上士闻道勤而行之
中士闻道若存若亡
下士闻道大笑之
before i began memorizing the daodejing in english some 20 years ago dao seemed to me something of a distantly enticing joke, having finished memorizing dc lao's translation and roughly two-thirds through memorizing the chinese dao now seems sometimes here sometimes not sometimes false dead flat sometimes alive vital true, but vignette 41 says that the best student practices dao diligently and walks it - it's fickle for the average and risible for the poor student
so if things keep going in the same direction maybe in another 20 years i'll be a good student or maybe dead, which for me may or may not be the same thing
死而不亡者寿
death and life being what they are - in each other and not apart - should they be forced apart things become unnatural decontextual destructive and this is where we are today in our interwoven civilization across the world and often within our interiorities, we've split the adam (אֲדָמָה earth) and so ourselves
朴散则为器
when the uncut block (朴 pŭ) breaks up (散 sàn) it becomes tools (器 qì), as we've split the atom (άτομή uncut) so we've become tools of our splitting
to return death to life, to seek death in life, is not to continue increasing our warring, carnism, testosterone and its devotees, bifurcations - but to die ourselves while not dying
强梁者不得其死
yet the violent have no capacity for their death, their only capacity is for death - its projection, abstraction, externalization, objectification
名与身孰亲
身与货孰多
得与亡孰病
which is the greater calamity - your name or your meat, your meat or your assets, your capacity or your death - dao doesn't know, nor does life - and should i - but that these are eternal unresolving pivots on the forever tottering ambivalence of the day places death in life as life in death, yin in yang as yang in yin, you in me as i in you
故坚强者死之徒
柔弱者生之徒
therefore by separating life and death the hard and strong are death's disciples, by dying and not dying the pliable and weak are life's disciples
不笑不足以为道
if no laughter it would be insufficient as dao - yet there is a laughter with as walking grows even as the laughter evaporates