Chapter V
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1.
Heaven
and Earth are
ruthless:
2.
they
treat the myriad creatures like straw dogs.
3.
The
Sage is ruthless;
4.
He
treats the Hundred Names as straw dogs.
5.
The
space between Heaven and Earth –
6.
Is
it not like a bellows?
7.
Empty but not exhausted,
8.
Work
it and more comes out.
9.
Much study soon comes to a dead end.
Interpretation: The
naturalistic indifference of the world and of the Sage, who go
about their business according to their rules without concerning
themselves with specific cases. This chapter serves as a check
against optimistic, providential interpretations of Tao. The
impersonal neutrality of the ruler and his non-involvement in
particular cases was a staple of the legalists, and nature,
too, came to be seen as an objective system of fixed rules rather
than as a chaos of powers great and small subject to being
variously angered, bribed, or propitiated.
The emptiness and
inexhaustibility of Tao are a theme again here too, as in the
previous chapter.
Vocabulary: “Straw
dogs” were used during certain sacrifices; they were the
center of attention during the ceremony, but were treated as
trash afterwards. This reference was already obscure by the early
Han dynasty, and Wang Pi (ca. 200 A.D.) gives an entirely
different interpretation. Translation: "Ruthless"translates pu jen "not humane". See Jen. I have interpreted the last word as “emptiness”, as seen in Ch. 4, rather than as the cognate “center”. (The words translated "empty" in lines 7 and 10 are different words.) Emptiness is a major theme in Lao Tzu, whereas “the center” is not.
The emptiness of Lao Tzu is
historically completely distinct from the emptiness of Buddhism,
and different words were used except in a few early cases). Cross-references: Tao, Being/Nothing, Legalism. “Much study”: Analects II-18, VII-27: to Confucians much study was a necessity.
Text: This chapter
may be a composite chapter, with only loose thematic
relationships between the three sections. Perhaps, however, it
can be unified by the theme of emptiness and the continuous
production and destruction of beings within an unmoved universe.
“Much learning” would then be a form of
“fullness”, as well as the attempt (characteristic of
the moralizing schools) to make the world seem more benevolent
and moral than it really is, or can ever become.
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