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Chapter 24

The effort of one who stands on tiptoe does not lead to rising
To splay the legs excessively is not walking
He who puts himself in the light remains in the shadow
He who believes he has arrived is pushed back
To put oneself ahead is to lose value
To esteem oneself is to decay
With respect to the Way, all this
Is nothing but excrescence and refuse
With respect to the goal, it is something to be disdained
Far removed from all this is he who is in the Way.

Commentary

The path of one united with the Principle is marked by natural, impersonal spontaneity, opposed to all behaviors based on shifting and externalizing the center of oneself into the concretion of the small ego, mere excrescence (the text adds: “refuse”) with respect to being. Any accentuation of the latter automatically converts into a diminishment of the former: a Taoist theme already familiar to us.

In the same line of thought, a still more drastic Taoist expression is: the ego is an abscess that bursts at death.

Chinese text and literal translation

Chapter 24 (第二十四章)