I do not know its name. I call it the Way. For the lack of better words I call it great.
The whole world says that my Way is great like nothing else. It is great because it is like nothing else. If it were like everything else, it would long ago have become insignificant.
Heaven’s net is very vast. It is sparsely meshed, yet nothing slips through.
The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of all things.
There was something that finished chaos, born before Heaven and Earth.
Can you make your soul embrace the One and not lose it?
I alone am different from the others, because I am nourished by the great mother.
The greatest virtue is to follow the Way utterly.
The sage embraces the one, and is an example to the world.
Hold on to the great image, and the whole world follows, follows unharmed, content and completely at peace.
If I have just an ounce of sense, I follow the great Way, and fear only to stray from it.
Profound virtue is indeed deep and wide. It leads all things back to the great order.
When the great Tao is abandoned, benevolence and righteousness arise.
Heaven and Earth are not kind. They regard all things as offerings.
Is not the space between Heaven and Earth like a bellows? It is empty, but lacks nothing. The more it moves, the more comes out of it.
All things arise in unison. Thereby we see their return.
All things flourish, and each returns to its source.
If Heaven and Earth are unable to persist, how could man?
What the Way is to the world, the stream is to the river and the sea.
Of all things, none does not revere the Way and honor virtue. Reverence of the Way and honoring virtue were not demanded of them, but it is in their nature.