Chapter 66 · Why Rivers and Seas Are Kings

Tao Te Ching (Legge, 1891) · chapter title added by Learn the Dao

That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive the homage and tribute of all the valley streams, is their skill in being lower than they;--it is thus that they are the kings of them all. So it is that the sage (ruler), wishing to be above men, puts himself by his words below them, and, wishing to be before them, places his person behind them. In this way though he has his place above them, men do not feel his weight, nor though he has his place before them, do they feel it an injury to them. Therefore all in the world delight to exalt him and do not weary of him. Because he does not strive, no one finds it possible to strive with him.

Talk Like You're Under Them

Dao De Kooi — an original rendering by David Kooi

Rivers and the sea are king over a hundred valleys because they're good at lying below them. That's the whole reason everything flows their way. So if you want to be over people, talk like you're under them. If you want to be out front, put yourself behind. That way the steady hand can be up top and people don't feel the weight, out front and people don't feel shoved. The whole world is glad to back them and never gets sick of them. Because they don't compete, nobody can compete with them.

Learn the Dao is a quiet practice for learning the thing that can’t be known — committing the Tao Te Ching to memory, one line at a time.

Read a chapter. Recite the next line from memory. The app shows you, gently, what you missed — then brings each line back just before you’d forget it.

Your recall — for example

That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive — missed the homage and tribute of all the valley streams

The dotted words are the ones you missed.

Begin learning this chapter →

Free. No account needed to start.

Read the whole chapter end to end →How the practice works →