It may be regarded as the Mother of all things.As a mother gives birth to a child, so too does The Way give birth to being. There was something -- somewhere in "time" -- which caused nonbeing to transform into being.
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~
It can be regarded as the mother of the world
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~
Everything else came from it.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
Some people call this something god. Some people call this something Tao. Some people don't call this something anything. Whether we choose to call it something or not really isn't all that important, is it?
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"There was something -- somewhere in "time" -- which caused nonbeing to transform into being."
ReplyDeleteMy teacher calls it "movement." (You know, from stillness.)
True...unless existence always has been in motion. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBeing comes from non-being; movement comes from stillness. Basic Taoist cosmology of the wuji to taiji.
ReplyDeleteIn fact "existence IS motion."
This is related to the Taoist concept of "return" to non-being, to stillness. (I point this out for Brandon's.)