Chapter 64 – Never Fail to Fail

What remains still is easy to hold.
What is not yet manifest is easy to plan for.
What is brittle is easy to crack.
What is minute is easy to scatter. 

Deal with things before they appear.
Put things in order before disorder arises.
A tree as big as a man’s embrace grows from a tiny shoot.
A tower of nine stories begins with a heap of earth.
The journey of a thousand li starts from where one stands. 

He who takes action fails.
He who grasps things loses them.
For this reason the sage takes no action and therefore does not fail.
He grasps nothing and therefore does not lose anything;
A sane man is sane in knowing what things he can spare,
In not wishing what most people wish,
In not reaching for things that seem rare.

Therefore the sage desires to have no desire,
He does not value rare treasures.
He learns to be unlearned, and returns to what the multitude has missed (Tao).
Thus he supports all things in their natural state but does not take any action.

Translation by Wing-Tsit Chan (1963)

In his book Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life, Wayne Dyer looks at this 64^th Chapter and remarks that the best known line in the entire Tao Te Ching is “a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.”   Certainly his observation is correct., as illustrated by the fact that the late comedian George Carlin could say, “The Chinese have a saying: on a journey of 1,000 miles, 512 is a little over a half,” and his audience would understand.

Of course that line is not actually found in the Tao Te Ching. After all, Lao Tzu lived some 2,500 years ago and had never heard of the units of measurement that eventually were used in England and the United States.* The translation here mentions a journey of 1,000 li, which is probably accurate because the Chinese have utilized a unit for measuring distance called li for millenia.

Does it matter whether one intends to journey 1,000 miles or 1,000 li? Either journey must begin with a single step – or start from where one stands, as this translation says. I am going to say that it probably does not matter if we look at the first part of this chapter, but it may if we look at the last part. Continue reading →