Chapter 4

Original Text

道沖而用之，或不盈。
淵兮，似萬物之宗。
挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。
湛兮，似若存。
吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。

Translation

The Dao is a balancedharmonizing hollow; when used, it is never fills.full.
Deep—seeming the ancestor of the ten thousandmyriad beings.
It blunts their sharpness, loosens their tangles, softens its radiance, minglesand blends with thetheir dust.
So limpid—as if it were there.
I do not know whose child it is; it seems to precedebe prior to the Lord-on-High.

Word Notes

• 沖 — “harmonizing hollow / central harmony”: harmony/balance;“harmony”; alsothe outflow of the middle, hence a receptive, inexhaustible hollowness.

• 淵 — “hollowed”deep”: so that it can receivedeep and give—hence inexhaustible in use.
  far-reaching.
• 宗

  淵— “ancestor”: deep, far-reaching.

• 宗: forebear, progenitor, sovereign source.

• 挫 — “to blunt”: to blunt,check, check.to dull.

• 銳 — “sharpness”: keen, aggressive edge.

• 解 — “to loosen”: to unbind,untie, undo.to unbind.

• 紛 — “tangles”: entanglement,turmoil, turmoil.
  entanglement.

• 光 — “radiance”: luminosity,brightness, brilliance.

• 塵 — “dust”: the dusty,common, ordinarydusty world.

• 湛 — “limpid”: clear, still,empty, pure.

  still.

• 帝 — “Lord-on-High”: the Highancient Sovereignhigh (archaic “Lord-on-High”).

  deity.

Chapter Explanation

Although the Dao is supremely empty and supremely without, when it issues forth as a balanced,breath harmonizingof breathcentral harmony it nonethelessyet has effect. It pervadeseffect—pervading the six directions;directions so that there is nowhere it does not fill.reach. It is extremely deep and cannot be fathomed—thusfathomed, as though it seemswere the progenitorancestor of the myriad beings.

It blunts the keen, contendingcompetitive spirit; it releases the mind from vexed entanglement;confusion; it does not flauntdisplay its own brilliance, but blendsmingles with the world’s dust.

ClearLimpid and empty,clear, with nothing at all stored up—yet as if there were something present. I do not know whose child it is or whence it came; it looksseems asto though it werebe prior to the Lord-on-High.

Discourse

This chapter says thatsays: the sage—havingsage who has realized Dao through “emptyingempty the heart, fillingfill the belly; softeningsoften the will, strengtheningstrengthen the bones”— takes emptiness as his body and balancedcentral harmony as his function.function. The graph 沖 is composed of “middle” plusand “water,” the outflow of the middle; what issues from the middle is harmony. “Dao as chōng” thuschōng” means central harmony. The Great Harmony fills Heaven and Earth; it can stand in the place of Heaven and Earth and nourish the myriad beings. Its appearanceaspect is deep and vastvast, beyond naming.words.

Yet it neither prides itselfrelies on its virtue nor claims its merit. Gentle and wholly harmonious, it is like an infant: infant—calm and desireless.without Itdesire. mixesTo its“blend ownone’s radiance and mix with the dust—thisdust” is the realm of the “Greatly-Transformed” sage and“greatly transformed,” the “un-knowablysaint divine.who cannot be known.” It goesis along with the world’s common dust—not merely “keepingavoiding one’ssensational headdisplay” down” to avoid notice andor “preserving oneself in wisdom,prudence,” but truly embodying the teaching so as to draw others in. (See Zhuangzi, “In the World of Men”: Ju Boyu instructs Yan He onin teaching the Crown Prince of Wei—Prince—“In form, nothing suits like going along; in heart, nothing suits like harmonizing.”) This is a gloss on “blending radiance and mixing with dust.” Guanyin’s “appearing in many bodies to preach the Dharma”preach” is the same point.idea.

Many commentators readexplain this solelyonly as “preservingprudent oneself in wisdom.self-preservation.” That is not wrong—but it is only one side.half. Is the sage concerned onlymerely with preserving himself? StillLimpid and limpid,still, beyond anyanyone’s probing, his person seems to bestand above the world, while his spirit truly surpasses Heaven and Earth. Hence, “I do not know whose child it is,is; asit thoughseems to be prior to the Lord-on-High.”

ThisPlainly, this is plainly Laozi recountingreciting his own curriculum vitae:résumé: speaking his own Dao and De;De, paintingsketching his own portrait; likeness—vividly sketchingpainting the status of the “dragon.”dragon. Then, with the hedges “or,” “as if,” and “it seems,” he returns to “now soaring,leaping, now diving; now showing,appearing, now hiding”—hiding—sometimes showing a scale, sometimes a claw—keepingleaving people inunable theto dark.gauge him.

Certain Daoist texts say Laozi preached for twelve thousand days and transformed his body eighty-one times. I myself understand how such claims arise, but since the matter touches on the miraculousmarvelous and ordinary records are insufficient to establish it, I will not press the point. Even if we take Laozi simply as “the Old Master beneath the pillar,” some say he was of the Shang;Shang, others,others of the Zhou; he served long as historiographer andfor leftmany noyears momentouswithout leaving notable memorials—he might seem a common fellow. Yet the greatest sage since humankind began—Confucius—reveredConfucius—honored him as a teachermaster and called him “like a dragon.” And afterAfter Laozi passed through the Hangu Pass, none knew his whereabouts.whereabouts—surely Is that not,that, too, is transformation beyond measure?measure.