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.
Chinese text
天下皆知美之为美，斯恶已；皆知善之为善，斯不善已。故有无相生，难易相成，长短相形，高下相倾，音声相和，前后相随。是以圣人处无为之事，行不言之教。万物作焉而不辞，生而不有，为而不恃，功成而弗居。夫唯弗居，是以不去。
Pinyin
Tiānxià jiē zhī měi zhī wéi měi, sī è yǐ; jiē zhī shàn zhī wéi shàn, sī bùshàn yǐ. Gù yǒu wú xiāng shēng, nán yì xiāng chéng, cháng duǎn xiāng xíng, gāo xià xiāng qīng, yīn shēng xiāng hè, qián hòu xiāng suí. Shì yǐ shèngrén chǔ wúwéi zhī shì, xíng bùyán zhī jiào. Wànwù zuò yān ér bù cí, shēng ér bù yǒu, wéi ér bù shì, gōng chéng ér fú jū. Fú wéi fú jū, shì yǐ bù qù.
Literal rendering
When all under heaven know the beautiful as beautiful, the ugly is already there; when all know the good as good, the not-good is already there. So being and non-being give rise to each other; difficult and easy complete each other; long and short shape each other; high and low lean on each other; sound and voice harmonize each other; front and back follow each other. Therefore the sage takes up affairs by non-action and practices the teaching without words. The ten thousand things arise and he does not decline them; he gives life but does not own; he acts but does not lean; the work done, he does not dwell in it. Only because he does not dwell, it does not depart.
Term-by-term notes
- The first pair is the trap-door. 美/恶 — as soon as everyone knows the beautiful, the ugly exists: the book’s opening move is not to deny the pair but to show its co-rising (斯恶已 — the ugly is already there). The six pairs that follow — 有无相生，难易相成，长短相形，高下相倾，音声相和，前后相随 — are all the same verb in different keys: 相, mutual. Nothing in the list stands alone; each is held up by its opposite. The site’s 齐物 pages — the Zhuangzi’s 彼是方生 (that-and-this born together) — are this chapter’s grammar, grown.
- The two doings. 处无为之事，行不言之教 — the book’s charter phrase for the site’s wuwei concept: taking up affairs by non-action — not retiring from affairs, but holding them without forcing; and teaching without words — the book’s pedagogy, whose Zhuangzi echo is the wordless argument of 不言之辩, and whose sharpest image is Wheelwright Bian: the practice that cannot be spoken is still transmitted — by showing.
- The four verbs of not-claiming. 不辞 (does not decline), 不有 (does not own), 不恃 (does not lean), 弗居 (does not dwell) — the chapter’s negative ladder, each rung refusing one possession of the work. The same formula closes ch. 10 (生而不有，为而不恃 — the site’s shouyi translation) and ch. 51: the book’s most repeated quartet, and the site holds it as the practice’s own account of non-attachment — the work belongs to the doing, not the doer.
- The close as the whole. 夫唯弗居，是以不去 — only because he does not dwell in it, it does not depart: the book’s signature inversion (the ch. 22 cadence, the ch. 8 close) — what is held is lost, what is released remains. The chapter’s two halves — the six pairs (the world’s mutuality) and the not-claiming quartet (the sage’s release) — are the same doctrine from two directions: nothing is possessed, so nothing can be taken.
- The variants, registered. 长短相形 in most received texts, 相较 in others (the six pairs’ meaning unaffected — the site registers both, per its edition discipline); and 万物作焉而不辞 against the Dunhuang manuscript’s 万物作而不为始, noted in the verification source. Neither variant changes the quartet’s direction.
Sources
- Daodejing ch. 2, received text, verified against three independent reproductions that agree (the Mindiver bilingual edition; the Gushiwen Dao famous-line page, which notes the Dunhuang-manuscript variant 不为始 for received 不辞; and a Beijing Institute of Technology course text of the full received chapter)
- The famous-line page's standard glosses: 相 (each other) runs through all six pairs; 音 is ensemble sound, 声 single sound (per Zheng Xuan's note to the Liji); 处无为之事 is the sage taking up affairs by non-action