Tao Te Ching

This chapter deals with contradictions. If one tries to be virtuous, one can’t be. If one does not try to be virtuous, one is truly virtuous. If one tries to do things, he or she won’t be able to, but if one doesn’t’t try to do things, they will get done. A truly virtuous person acts without any selfish motive, while lesser people act out of selfishness or with an ulterior motive, or they resort to force when they don’t get what they want.

When people are not really virtuous, they follow hollow rituals and rites, which the author describes as “the wearing thin of loyalty and good faith” (45). If people just follow the rites, chaos begins to break out. A person who is not really virtuous just follows the “flowery embellishment of the way,” meaning the poetic and ersatz version of the way (45). A truly virtuous person follows the actual way, which lies in the “fruit,” or the core of something, and not just the “flower,” or the external, fancy expression of something. 

If one follows the way, one is rewarded with clarity (something that is “limpid” is clear), and is settled and powerful. If people follow the way, the society is virtuous, people are alive, and the lords become true leaders of the empire.