Laozi
名與身孰親？身與貨孰多？ 得與亡孰病？是故甚愛必大費； 多藏必厚亡。知足不辱， 知止不殆，可以長久。
James Legge
Or fame or life, Which do you hold more dear? Or life or wealth, To which would you adhere? Keep life and lose those other things; Keep them and lose your life:—which brings Sorrow and pain more near?
Thus we may see, Who cleaves to fame Rejects what is more great; Who loves large stores Gives up the richer state.
Who is content Needs fear no shame. Who knows to stop Incurs no blame. From danger free Long live shall he.
Victor H. Mair
Name or person, which is nearer? Person or property, which is dearer? Gain or loss, which is drearier? Many loves entail great costs, Many riches entail heavy losses. Know contentment and you shall not be disgraced, Know satisfaction and you shall not be imperiled; then you will long endure.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
Fame or life, which is dearer? Life or wealth, which is more? Gain or loss, which is worse?
Excessive love implies excessive outlay. Immoderate accumulation implies heavy loss. [^1]
Who knows contentment meets no shame. Who knows when to stop incurs no danger. Such long endure.
We possess nothing more valuable than our ideals, but the only ideal which is not immoderate is that ideal content which is content with nothing for self; to stop short of this is to linger where danger lurks. Mystics of all ages, irrespective of their religious profession have realized this. A few paragraphs from a Spanish Catholic of the sixteenth century—Saint Jean de la Croix—will illustrate Lao-tzu’s thought:
“To enjoy the taste of all things, have no taste for anything.
”To know all things, learn to know nothing.
”To possess all things, resolve to possess nothing.
”To be all things, be willing to be nothing.
”To get to where you have no taste for anything, go through whatever experiences you have no taste for.
”To learn to know nothing, go whither you are ignorant.
”To reach what you possess not, go whithersoever you own nothing.
”To be what you are not, experience what you are not.
”When you stop at anything, you cease to open yourself to the All.
”For to come to the All, you must give up the All.
”And if you should attain to owning the All, you must own it, desiring Nothing.” [**]
With this compare an hitherto untranslated saying by Lu Hui-neng, the sixth and last Chinese Buddhist Patriarch: “To be able to separate one’s self from all affections is the pith of tranquillity.”
[^1] “Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess.”—Emerson’s Essay on Compensation.
^76:* Quoted in “The Varieties of Religious Experiences” (Gifford Lectures 1901-1902) by William James, LL.D., etc., p. 306.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Which is nearer, name or self? Which is dearer, self or wealth? Which gives more pain, loss or gain?
All you grasp will be thrown away. All you hoard will be utterly lost.
Contentment keeps disgrace away. Restraint keeps you out of danger so you can go on for a long, long time.