Laozi
寵辱若驚， 貴大患若身。 何謂寵辱若驚？ 寵為下，得之若驚， 失之若驚，是謂寵辱若驚。 何謂貴大患若身？ 吾所以有大患者， 為吾有身，及吾無身， 吾有何患？故貴以身為天下， 若可寄天下；愛以身為天下， 若可託天下。
James Legge
Favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honour and great calamity, to be regarded as personal conditions (of the same kind).
What is meant by speaking thus of favour and disgrace? Disgrace is being in a low position (after the enjoyment of favour). The getting that (favour) leads to the apprehension (of losing it), and the losing it leads to the fear of (still greater calamity):—this is what is meant by saying that favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared. And what is meant by saying that honour and great calamity are to be (similarly) regarded as personal conditions? What makes me liable to great calamity is my having the body (which I call myself); if I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me?
Therefore he who would administer the kingdom, honouring it as he honours his own person, may be employed to govern it, and he who would administer it with the love which he bears to his own person may be entrusted with it.
Victor H. Mair
“Being favored is so disgraceful that it startles, Being honored is an affliction as great as one’s body.” What is the meaning of “Being favored is so disgraceful that it startles”? Favor is debasing; To find it is startling, To lose it is startling. This is the meaning of “Being favored is so disgraceful that it startles.” What is the meaning of “Being honored is an affliction as great as one’s body”? The reason I suffer great afflictions is because I have a body; If I had no body, what affliction could I suffer? Therefore, When a man puts more emphasis on caring for his body than on caring for all under heaven, then all under heaven can be entrusted to him. When a man is sparing of his body in caring for all under heaven, then all under heaven can be delivered to him.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
Equally fear favor and disgrace.
Regard a great calamity as you do your own body.
What is meant by ‘Equally fear favor and disgrace?’ Favor should be disparaged. Gained or lost it arouses apprehension. Hence it is said ‘Equally fear favor and disgrace.‘
What is meant by ‘Regard a great calamity as you do your own body? Why have I any sense of misfortune? Because I am conscious of myself. Were I not conscious of my body, what distresses should I have?
Therefore, it is only they who value their persons because of their obligations, who may be entrusted with the empire. It is only they who love themselves on account of their responsibilities, who may be charged with the care of the state. [^1]
“Wherefore if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.” (II Cor. v, 16.) when the consciousness is identified no longer with the self, but with the Christ, the whole world is changed; even the conceptions of fear and favor disappear—these arise with “the conception of the I.” When freed by the Truth (John viii, 31, 32) man is no more attached to form, because living in faith, “the faith which is in the Son of God” (Gal. ii, 20), then his untrammeled spirit rises above the illusions of pain, sorrow and disaster. He “lives neither in the present nor the future, but in the eternal.” He “recognizes this individuality as not himself, but that thing which he has with pain created for his own use, and by means of which he purposes, as his growth slowly develops his intelligence, to reach to the life beyond individuality.” (Light on the Path.)
[^1] Text and comment have evidently become mixed here. Probably the two first sentences alone are Lao-tzu’s, and the rest the later addition of a commentator.
Ursula K. Le Guin
To be in favor or disgrace is to live in fear. To take the body seriously is to admit one can suffer.
What does that mean, to be in favor or disgrace is to live in fear? Favor debases: we fear to lose it, fear to win it. So to be in favor or disgrace is to live in fear.
What does that mean, to take the body seriously is to admit one can suffer? I suffer because I’m a body; if I weren’t a body, how could I suffer?
So people who set their bodily good before the public good could be entrusted with the commonwealth, and people who treated the body politic as gently as their own body would be worthy to govern the commonwealth.
Note UKLG: Lao Tzu, a mystic, demystifies political power. Autocracy and oligarchy foster the beliefs that power is gained magically and retained by sacrifice, and that powerful people are genuinely superior to the powerless. Lao Tzu does not see political power as magic. He sees rightful power as earned and wrongful power as usurped. He does not see power as virtue, but as the result of virtue. The democracies are founded on that view. He sees sacrifice of self or others as a corruption of power, and power as available to anybody who follows the Way. This is a radically subversive attitude. No wonder anarchists and Taoists make good friends.