The Tao or True Nature is Nothingness

Chapter 4: The Tao is Nirguna or Nothingness

¹ The Tao is like the emptiness of a vessel. In our use of it, we must be on our guard against all fullness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!

² We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things. We should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue!

³ I do not know where the Tao came from. It might appear to have been before God.

Chapter 3: Nothingness in the tao

• The way to keep rivalry away from among the people is to not employ men of superior ability.
• The way to keep people from becoming thieves is to not prize articles which are difficult to procure.
• The way to keep their minds from disorder is to not show them what is likely to excite their desires.

² Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones.

³ He constantly:

• keeps them without knowledge and without desire.
• keeps those who have knowledge away from presuming to act on it.

When there is this abstinence from action, good order is universal.

Chapter 5: The Tao or True Nature is Nothingness, Yet is Omnipotent

• Heaven and earth do not act from the impulse of any wish to be benevolent.
  • They deal with all things as the dogs of grass are dealt with.
• The sages do not act from any wish to be benevolent.
  • They deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with.

² The space between heaven and earth can be compared to a bellows. It is emptied, but does not lose its power*. It is moved again to blow out more air.