Tao Te Ching: Verse One

A collection of translations of the first verse of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching

David Hinton


A Way called the Way isn’t the perennial Way.

A name that names isn’t the perennial name:

 

the named is the mother to the ten thousand things,

but the unnamed is origin to all heaven and earth.

 

In perennial Absence you see mystery,

and in perennial Presence you see appearance.

Though the two are one in the same,

once they arise, they differ in name.

 

One and the same, they’re called dark-enigma,

dark-enigma deep within dark-enigma,

 

gateway of all mystery.

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