Dharma & Dao

Tao Te Ching · Chapter 25 of 81

Chapter 25

modern paraphrase of James Legge's 1891 translation

Modern paraphrase. This is an AI-generated retelling in contemporary English (model: claude-opus-4-7). It is not the James Legge translation. The original is one click away.

  1. There was something undefined and complete, existing before Heaven and Earth. Silent and formless, it stands alone and does not change, reaches everywhere and is never exhausted. It can be considered the Mother of all things.

  2. I do not know its name, so I call it the Tao. Forced to name it further, I call it Great.

  3. Being great, it flows onward. Flowing onward, it becomes far away. Having become far away, it returns. So the Tao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; and the sage king is also great. In the universe there are four that are great, and the sage king is one of them.

  4. Humans take their law from Earth; Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The Tao’s law is simply being what it is.

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