Tao Te Ching LVI

One who knows does not speak, one who speaks does not know.

Block the openings.

Shut the doors.

Blunt the sharpness.

Untangle the knots.

Soften the glare.

Let your wheels move only along old ruts.

This is known as mysterious sameness.

Hence you cannot get close to it nor can you keep it at arm’s length; you cannot bestow benefit on it nor can you do it harm; you cannot ennoble it nor can you debase it.  Therefore it is valued by the empire.

The Tao uses words but isn’t particularly impressed with them; knowledge may exist somewhere but if language is its tool, it’s only one of them.  So the Tao has slippery causation and dubious antecedents.  Its therefores, hences, and thuses defy the firm relationships modern thought demands and in their place places bridges with spans of water at both ends.  Its its seem to point but the object of their pointing seems to be far below the water’s surface, if at all.  With the Tao, there are no ends, guarantees, or origins; there is movement.

As it is with the Tao, so it is with love, art, self, god.  Those who attempt to get too close or keep too distant, to benefit or harm, to ennoble or debase are unacquainted with the soul; those who do not attempt have been too close, too distant; received benefit and done harm; been ennobled and debased; been to every aspect of the soul and no longer have any need to fulfill any particular aspect again but only the soul in its glorious horrible indifferent entirety.