Translation please

[tanithryudo]

“天之道，损有余而补不足。人之道，则不然，损不足以奉有余。孰能有余以奉天下？唯有道者，” 《道德经》

Came across this in a fic. I understand only 7/10ths of the words here, much less the meaning. Halp? T_T

Comments

[cashew.insanejournal.com]

Note that my classic Chinese is not just a little rusty and very beginners, so the translation may be...um, not quite correct. With that said, the best I can come to is the following:

"The way of heave, take from excess to subsidize the lacking. The way of humans, are not so, to take from the lacking and give to excess. Who has excess to give to all under heaven? Those of the way."

In less literal translation: The natural order is to take from the rich and give to the poor (thus achieving equal distribution of resources). Human/societal mores are the opposite, where we take from the poor and give to the rich. So who will take care of everyone (if we keep taking from the poor and giving it to the rich)? Those who are moral (and participate in fair distribution of wealth).

tl;dr - The rich have an obligation to help the poor, because that's the moral thing to do.

[tanithryudo.insanejournal.com]

This is why I <3 you.

Not sure I agree with the natural order bit though... I mean, in nature, it's the weak and old that gets weeded out via natural selection. Or am I misunderstanding "way of heaven"?

[cashew.insanejournal.com]

My four years of Chinese education makes me indispensable. :p

Eh, I think it's supposed to be metaphorical. Think more...thermodynamics. Energy goes from high concentration to low concentration. Or diffusion. Or entropy. :p That's the "natural order" of things. In other words, the least energetically costly state is one where gradient differences don't exist. Therefore, the wealth disparity we see in human society must then be maintained by some external force (aka people's greed). Or something.

Yeah.

[cashew.insanejournal.com]

*way of heaven

Fucking typo.