An epigraph for this website.

The epigraph quoted on the front page of this website is from the first verse of Daodejing by Laozi. The lines used there are from an English version by Ursula K. Le Guin. Here is the full verse, along with three translations to supplement Le Guin's version. In no particular order.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by David Hinton

1.

A Way become Way isn't the perennial Way.
A name become name isn't the perennial name:

the named is mother to the ten thousand things,
but the unnamed is origin to all heaven and earth.

In perennial nonbeing you see mystery,
and in perennial being you see appearance.
Though the two are one and the same,
once they arise, they differ in name.

One and the same they're called dark-enigma,
dark-enignma deep within dark-enigma,

gateway of all mystery.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English

1.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

lao tzu: tao te ching - An English Version by Ursula K. Le Guin

1. Taoing

The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.

Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.

So the unwanting soul
sees what's hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.

Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.
  • Footnote: A satisfactory translation of this chapter is, I believe, perfectly impossible. It contains the book. I think of it as the Aleph, in Borges's story: if you see it rightly, it contains everything.

Daodejing - Laozi, translated by Brook Ziporyn

1.

Any course can be taken
as the right course to take,
but no course like that
can be the course taken always.

Any name can be named
to determine what is or should be,
but no name like that
can be what determines them always.

Nameless, undetermined:
any beginning of the ten thousand things.
Determined with a name:
"the mother of the ten thousand things."

Thus is desirelessness always maintained,
enabling a view of the mystery
in each of them and all;
and thus is desire always maintained,
enabling a view of just what it is
that each of them strives and cries for.

These two emerge together as one,
but when named are determined as different.

Their oneness is something truly obscure,
more obscure than obscure,
obscuring even obscurity-
a gateway into the manifold mysteries
of each of them and all.

laotzu.xyz

1. The Unnamed

A Path that can be explained
Isn’t a complete path.
Words that become names
Are only concepts, not real things.
The unnamed is the source of everything in heaven & on earth.
Not wanting anything to be different,
We see the inner essence.
Always wanting, we are blinded
And only see what we want.
Nameable and un-nameable;
The same source and nature but two words;
Deeper than any mystery,
Doorway to the essence of all true understanding.