Home Ursula K. Le Guin Chapter 42

Ursula K. Le Guin

42

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The Way bears one. The one bears two. The two bear three. The three bear the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry the yin on their shoulders and hold in their arms the yang, whose interplay of energy makes harmony.

People despise orphans, widowers, outcasts. Yet that’s what kings and rulers call themselves. Whatever you lose, you’ve won. Whatever you win, you’ve lost.

What others teach, I say too: violence and aggression destroy themselves. My teaching rests on that.

Note UKLG: Beginning with a pocket cosmology, this chapter demonstrates the “interplay of energy” of yin and yang by showing how low and high, winning and losing, destruction and self-destruction, reverse themselves, each turning into its seeming opposite.

Continue reading from this chapter in the full translation.