Manifesting Virtue
Read the full text in our reader
古之善為士者，微妙玄通，深不可識。夫唯不可識，故強為之容：與兮若冬涉川，猶兮若畏四鄰，儼兮其若客，渙兮若冰之將釋，敦兮其若樸，曠兮其若谷，渾兮其若濁。孰能濁以靜之徐清？孰能安以久動之徐生？保此道者不欲盈，夫唯不盈，故能蔽不新成。
Those of old who were good at being masters were subtle, wondrous, dark, reaching through, so deep they could not be known. Just because they could not be known, I strain to make a portrait of them: Hesitant, as if wading a river in winter; wary, as if fearing the neighbors on all four sides; grave, like a guest; dissolving, like ice about to melt; Solid, like uncarved wood; wide open, like a valley; murky, like muddy water. Who can take the muddy and, by stilling it, slowly make it clear? Who can take the calm and, by long movement, slowly bring it to life? One who keeps this Way does not want to be full. Just because he is not full, he can stay hidden and not seek new success.
A cascade of images describing the person who has the Way (cautious, formal, plain, open, murky) followed by a call to patience.
The masters cannot be known, so the portrait is built entirely from similes. The muddy-water questions treat patience as a working method.
One word in the simile chain is a genuine crux: 與, printed as the ordinary word “and, with,” almost certainly stands in for 豫, “hesitant,” which is the reading Wang Bi's parallel text gives outright. Heshang Gong's own commentary paraphrases it that way without ever supplying the reading directly.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Tao Te Ching 15 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Tao Te Ching — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Tao Te Ching 15 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/tao/15/