Verse 25

Stephen Mitchell

There was something formless and perfect
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.
Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.
It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.

The Tao is great.
The universe is great.
Earth is great.
Man is great.
These are the four great powers.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows the universe.
The universe follows the Tao.
The Tao follows only itself.

Ellen Marie Chen

There was something nebulous existing (yu wu hun ch’eng),
Born before heaven and earth.
Silent, empty,
Standing alone (tu), altering not (pu kaki),
Moving cyclically without becoming exhausted (pu tai),
Which may be called the mother of all under heaven.
I know not its name,
I give its alias (tzu), Tao.
If forced to picture it,
I say it is “great” (ta).

Therefore Tao is great,
Heaven is great,
Earth is great,
The king is also great.
In the realm there are four greats,
And the king is one of them.
Humans follow (fa) earth,
Earth follows heaven,
Heaven follows Tao,
Tao follows self-becoming (tzu-jan).

Ron Hogan

Something perfect has existed forever,
even longer than the universe.
It's a vast, unchanging void.
There's nothing else like it.
It goes on forever and never stops.
Everything else came from it.
I don't know what else to call it
So I'll call it Tao.
What's it like?
I can tell you this much: it's great.

Something that great lasts.
Something that lasts goes a long way.
And something that goes a long way
always comes back to the beginning.

Tao's great.
Heaven's great.
Earth's great.
And someone who's in touch with Tao is great, too.
Those are the four greatest things in the universe
and a Master is one of them.

Someone who's in touch with Tao
is in touch with the earth.
The earth is in touch with heaven.
Heaven's in touch with Tao.
Tao's in touch with the way things are.

I like this verse, at least the first stanza. I get a bit lost in the others, especially since some of the translations indicate that the other stanzas directly follow from the first. I don’t see the connection.

I’ve included Ron Hogan’s interpretation, which I can’t decide if I like. This translation was suggested by ZzzoneiroCosm. It’s much more American and less poetic than any of the other translations. If I had read it first, I don’t know if I would have been attracted to the Tao Te Ching as much as I was.

I’ve also included all of Lin Yutang’s selections from the Chuang Tzu, which I really like.

Stanza 1 - Stephen Mitchell’s translation

There was something formless and perfect
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.
Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.
It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.

As I noted, I like this stanza. It feels like a review section before the midterm exam for the verses covered so far. I especially like the discussion of how the Tao got its name. Turns out it was just made up because we couldn’t think of anything else to call it. It’s kind of a nickname. For me that answers the paradox of Verse 1, where Lao Tzu just jumps in without explanation and names the nameless.

The subject of the cyclic return of the 10,000 things to the Tao is reiterated here. As I’ve noted in earlier posts, I struggled with this idea for a long time. Now, I see it as recognition that, while the Tao is separated into the 10,000 things by the act of naming, the 10,000 things are always returning to the Tao, i.e. that the act of creation didn’t happen 14 billion years ago, it’s always happening. It’s happening now. I think the idea of returning is one of those things that means different things depending on the situation.

Stanzas 2 and 3 - Stephen Mitchell translation

The Tao is great.
The universe is great.
Earth is great.
Man is great.
These are the four great powers.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows the universe.
The universe follows the Tao.
The Tao follows only itself.

These stanzas discuss what I have called a “ladder” in previous posts. There are a lot of different ladders in the Tao Te Ching and related documents. Here are a few examples:

From Verse 42 - Stephen Mitchell

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.

From Verse 18 - Stephan Stenud

When the great Tao is abandoned,
Benevolence and righteousness arise.
When wisdom and knowledge appear,
Great pretense arises.
When family ties are disturbed,
Devoted children arise.
When people are unsettled,
Loyal ministers arise.

From “The Great One Gives Birth to the Waters” - a text related to the Tao Te Ching. Very confusing.

{The Great One} gave birth to Water. Water returned to assist (A) {The Great One}, [and] by means of this the Heavens were completed/manifested. The Heavens returned to assist {The Great One}, [and] by means of this the Earth was completed. The Heavens and Earth [returned to assist each other] [and] by means of this the Spirits and Luminaries were completed. The Spirits and Luminaries returned to assist each other, [and] by means of this Yin and Yang were completed. Yin and Yang returned to assist each other, [and] by means of this the Four Seasons were completed. The Four Seasons returned to assist each other (E), [and] by means of this Cold and Hot (F) were completed. Cold and Hot returned to assist each other, [and] by means of this Wet and Dry (G) were completed. Wet and Dry returned to assist each other, completing the Yearly Cycle (H) and that‘s all….

In this verse, it seems as if Lao Tzu is working to connect the cosmic and the human. To show where we fit in.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows the universe.
The universe follows the Tao.
The Tao follows only itself.

In some of the translations, instead of “man” it says “the ruler,” which raises the question that comes up often - whether the Tao Te Ching is meant for all of us or just the bosses.

Humanity, Earth, Heaven, and the Tao are called the four great powers. There is clearly a hierarchy with the Tao at the top.

Lin Yutang’s commentary

In this chapter, the working of the eternal principle of Tao and the silent revolutions of the heavenly bodies are seen as a model worthy of the imitation by man. It restates the argument that Tao should not be named, and if it is given a name, it is purely an exigency of human speech. It also states the principle of reversion of all things to their origin, a principle which makes creation and destruction different aspects of the same process.The universe is an orchestrated symphony, where human beings follow the laws of the land in which they live. At a level above this, the Earth follows the laws of astronomy - the rules that govern the motions of heavenly bodies. The cosmos in turn follow the patterns of the Tao at a macroscopic level. Ultimately, the Tao itself follows natural laws, which arise from the Tao process. This underscores the self-sufficiency and self-completeness of the Tao.

