Chapter XIII
(Chapter 13)

Ko Yuen Translation The Contempt for Circumstance
1.	Favor and disgrace are equally to be shunned; honour and calamity to be alike regarded as adhering to the personality¹.
2.	What is this which is written concerning favour and disgrace? Disgrace is the fall from favour. He then that hath favour hath fear, and its loss begetteth fear yet greater of a further fall. What is this which is written concerning honour and calamity? It is this attachment to the body which maketh calamity possible; for were one bodiless, what evil could befall him?
3.	Therefore let him that regardeth himself rightly administer also a kingdom; and let him govern it who loveth it as another man loveth himself².

S. Mitchell Translation

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.

James Legge Translation
1.	Favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honour and great calamity, to be regarded as personal conditions (of the same kind).
2.	What is meant by speaking thus of favour and disgrace? Disgrace is being in a low position (after the enjoyment of favour). The getting that (favour) leads to the apprehension (of losing it), and the losing it leads to the fear of (still greater calamity): this is what is meant by saying that favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared. And what is meant by saying that honour and great calamity are to be (similarly) regarded as personal conditions? What makes me liable to great calamity is my having the body (which I call myself); if I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me?
3.	Therefore he who would administer the kingdom, honouring it as he honours his own person, may be employed to govern it, and he who would administer it with the love which he bears to his own person may be entrusted with it.

GNL not Lao Interpolation

Self

Both praise and blame cause concern,
For they bring people hope and fear.
The object of hope and fear is the self -
For, without self, to whom may fortune and disaster occur?

Therefore,
Who distinguishes himself from the world may be given the world,
But who regards himself as the world may accept the world.

Tao Teh King
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Ko Yuen Commentary
1.	And, therefore, "ganglia" to be loosened is written, as stated above. Return to text
2.	This does not mean with extreme devotion, but rather with passionless indifference. Return to text

Tao Teh King
Main Page

Chapter XIII(Chapter 13)

Ko Yuen Translation

The Contempt for Circumstance

S. Mitchell Translation

James Legge Translation

GNL not Lao Interpolation

Self

Ko Yuen Commentary

Chapter XIII
(Chapter 13)