The Tao of Emerson (6 page)

Simplicity without a name
Is free from all external aim
.
With no desire, at rest and still
,
All things go right as of their will
.

When a man, through stubbornness,
   insists to do this or that,
Something absurd or whimsical,
   only because he will,
He is weak.
He blows with his lips against the tempest;
He calms the incoming ocean with his cane.

Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift,
Sit still and truth is near;
Suddenly, it will uplift
Your eyelids to the sphere:
Wait a little, you shall see.

Those who possessed in the highest degree
   the attributes of the Tao
Did not seek to show them
,
And therefore they possessed them in fullest measure
.
Those who possessed in a lower degree those attributes
Sought how not to lose them
,
And therefore they did not possess them in fullest measure
.

Those who possessed in the highest degree those attributes
Did nothing with a purpose, and had no need to do anything
Those who possessed them in a lower degree
   were always doing, and had need to be so doing
.

Those who possessed the highest benevolence
   were always seeking to carry it out
,
   and had no need to be doing so
.
Those who possessed the highest righteousness
   were always seeking to carry it out
,
   and had need to be so doing
.

Thus it was that when the Tao was lost
,
   its attributes appeared;
When its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared;
When benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared;
And when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared
.

Thus it is that the great man abides by what is solid
,
   and eschews what is flimsy;
Dwells with the fruit and not with the flower
.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares
   when working to another aim.
They teach us the qualities of primary nature,
   admit us to the constitution of things.
What they know, they know for us.
With each new man a new secret of nature transpires.
The escape from all false ties;
   courage to be what we are;
   and love of what is simple and beautiful;
These are the essentials.

The wise man shows his wisdom in separation,
   in gradation,
And his scale of creatures and of merits
   is as wide as nature.
The foolish have no range in their scale,
   but suppose every man is as every other man.
What is not good, they call the worst,
And what is not hateful, they call the best.

In like manner, what good heed nature forms in us!
She pardons no mistakes.
Her yea is yea, her nay, nay.

The hero is he who is immovably centered.

The things which from of old have got the Tao are
—
   Heaven which by it is bright and pure;
   Earth rendered thereby firm and sure;
   Spirits with powers by it supplied;
   Valleys kept full throughout their void;
   All creatures which through it do live;
   Princes and kings who from it get
   The model which to all they give
.
All these are the results of the Tao
.

If heaven were not thus pure, it soon would rend;
If earth were not thus sure, ’twould break and bend;
Without these powers, the spirits soon would fail;
If not so filled, the drought would parch each vale;
Without that life, creatures would pass away;
Princes and kings, without that moral sway
,
However grand and high, would all decay
.

It is the universal nature, which gives worth
   to particular men and things.
Nature is an immutable cloud, which is always
   and never the same.
Every chemical substance, every plant,
   every animal in its growth,
Teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.

All laws derive hence their ultimate reason;
All express more or less distinctly some command of
   this supreme, illimitable essence.

There is no great and no small
To the soul that maketh all.
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.
Eyes are found in light; ears in auricular air;
Feet on land; fins in water; wings in air.
And each creature where it was meant to be,
   with a mutual fitness.

The movement of the Tao
   By contraries proceeds;
And weakness marks the course
   Of Tao’s mighty deeds
.

Every natural fact is an emanation,
   and that from which it emanates
   is an emanation also,
And from every emanation
   is a new emanation.
A mysterious principle of life
   must be assumed,
Which not only inhabits the organ,
   but makes the organ.

Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao
,
   earnestly carry it into practice
.
Scholars of the middle class, when they have heard about it
,
   seem now to keep it and now to lose it
.
Scholars of the lowest class, when they have heard about it
,
   laugh greatly at it
.
If it were not thus laughed at, it would not he fit to he the Tao
.

Therefore, the sentence makers have thus expressed themselves:
   The Tao, when brightest seen, seems light to lack;
   Who progress in it makes, seems drawing back;
   Its even way is like a rugged track
.
   Its highest virtue from the vale doth rise;
   Its greatest beauty seems to offend the eyes:
   And he has most whose lot the least supplies
.
   Its firmest virtue seems hut poor and low;
   Its solid truth seems change to undergo;
   Its largest square doth yet no corner show;
   A vessel great, it is the slowest made
.
   Loud is its sound, hut never word it said
.
   A semblance great, the shadow of a shade
.

