What a brilliant text the Tao te Ching is! This translation is far more flowing than the I Ching (which I think, like the Fox, my head is too wet to get across alone).
These are the products of this week’s work:
14
Helpful Mystery
Look at it, you can’t see it
You will call it “Strange”
Listen to it, you can’t hear it
You will call it “Rare”
Seize it, you can’t grasp it
You will call it “Little”
These Three can’t convey it,
They are together as One
It’s top is not bright
It’s bottom is not dark
It’s weave is nameless
Going and returning
Without it
It’s obscure
Greet it, and you won’t see it’s face
Follow it, and you won’t see it’s back
Grasp the Ancients
That is Tao
Use their drive now
Know them
Then it can be said
“Tao Reigns”
15
Illuminating Virtue
The Ancients made things better by
Knowing tiny wonderful mysteries
Their depth is unknowable
Men alone can’t understand
It’s more than they can grasp
Excited!
like wading a river in Winter
Still!
like one afraid of the four
Dignified!
like a guest
Dissolved!
like ice that melts away
Base!
like wood, plain and simple
Empty!
like a valley
Opaque!
like a puddle of mud
Who can darken its light?
Who can muddy its clarity?
Who can still its endless moving creation?
Hold the Tao without hunger
Man shall not live by bread alone
If you can conceal yourself
You can be made new
16
Returning to the Root
(Back to Basics)
The apex of Emptiness, guards one's calm.
Ten thousand things grow together
I watch them return
Things blossom and blossom
Everything is born from and returns to the root
Where it’s calm
Calm returns to Fate
Fate returns to Eternity
Know that Eternity bright
Without knowing Eternity, absurdities grow in horror
Know the internal Eternity
Inside, then unto the public
The public, then unto the King
The king, then unto Heaven
Heaven, then unto the Tao
Then the Tao is long
and
Death isn’t dangerous