Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,
only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Being and nonbeing produce each other.
The difficult is born in the easy.
Long is defined by short, the high by the low.
Before and after go along with each other.
So the sage lives openly with apparent duality
and paradoxical unity.
The sage can act without effort
and teach without words.
Nurturing things without possessing them,
he works, but not for rewards;
he competes, but not for results.
When the work is done, it is forgotten.
That is why it lasts forever.
My thoughts on the verse
This verse is about the harmony of opposites. In the physical world, things exist in duality; light and dark, short and long, beauty and ugliness. One can not be defined without the other. In this we learn that we must accept the perceived "negative" aspect of all things in order to enjoy the "positive" aspect.
Khalil Gibran, in The Prophet writes about this duality in the chapter on Sorrow and Joy;
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Some of you say, 'Joy is greater than sorrow,' and others say, 'Nay, sorrow is the greater.' But I say unto you, they are inseperable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
I was reading this when my grandmother was dying and I found it to be a great comfort to me to be reminded that the reason my grief over her passing was so overwhelming was because the love and joy I found in her presence was equally as powerful. It made me feel grateful for her having been in my life as long as she was.
When we act with selflessness (without ego) we live can live in harmony with this duality. The ego uses this perceived separation of things to creat fear and suffering in our lives. We feel potently the "negative" aspects, and any experience of the "positive" aspects is tainted by fear of losing it or of how fleeting that experience will be.
With the wisdom of "paradoxical unity", we can accept all we experience in the moment for what it is, without ego judgement. This is truly selfless living. Everything we do is for the sake of the act itself, for no other purpose than to fulfill what is required in that moment.
"When the work is done, it is forgotten. That is why it lasts forever." An act is completed and not dwelt upon, so it is removed from time itself; only in this does the act have any permanence. Holding onto something from the past or anticipating the future, we hold that act within the realm of time and, therefore, it is necessarily temporary (which literally means 'of time'). Eternity (forever) is the absence of time.
Practical application in our lives
Bringing ourselves into unity with all that is as we work our way through our days can only have the result of easing our experience. Imagine how much less stress you will feel when encountering a "negative" experience when you can accept it as the necessary partner of it's "positive" opposite. What significance would the opposite have, what joy would it bring, if not for the opposite that provides the contrast?
If we can work with selflessness, not holding onto any task beyond its completion, we are now free! Free to do without concern for past or future, free to act in the truest way possible; free to enjoy the doing of any task, free to rejoice at its completion, and free to move on to the next task fresh with excitement and newness.
Only the ego needs to hold onto things. Our true selves do not need to do this to feel fulfilled, justified, validated, righteous, real. The ego, being a false being, needs to hold onto the things we do in order for it to continually feel renewed and as though it actually exists for a purpose. Our true selves know that we simply exist, and our purpose is exactly what we are doing in any given moment. That is all.
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