The ego is entranced by … names and ideas… However names and concepts only block your perception of this Great Oneness. Therefore it is wise to ignore them. Those who live inside their egos are continually bewildered.
The world’s beginning is its mother. To have found the mother is also to know the children. Although you know the children, cling to the mother. Until your last day you will not be harmed.
Softness triumphs over hardness, feebleness over strength. What is more malleable is always superior over that which is immoveable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation.
The Great Tao flows everywhere, to the left and to the right, all things depend on it to exist, and it does not abandon them. To its accomplishments it lays no claims. It loves and nourished all things, but does not lord it over them.
