Tao Te Ching Chapter 80

80th Chapter
If a leader is satisfied with a small country, even if there are weapons he doesn’t use them and if he treasures his people’s lives, the troops don’t need to travel far to claim more land.
Even if there are ships and carts, people don’t need to use them much; there are weapons and troops, but they don’t need to be seen.
He lets his people live a simple and easy life.

People are satisfied with tasty simple food, and the beauty of simple clothes, and the safety of their living conditions.
The people enjoy their simple culture.
In this case, the neighboring countries can see each other (without needing a wall as a border).
They can hear the sound of each other’s farms (without worrying about being attacked).
They leave each other in peace while they grow old.

Implications from the Holy Books

O SON OF SPIRIT! Ask not of Me that which We desire not for thee, then be content with what We have ordained for thy sake, for this is that which profiteth thee, if therewith thou dost content thyself.   ──   Bahá’u’lláh, Hidden Words, Arabic 18

Go Back to the List of Chapters

Categories: Uncategorized

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s