Chapter 70 · Easy Words, Rarely Practised

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

My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practise; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and able to practise them. There is an originating and all-comprehending (principle) in my words, and an authoritative law for the things (which I enforce). It is because they do not know these, that men do not know me. They who know me are few, and I am on that account (the more) to be prized. It is thus that the sage wears (a poor garb of) hair cloth, while he carries his (signet of) jade in his bosom.

Easy to Get, Nobody Gets It

Dao De Kooi — an original rendering by David Kooi

What I'm saying is easy to get and easy to do. Nobody gets it, nobody does it. The words have a source. The actions have a logic. People don't see that, so they don't get me. The fewer who get it, the more it's worth. So the steady hand wears the rough coat on the outside and keeps the good stuff out of sight.

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

My words are very easy to know — missed and very easy to practise

The dotted words are the ones you missed.

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