Translations
Term and passage translation studies — options, problems, recommended renderings.
'I Have Lost Myself' — the Qiwulun's Opening (Zhuangzi 2)
Nanguo Ziqi sits leaning on his armrest, 'body like dead wood, heart like dead ashes' — and announces the sentence the whole tradition echoes: 'just now I lost myself.' Translated with commentary.
'Reach Emptiness at the Limit' (Daodejing 16)
The stillness-and-return chapter of the Daodejing, translated with commentary — the method sentence of the whole quiet tradition: empty to the limit, keep stillness firmly, watch the return.
A Journey of a Thousand Li Begins Under the Foot (Daodejing 64)
Annotated translation of ch. 64: the four early stages, the three staircases, the finish-line warning, and the chapter that ends the book's practice doctrine — with the disputed couplet registered, not adjudicated.
Artisan Qing's Seven-Day Fast (Zhuangzi 19)
The Dazheng chapter's graded fasting passage, translated with pinyin and commentary — the Zhuangzi's own stage-by-stage account of emptying before skilled work.
Being and Non-Being Give Rise to Each Other (Daodejing 2)
Annotated translation of ch. 2: the six mutual pairs that found the book's relativism, the two doings of the sage — non-action and wordless teaching — and the four verbs of not-claiming that close it.
Daodejing 51 — The Dao Gives Them Life, the De Nurtures Them
The chapter that names the two powers and their division of labor: the dao gives birth, the de nurtures, things give shape, circumstances complete. All things honor the dao and value the de — yet no one commands this, and it stays constant of itself. The closing is the book's second signature: gives life without owning, acts without relying, grows without ruling — this is called the dark de.
Daodejing 78 — Nothing in the World Is Softer than Water
The chapter where the water theorem meets politics: nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water, yet nothing that attacks the hard and strong can beat it, because nothing can take its place. Everyone knows that the weak overcomes the strong, and no one puts it into practice — so the sage says: whoever takes on the country's filth is called its altars' lord; whoever takes on its inauspiciousness is called its king. Straight words seem reversed.
Daodejing ch. 10 (shouyi line): Full Translation
'Carrying your bodily soul and embracing the One, can you keep them from separating?' — the Daodejing line behind the shouyi tradition, with the translation problems of yingpo and the One.
Drumming on the Basin: The Four Transformations (Word by Word)
Annotated translation of Zhuangzi's answer at his wife's death — the cosmology of the four transformations, the great chamber, and the decree of things.
Favor and Disgrace Both Startle (Daodejing 13)
Annotated translation of ch. 13: favor and disgrace both startle; honor great trouble as your own body — the chapter about the self that has trouble because it has a self, and the body held lightly enough to be trusted with the world.
Heaven Is Long-Enduring (Daodejing 7)
Annotated translation of ch. 7: heaven and earth last because they do not live for themselves; the sage puts himself last and stands first — the chapter that states the book's inversion in its purest form: the selfless completes the self.
Holding Virtue Thick as a Newborn (Daodejing 55)
Annotated translation of ch. 55: the one who holds virtue thick is like a newborn — soft-boned yet gripping firm, crying all day without going hoarse. Then the chapter's ladder of knowing: knowing harmony is the constant, knowing the constant is clarity — and the warnings that follow: over-nourishing life is ominous, the heart driving the breath is force, and what peaks in strength has already begun to age.
Learning Adds, the Way Pairs Away (Daodejing 48)
Annotated translation of the subtraction chapter: the two daily tracks, the paring that recurs until nothing is left undone, and the political coda the sitting tradition borrows for the interior.
Looked for and Not Seen (Daodejing 14)
Annotated translation of ch. 14: the Way's three names for invisibility, the shapeless shape, and the chapter that named an immortal — plus the one line the book lets us use today.
Non-Acting and Nothing Left Undone (Daodejing 37)
Annotated translation of ch. 37: the Way's constant non-action, the uncarved block that stills desire, and the world that rights itself.
Planning the Hard in Its Easy Stage (Daodejing 63)
Annotated translation of ch. 63: the three inverted practices, the debt repaid with de, and the book's doctrine of beginnings — plus the promise it refuses to make.
Qingjing Jing Opening and Core: Full Translation
The opening negative theology of the Qingjing Jing 清静经 ('the Dao has no form, yet gives birth to heaven and earth') and its core promise ('if people can be constantly clear and still, heaven and earth all return to them'), translated with notes.
Returning Is the Motion of the Way (Daodejing 40)
Annotated translation of ch. 40 — the book's shortest chapter and its own hinge: returning is the Way's motion, the soft is the Way's use, and the generation formula — all things born from being, being born from nothing.
The Bellows of Heaven and Earth (Daodejing 5)
Annotated translation of the straw-dogs chapter: the bellows that is empty yet inexhaustible, and the last line the whole sitting tradition inherits — 'rather guard the center.'
The Bend That Completes (Daodejing 22)
Annotated translation of ch. 22: the six reversals, embracing the One as the realm's gauge, the four self-refusals — and the oldest manuscripts' different word for it all.
