Three: 4
Jonathan Star, 2001
When action is pure and selfless
Everything settles into its own perfect place.
D C Lau, 1963
Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
Lok Sang Ho, 2002,
Because the Sage does nothing but following
the law of nature
Nothing will deviate from their natural and orderly places.
Commentary
Jonathan Star's adjectives of 'pure and selfless' have a semantic reaction differing from the others who have translated the text, his translation seems to me to moralize, something I've not read in the other translations of this and the previous verses.
The others who translate this verse translate the Chinese characters of Wu Wei in their familiar English form of 'non-action', 'acting without doing', 'taking no action', 'not doing', 'not acting', etc. Lao Zi has presented these characters and this idea before. Lok Sang Ho overlays this concept as being the 'law of nature' – the way the Dao manifests, is what I understand Lok Sang Ho to be saying. The Dao acts without disruption, force or aggression – the Dao is like the flowing of water.
Order is thus seen as the way of the Dao – the process of how the Dao manifests itself. The Sage teaches this way and those who learn it will live in harmony with that Order, in harmony with the Dao. This is the action without coercive force, the action that does not disrupts, the action that is simplicity. The way of the Dao is not the way of extremes. There is no best in the Dao. There are no finalities. There are no preferences, one thing over another. The Dao is a continuum that flows as an endless simple process.
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