Introduction

Once again, a very different architecture emerged from working closely with the oldest extant manuscripts and refusing to follow later commentaries as doctrinal norms.

Rather than teaching compassion, frugality, and humility as personal virtues—as most inherited versions suggest—this verse reveals a structural manual for maintaining Integrity (德, dé) within the field of lived experience. It critiques the superficial markers of greatness, warns of pettiness becoming fine-grained and hard to detect, and offers three interwoven treasures—not as ideals, but as structural disciplines we must embody to stabilize Weaving the Way within us.

Translation

The World says,
  “I’m great! Great and not petty.”

Greatness is possible,
  just by not being petty?

Should pettiness endure,
  it becomes hard to detect.  

I always have three treasures
  protected in the marketplace.

Presence,
  Restraint,
    Not daring to act before The World.

Consider this, 
Presence enables courage;
Restraint enables expansiveness;
Not daring to act before The World,
  allows one to become an enduring and mature vessel.

Now,
Abandoning their presence,
  even while courageously engaging;
Abandoning their restraint,
  yet still trying to expand;
Abandoning what follows,
  and still acting first.

Thus they die!

Consider,
  Presence in its simplicity,
    reveals early signs.
  Preserved, it strengthens.

Heaven builds me,
  as presence encloses me.

Commentary

The World says,
  “I’m great! Great and not petty.”

Greatness is possible,
  just by not being petty?

This verse begins with a critique of how people frequently position themselves, “Well, I’m not doing anything that bad. So I’m good, right?” It’s a subtle trap that comes in many variations. It’s so much easier to let ourselves do things that “aren’t that bad” than it is to hold ourselves to constant growth.

Should pettiness endure,
  it becomes hard to detect.   

There’s a very real danger in cutting ourselves slack. Whatever we don’t hold ourselves accountable to, even “normal” and “totally OK” things that only we know we did, becomes our new benchmark. Then, the next thing that “isn’t so bad” is easier to do. Which becomes our new benchmark. Even if we avoid the slippery slope of increasingly poor decisions, normalizing micro-moments of misalignment makes them increasingly more challenging to see. 

In my work, the relationship we take to honesty is the most common place where this principle shows up with negative consequences. In extreme cases, we may feel our survival depends on telling ourselves or others a lie. Then we have to live that lie to keep surviving. That lie builds a patchwork of altered reality that becomes the basis for interpreting events and making decisions, which are now considered “true” because of that foundation, but fundamentally lack integrity. These don’t have to be big lies. They don’t even have to be true survivor moments. They can be little white lies that protect our sense of identity. They can be little white lies to protect someone else’s feelings. Each one of them distorts our vision just a little bit and as they add up, the whole picture can change dramatically. 

I think the most insidious and widespread version of this is some version of, “I’m OK. I’ve let that go. There’s nothing I need to do about that.” This type of pettiness, characterized by trivializing futility, places us firmly, if quietly, in the victim’s chair. We are not victims of our reality, we are Weavers of it. Whether we are conscious of it or not, every thought, word, and deed directly impacts the Way we Weave. Taking responsibility for that power means wielding the ability to respond with the knowledge that everything we do matters. Every thought you have shapes the way you see the world. That way of relating to the world shapes what you say and do. The world provides feedback on that, and you get to choose how to process that information. 

Whatever you let by unexamined becomes finer and finer, until it becomes an invisible filament binding you to a Way that you didn’t consciously choose for yourself. According to this teaching, no matter how benign it may appear, it is an unacceptable circumstance. This is why the text demands Integrity (德, dé)—the internal alignment that makes responsiveness possible—rather than the hollow performance of virtue in order to Weave the Way.