CHAPTER 76 – YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM

Chapter 76 – You Are Old, Father William

When people are born they are gentle and soft.
At death they are hard and stiff.
When plants are alive they are soft and delicate.
When they die, they wither and dry up.
Therefore the hard and stiff are followers of death.
The gentle and soft are the followers of life. 

Thus, if you are aggressive and stiff, you won’t win.
When a tree is hard enough, it is cut. Therefore
The hard and big are lesser,
The gentle and soft are greater.

 Translated by Charles Muller (2011)

I have come to understand that this is a difficult chapter to translate, and various translations I have read use differing words and images.  All of them, though, convey the sense that all things begin life as something soft, tender, gentle and flexible, only to become stiff and hard as they age and eventually die.  Charles Muller’s translation expresses the concept well without any superfluous language, so it was chosen for this essay.

You Are Old, Father William

You Are Old, Father William

Even though the work of translation may be difficult here, the concept expressed is neither difficult nor new.  It can be tied back to chapters like Chapter 6 which praises the receptiveness of the Divine Feminine or to Chapters 10 and 36 in which I referred to the art of tai chi ch’uan to illustrate the power that comes from the gentle and supple movements of the internal martial arts.

A further discussion of the concept might include the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:3 that unless “ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven”; or in Matthew 5:5 that “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”  It might also include further discussion of the treasure of humility highlighted in Chapter 67.  Instead, though, I am going to offer for consideration “You Are Old, Father William,” from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which goes:  Continue reading