Chapter 27

A skilled traveler leaves no tracks; a skilled speaker says nothing that can be faulted; a skilled counter needs no tallies; a skilled closer uses no bolts, yet what he has shut cannot be opened; a skilled binder uses no cords, yet what he has tied cannot be undone. In the same way, the sage is always skilled at saving people, and so rejects no one; he is always skilled at saving things, and so discards nothing. This is called “hiding the light of his method.”

So the skilled person is a teacher to the unskilled, and the unskilled person is material for the skilled. If the one did not honor his teacher, and the other did not value his material, then even a clever observer would be badly mistaken about them. This is called “the deepest mystery.”