The Tao Without Me

Favor and disgrace unsettle the mind,

Valuing calamity as one values the body.

What does "favor and disgrace unsettle the mind" mean?

Favor degrades

To gain it brings panic, to lose it brings panic.

This is why "favor and disgrace unsettle the mind."

What does "valuing calamity as the body" mean?

The reason I suffer calamities

Is because I cling to this self.

If I attain selflessness (no-body),

What calamity could remain?

Thus:

Those who value the world more than their own form

May be entrusted with temporary governance;

Those who cherish the world as their true self

May bear the weight of lasting stewardship.

(This chapter unveils Laozi’s wisdom of "non-self": Human anxieties arise from attachment to ego. True "valuing the body" is not clinging to life but transcending the limited self to align with the Dao. Only those unshaken by praise/blame and free from selfish desires can shoulder great responsibility.)

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Key Concepts:

- 无身 (wú shēn) → "selflessness" or "detachment from self"

- 贵以身为天下 → "valuing the world more than one’s form" (prioritizing collective harmony over personal identity)

- 托天下 → "lasting stewardship" (embodying the Dao to sustain the world’s balance)

The translation preserves Laozi’s paradoxical logic while emphasizing the core idea: liberation from ego-attachment is the path to true power and responsibility.