14

We look but don’t see it and call it indistinct we listen but don’t hear it and call if faint we reach but don’t grasp it and call it ethereal three failed means to knowledge I weave into one with no light above and no shadow below too fine to be named returning to nothing this is the formless form the immaterial image the one that waxes and wanes we meet without seeing its face we follow without seeing its back whoever upolds this very Way can rule this very realm and discover the ancient maiden this is the thread of the Way

HO-SHANG KUNG entitles this verse “In Praise of the Dark” and says, “About what has no color, sound, or form, mouths can’t speak and books can’t teach. We can only discover it in stillness and search for it with our spirit. We cannot find it through investigation.”

LU TUNG-PIN says, “We can only see it inside us, hear it inside us, and grasp it inside us. When our essence becomes one, we can see it. When our breath becomes one, we can hear it. When our spirit becomes one, we can grasp it.”

CH’ENG HSUAN-YING says, “What we don’t see is vital essence. What we don’t hear is spirit. What we don’t grasp is breath.”

SU CH’E says, “People see things constantly changing and conclude something is there. They don’t realize everything returns to nothing.”

CH’EN KU-YING says, “‘Nothing’ doesn’t mean nothing at all but simply no form or substance.”

WANG PI says, “If we try to claim it doesn’t exist, how do the myriad things come to be? And if we try to claim it exists, why don’t we see its form? Hence, we call it ‘the formless form.’ But although it has neither shape nor form, neither sound nor echo, there is nothing it cannot penetrate and nowhere it cannot go.”

LI YUEH says, “Everything is bright on top and dark on the bottom. But the Tao does not have a top or a bottom. Hence, it is neither bright nor dark. Likewise, we don’t see its face because it never appears. And we don’t see its back because it never leaves.”

TS’AO TAO-CH’UNG says, “‘This very realm’ refers to our body.”

LU HUI-CH’ING says, “The past isn’t different from today, because we know what began in the past. And today isn’t different from the past, because we know where today came from. What neither begins nor comes from anywhere else we call the thread that has no end. This is the thread of the Tao.”

CHANG TAO-LING says, “The sages who achieved long life and immortality in the past all succeeded by means of this Tao. Whoever can follow their example today has found the thread of the Tao.”

In line eight, I have anticipated the thread motif of lines eleven and twenty-one and have gone along with Mawangtui B in reading chun (weave) in place of the usual hun (merge). I have also preferred the Mawangtui versions of lines fifteen and eighteen, which the standard edition renders: “the one that is indefinable” and “upholding the ancient Way.” The “face” and “back” we don’t see refer to the darkness of the moon as it waxes and wanes. My reading of “ancient maiden” for ku-shih in line twenty, instead of the usual “ancient beginning,” is based on an interpretation noted in verse one. This verse is absent in the Kuotien texts.