Chapter 46 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

  • The answer to world peace?
  • A world where everybody has the Tao.
  • In this world, fast horses will all be used to till the soil for farming.
  • A world where people don't have the Tao is a place where there's so much fighting that warhorses are forced to give birth on the battlefield.
  • This kind of world is full of the greatest crime: greed.
  • It's full to the biggest disaster: discontentment.
  • To put it simply, a world that's full of greed and dissatisfaction is a pretty miserable place to be, and it's not a place where people are at one with the Tao.
  • (Sigh... that sounds a little bit like a certain world we know.)