Tao Te-ching (Dao De-jing)
Verse 11 to 20
11.
Thirty spokes meeting on a hub
Make a wheel
Only through the empty middle
Can it turn around.
Pots are made of clay
But only through the empty middle
Can you put something in.
Windows and doors are made for a house*
But you can only live in it
Because of the empty space.
So: what is not there
Makes what is there
What it is.
* This sentence has a double meaning.
1. wood/stone/door make a house etc.
2. Doors = mouth and nose and windows = ears and eyes make a person.
12.
13.
Success and failure are an alarm bel
Hope and worries are imagined.
Why are success and failure an alarm bel?
The step after success is always down
When success appears: be alert
When success disappears: be alert.
Why are hope and worries imagined?
There are only worries
When we think from a ‘self’
If we do not see ourselves as self
There are no worries.
Honour the world as yourself
Trust the world as it is
Love the world as yourself
Then it is safe in your hands.
14.
Look and you can’t see it
You call it indistinct
Listen and you can’t hear it
You call it faint
Reach and you can’t touch it
You call it ethereal
These three means to knowledge
Failed so I weave them into one:
No light above
No shadow below
Without end without name
Returning to nothing
Form without form
Image without image
It is there and it is not
We meet it without seeing it
We follow without knowing what we follow.
Whoever upholds this Way
Can hold out in this existence
Can stand in the old source
This is the essence of the Way.
15.
The wisdom of the old sages is indescribable
Therefore I only describe their behaviour:
They act with great care
As if crossing an ice-cold river
They are considerate of others
Polite as a guest in the house
of the neighbours
As a chunk of wood they are
Honest, simple and undivided
Open as a valley
Hard to gauge as a murky puddle.
Who can be murky and become clear
By being still?
Who can stay at rest and wait
For activity to be born?
Who walk this Way
Try not to be seen
Thus they hide
And remain hidden.
16.
Empty to the brim
Still to the core
All things come forth
All things return
I am the witness.
Numberless creatures
Return to their source
That source is stillness
In stillness they revive.
To know always being is wisdom
Not knowing it brings confusion
When you know it, you àre it
Your open heart accepts everything
Thus content you are rich as a king
A king full of heavenly happiness
Herein lies the Way
Which always is everywhere
Beyond life and death.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Stop your erudition and gone are your worries
Yes and no are not so different
Lovely and ugly are not dissimilar
Are you afraid
Of what others fear?
Before the moon starts waning
People are excited
As if a great festival is to begin
As if looking at spring from on high.
But I sit here without expression
Like a child that does not smile
As there is no-one to smile at.
Others seem to have many things
Only I seem not to have any
Except the mind of a fool
So very, very simple.
Others are lively
But I alone seem to be dull
Others are curious
I alone am dark and dismal.
As a wave on the sea
I come and go with the tide
Others have a purpose
I alone am wayward.
I alone choose to be different
Preferring to nurture myself
At my Mother’s breast.
Translated by: Rev. Hakuun Barnhard
Copyright: Eerw. Hakuun Barnhard ©