The Dao flows from a bottomless vessel, 
  Throughout eternity, it cannot be depleted. 

So deep!
  It is the wellspring of all that is.

Nature is not benevolent; 
  all things serve their purpose and are destroyed.

The Wise are not benevolent; 
  people serve their purpose and are destroyed.

The fertility of the spirit is eternal.
The profound and mysterious creatress. 

Heaven is permanent; Earth is eternal. 

Nature is permanent and eternal
  because it is not self-made.
Being other-made enables immortality. 

Just until
  confusion is purified,
  the bent is straightened,
  the holes are filled,
  the worn-out is renewed,
  a little is satisfying,
  too much is regretted,
The Wise single-mindedly shepherd their world.

Perfected action leaves no trace.
Perfected speech lacks error and blame.
Perfected planning rolls no dice.

Know one’s creativity,
preserve one’s receptivity,
become Creation’s channel.
Serving as Creation’s channel,
Enduring Integrity is non-separation,
a return to unity.

About to grasp Creation
  you act.
I see you didn’t get it. 

One who uses the Dao
  in service to the Leader
does not want force to be
  used on the World.

The Dao constantly undoes names.
  It is raw but refined.

Heaven and Earth dare not
  consider themselves greater.  
If Leaders preserve the Dao,
  all things will host themselves.

One who knows others is resourceful,
One who knows themself is brilliant.

One who conquers others has power,
One who conquers themself is powerful.

Established in the Great Appearance,
Creation departs.

Departs and does not harm:
extreme peace and calm.

Spread things out first
  to facilitate bringing them together.

Strengthening
  enables softening.

The Dao endures without becoming.
  The Leader can preserve it
    and All That Is self-evolves.

Not wanting to appear as a precious gem,
  pretending to be coarse like a mountain boulder.
Because accumulating honors is dishonorable.

It isn’t really a “basis of lowliness,” is it?

Returning.
  Dao’s movement.

Softening.
Dao’s function.

The Weaver hears of the Way,
  and resolves to act from its Center.

The Aspirant hears of the Way,
  and sometimes gets it, sometimes forgets it.

The Fool just laughs
  when they hear of the Way.

Dao engenders Potential.
Potential generates Movement.
Potential and Movement become the Mystery.
The Mystery produces All Things.

Nature’s softest,
  overpowers nature’s hardest.

Yin and Yang join seamlessly.

Which is dearer,
  your reputation or your body?

Which is more important,
  your character or your wealth?

Which produces more anxiety,
  gain or loss?

If one is deficient in
  Great Skill,
  breath unbroken.

If one is overflowing in
  Great Fullness,
    breath “no extremes.”

In a world of Active Dao,
  still, ride horses for fertilizer.

In a world of Passive Dao,
  warhorses are born in open spaces.

Don’t leave home,
  yet know the world.

Without cracking a window,
  see Heaven’s Way.

Scholars daily gain,
those on the Way daily lose.

Lose and lose again,
  until there is nothing left to do.

The Wise frequent Yin-mind,
  and the ordinary mind is Yang-mind.

Supporting those who deserve it,
  and also those who don’t,
That’s integral support. 

Once we’re born,
  we start dying.

3 out of 10 follow life.
3 out of 10 follow death.
3 out of 10 of those alive rush to their deaths.
  Why? Because their life is so important to them.

Dao creates it; De nurtures it.
Matter forms it; Reason matures it.

This is why all that is,
  venerates Dao and cherishes De.

Everything under heaven has a beginning
  that serves as its mother.

Knowing the mother,
  is knowledge of the child.
Knowing the child,
  preserves the mother.
There is no danger of it disappearing.

Make me rely on having knowledge
  to walk on the Great Way
    and all I fear is going awry.

Perfected foundation,
  unshakeable.
Perfected embrace,
  all-inclusive.
Honored for generations.

A fully Integrated person
  is like a newborn.

Unstung by any poisonous creature,
  no predator has yet sunk in their claws.
Fragile bones, soft muscles,
  and yet a firm grip.

Knowing is speechless.
  Speaking is not knowing.

Shut one’s eyes and ears,
  Block one’s gates,
    Harmonize one’s vastness,
      Unify one’s dusts,
        Nourish one’s basin,
          Eliminates one’s agitation.

In one’s disengaged governance,
their people are like alcohol.
In one’s engaged governance,
 their people are absent.

Disaster! Happiness leans on it. 
Happiness! Disaster conceals it. 

In Regulating the Person,
  or Attending to Heaven,
Conservation is best.

Govern the Nation,
  as one would fry a small fish.

When the World is governed by Dao,
  its “ghosts” do not stir. 

The great nation 
is downstream. 
The World’s receptivity
  is its threshold.  

Dao pours into everything.
The Wise maintain it,
  The Unwise are maintained by it.

Act (y)in-action.
Engage non-reactively.
Taste tastelessness.

When things are stable
  it’s easy to handle them.
Before there are omens,
  planning is easy.
Something that is still fragile
  is easy to break apart.
What is emerging
  is easily scattered.

Thus it is said:
Those who weave the Way,
  do not do so through “conceptualizing ‘people,’”
  but through their not-knowing.

The Ocean River becomes
  Ruler of the Hundred Valleys
    because it dwells beneath them.
Thus it is able to rule the hundred valleys.

The World says,
  “I’m great! Great and not petty.”

Greatness is possible,
  just by not being petty?

Therefore,
The best knights,
  do not fight.

The best fear,
  does not react. 

Concerning the use of force, it is said:
  “I do not act as the host,
    but as the guest.
  I do not advance an inch,
    but retreat a foot.”

I speak of the:
  Deep interchange of knowing,
  Profound exchange of action,
  And no one
  can know it
  nor enact it.

Knowing not-knowing
  is noble.
Not knowing not-knowing,
  is a flaw.

People’s irreverence
  leads to the greatest reverence.

They do not grow too familiar with
  their abiding.
They do not tire of
  their arising.

Resolve with certainty is the point,
Resolve without certainty is the nock.
  Each of these brings benefit and harm.

How can you scare people with murder
  if they’re always unafraid of death?

Make people constantly afraid of death,
  And they’ll become non-conforming.

A person’s hunger,
  Is because the taxes on food are high.
This is how there is hunger.

Common people’s disorder,
  Is because their superior is too active.
This is how the superior doesn’t regulate them.

A person’s generative force:
  Soft, pliant.
Their stillness:
  Persisting, enduring, able, strong.

The Way of Creation is like
  Drawing a Bow.

Raise it by pressing it,
  Lower it by pulling it,
Having overdrawn,
  reduce it.
If underdrawn,
  add to it. 

Under Heaven, nothing is
  more yielding than water,
And in handling the unyielding,
  There is nothing that can surpass it.

In resolving Great Resentments,
there will be leftover resentment.
How can that be good?

A small state with few people.

If 1,000 people were to have tools,
  and yet make no use of them;
If the people feared death
  and moved away;
There would be chariots,
  and nowhere to ride them;
There would be soldiers,
  and no place to form ranks.

Trustworthy speech is not beautiful,
  beautified speech is not trustworthy.

Knowing is not expansive,
  expansiveness is not-knowing.