At birth
a person is soft
and yielding, at death stiff
and hard. All beings, the grass,
the trees — alive: soft, and
yielding; dead: stiff,
and hard.
Therefore
the hard and inflexible
are friends of death. The soft
and yielding are
friends of life.
An unyielding
army is destroyed. An unbending
tree breaks.
The hard
must humble itself
or be otherwise humbled.
The soft will ultimately
ascend.
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