Forgetting to Know
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為學日益，為道日損。損之又損，以至於無為。無為而無不為。取天下常以無事，及其有事，不足以取天下。
Pursue learning, and each day there is more; pursue the Way, and each day there is less. Lessen it, and again lessen, until you arrive at doing nothing. He does nothing, yet there is nothing he does not do. Govern the world always by not meddling. Once you start meddling, you are not fit to govern the world.
Learning adds, the Way subtracts: Laozi's case for reaching non-doing by daily subtraction rather than daily accumulation.
Learning and the Way are opposite directions of travel, and the Way’s direction ends in an emptied-out state with nothing deliberate left to do. That state is non-doing, and the chapter’s most famous line insists it is the opposite of passivity.
The same logic then applies to rule. Heshang Gong glosses 取 as 治, “govern”, and reads the meddling that makes a ruler unfit as government and teaching grown so heavy that the people are unsettled.
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