Chapter 48: The Limits of Learning

He who attends daily to learning increases in learning. He who practices Dao daily diminishes. Again and again he humbles himself. Thus he attains to non-doing (wu wei). He practices non-doing and yet there is nothing left undone.

To command the empire one must not employ craft. If one uses craft he is not fit to command the empire.

Interpretation:

There is a common saying, "The wise are not learned and the learned are not wise.  This stanza may be seen as comparison between learning for the sake of control and learning to be content.  We are can easily imagine a scatterbrained scientist who has memorized thousands of species names and endless details about birds but cannot remember to take care of a pet.  Then there is the person who has lived in nature and knows nothing of the names or scientific details of animals but can raise them and love them as family.   How does the second man, the wise man, acquire this ability?  By being still and observing.  Listening rather than doing.  This can be seen as the message of this chapter.

Stanza one points out the difference between the person who seeks intellectual knowledge and the the person who seek the Dao. 

The second stanza observes that the intellectual eventually fails.  This can be seen to say that the intellectual who is out of touch with the natural wisdom of listening and non-doing cannot value what he learns  Thanks For Making This Possible! Kindly Bookmark and Share it.