The wise have no mind of their own, finding it in the minds of ordinary people.

They’re good to good people and they’re good to bad people. Power is goodness. They trust people of good faith and they trust people of bad faith. Power is trust.

They mingle their life with the world, they mix their mind up with the world. Ordinary people look after them. Wise souls are children.

Note UKLG: The next to last line is usually read as saying that ordinary people watch and listen to wise people. But Lao Tzu has already told us that most of us wander on and off the Way and don’t know a sage from a sandpile. And surely the quiet Taoist is not a media pundit. Similarly, the last line is taken to mean that the wise treat ordinary people like children. This is patronizing, and makes hash out of the first verse. I read it to mean that the truly wise are looked after (or looked upon) like children because they’re trusting, unprejudiced, and don’t hold themselves above or apart from ordinary life.