Year: 2025
Dimensions: 39.3×39.3 cm
Title: Excerpt from the Dao Te Ching
Medium: Solid wood frame, silk brocade, and five-color Suzhou-crafted fan-shaped screen
Content:
The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel;and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fullness.How deep and unfathomable it is,as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!It blunts the sharp, unravels the tangled, softens the glare, and settles with the dust.Still and profound, it seems to endure.I do not know whose son it is.It might appear to have been God.
Heaven and Earth endure forever.The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue this long is because they do not live of,or for,themselves.This is how they are able to continue and endure.Therefore the sage places himself last,and yet it is found in the foremost place;Detaches himself, yet is preserved.Is it not because he has no personal and private ends,that therefore such ends are realised?
It is better to leave a vessel unfilled,than to attempt to carry it when it is full.To temper and sharpen a blade too much cannot make it last.When gold and jade fill the hall,their possessor cannot keep them safe.When wealth and honours lead to arrogancy,evil is brought to oneself. When the work is done,and one’s name is becoming distinguished, withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven.
The softest thing in the world overcomes the hardest;that which has no(substantial).existence enters where there is no crevice.I know hereby what advantage belongs to doing nothing(with a purpose).Few in the world can attain the advantages from non-action without teaching.
Who thinks his great achievements poor shall find his vigour long endure.Great fullness seems empty, yet its use is inexhaustible. Great straightness appears bent, great skill seems clumsy, great eloquence seems hesitant. Stillness overcomes restlessness; coolness overcomes heat. Clarity and stillness set the world in order.
Colophon & Signature:
Excerpt from Laozi's Tao Te Ching. Written by Wang Yunyun in the year of Yisi .
