50: How to Survive

50

We go from birth to death.
Three out of ten follow life.
Three out of ten follow death.
People who rush from birth to death
Are also three out of ten.
Why is that so?
Because they want to make too much of life.
I have heard that the one who knows how to live
Can wander through the land
Without encountering the rhinoceros or the tiger.
He passes the battlefield
Without being struck by weapons.
In him, the rhinoceros finds no opening for its horn.
The tiger finds no opening for its claws.
The soldiers find no opening for their blades.
Why is that so?
Death has no place in him.

How to Survive

How to live one's life is a complicated matter, occupying most of the Tao Te Ching. But also, merely to stay alive is difficult, and was even more so in the time of Lao Tzu. This chapter talks about how to survive at all...

Here is my full commentary on this Tao Te Ching chapter:
Tao Te Ching Chapter 50 Translation and Commentary