70: Knowing Difficulty
Introduction
This verse begins with a tone of quiet provocation: the teaching is profound, yes. But it’s also simple, and the way is clear. So, why is it so difficult to live?
The verse doesn’t soften the problem, because it’s a real problem. What follows is not moralism or complaint, but a structural diagnosis. Something in the nature of society blocks access to the depth of Integrity central to Weaving the Way.
Rather than offer a remedy or an instruction, the verse shifts deeper. What is required cannot be taught, only lived. And living it is a radical choice.
Translation
I speak of the:
Deep interchange of knowing,
Profound exchange of action,
And no one
can know it
nor enact it.
Speech has a Leige,
Engagement has a Precedent.
Only not-knowing!
This is why I am unknowable.
Those who understand are few,
so I am valuable.
This is why The Wise
seem unrefined,
yet
carry jade within.
Commentary
I speak of the:
Deep interchange of knowing,
Profound exchange of action,
And no one
can know it
nor enact it.
This verse opens with the “I know that what I’m teaching is so profound that it’s simple – but I know it’s not easy!” tone we have seen before in verse 35. In 35, we are being invited into our tendency to overlook the vibrancy of life itself, the Dao, in favor of external pleasures. Here, we are recognizing that Integrity with the way demands a deep investigation into how we know, and embody what we know, in a dynamic interchange of knowing and acting.
“No one can know it nor enact it,” serves multiple functions. First, according to legend, the author of this text was leaving the kingdom due to frustration with the state of affairs, and likely the lack of people who understood his teaching. Second, the stronger an identity someone carries, the less capacity there is for them to accord with the Way spontaneously. The phrase ‘no one’ here doesn’t mean absence—it points to the fruition of practice: a person unbound by identity, open enough to dwell in the interchange of knowing and acting at the level required for true Integrity (德).
Speech has a Leige,
Engagement has a Precedent.
These are the challenges, stated with a mocking irony.
Speech and Engagement have social norms that dictate our behavior in place of our internal alignment and truth. As long as we are externally referenced, Integrity is unavailable.
Only not-knowing!
In order to spontaneously engage life, in order to (y)in-act, we must drop beneath the conditioned patterns of “what we know” and move from and as pure presence.
This is why I am unknowable.
Those who understand are few,
so I am valuable.
“I am unknowable” points to how those living in profound Integrity cannot be predicted or pinned down. They often appear iconoclastic, non-deferential, outside value systems, and unmoved by the usual currency of social status, ego attacks or praise.
“Those who understand are few” is a subtle shift back to the statement that it is rare to find people willing to embrace what this teaching requires: an abandonment of external reference and full commitment to Integrity.
Weaving the Way reverses the standard measure of value. It is an embodiment of standing outside the systems which unconsciously drive and shape us in order to be internally referenced. Refuse to cede personal authority to norms of precedence and power is the root of reform and a counter-institutional spirit. The fear of freedom is no modern affliction of the human condition; Lao Zi saw this thousands of years ago. Engaging the practices necessary to embody true freedom is as relevant now as it ever has been.
This is why The Wise
seem unrefined,
yet
carry jade within.
Weavers of the Way seem unrefined because they intentionally refuse to “play the game.” They do not concern themselves with being polished and proper. This is a way that holds hypocrisy as the deepest fracture. It is better to be an outcast, friendless, and impoverished, than to live out of Integrity. In society, Weavers may appear rough or unconventional, but it’s not a prerequisite. You won’t know them by their outward appearances.
Instead, Weavers move from somatic coherence, where thought, speech, and action are all in perfect alignment. Their presence makes us feel better and causes us to rethink and reorganize our lives. The Jade Within is not hidden riches, but a quiet purity of being that radiates from them. Their refusal to conform, in service to Integrity, is their gift to the world.