The Best Ruler Is Barely Known (Daodejing 17)
Annotated translation of ch. 17: the four ranks of rule, trust and its failure, the value of scarce words — and the book's most beautiful political last line.
The Dao Follows What Is So of Itself (Daodejing 25)
Annotated translation of the chapter that names the four greats — and the line the whole tradition hangs on: 'the human follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Dao, the Dao follows what is so of itself.'
The Empty Room: Brightness Is Born (Xuzhi Sheng Bai)
Word-for-word translation of the Zhuangzi's meditation core: 'gaze at what is empty — the empty room gives birth to brightness, auspicious things stop in the stopping. If it does not keep stopping, this is called sitting while galloping.'
The Five Colors Blind the Eye (Daodejing 12)
Annotated translation of ch. 12: the five colors, sounds, and flavors — the chapter that states the book's sense-discipline: the organs are dulled by their own delights, and the sage serves the belly, not the eye. The chapter the commentarial tradition titled 'Restraining Desire.'
The Gate of All Subtleties (Daodejing 1)
Annotated translation of the first chapter: the Way that cannot be spoken, the two namings, the two observations, and the darkness twice darkened that is the gate of every subtlety.
The Great Completion Seems Broken (Daodejing 45)
Annotated translation of ch. 45: the great completion seems broken, yet its use never wears out; the great fullness seems empty, yet its use never ends — the chapter's five finished things, each in its worn form, and the closing pair: agitation overcomes cold, stillness overcomes heat, and clear-stillness is the world's true standard.
The Highest Good Is Like Water (Daodejing 8)
Annotated translation of ch. 8: water as the book's closest image of the Way — it benefits all things without contending, takes the place everyone dislikes, and its seven skills end in the formula the whole book keeps returning to.
The Ladder of Nü Yu: Putting Outside, Dawn-Clearing, and the Stillness Made in Disturbance
Annotated translation of the Dazongshi passage where the woman teacher Nü Yu gives the tradition's first staged account of practice: three days, seven days, nine days — and the stillness that sends off and welcomes.
The Mind of the Perfected Is Like a Mirror (Zhuangzi, Yingdiwang)
Annotated translation of the mirror passage — 'it does not escort things out, does not welcome them in, responds and does not store' — the Zhuangzi's shortest account of the still mind, with its companion image from the Dechongfu chapter.
The Valley-Spirit Does Not Die (Daodejing 6)
Annotated translation of ch. 6 — the book's shortest chapter, twenty-five characters: the valley-spirit, the mysterious female, the gate that is the root, and the one sentence that describes what a settled sitting feels like.
The Way Gives Birth to One (Daodejing 42)
Annotated translation of ch. 42: the Way gives birth to one, one to two, two to three, three to the ten thousand things — every thing carrying yin on its back and embracing yang in front, the surging qi making the harmony. Then the chapter turns to the names kings take for themselves, the reversal of loss and gain, and the old saying taken as the teaching's father.
The Way Is Ever Nameless (Daodejing 32)
Annotated translation of ch. 32: the uncarved block — small, and nothing in the world can make it a subject; when the lords hold it, the ten thousand things arrive as guests of themselves. The chapter where naming begins, and therefore where knowing-where-to-stop begins.
The Wooden Rooster Passage (Zhuangzi ch. 19)
Ji Xingzi training a fighting cock through four stages until it stands 'like wood' — the complete passage in annotated translation: the forty-day subtraction of display, reflex, and belligerence.
Thirty Spokes Share One Hub (Daodejing 11)
Annotated translation of ch. 11: the wheel, the vessel, the room — three artifacts, each built around an emptiness, and the formula the chapter closes with: being gives the benefit, nothing gives the use.
To Know Others Is Wisdom, to Know Oneself Is Clarity (Daodejing 33)
Annotated translation of ch. 33: the four-pair ladder of inner victories — knowing, winning, sufficiency, endurance — each turned from the world toward the self, ending in the book's sharpest claim about what survives death.
What Is to Be Gathered Must First Be Spread (Daodejing 36)
Annotated translation of ch. 36: four reversals, the subtle brightness, the soft-overcoming-hard claim, and the two closing images — the fish must not leave the deep, the sharp tools of the state must not be shown. The chapter the tradition has argued about for two thousand years.
When the World Has the Way (Daodejing 46)
Annotated translation of ch. 46: the warhorse retired to the dung-heap, the warhorse foaling at the frontier — one horse, two worlds — and then the chapter's three superlatives: no crime greater than the desirable, no disaster greater than not knowing enough, no fault greater than wanting to acquire. The sufficiency of knowing enough is the constant sufficiency.
Xinzhai Passage (Zhuangzi ch. 4): Full Translation
The complete fasting-of-the-mind passage 心斋 from Zhuangzi ch. 4, translated with word-by-word notes on the untranslatable terms qi, fu (符), and xinzhai itself.
Zuowang Passage (Zhuangzi ch. 6): Full Translation
The complete sitting-in-oblivion passage 坐忘 from Zhuangzi ch. 6, with the translation problems of 'drop the body', 'expel knowledge', and 'Great Thoroughfare' worked through.