The chapter opens with the Tao Te Ching's most direct meditation instruction: attain the utmost emptiness; hold fast to stillness. From that vantage the practitioner watches the ten thousand things rise together — and watches their return. Everything that flourishes goes back to its root, and returning to the root is called stillness; stillness is returning to one's destiny; returning to destiny is the eternal; and knowing the eternal is enlightenment. Growth is the visible half of a cycle whose hidden half is homecoming.
Not knowing this constancy, one acts blindly and invites misfortune — most human recklessness is just ignorance of the return. Knowing it unfolds, in the chapter's closing ladder, into an expanding life: one becomes accepting; accepting, impartial; impartial, kingly; kingly, heavenly; heavenly, aligned with the Tao — and so enduring, such that though the body perishes, there is no danger. What began as a breathing exercise ends as the widest promise in the book: watch things return, and lose your fear of the largest return of all.
Key verses
Attain the utmost emptiness; hold fast to stillness. The ten thousand things rise together, and I watch their return. The teeming creatures all return, each to their root. Returning to the root is called stillness. Stillness is called returning to one's destiny. Returning to one's destiny is called the eternal. Knowing the eternal is called enlightenment. Not knowing the eternal, one acts blindly and invites misfortune. Knowing the eternal, one becomes accepting; accepting, one becomes impartial; impartial, one becomes kingly; kingly, one becomes heavenly; heavenly, one becomes aligned with Tao; aligned with Tao, one endures — and though the body perishes, there is no danger.
Read Chapter 16 in full
Every verse with translation, word meanings, and commentary — free.
Lisez gratuitement dans l'appInterrogez les traditions
Une question. Cinq traditions répondent.
2 questions toutes les 24 heures sans compte.