who argue are not good.
知者不博，博者不知。
zhī zhě bù bó, bó zhě bù zhī.
Those who know are not broad in learning; those broad in learning do not know.
聖人不積，
shèngrén bù jī,
The sage keeps nothing back.
既以為人己愈有，
jì yǐ wèi rén jǐ yù yǒu,
Having done everything for others, the sage has all the more;
既以與人己愈多。
jì yǐ yǔ rén jǐ yù duō.
having given everything to others, the sage has more still.
天之道，利而不害；
tiān zhī dào, lì ér bù hài;
The Way of heaven: to help, and not to harm;
聖人之道，為而不爭。
shèngrén zhī dào, wéi ér bù zhēng.
the Way of the sage: to act, and not contend.
The words
trust; true, faithful, reliable
A person (亻) and words (言): a person standing by what they say. The first word of the last chapter. "Words that can be trusted" are words a person stands behind, not words that shine.
to pile up, to store, to hoard
Grain (禾) again, as in 利 and 私: grain heaped up in the barn. The sage doesn't heap. Whatever comes in goes out again, like the bellows of chapter 5, and like it, is never empty.
Sitting with it
The book ends without a bang. Its last chapter is plain, almost dry, as if to prove its own first line. Words that can be trusted are not beautiful.
This is a strange thing for a beautiful book to say. And the Tao Te Ching is beautiful; you have read twenty-eight of its chapters by now. But perhaps that is its last warning: don't fall in love with the words. The words were never the thing. As chapter 1 said at the start: the Way that can be told is not the constant Way.
The good don't argue. Those who know aren't the ones who know a bit of everything. Think of the people you have trusted most in your life. They probably weren't the best talkers. They said little, and what they said was true, and they didn't need to win.
Then the last picture of the sage, and it is a picture of giving. The sage keeps nothing back, and the more the sage gives away, the more there is. You may have felt this yourself: time given to a friend that somehow makes your own day bigger; something taught that you then understand better than before. Love is like the bellows. It does not run out by being used.
And the very last line puts heaven and the sage side by side. Heaven helps and doesn't harm, like water in chapter 8. The sage acts, and doesn't contend. Wéi ér bù zhēng. Do the work. Don't fight. It is, in four characters, the whole book.
After this course
This course has read twenty-eight of the book's eighty-one chapters. The others are waiting, and they will mean more now.
The way people have read the Tao Te Ching for two thousand years is simple: one chapter at a time, slowly, more than once. Some read one every morning, and start again when they reach the end. You will find that the same chapter says something different each time, not because it has changed, but because you have.
Go back to the chapter that stayed with you most. Read it again tomorrow.
A practice
Choose the one line from this course that you most want to keep.
Write it down by hand, in English, or in Chinese if you like, and put it somewhere you will see it every day.
To carry
為而不爭
wéi ér bù zhēng
Act, and do not contend.