CHINESE ORIGINAL
道冲而用之或不盈，渊兮似万物之宗；挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘，湛兮似或存。
吾不知谁之子，象帝之先。
ENGLISH · JAMES LEGGE, 1891
The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!
We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue!
I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God.
Legge’s translation uses nineteenth-century English. Parentheses are the translator’s; English chapter headings are editorial reading aids. Sources & method ↗
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The Way
The source that cannot be fully named. Explore the language of emptiness, return, and the patterns through which things arise.
The Way