第四章
道沖而用之，或不盈。
淵兮，似萬物之宗。（挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。）湛兮，似或存。
吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。
Chapter4
The Way is like an empty vessel
That yet may be drawn from
Without ever needing to be filled.
It is bottomless； the very progenitor of all things in the world.
In it all sharpness is blunted，
All tangles untied，
All glare tempered，
All dust[1] smoothed.
It is like a deep pool that never dries.
Was it too the child of something else？ We cannot tell.
But as a substanceless image[2] it existed before the Ancestor.[3]
[1]Dust is the Taoist symbol for the noise and fuss of everyday life.
[2]A hsiang， an image such as the mental images that float before us when we think.
[3]The Ancestor in question is almost certainly the Yellow Ancestor who separated Earth from Heaven and so destroyed the Primal Unity， for which he is frequently censured is Chuang Tzu.
道沖而用之，或不盈。
淵兮，似萬物之宗。（挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。）湛兮，似或存。
吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。
Chapter4
The Way is like an empty vessel
That yet may be drawn from
Without ever needing to be filled.
It is bottomless； the very progenitor of all things in the world.
In it all sharpness is blunted，
All tangles untied，
All glare tempered，
All dust[1] smoothed.
It is like a deep pool that never dries.
Was it too the child of something else？ We cannot tell.
But as a substanceless image[2] it existed before the Ancestor.[3]
[1]Dust is the Taoist symbol for the noise and fuss of everyday life.
[2]A hsiang， an image such as the mental images that float before us when we think.
[3]The Ancestor in question is almost certainly the Yellow Ancestor who separated Earth from Heaven and so destroyed the Primal Unity， for which he is frequently censured is Chuang Tzu.