Analysis of Wisdom of DAO
Wisdom of DAO:
Contraction is addition
and not subtraction.
Weakness in its full balance
defeats the hubris of strength.
Read now from DAO.
Read from chapter thirty six —
Knowledge of balance:
All things in moderation
bring harmony to the soul.
Chapter 36 of Tao (First Stanza):
“Contraction pulls at that
which extends too far.
Weakness pulls at that
which strengthens too much.
Ruin pulls at that
which rises too high.
Loss pulls at life
when you fill it with too much stuff.”
Take the narrow path.
The wide one is full of traps.
It leads to downfall.
Follow path of the psyche.
For therein dwells the Spirit.
Wisdom of Tao
is Wisdom of the Spirit
and of discernment
for guidance and direction
in all things done with balance.
Follow thus The Way,
the hidden path of Knowledge,
where Wisdom awaits,
not seen materially;
revealed only by Spirit.
Scheme | ABBCX AXCBX X DXDXDXXX XXXEF AFXBC XXXEF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011 0101010 01010 1001110 0101011 1111 1110101 10110 110010 1100101 1011110 010111 10111 10111 11011 10111 11011 1111 11111111 10101 0111111 1111 1011010 1011010 1011 1101010 01010 1100010 0111110 10101 0101110 11001 1101000 0110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 876 |
Words | 179 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 1, 8, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 96 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 21 |
About this poem
The Wisdom of the DAO: Over several centuries philosophers of Western cultures, like Nietzsche, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, and other philosophers of Existentialism, have pondered over and meditated on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy, as articulated in the wisdom poetry of the Tao Te Ching, an ancient Chinese classical text of sacred poetry written around 400 BC and traditionally credited to the sage Lao Tzu. The main idea of the Tao Te Ching, “The Ultimate Teaching,” is for human societies to live life in harmony, balance, peace, and unity, with the explicit proposition that this can be accomplished by following the metaphorical “road less taken,” expressed in the opening lines of verse 1 (first stanza) of the Tao Te Ching, which reads, enigmatically and with subtlety, as follows: “A way that can be walked/is not The Way/ A name that can be named/ is not The Name. ” The distinctive and contrastive use of lowercase and uppercase letters for the common nouns employed in the poem, supported by the contrastive use of the definite and the indefinite articles, is applied to reveal the subtle intention of the message: What is seen and measured with the naked eyes is a mere shadow of what is unfolded and revealed by the Spirit. An extended Japanese-style 5-line Tanka poem is employed in this poem to develop and deliver the inherent wisdom message of the Tao Te Ching. more »
Written on June 29, 2022
Submitted by karlcfolkes on June 29, 2022
Modified by karlcfolkes on March 09, 2023
- 53 sec read
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"Wisdom of DAO" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/130865/wisdom-of-dao>.
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