ChineseStudy

14. The Formless Form

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English translation

Look for it and it cannot be seen; call it the imperceptible. Listen for it and it cannot be heard; call it the inaudible. Reach for it and it cannot be grasped; call it the subtle.

The Way cannot be captured directly by sight, hearing, or touch. These names only approach it from different senses.

These three cannot be examined to their limit, so they merge into one.

The imperceptible, the inaudible, and the subtle are not separate things, but three approaches to the same Way.

Above, it is not bright; below, it is not dark.

The Way does not fall within ordinary contrasts such as light and dark, or high and low, by which visible things are defined.

Continuing without end, it cannot be named; it returns again to no distinct thing.

Its activity continues, yet it has no fixed form that can be pointed out, so no name can fully contain it.

This is called the form of what has no shape, the image of what is no particular thing. It is called indistinct and elusive.

“Indistinct and elusive” suggests something that cannot be fixed into a definite form, not something that simply does not exist.

Face it, and you cannot see its beginning; follow it, and you cannot see its end.

The Way has no observable starting point or final boundary like those of a particular thing.

Hold to the Way known from of old, and use it to guide what exists in the present.

Grasping an enduring pattern helps one respond to the particular and changing affairs of the present.

To know the ancient beginning is called grasping the thread of the Way.

Tracing present things back to their common source reveals the continuity that links past and present.

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