FIFTY-SIX

THE MYSTERIOUS EXCELLENCE

One who knows doe not talk.

One who talk does not know.

Therefore the sage keeps his mouth shut and his sense-gates closed.


" He will blunt his own sharpness,

His own tangles adjust;

He will dim his own radiance,

And be one with his dust."

This is called profound identification.




Thus he is inaccessible to love and also inaccessible to enmity.

He is inaccessible to profit and inaccessible to loss.

He is also inaccessible to favor and inaccessible to disgrace

Thus he becomes world- honored.

LAO TSU.