Governing
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道常無為而無不為。侯王若能守,萬物將自化。化而欲作,吾將鎭之以無名之樸。無名之樸,亦將不欲。不欲以靜,天下將自定。
The Way always does nothing, yet there is nothing it does not do. If lords and kings can hold to it, the ten thousand things will transform of themselves. As they transform, if desire stirs, I will settle them with the uncarved block without a name. With the uncarved block without a name, they too will have no desire. With no desire, and with stillness, the world will settle of itself.
The book's most famous line, the Way does nothing yet nothing is left undone, applied here directly to how a ruler should act.
The line 無為而無不為 uses 為 twice and flips it with a negative: no doing, and so nothing undone. The uncarved block is the plain, unworked state of things, and it is what quiets desire.
This chapter closes the Dao half of the book, and it ends where much of the book points, at a world that settles when no one forces it.
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