Chapter 60 takes “governing a large state as delicately as cooking small fish” as its core metaphor, emphasizing that state governance must follow the natural laws of the Dao—minimizing intervention and maintaining prudence to preserve society’s intrinsic balance.
Governing a great state is like cooking small fish.
Let the kingdom be governed according to the Dao, and the manes of the departed will not manifest their spiritual energy. It is not that those manes have not that spiritual energy, but it will not be employed to hurt men. It is not that it could not hurt men, but neither does the ruling sage hurt them.
When these two do not injuriously affect each other, their good influences converge in the virtue (of the Dao).
Laozi further extends this principle to the relationship between heaven and humanity, asserting that when the Dao is truly practiced, all latent conflicts (including supernatural “ghosts and gods” and human-inflicted harm) will naturally dissolve. Here, “ghosts” symbolize inner demons of the mind, while “gods” represent their efficacious influence. As our spiritual cultivation draws closer to the Dao, we transcend the constraints of these inner obstacles.
Simultaneously, in contrast to demonic forces stand divine beings or enlightened sages. They embody clarity and harmony. However, we must remain vigilant against attachment to the names and forms of sages or divine entities, for such attachments breed new obstructions. This fixation, too, must be relinquished.
Side notes
In Buddhism, attachment is categorized into “self-attachment” and “dharma-attachment”.
- Self-attachment denotes a distorted belief in the inherent reality of the self, manifesting as obsessive focus on bodily sensations and rigid adherence to subjective perceptions.
- Dharma-attachment refers to inflexible interpretations of spiritual practices or the material world, treating them as fixed truths.
These dual attachments create cognitive constraints that obscure the arising of wisdom.
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