Introduction

This verse frequently serves as a launching point for reading Confucianism or other schools of Chinese thought into the Daoist worldview. Reading about war in the middle of a manual on meditative living, immediately preceded by a verse called (y)in-action, is a little jarring. Fortunately, some of the verses we have encountered previously (like Verse 16: Returning to the Root) provide context that is helpful to understanding the metaphor. 

I took more poetic license than usual to smooth out the English rendering. Nothing too crazy. I switched a couplet and used modern terminology intended to convey both meaning and feeling instead of blander technical language, like God-complex instead of hubris. 

I also made a significant technical leap by re-including a line from the oldest known version of the Dao De Jing. This line is omitted in every more recent version I have read. I believe it is omitted because it’s really fricking hard to make sense of it. As I contemplated the line, it came to me that substituting the often interchanged homonym 常 (cháng) for the 长 (cháng) in the text solved the mystery. 

Translation

One who uses the Dao
  in service to the Leader
does not want force to be
  used on the World.

Actions have consequences.

Anywhere the forces stop,
thorns and brambles are born.
There are always ramifications
  following a great battle.

Perfection is in the result,
  not in getting it through force.

Get results
  without being tacky.
  without showing off.
  without developing a God-complex.

Results are not your reward,
  living like this is called “fruition without force.”
Results will be consistent with natural law.

Things strengthen and then weaken,
  this truth is hard to accept.
    Not accepting it hastens ruin. 

Commentary

One who uses the Dao
  in service to the Leader
does not want force to be
  used on the World. 

Who is the one who uses the Dao? Who is the Leader?

You are! 

Verse 25 tells us, “Weaving the Way shapes the Dao.” We are the fountainhead of the “bottomless wellspring” (verse 4) from which the Dao flows. Verse 16 tells us that the Leader bridges our actions in the world and our connection to source. I don’t think it’s amiss to relate the Leader, approximately, to the notion of the Higher Self popular today. 

What is force? What is the world?

Force points to “the act of inflicting or forcing something (typically undesirable) on someone.” This someone is The World. 

In the complex language of this text, the World means everything we perceive, as discussed in verse 29. This can be conflicting thoughts/emotions within, in social organizations we participate in, or anything else under the sun.