Chapter 3 summary

Together with the Chapter 2 summary, Chapter 3 sets the stage for us. Lâozî’s described the world where the story we are about to hear takes place:

It’s a world where extreme efforting of one trait cuts off and defines its opposite in something… before its even fully developed and born. Or to look at it in terms of the opposites: it’s a place where NOT doing certain extreme things means you’re “breeding civilians” WITHOUT certain corresponding bad behaviors.

Given this world, an ideal sage would have certain habits:

~ in dwelling, the sage would be Not-Being efforting;

~ in practicing on a public road, they’d be not really speaking;

~ birthing, yet now bearded… not really flesh-and-blood, meat-holding Being;

~ efforting, yet now bearded… not really expecting that will be holding one’s heart-core like a mother;

~ completing real work, and yet now bearded, you’re… not-abiding (like the sticks tied together as a fire starter are gone, pfft!);

~ and in “governing like regulating a River Happy or speaking of turning one’s self,” the sage would be emptying their heart, filling their belly, fragile in aspiration, and strengthening their bony will.

Also in this world, the traditional ever-present, timeless, constant version (as symbolized by the head cloth that men donned upon becoming official adults) of “breeding civilians” involves Not-Being sure, Not-Being missing something.

And amid all this there is, that is to say, this particular grown man with a traditional head cloth and formal public name who we see is not really withdrawing—despite the fact that a sage is “not-abiding pfft!”—but also the traditional version of breeding civilians causes him to be “not really daring efforting…

efforting… Not-Being efforting…”

After following this example, Not-Being… not really “governing like regulating a river named Happy or speaking of turning one’s self.”

~

That’s the state of affairs. It does seem to be an old world, set in its ways despite some alternate ideas and some currently ambiguous and somehow unsatisfying consequences. What’s going to put change in motion? It all starts in Chapter 4, as we’ll see in the next post.

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