The sage does nothing, and the teaching of doing nothing comes from the second chapter of the Tao Te Ching, the original text:
Everyone in the world knows that beauty is beauty or evil; Everyone knows whether it's good or not, but it's not. Therefore, whether there is a phase or not, it is difficult to bring out the best in each other, the length is consistent, the height is oblique, and the sound is in harmony. It is based on the teaching that saints do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, live without, walk without relying on, and succeed without living. If the husband is not alive, he will not go.
Translation:
Everyone knows that beauty is beauty, so there is disgusting ugliness; Everyone knows that good is good, so there is negative bad. Therefore, you and Wu are interesting, difficult and easy complement each other, long and short coexist, high and summer coexist, sound and sound complement each other, and front and back take care of each other.
Delaying life is not independent and self-sufficient. Therefore, saints engage in unknown affairs, practice persuasion without name, openly welcome the emergence and change of all things without conflict and avoidance, give birth to all things without binding themselves, do not rely on existing achievements, and do not care about fame and fortune in their careers. It is precisely because he is not proud of his fame that he will not disappear.
Extended data:
A probe into the teaching of sage doing nothing and saying everything;
Laozi's "sage" inaction is not inaction, but inaction and inaction. He believes that "saints" who embody "Tao". Governing the people, don't respect talents and abilities, so the people won't compete for fame and fortune. However, when I say sage, I am neither good nor evil, but pure and pure human nature.
If there is an ethos of Shang Xian in the society, people will certainly not turn a blind eye, and will certainly arouse people's desire for possession and pursuit, which will lead to chaos in the world. If people are not allowed to see what they can covet, then people can maintain the pure nature of "ignorance and no desire". Make people not greedy. Ignorance and lust do not mean depriving people of their right to exist.
Instead, it is necessary to "strengthen its belly" and "strengthen its bones" as much as possible, so that ordinary people can have a full meal, be healthy, be able to protect themselves and support themselves; In addition, if there is no ambition to be competitive, it will conform to the laws of nature and achieve the rule of sage by doing nothing. Lao Tzu also believes that human nature is good, pure and innocent. And all kinds of ugly behaviors of human beings should be caused by the behavior of saints who are chaotic.
The original pure society, because of people's actions, has caused some unreasonable and imperfect social systems and distorted human nature. Therefore, Laozi insists on discarding the false and retaining the true, keeping the goodness and beauty in human nature, which is in line with the way of nature. Abandoning all things that cause people to be greedy, especially the prevailing fashion of advocating talents at that time, was considered by Lao Tzu to be the easiest to commit crimes.