There is a certain wisdom of humanity
Which is common to the greatest man with the lowest;
The learned and studious of thought
   have no monopoly of wisdom.
We owe many valuable observations to people
   who are not very acute or profound.
The action of the soul is oftener in that
   which is felt and left unsaid,
Than that which is said in any conversation.
We know better than we do.

That which once existed in intellect as pure law
   has now taken body as nature.
It existed already in the mind in solution;
Now it has been precipitated,
And the bright sediment is the world.
We could never surprise nature in a corner;
It is inexact and boundless.
Talent goes from without inward.
When Genius arrives, it flows out of a deeper source
   than the foregoing silence.
Here about us coils forever the agent enigma,
   so old, and so unutterable.

The Tao produced One; One produced Two;
Two produced Three; Three produced all things
.
All things leave behind them the Obscurity
   out of which they have come
,
And go forward to embrace the Brightness
   into which they have emerged
,
While they are harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy
.

What men dislike is to be orphans
,
   to have little virtue, to be as carriages without naves;
And yet these are the designations which kings
   and princes use for themselves
.
So it is that some things are increased by being diminished
,
   and others are diminished by being increased
.

What other men teach, I also teach
.
The violent and strong do not die their natural death
.
I will make this the basis of my teaching
.

The incessant movement and progress
   in which all things partake
Could never become sensible to us but by contrast
   To some principle of fixture or stability in the soul.
We can never be quite strangers or inferiors in nature.
It is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone.

’Tis the old secret of the gods,
That they come in low disguises.
’Tis the vulgar great, who come dizened
   with gold and jewels.
Real kings hide their crowns away in their wardrobes,
   and affect a plain and poor exterior.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace,
   and not of war.
The way to conquer the foreign artisan
   is not to kill him, but to beat his work.

The softest thing in the world dashes against
   and overcomes the hardest;
That which has no substantial existence enters
   where there is no crevice
.
I know hereby what advantage belongs
   to doing nothing with a purpose
.
There are a few in the world who attain
   to the teaching without words
,
And the advantage arising from non-action
.

All is riddle, and the key to a riddle
   is another riddle.
To change and to flow, the gas becomes solid,
And phantoms and nothings
   return to be things.
Prudence consists in avoiding
   and going without,
Not in the inventing of means and methods,
Not in adroit steering, not in gentle repairing.

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
.

Genius consists in neither improving nor
   remembering,
But in both trembles the beam
   of the balance of nature.
Two brains in every man
Who walks in ways that are unfamed
And feats achieved before they’re named.

There is a teaching for him from within
   which is leading him in a new path,
And, the more it is trusted,
Separates and signalizes him,
While it makes him more important and
   necessary to society.
So that his doing, which is perfectly natural,
Appears miraculous to dull people.

Who thinks his great achievements poor
Shall find his vigor long endure
.
Of greatest fullness, deemed a void
,
Exhaustion ne’er shall stem the tide
.
Do thou what’s straight still crooked deem;
Thy greatest art still stupid seem
,
And eloquence a stammering scream
.

Constant action overcomes cold;
   
Being still overcomes heat
.
Purity and stillness give the correct law
   to all under heaven
.

The men we call greatest are least
   in this kingdom.
He that despiseth small things
   will perish little by little.
Let him esteem nature a perpetual counselor
   and her perfections the exact
   measure of our deviations.

Do not craze yourself with thinking,
But go about your business anywhere.
Life is not intellectual or critical,
   but sturdy.

When the Tao prevails in the world
,
They send back their swift horses to draw
   the dung-carts
.
When the Tao is disregarded in the world
,
The warhorses breed in the borderlands
.

There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition;
No calamity greater than to be discontented
   with one’s lot;
No fault greater than the wish to be getting
.
Therefore, the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring
   and unchanging sufficiency
.

A man’s wisdom is to know that
   all ends are momentary.
If he listens with insatiable ears,
   richer and greater wisdom is taught him.
He is the fool of ideas and leads a heavenly life.
His health and greatness consists
   in his being the channel through which
   heaven flows to earth.
What man, seeing this, can lose it
   from his thoughts.