The Way is a limitless vessel;

Used by the self, it is not filled by the world;

It cannot be cut, knotted, dimmed or stilled;

Its depths are hidden, ubiquitous and eternal;

I don't know where it comes from;

It comes before nature.

Nature is not kind;

It treats all things impartially.

The Sage is not kind,

And treats all people impartially.

Nature is like a bellows,

Empty, yet never ceasing its supply.

The more it moves, the more it yields;

So the sage draws upon experience

And cannot be exhausted.

Experience is a riverbed,

Its source hidden, forever flowing:

Its entrance, the root of the world,

The Way moves within it:

Draw upon it; it will not run dry.

Nature is complete because it does not serve itself.

The sage places himself after and finds himself before,

Ignores his desire and finds himself content.

He is complete because he does not serve himself.

The best of man is like water,

Which benefits all things, and does not contend with them,

Which flows in places that others disdain,