Tao Te Ching

Chapter 13
[Original text]

五色[1]令人目盲[2]，五音[3]令人耳聋，五味[4]令人口爽[5]，驰骋[6]畋猎[7]令人心发狂，难得之货令人行妨[8]。

The sage is the belly, not the eyes.So choose this [9].

【Note】

[1] Five colors: The ancients referred to red, yellow, blue, white and black as five colors.

[2] Blindness: Instruct people to be dazzled.

[3] Five tones: The ancient rhythms are divided into Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng (zhǐ), and Yu five tones.Afterwards, half Zheng and half Shang were added to synthesize the seven tones.

[4] Five flavors: sour, sweet, pungent, bitter, and salty, here refers to food with various tastes.

[5] Refreshing: loss of taste.

[6] galloping: galloping on a horse, here refers to wandering indulgently.

[7] Hunting: Hunting in a way that harms animals.

[8] Acting and hindering: hindering behavior, here refers to doing behaviors that harm morality.No harm, hurt.

[9] Take one and the other: get rid of that, apply that.He refers to the bad way of the previous article; this refers to the good way of the previous article.

【Analysis】

When your eyes are filled with colorful worlds, your eyes will become confused and you will not be able to see the real things; when your ears are filled with loud music, your ears will also lose their sensitive hearing, and you will hear When you devour all kinds of delicacies in the world like a glutton, your tongue will not be able to taste the real delicacies; if you indulge in horseback riding and hunting every day, your mood and mind will also change. Because of hunting and killing, people become frantic; when faced with rare treasures, it is easy for people to act against morality.

Therefore, a sage should only pursue food and drink, not the enjoyment of sensuality, and should abandon the temptation of those desires and maintain a peaceful lifestyle.

Lao Tzu believes that the five elements that disturb people's hearts are five colors, five sounds, five tastes, hunting and precious objects. Whenever people are obsessed with these five elements or any of them, they will think that they are enjoying themselves, but the opposite is true. , These things will bring great harm to people, or people will not be able to get the happiness they really deserve. This kind of happiness is the "no desire and no action" mentioned above.

On a deeper level, real enjoyment is rational restraint, enjoying "nothing", rather than vain indulgence and enjoying extravagant "have".To put it simply, the pursuit of sensual and material desires can easily distort people's values ​​and morals. Even if material civilization improves, spiritual civilization will wither.

【Explanation by Famous Artists】

Mr. He Shang:
If you are greedy and lustful, you will be blind and unable to see colorless form.If you listen to the five tones well, you will be kind to your heart, and you will not be able to listen to silent sounds.Cool, dead also.If people are addicted to the five flavors, their mouths will die, and their words will lose their way.People's spirit is so quiet, galloping and breathing, the spirit is scattered, so they go crazy.It's okay, it hurts.Rare goods, such as gold, silver, pearls and jade, are greedy and greedy, and if you don't know how to satisfy them, you will hurt your body and humiliate you.

Keep the five natures, get rid of the six emotions, save ambition, and nourish the gods.Don't look in vain, look in vain to let out the essence.Get rid of the delusional vision of the other eye, and take the nourishment of this belly.

(End of this chapter)