Monday, December 19, 2005

TAO TE CHING - A Disease

71. A Disease

To know that you do not know is the best.
To think you know when you do not is a disease.
Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.
The wise are free of disease,
because they recognize the disease as a disease.
Therefore they are free of disease.

1 comments:

Kiachu Shen Ku said...

A Disease - Other translations

To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment);
not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.

It is simply by being pained at (the thought of) having this
disease that we are preserved from it. The sage has not the disease.
He knows the pain that would be inseparable from it, and therefore he
does not have it.
J. Legge, Translator

71
Not-knowing is true knowledge.
Presuming to know is a disease.
First realize that you are sick;
then you can move toward health.

The Master is her own physician.
She has healed herself of all knowing.
Thus she is truly whole.
translation by S. Mitchell