The Daodejing Revisited: Chapter 61
Imagery inspired by Victor Mair
[Author’s Note: This week’s article was first published on Medium March 13, 2025, but not on Substack. I started The Daodejing Series there with chapter 62. Recently I was reading “The Parting of the Way” by Holmes Welch and he made an allusion to Chapter 61 in an analysis of wu-wei. We will return to that in another article, but I was prompted to look back at my old meditations on the chapter. Chapter 61 was one of those I found difficult to connect with. My writing wandered some, observing that assuming we have our finger on the pulse of opinion, even a majority opinion, often wrongfoots us. I feel like the can was kicked down the path and now I’ve come to it again.]
There is a famously well-delivered line in Gladiator (2000 Russell Crowe, the good one) where a Roman general says of a Germanic tribe before a fight, “People should know when they are conquered.” I’ve no comment on the times or relative rightness of either side. The line showcases the arrogance of overwhelming dominance. That Emperor Marcus Aurelius (yes, the stoic one) found himself and his forces in that position indicates a failure of posture and thought that Laozi would have serious words to say about.
Our Chapter 61 today is from a relatively new (for me) 1990 interpretation by Victor Mair (1943-). Professor Mair, now 83, teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. I have only partially reviewed his interpretation based on the Mawangdui manuscripts so cannot yet offer an opinion. What I’ve seen is subtly different from old translations and emphasizes a lyrical vision of the text. One can imagine a storyteller speaking around a fire, or to a small hall, his/her listeners absorbed in the patterned language. Chapter 61’s subject matter would have their attention. The imagery is as explicit and vivid as the principle being planted is complex.
A large state is like a low-lying estuary,
the female of all under heaven.
In the congress of all under heaven,
the female always conquers the male through her stillness.
Because she is still,
it is fitting for her to lie low.
By lying beneath a small state,
a large state can take over a small state.
By lying beneath a large state,
a small state can be taken over by a large state.
Therefore,
One may either take over or be taken over by lying low.
Therefore,
The large state wishes only to annex and nurture others;
The small state wants only to join with and serve others.
Now,
Since both get what they want,
It is fitting for the large state to lie low.
Isn’t that cute; some giggling no doubt while the point finds a home in those who have run the game of haves and have nots where Nature distributes talent and capital unevenly. How should a large state – dominant, the state with choices to stay or go, trade or destroy – approach the smaller states? Assuming the larger partner cares at all, and it should, because after all there is never enough wealth, enough goods, enough influence. I humbly have some experience in this area, in business, coordinating a web of suppliers and catalogue of products, negotiating prices and production to maximize profit and revenue. In a position of relative dominance (the company I represented was the largest buyer by far), I found the questions boiled down to a balance of short term versus long term gain. Small suppliers would be wary of committing too much to a single large buyer and rightly so! I witnessed the guys I worked for negotiate punishing discounts and concessions that literally put companies out of business. It is not immoral to do this, but it is shouting loudly for all to hear that your short term gains outweigh any thoughts for the future. These stories spread, preceding your arrival in all future interactions. Larger, ambitious suppliers would withhold from us, and smaller suppliers would take shortcuts, knowing they had to take what they could, when they could.
Seeing all this, my approach became passive, letting the partner set the tone of our relationship. I felt if I had to show the power of my position to a partner, that partner lacked the qualities that deserved my trust. In other words, I expected the supplier to understand and reveal their intentions. In almost all cases, they did. Wu-wei is not about never taking action, but about not taking aggressive action. Most people want to simplify their lives and businesses, and will trade much to have peace of mind. There were people who didn’t want to trade because of outsized ambitions (looking at you, Eddie). Those suppliers who would not do short term trade, and were significant enough to endanger long term goals, those I had to consider carefully. I am not ashamed to say, if the means were available, acting to hurt them as much as possible was justified and done. Even Marcus Aurelius had to go to war sometimes. I think he enjoyed it more than I did.
So what’s the point of all this lying underneath imagery and field trips to my supply-and-demand memories? As we all move into the world of a few large states and many small states, the multi-polar world of the past we all at this point should know better than to wish for, the allegories of Chapter 61 are returning to the fore. Grant me some pardon for speaking out of turn. International relations is not my area, but it seems to me the leaders and peoples of the two largest states will really have no excuses for not knowing better. They should exercise caution. Their actions over the next decade or so will forecast the harvest of the next century or so.
[Find Victor Mair’s excellent interpretation/translation of the Daodejing here on Internet Archive.]
[Author’s Note: Thank you for taking the time to visit. All pictures were taken by the author or family member, unless otherwise noted.]