Introduction

Verse 65 is frequently cited to justify authoritarian readings of Daoism—interpreted to mean that the people must be kept ignorant to be governed. This reflects a deep misunderstanding of the verse and the Daoist cosmology from which it emerges.

The early Mawangdui versions make clear that this verse isn’t about ruling others. It’s about dismantling the internal architecture of conceptual control. What’s at stake is not politics but epistemology: how we relate to knowing and what happens when we confuse conceptual maps for lived participation.

This verse doesn’t moralize about ignorance. It reveals two structural modes—knowing and not-knowing—as complementary functions that shape our ability to align with the Way. Investigating how these two operate is not an intellectual exercise but Profound Integrity itself. And through that Integrity, all things return—not in obedience, but in resonance.

Translation

Thus it is said:
Those who weave the Way,
  do not do so through “conceptualizing ‘people,’”
  but through their not-knowing.

Indeed, “people” are difficult to align
  because of their “knowledge.”

Therefore, by knowing the country,
know the country’s traitor;
Through not-knowing
  know the country’s Integrity.

Persist in knowledge of both
  and investigate patterns. 

Persistent participation in investigating patterns,
  This is Profound Integrity.

Profound Integrity is deep and far
  In relationship to it,
  phenomena always return,
    unto Great Harmony. 

Commentary

Thus it is said:
Those who weave the Way,
  do not do so through conceptualizing “people,”
  but through their not-knowing.

Picking up where verse 64 left off, the text now addresses the deeper question: How does non-doing actually function? 

The first step is recognizing that we typically operate from concepts that are abstracted from reality. Doing so reduces all of life, particularly ourselves and others, to something static and fixed instead of the dynamic unfolding that it is. This is “conceptualizing ‘people.’” 

Even without digging into the deeper implications— such as the inner multiplicity of the self or the idea that “people” are an illusion— we recognize that preconceived notions of ourselves or others are rarely helpful. What is?

The openness and curiosity of “not-knowing.” 

“Not-knowing” is my rendering of 愚 (yù), a term commonly translated as “stupid” or “ignorant,” but better understood as simple-mindedness. In the Daoist sense: receptive, uncarved, beginner’s mind. A consciousness not defined by certainty, but by presence. 

In any case, once we’ve mistaken a concept for reality, we begin mistaking control for harmony. The following phrase names the result.