老子说 - 道德经（4）

虚无渊深

【道】是触摸不到的虚无，然而其作用却延绵不绝，
【道】是没有尽头的深渊，然而却是万物的起源。

和光同尘

道没有形状，然后它的作用永不枯竭。深远啊，它好似万物的源头。它隐藏锋芒，它消除纷扰，它调和光辉，它蒙尘于世。沉寂啊，对世界的影响好似若存若亡。我不知道它从哪里来，好像有天帝以前就有了它。

《道德经》第四章原文

道冲，而用之或不盈。渊兮，似万物之宗。挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。湛兮，似或存，吾不知其谁之子，象帝之先。

Tao is a hollow vessel,
And its use is inexhaustible!
Fathomless!
Like the fountain head of all things,
Its sharp edges rounded off,
Its tangles untied,
Its light tempered,
Its turmoil submerged,
Yet dark like deep water it seems to remain.
I do not know whose Son it is,
An image of what existed before God.
-- Lin Yutang 林语堂

The Way is like an empty vessel,
That yet may be drawn from,
Without ever needing to be filled.
It is bottomless, the very progenitor of all things in the world.
In it all sharpness is blunted,
All tangles untied,
All glare tempered,
All dust smoothed.
It is like a deep pool that never dries,
Was is the child of something else? We cannot tell.
But as a substanceless image it existed before the Ancestor.
-- Arthur Waley 亚瑟·威利