Holding the Throne
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治大國，若烹小鮮。以道莅天下，其鬼不神；非其鬼不神，其神不傷人；非其神不傷人，聖人亦不傷。夫兩不相傷，故德交歸焉。
Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish. Rule over the world with the Way, and its ghosts do not show their power. It is not that its ghosts have no power; it is that their power does not harm people. It is not that their power cannot harm people; it is that the sage, too, does no harm. Now, the two do not harm each other, so virtue comes back to them both.
A ruler's restraint compared to the delicate handling a small fish needs, extended even to the unseen world of spirits.
A small fish falls apart if you handle it too much. Heshang Gong reads the image as advice for the body as much as the state: overhandling a state breeds chaos below, and overhandling the body scatters its vital essence, the same caution read twice.
The line about the sage ends abruptly in this text, simply “does no harm”, with no object, where the more familiar version spells out “does not harm people”.
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