Tao Teh Ching Chapter 25
有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，独立而不改，周行而不殆，可以为天地母。
吾不知其名，字之曰道，强为之名曰大。大曰逝，逝曰远，远曰反。故道大，天大，地大，王亦大。
域中有四大，而王居其一焉。人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。
Translation
Something is formed from the chaos, this happens before the birth of the heaven and earth. Silent and empty, it stands alone and has not changed ever since. It pervade to every corner and never dies. This is the Mother of the Universe.
I don’t know its name, if I have to express it in words, I write it as Tao; if I have to name it, then I will name it the Great. So great it is, it seems to depart from you, seems very far away from you, and yet you will only discover its return. Therefore I say that the Tao is great, and so is the heaven, earth and the Man. There are four greats in this world, and Man is one of them. Man gets the law from the earth, earth from heaven, heaven from Tao, and Tao gets its law from itself.
Comment
By reading the first sentence of this chapter, you wonder if the author’s name was Stephen Hawking. From this Chapter onwards, the text because more difficult. It takes more time to try to figure out what Lao Tzu is trying to tell us.
In the first paragraph, Lao Tzu talks about the state of the Tao. We have already known that the Tao is before the heaven and earth. The key word here is 混 or chaos. From a modern physics point of view, is it fare to say that because of the state of chaos, the concept of time, which is the fourth dimension, doesn’t exist at this level of plane? Here again, Lao Tzu emphasis the empty nature of the Tao, which is the basis of Buddhism.
The next paragraph is mainly concerned with the four greats, the Tao, the heaven, the earth and the King. The purpose of this is not clear though. The definition of the four greats is tricky. The King would be human. Earth is not just the earth we live in, I think it is anything that humans can control or have effect on. Heaven on the other hand is everything we can’t control, and the Tao is everything. The translation from 大 to Great is literal, but I found it bit far-fetched. It doesn’t make too much sense when you read the translation. To me, This 大 mean more like essential entity. I think what Lao Tzu really means by域中有四大, is that the world has got four essential entities, they are the Tao, the man, things Man can control and those things Man cannot.
王 literally mean king, but I think here it means just human. There are those people who think the Tao Teh Ching is a political book, which perhaps misses the point.
寥, void, empty.
吾不知其名，字之曰道，强为之名曰大。大曰逝，逝曰远，远曰反。故道大，天大，地大，王亦大。
域中有四大，而王居其一焉。人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然。
Translation
Something is formed from the chaos, this happens before the birth of the heaven and earth. Silent and empty, it stands alone and has not changed ever since. It pervade to every corner and never dies. This is the Mother of the Universe.
I don’t know its name, if I have to express it in words, I write it as Tao; if I have to name it, then I will name it the Great. So great it is, it seems to depart from you, seems very far away from you, and yet you will only discover its return. Therefore I say that the Tao is great, and so is the heaven, earth and the Man. There are four greats in this world, and Man is one of them. Man gets the law from the earth, earth from heaven, heaven from Tao, and Tao gets its law from itself.
Comment
By reading the first sentence of this chapter, you wonder if the author’s name was Stephen Hawking. From this Chapter onwards, the text because more difficult. It takes more time to try to figure out what Lao Tzu is trying to tell us.
In the first paragraph, Lao Tzu talks about the state of the Tao. We have already known that the Tao is before the heaven and earth. The key word here is 混 or chaos. From a modern physics point of view, is it fare to say that because of the state of chaos, the concept of time, which is the fourth dimension, doesn’t exist at this level of plane? Here again, Lao Tzu emphasis the empty nature of the Tao, which is the basis of Buddhism.
The next paragraph is mainly concerned with the four greats, the Tao, the heaven, the earth and the King. The purpose of this is not clear though. The definition of the four greats is tricky. The King would be human. Earth is not just the earth we live in, I think it is anything that humans can control or have effect on. Heaven on the other hand is everything we can’t control, and the Tao is everything. The translation from 大 to Great is literal, but I found it bit far-fetched. It doesn’t make too much sense when you read the translation. To me, This 大 mean more like essential entity. I think what Lao Tzu really means by域中有四大, is that the world has got four essential entities, they are the Tao, the man, things Man can control and those things Man cannot.
王 literally mean king, but I think here it means just human. There are those people who think the Tao Teh Ching is a political book, which perhaps misses the point.
寥, void, empty.
posted by Eugene Chen | 9:37 PM
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