There is a thing, formless yet complete.
Before heaven and earth it existed.
Without sound, without substance,
it stands alone and unchanging.
It is all-pervading and unfailing.
One may think of it as the mother of all beneath Heaven.
We do not know its name, but we call it Tao.
Planetary nebula NGC 6543, shells and jets of gas ejected from the death throes of a star one thousand years ago. Photo: J.P. Harrington and K.J. Borkowski, Hubble Space Telescope, NASA.
Before heaven and earth it existed.
Without sound, without substance,
it stands alone and unchanging.
It is all-pervading and unfailing.
One may think of it as the mother of all beneath Heaven.
We do not know its name, but we call it Tao.
Planetary nebula NGC 6543, shells and jets of gas ejected from the death throes of a star one thousand years ago. Photo: J.P. Harrington and K.J. Borkowski, Hubble Space Telescope, NASA.
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