The Way Transforms
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道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物。萬物負陰而抱陽，沖氣以為和。人之所惡，唯孤、寡、不轂，而王公以為稱。故物或損之而益，或益之而損。人之所教，我亦教之。強梁者不得其死，吾將以為教父。
The Way gives birth to the One; the One gives birth to the Two; the Two gives birth to the Three; the Three gives birth to the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things shoulder yin and embrace yang, and the breath within them brings them into harmony. What people hate is only “the orphan,” “the widower,” and “not the hub,” yet kings and lords take these as their titles. So with things, sometimes you take from them and they gain; sometimes you add to them and they lose. What people teach, I also teach. Those who are violent do not come to their natural death; I will take them as the father of my teaching.
The Way's cosmology, one becoming two becoming three becoming everything, applied to why rulers choose humble titles and violent men come to bad ends.
The book’s best-known cosmology is put straight to work. The balance of shade and light that holds each thing together becomes the model for rulers, who take pointedly humble, even ill-omened titles for themselves, because loss and gain run in the same paradoxical current as everything else.
Laozi treats the violent men of the last line as evidence that almost proves itself. Heshang Gong reads the line literally, as a warning against political and physical force alike, and so brings the cosmic argument about yin and yang down to something as plain as how a person meets his end.
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