| Before heaven and earth here was something nebulous, formless yet complete; without sound, without substance, isolated, free from all form; standing alone and depending on nothing, unchanging, operating everywhere, all pervading, revolving and without fail. One can think of it as the mother of all I don't know its true name. I call it dao. "Way" is the by-name. If forced to give it a name I can call it great (ta) . Now such greatness implies reaching out in space, and also means functioning everywhere, or passing on; Space-yielding or functioning everywhere signifies far-reaching. And passing on means going far away, To go really far is to return to the original point. To reach far is a return. To go far away means to return. So dao is great and far-reaching, and so is heaven, earth and the king. For just as dao, earth and heaven each has its subtle greatness, so does the ruler. There are four great things in the universe, and the king is one of them. So within the realm there are four portions of greatness", and one belongs to the king. The ways of men are conditioned by those of earth. The ways of earth, by those of heaven. The ways of heaven by those of dao, and the ways of dao by the Self-so's Dao in turn models itself after Nature. |
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