Verse 64

Peace is easily maintained while things are still at rest.
Trouble is easily handled before it starts.

What is brittle is easily broken.
What is minute is easily scattered.

Handle a problem before it appears.
Secure order before confusion begins.

A tree as big as a person’s embrace begins as a tiny shoot.
A terrace nine stories high rises from a shovelful of earth.
A journey of a thousand miles begins under your feet.

A person who interferes does harm, and those who grasp lose their hold.
Therefore, the True Person acts without striving and does no harm,
avoids grabbing and never loses hold.

People often ruin their ventures when they are on the verge of success.
So, be as careful at the end as at the beginning,
and your work will not be ruined.

Therefore, the True Person seeks freedom from desire,
does not value things that are hard to come by,
learns without scholarship,
brings people back to what they have passed by,
and assists the ten thousand things to find their own natures;
all without daring to interfere.

Verse 65

The ancients who practised the Tao
did not use it to enlighten the people,
but rather to assist them in gaining simplicity.

The reason people are difficult to govern
is because they are too clever.
Hence, a person who attempts to govern a country
by cleverness will injure it.

Those who govern without cleverness will be a blessing to the land.
These are the two models.

Knowing these models is called the Mystic Virtue.
The Mystic Virtue is deep and so far-reaching
that it can lead all things back toward great harmony.

Verse 66

How did the sea gain kingship of a hundred streams?
Because it takes the lower position.
Hence, it is king of a hundred streams.

Therefore, when True Persons are over the people
they put themselves below the people by their speech.

When they lead the people they stand behind the people.
When True Persons are given places above the people
they do not crush the people with their weight.

When they take their place ahead of the people
they do not obstruct the people’s progress.

That is why everything under heaven supports them gladly
and does not tire of them.

Because they strive with no one,
no one can ever strive with them.