Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 27 — Following the Way Without Trace
A good traveler leaves no track
A good traveler leaves no tracks; a good speaker makes no error; a good counter uses no tallies. The sage saves people and rejects none, saves things and rejects none — this is following the inner light.
Source context
- Theme
- effortless mastery, traceless action, and the sage who leaves no mark yet accomplishes all
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Daoist wu-wei doctrineChapter 27 exemplifies wu-wei: the skilled actor, traveler, or speaker accomplishes perfectly without coercive effort, leaving no trace — a structural parallel to the Vedantic concept of nishkama karma (desireless action) in the Bhagavad Gita, where action without ego-attachment produces no karmic residue.
- Zen Buddhism (no-trace teaching)The Zen ideal of 'leaving no trace' (mushin, mu-ichi-motsu) mirrors Chapter 27's sage who acts without imprinting the self on the deed, pointing to a cross-tradition congruence between Daoist tracelessness and Buddhist non-self in action.
- Neoplatonism (the Good as non-compulsive cause)Plotinus describes the One as productive without diminishment or deliberate will, a structural parallel to the sage of Chapter 27 who saves all beings without rejection or coercion, suggesting a cross-tradition congruence between Daoist effortless beneficence and Neoplatonic emanation.
Chapter 27
The skilful traveller leaves no traces of his wheels or footsteps; the skilful speaker says nothing that can be found fault with or blamed; the skilful reckoner uses no tallies; the skilful closer needs no bolts or bars, while to open what he has shut will be impossible; the skilful binder uses no strings or knots, while to unloose what he has bound will be impossible. In the same way the sage is always skilful at saving men, and so he does not cast away any man; he is always skilful at saving things, and so he does not cast away anything. This is called 'Hiding the light of his procedure.'
Therefore the man of skill is a master (to be looked up to) by him who has not the skill; and he who has not the skill is the helper of (the reputation of) him who has the skill. If the one did not honour his master, and the other did not rejoice in his helper, an (observer), though intelligent, might greatly err about them. This is called 'The utmost degree of mystery.'