Journey into Tao Te Ching: Four:1

Four: 1

Jonathan Star, 2000
Tao is empty
yet it fills every vessel with endless supply
Tao is hidden
yet is shines in every corner of the universe

D C Lao, 1963
The Way is empty, yet use will not drain it.
Deep, it is like the ancestor of the myriad creatures.

Lok Sang Ho, 2002
The Way (Dao) is like water that simmers slowly,
Perpetually emitting its energy without boiling over.
It is like a deep, deep pool in the mountains,
Unfathomable yet could well harbor the origin of all life forms.

Commentary
The first thing I notice is that Lok Sang Ho fleshes out the abstract metaphors of the Chinese Characters.  He gives a descriptive image; he makes concrete the abstract metaphors.  His water simmering metaphor is unique.  Most translators use the image of bowl or a well.

The metaphors all point to the idea that the Dao is an abundant source that one can draw from without depleting it.  When this image is combined with the second line you get a cosmological image of creation.  Using modern cosmology, the Dao would be the primal source out of which the Big Bang burst forth and thus filled the universe with existence.  The Dao would be the primal stuff of the universe – as Carl Sagan had said: we are all star stuff.   Lao Zi could be imagined as saying: we are all Dao Stuff.

Bringing these lines into more abstraction – the Dao is the source of creativity and creation.  The ancient Greeks imagined nine goddesses who were the Muses – those deities who assisted and helped artisans to create.  The Greeks conceived of inspiration and creativity in embodiment in the concrete imagery of divine feminine beings, where as Lao Zi’s conception was an abstract embodiment of fecundity.

Jonathan Star’s translation of the Dao as ‘hidden’ seems to spin out of the metaphors hinted at in the meanings of the Chinese character which could be and has been translated as the deep, bottomless, profound, and vastness.  And Jonathan Star is harkening back to the first chapter with the references of emptiness as being associated with the nature of the Dao.