Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Those who leave the womb at birth
and those who enter their source at death,
of these; three out of ten celebrate life,
three out of ten celebrate death,
and three out of ten simply go from life to death.
What is the reason for this?
Because they are afraid of dying,
therefore they can not live.

I have heard that those who celebrate life
walk safely among the wild animals.
When they go into battle, they remain unharmed.
The animals find no place to attack them
and the weapons are unable to harm them.
Why? Because they can find no place for death in them.

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This chapter is complete nonsense, and I do not even want to attempt a figurative approach here. I am afraid that if we employ a figurative method of approaching the text every time when we find the literal meaning of a particular text in the tao te ching to be perplexing or contradictory, we are making ourselves some liberal Christians that try to harmonize the texts of the Bible through a figurative understanding. (In fact, we may be reinventing some of the clumsy writings by Lao Tzu if we suppose they are perfectly coherent and logical.)

I do not and cannot know what Lao Tzu actually intended when he wrote this chapter. It is to be noted, however, that there were some silly Chinese troopers that fought against some colonial powers in the modern era by taking too literally the content of this chapter or some other tao-te-ching-influenced mystical teachings that taught that they would be unharmed even in the midst of showering bullets from Westerners’ rifles if they practiced some mystical martial arts training. The result was obvious. They were cleanly wiped out in a battle. Is this any different from the Christians that claim that they can nowadays realize the miracles of Jesus?