Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Line by Line - Verse 37, Lines 1-2

The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do.
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.

~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

The Tao is constant in non-action
Yet there is nothing it does not do

~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

Tao never does anything
but nothing is left undone.

~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
Every morning the sun comes up and it sets every evening. Why does this happen? Because that is its nature!

Whatever it is that set existence in motion provides the impetus without fanfare. Life perpetuates because of it and yet we have no clue what it is!

To view the Index page for this series to see what you may have missed or would like to read again, go here.

1 comment:

  1. The Tao is a paradox to my complicated, fanfarishly devoted mind -- but I'm surrendering my thoughts to nothing, and I get up early to see each day start, and I go to be when the sky gets dark, and I find being out of synch this way with a busy techno world helps out a great deal. And if all else fails -- "Wow! Look at that cloud!" :-)

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