Verse 54

What is well rooted cannot be pulled up.
What is firmly grasped will not slip loose.
It will be honoured from generation to generation.

When cultivated in your person, Virtue will be real.
When cultivated in your household, Virtue will be plentiful.
When cultivated in your village, Virtue will endure.
When cultivated in your country, Virtue will abound.
When cultivated in your world, Virtue will be universal.

Hence, through yourself look at Self.
Through your household look at Household.
Through your community look at Community.
Through your country look at Country.
Through your world look at World.

How do I know that the world is like this?
Because of what is within me.

Verse 55

A person who is filled with Virtue is like a newborn child.
Poisonous insects will not sting, wild animals will not pounce,
birds of prey will not swoop down.

Although bones are soft and sinews weak, a child’s grip is firm.
The union of man and woman is not known,
yet there is completeness,
because a child’s vital force is at its height.
Crying all day will not produce hoarseness,
because there is perfect harmony.

To know harmony is to know the Always-so.
To know the Always-so is to be awakened.

Trying to fill life to the brim invites a curse.
For the mind to make demands upon the breath of life brings strain.

Whatever has been forced to a peak of vigour approaches its decay.
This is not the way of Tao.
And that which goes against the Tao will quickly pass away.

Verse 56

Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know.

Block the passages!
Shut the doors!
Blunt the sharpness!
Untangle the knots!
Soften the glare!
Settle with the dust!
This is the Mystery of Evenness.

Those who have achieved this cannot be enclosed
nor kept at a distance;
they cannot be benefited nor harmed,
honoured nor disgraced.

Therefore, this is the noblest state under heaven.