Excerpts from the Tao Te Ching
Excerpts from the Tao Te Ching
They were careful
as someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapeable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
she is present, and can welcome all things.
Words came out of the womb of matter;
And whether a man dispassionately
Sees to the core of life
Or passionately
Sees the surface,
The core and the surface
Are essentially the same,
Words make them seem different
Only to express appearance.
If name be needed, wonder names them both:
From wonder into wonder
Existence opens.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (also rendered Daodejing) — the foundational text of philosophical Daoism, traditionally attributed to Laozi (sixth century BCE, though scholarship now suggests later composition, probably fourth-third century BCE) and one of the most translated books in world literature.
The first long passage (They were careful as someone crossing an iced-over stream...) is from Chapter 15, in Stephen Mitchell's translation (Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, HarperCollins, 1988).
The second passage (Words came out of the womb of matter; and whether a man dispassionately sees to the core of life...) is from Chapter 1, in Witter Bynner's translation (The Way of Life According to Laotzu, John Day Company, 1944).
Again, when I dug these out of my own own archives, it’s fascinating to realize that I drew them from different places and didn’t even realize it. And for me, something settles in me even just reading these words, this transmission across the centuries about stillness…and also the naming and the not naming of things, the way words differentiate but something else exists beneath.
