Sacred Text · The Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching, chapter 7
Chapter 7 of 81
“Heaven is long-enduring and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves. This is how they are able to continue and endure. Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no personal and private ends, that therefore such ends are realised?”
Tao Te Ching 7 · Legge
Translation: James Legge (1891), The Tâo Teh King, Sacred Books of the East vol. XXXIX, public domain, via Project Gutenberg (ebook 216). Reproduced in full and in context; chapter 1 and the chapter count (81 chapters) validated against the source before publishing. Legge’s round brackets are his own clarifying insertions.
Christian comparison
How this connects to Jesus
The sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place. Jesus taught this exact paradox: whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 16:25), and the last will be first (Matthew 20:16). A deep meeting on the strange arithmetic of humility.
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