Lin Yutang’s selections from the Chuang Tzu relevant to this verse

The Chuang Tzu, also called the Zhuangzi, is the second foundational text of Taoism, written a couple of hundred years after the Tao Te Ching.

25.1. THE MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE. Is the sky revolving around? Is the earth remaining still? Are the sun and the moon competing for their places? Who manages them? Who holds them in control? Who has nothing to do and is making these things move? Is it perhaps that there is a mechanism so that the heavenly bodies cannot help themselves? Is it perhaps that they continue to revolve and cannot stop themselves? Clouds become rain, and rain becomes clouds. Who makes them rise and come down? Who has nothing to do and is urging them to do so for his own pleasure? The wind rises from the north; it blows east and west, and there is a steady blow in the stratosphere. Who is sucking and blowing it alternately? Who has nothing to do and is shaking it about like this?

Chuangtse does not answer the questions directly, but in the following paragraph speaks of these operations of nature in a description of what he calls the heavenly Tse-jan, lit. “self-so,” ”self-formed,” “‘that which is so by Itself.”

THE IMITATION OF TAO which ends with a quotation from an old sacred song of Yu-yen (Shen-nung')
.
''You listen and cannot hear Its voice, you look and cannot see its form. It fills the whole universe and encompasses the six points of space. You want to listen to it, and yet there is no point of
Contact. See also the selection 6.i, 'The Silent, Beautiful
Universe” "The heaven cannot help being high, the earth cannot
help being wide. The sun and the moon cannot help going around, and all things of the creation cannot help but live and grow. Perhaps this is Tao.See the context in 4.1. "Existing before the heaven and earth, it is not regarded as long ago, being older than the primeval beginnings, it is not regarded as old.'

25 2 TAO IS NAMED "GREAT.' THE ETERNAL CYCLES.

"Can you then just call it Tao?” asked Little Knowledge."No, replied Taikung Tiao. 'We speak of The myriad things' of the creation, although we know that there are more than a myriad of them. Because the number is so great, we just call it 'myriad.' The heaven and earth are the great in form. The yin and yang are the great in force. Tao is great in both. We merely give it the name "Great” because of its greatness. But with a given name,
it should not be compared with the names for other things. One cannot go on and argue that Tao is something by that name, as we say that dogs and horses are animals by those names. For that would be far off the mark.” 'Within the four points of the compass and above and how do the myriad things take their rise?” asked Little Knowledge. 'The yin and the yang principles act on one another, reflect one another and keep one another in place. The four seasons follow one another in succession, interrelated in their coming and going. Hence arise likes and
dislikes, and choices and preferences.

The male and the female mate and the race is continued. Peace and chaos follow one another; fortune breeds misfortune and vice versa. The slow and the quick rub against each other and things are formed and disperse. These are some of the things that we can say about material things and some of the subtle pnnciples that we can put down. All order is bom of a principle, and all rise and decay are interrelated. When something reaches a limit, then it reverses its direction; when the end is reached, the beginning begins. This is all that is evidenced by the material world, all that we know and all that we can say. And after all, our knowledge does not extend beyond the material universe. He who observes the working of Tao does not try to follow a thing to its very end, nor trace it to its very source. There all discussion ends.' (7:4)

25.3. COMPIETE, ENTIRE AND ALL. The three. Complete, Entire and All differ in name, but are the same in reality. They all indicate the One. Once they roamed about together in the Palace of Nowhere. Did they get together to discuss things and never come to an end? Did they go about doing nothing together, and remain mellow and quiet, and indifferent and free? Did they
get along well and spend their idle hours together? Free and unfettered is my mind, it reaches out and does not know where it reaches, it returns and does not know where it stops. My mind goes back and forth and does not know where it all ends. It loiters in the sphere of the Great Void, where the great Sage enters and does not know where it leads to. To realize that
matter is matter is to reach the infinite with matter. Where matter is finite, it is the limitations of finite matter. The limit of the limitless is the limitlessness of the limited. To take the phenomena of rise and fall, growth and decay, it does not regard rise and fall as rise and fall, and it does not regard growth and decay as growth and decay. It does not regard beginning and
end as beginning and end. It does not regard formation and dispersion as formation and dispersion. (6:3)

Derek Lin’s commentary

There is something that is formless, shapeless and non-physical, and yet also complete and perfect. Whatever it is, this "thing" existed before the universe came into being. How silent, tranquil and still! How ethereal, empty and boundless! It is completely independent and self-sufficient. Its nature is eternal and unchanging. Its functions circulate within every level of existence without ever stopping. Because it is the source of all creation, we can consider it to be the mother of all things. I do not know its name; I do not even know that it has a name. In order to identify it, I reluctantly call it the arbitrary name "Tao." If I were forced to describe it, I would have to say it is great beyond compare. Being great, it is always in a state of transition. Being perpetually in motion, it seems to recede far away from us. Being far away, it returns again to us. This great circle is the nature of Tao.

Therefore, the Tao is great. Heaven and Earth, being manifestations of the Tao, are also great. A leader who manifests the Tao, and can serve as an example for the people, is also great. He or she occupies one of the four aspects of greatness.