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.

Keeping at rest the people

 

Not exalting the worthy causes people not to emulate.

Not prizing the difficult to obtain of treasures causes people not to commit theft.

Not seeing [that which is] able [to elicit] desire, causes the heart not to be disturbed.

Therefore the holy man of the government empties [the people's] hearts, 
fills their stomachs, [the inner, the soul]

he weakens their desire [but] strengthens their bones.

Always he causes people not to know,

not to be desirous.

He causes those knowing ones not to dare to act, indeed.

[When] he does not-doing then there is nothing not governed.