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.
Chinese text (opening + core line)
大道無形，生育天地；大道無情，運行日月；大道無名，長養萬物。吾不知其名，強名曰道。……人能常清靜，天地悉皆歸。
Pinyin
Dàdào wú xíng, shēngyù tiāndì; dàdào wú qíng, yùnxíng rìyuè; dàdào wú míng, zhǎngyǎng wànwù. Wú bù zhī qí míng, qiǎng míng yuē Dào. …… Rén néng cháng qīngjìng, tiāndì xī jiē guī.
Literal rendering
“The great Dao has no form, yet gives birth to heaven and earth; the great Dao has no feeling, yet moves the sun and moon; the great Dao has no name, yet nourishes the myriad things. I do not know its name, so I force a name on it and call it Dao. …… If people can be constantly clear and still, heaven and earth all return to them.”
Term-by-term problems
- 強名曰道 (force a name, call it Dao): the text is quoting Daodejing ch. 25 almost verbatim — a deliberate borrowing that marks the scripture’s genre (commentarial scripture built from the classic).
- 清靜 (qīngjìng, “clear and still”): the two characters are the text’s title and thesis: 清 = limpid/clear (of the spirit), 靜 = still/quiet (of the mind). “Purity and tranquility” is the common English rendering; “clarity and stillness” is recommended here because 清 in this text means unmuddied rather than ritually pure.
- 天地悉皆歸 (heaven and earth all return to [one]): the promise at the heart of the text. The “return” is the spontaneous order of things settling when the mind settles — a traditional claim about the macrocosm-microcosm resonance, not an empirical statement.
- 無情 (no feeling): the Dao’s “emotionlessness” here is impartial operation (sun and moon run without preference), not coldness. The same text elsewhere makes the Dao the model of what the practitioner should resemble.
Traditional usage
Chanted as part of the daily morning and evening recitations (玄門日誦早晚功課經) since at least the Ming canon — meaning this opening has been internalized by countless Daoists as a recitation formula, a fact about the text’s function that matters for understanding its contemplative role.
Western misunderstandings
- The negative theology (“no form, no feeling, no name”) is sometimes read as nihilism. The triple “yet gives birth / moves / nourishes” makes it apophatic — the Dao is beyond predicates because it is the source, not because it is nothing.
- “Heaven and earth all return” is sometimes read as magical control over nature. In the text’s own logic it is the spontaneous result of clarity — resonance, not command.
Recommended rendering (this site)
“The great Dao has no form, yet gives birth to heaven and earth; has no feeling, yet moves the sun and moon; has no name, yet nourishes the myriad things. I do not know its name; forcing a name, I call it Dao. …… If people can be constantly clear and still, heaven and earth all return to them.”
Sources
- Qingjing Jing (received text); cf. Daodejing ch. 25 for the 'I do not know its name' formula