Verse Seventy Six

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Mon May 18, 2009

Verse Seventy Six
Stephen Mitchell, 1988

Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

Verse Seventy Six
Brian Browne Walker, 1996

At birth a person is soft and yielding,
at death stiff and hard.
All beings, the grass, the trees: alive, soft, and yielding;
dead, stiff, and hard.
Therefore the hard and inflexible are friends of death.
The soft and yielding are friends of life.
An unyielding army is destroyed.
An unbending tree breaks.
The hard must humble itself or be otherwise humbled.
The soft will ultimately ascend.

Verse Seventy Six
Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English, 1972

A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.
Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.

From: jimclatfelter
Posted: Mon May 18, 2009

The hard and strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

Aware space is flexible, soft, supple, and weak. It doesn't defend against anything. It's tender and pliant and yielding. In short, it's alive. This verse comes up with many natural images that apply to aware space.

The conclusion of this verse is that aware space will prevail, will overcome all difficulties. The First person overcomes. The third person, acting out there in the world, may break or be cut down.

The contrast is clear. Which do we prefer?

Jim

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Tue May 19, 2009

Hi Jim

This verse seemed to sum up going with or against nature.
As a beginner to Tai Chi Chuan it also rings true to what i'm taught and read about that practice.

I like your reading.It was a new way to look at the verse for me and the question I take as rhetorical.

Steve

From: Steve Palmer
Posted: Tue May 19, 2009

Tao Te Ching
Verse 76