Tag: Victor H. Mair

from the Tao Te Ching (50):

A per­son comes forth to life and enters into death.
Three out of ten are part­ners of life,
Three out of ten are part­ners of death,
And the peo­ple whose every move­ment leads them to the
land of death because they cling to life
Are also three out of ten.

Now,
What is the rea­son for this?
It is because they cling to life.

Indeed,
I have heard that
One who is good at pre­serv­ing life
does not avoid tigers and rhi­noc­er­os­es
when he walks in the hills;
nor does he put on armor and take up weapons
when he enters a bat­tle.
The rhi­noc­er­os has no place to jab its horn,
The tiger has no place to fas­ten its claws,
Weapons have no place to admit their blades.

Now,
What is the rea­son for this?
Because on him there are no mor­tal spots.