Thomas Gray: Ignorance Is Bliss ~ Sunday, July 26, 2020

To each his suff'rings: all are men,
--Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
--Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
--And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise,
No more; -- where ignorance is bliss,
--'Tis folly to be wise.

-- Thomas Gray -- from "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

Lao-tzu: Press Conference ~ Sunday, July 26, 2020

"Press Conference: Questions and  non sequiturs for The President" 

From: The Taoist Classics, Volume One: Tao Te Ching 
by Lao-tzu (pp. 9 - 47).

Translated by Thomas Cleary

Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1999.

1). Was it not by their very selflessness that they managed to fulfill themselves? 

2a). Carrying vitality and consciousness, embracing them as one, can you keep them from parting? 

2b). Concentrating energy, making it supple, can you be like an infant? 

2c). Purifying hidden perception, can you make it flawless? 

☆ 2d). Loving the people, governing the nation, can you be uncontrived? 

2e). As the gate of heaven opens and closes, can you be impassive? 

2f). As understanding reaches everywhere, can you be innocent? 

3a). What are favor and disgrace? 

☆ 3b). Why does high status greatly afflict your person? 

3c). If we had no selves, what troubles would we have? 

4a). Who can, in turbidity, use the gradual clarification of stillness? 

4b). Who can, long at rest, use the gradual enlivening of movement? 

5a). How far apart are yes and yeah? 

5b). How far apart are good and bad? 

☆ 5c). Mine is indeed the mind of an ignoramus in its unadulterated simplicity. 

6). Is it empty talk, the old saying that tact keeps you whole? 

☆ 7). What can be done about heads of state who take the world lightly in their own self-interest? 

8). By not wanting, there is calm, and the world will straighten itself. 

9). Is this not being rooted in humility? 

☆ 10). When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn't laugh at it, it wouldn't be the Way. 

11). Therefore people may gain from loss, and may lose from gain. 

12a). Which is closer, your name or your body? 

12b). Which is more, your body or your possessions? 

12c). Which is more destructive, gain or loss? 

13). Movement overcomes cold, stillness overcomes heat. 

☆ 14). They know the world without even going out the door. 

15). What is the reason? 

16). How do I know the world is as it is? 

17). The unguided die early. 

18). Those who know do not say; those who say do not know. 

19). How do I know this? 

20a). Who knows how it will all end? 

20b). Is there no right and wrong? 

☆ 21). Governing a large nation is like cooking little fish / (small fry). 

22). It is not that the ghosts are powerless; their spirits do not harm the people. 

☆ 23a). Fine words can be sold, honored acts can oppress people; why should people who are not good abandon them? 

23b). Why did the ancients value this Way? 

☆ 24). Do it before it exists; govern it before there's disorder. 

25). Those whom heaven is going to save are those it guards with mercy. 

26a). No calamity is greater than underestimating opponents. 

26b). If you underestimate opponents, you're close to losing your treasure. 

27). To know unconsciously is best. 

☆ 28). When the people are not awed by authority, then great authority is attained. 

29). Who knows the reason for what heaven dislikes? 

☆ 30a). If people usually don't fear death, how can death be used to scare them? 

☆ 30b). If people are made to fear death, and you can catch and kill them when they act oddly, who would dare? 

☆ 31a). When people are hard to control, it is because of the contrivances of their governments, which make them hard to control. 

31b). Only those who do not contrive to live are wise in valuing life. 

32). So the stiff and strong are below, the supple and yielding on top. 

33a). Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. 

33b). True sayings seem paradoxical. 

☆ 34). When you harmonize bitter enemies, yet resentment is sure to linger, how can this be called good? 

35). Neighboring states may be so close they can hear each other's dogs and roosters, but they make it so that the people have never gone back and forth. 

☆ 36a). The good are not argumentative, the argumentative are not good. 

36b). Sages do not accumulate anything but give everything to others, having more the more they give. 

36c). The Way for humans is to act without contention.