An exercise in placidity

Holding and filling it,

is not likely its being stopped?

Handling and sharpening it,

is not able long to be kept.

[If] gold [and] jewel fill the hall,

nobody it can protect.

[If] wealthy [and] exalted but haughty 

they themselves bring about their misfortune.

Merit to accomplish,

fame to complete,

[and] his person to retire,

[is] heaven of,

the way.

Easy by nature

 

Superior goodness resembles water.

Water well (in a good way) benefits the ten thousand things,

yet not it quarrels.

It dwells in all the people their place which is loathed.

Therefore it approaches to Reason.

For a dwelling it chooses the [level] ground.

For a heart it chooses the eddies.

In generosity it chooses humaneness.

In words it chooses faith.

In government it chooses ability

In its movements it chooses time. [rhythm]

Forasmuch just as not it quarrels,

therefore not it is rebuked.

Dimming radiancy

Heaven is eternal, earth is lasting.

Heaven [and] earth the reason why [they] are able to be eternal and lasting

that is because they not themselves live

that is the reason.

[They] can eternally live.

Therefore the holy man puts behind his person 

and [his] person comes to the front.

[He] rejects his person and [his] person is preserved.

Is it not because he is not self-interested?

Therefore [he] can accomplish his self-interest.

The completion of form

The valley-spirit not dies.

This is called the mysterious woman.

The mysterious woman of the gate,

this is called [of] heaven [and] earth the root.

Continually, continually it seems to remain.

In using it [there is] no effort.

 

Emptiness's function

 

Heaven [and] earth are not humane.

They regard the ten thousand things as grass-dogs.

The holy manis not humane.

He regards the hundred families as not grass-dogs.

Heaven [and] earth of [between] the space,

it is like unto a bellows indeed.

[It is] empty and not, it collapses

It moves and more and more issues.

A gossip frequently is exhausted

Not likely will he keep the middle [path].

Not having source

 

Reason [is] empty, 
and in employing it apparently [it is] not exhausted.

Profound [it is]

Oh! it resembles the ten thousand things of the ancestor.

It blunts its [own] sharpness.

It unravels  its [own] fetters.

It harmonises its [own] light.

It identifies itself with its [own] dust.

It is tranquil

Oh! it seems like to remain.

I not know whose son [it is].

It seems to be God's antecedent.