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Its peace is easy to hold, |
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its lack of signs is easy to manage, |
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its fragility is easy to dissolve, |
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its subtlety is easy to scatter. |
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Act upon it before there is anything, |
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govern it before there is disorder. |
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A tree that fills the arms |
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grows from a hair's tip; |
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a nine-story tower |
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rises from piled earth; |
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a journey of a thousand li |
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begins beneath the feet. |
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The doer ruins it. |
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The grasper loses it. |
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Therefore the sage practices non-action and so there is no failure; |
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without grasping, there is no loss. |
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When people attend to affairs, |
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they often ruin them just as they are nearly complete. |
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Be as careful at the end as at the beginning, |
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and there will be no failure in the work. |
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Therefore the sage desires what is not desired, |
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does not prize goods that are hard to obtain; |
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learns what is not learned, |
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returns to what the many have passed over, |
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assisting the naturalness of all things, |
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and does not dare to act. |