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The way that becomes a way is not the Immortal Way the name that becomes a name is not the Immortal Name no-name is the maiden of Heaven and Earth name is the mother of all things thus in innocence we see the beginning in passion we see the end two different names for one and the same the one we call dark the dark beyond dark the door to all beginnings

TU ER-WEI says, “Tao originally meant ‘moon.’ The Yiching [see hexagrams 42 and 52] stresses the bright moon, while Lao-tzu stresses the dark moon” (Lao-tzu-te yueh-shen tsung-chiao, pp. ii–iii).

CONFUCIUS says, “The Tao is what we can never leave. What we can leave isn’t the Tao” (Chungyung: 1).

HO-SHANG KUNG says, “What we call a way is a moral or political code, while the Immortal Way takes care of the spirit without effort and brings peace to the world without struggle. It conceals its light and hides its tracks and can’t be called a way. As for the Immortal Name, it’s like a pearl inside an oyster, a piece of jade inside a rock: shiny on the inside, dull on the outside.”

CH’ENG CHU says, “Sages don’t reveal the Way because they keep it secret, but because it can’t be revealed. Thus their words are like footsteps that leave no tracks.”

LI HSI-CHAI says, “Things change but not the Tao. The Tao is immortal. It arrives without moving and comes without being called.”

SU CH’E says, “The ways of kindness and justice change but not the way of the Tao. No-name is its body. Name is its function. Sages embody the Tao and use it in the world. But while entering the myriad states of being, they remain in nonbeing.”

WANG PI says, “From the infinitesimal all things develop. From nothing all things are born. When we are free of desire, we can see the infinitesimal where things begin. When we are subject to desire, we can see where things end. ‘Two’ refers to ‘maiden’ and ‘mother.’”

TS’AO TAO-CH’UNG says, “‘Two’ refers to ‘innocence’ and ‘passion,’ or in other words, stillness and movement. Stillness corresponds to nonexistence. Movement corresponds to existence. Provisionally different, they are ultimately the same. Both meet in darkness.”

THE SHUOWEN says, “Hsuan [dark] means ‘black with a dot of red in it.’” This is how the darker half of the yin-yang symbol was traditionally represented. In Shensi province, where the Taoteching was first written, doors were, until recently, painted black with a thin line of red trim. And every road begins with a door.

TE-CH’ING says, “Lao-tzu’s philosophy is all here. The remaining five thousand words only expand on this first verse.”

During Lao-tzu’s day, philosophers were concerned with the correspondence, or lack of it, between name and reality. The things we distinguish as real change, while their names do not. How then can reality be known through names? In lines two and four, I’ve used the Mawangtui heng (immortal) over the standard ch’ang (eternal), which was introduced to avoid an emperor’s personal name. Heng also means “crescent moon,” a not accidental usage in light of Lao-tzu’s emphasis on lunar images when talking about the Tao. Around 1070 A.D. Ssu-ma Kuang and Wang An-shih punctuated lines five through eight in a way that made their subject wu (nonbeing) and yu (being). (Nonbeing is the name of the maiden of Heaven and Earth / being is the name of the mother of all things, and so on.) However, the grammatical particles in the Mawangtui texts make such a reading impossible. In line five, shih normally means “beginning.” But China’s earliest dictionary, the Shuowen, says, “Shih means ‘a virgin.’” Ma Hsu-lun suggests shih in this case might also be a loan word for the nearly identical t’ai. While t’ai normally means “fetus,” the Shuowen says it means “a woman in her third month of pregnancy.” Note, too, that a woman did not receive her public name until after marriage. In lines seven and thirteen, most editions have miao (mysterious). But according to Pi Yuan, “In ancient times there was no miao [mysterious], only miao [small/beginning],” which is what we find in the Mawangtui texts. This verse is not present in the Kuotien texts.