(10) " Tao," said No-beginning, "cannot be heard. Heard, it is not Tao. It cannot be seen. Seen, it is not Tao. It cannot be spoken. Spoken, it is not Tao. That which imparts form to forms is itself formless; therefore Tao cannot have a name." No-beginning continued, "He who replies to one asking about Tao, does not know Tao. Although one may hear about Tao, he does not really hear about Tao. There is no such thing as asking about Tao. There is no such thing as answering such questions. To ask a question which cannot be asked is vain. To answer a question which cannot be answered is unreal. And one who thus meets the vain with the unreal is one who has no physical perception of the universe, and no mental perception of the origin of existence,—unfit alike to roam over the K'un-lun peak or to soar into the Supreme Void." Light asked Nothing, saying, "Do you, Sir, exist, or do you not exist?" But getting no answer to his question, Light set to work to watch for the appearance of Nothing. Hidden, vacuous,—all day long he looked but could not see it, listened but could not hear it, grasped at but could not seize it. "Bravo!" cried Light. "Who can equal this? I can get to be nothing, but I cannot get as far as the absence of nothing. Assuming that Nothing has an objective existence, how can it reach this next stage?" The man who forged swords for the Minister of War was eighty years of age. Yet he never made the slightest slip in his work.

(8) and consequently ended in the obscurity of the 'hard and white.' Subsequently, his son searched his works for some clue, but never succeeded in establishing the principle. And indeed if such were possible to be established, then even I am established; but if not, then neither I nor anything in the universe is established! "Therefore what the true Sage aims at is the light which comes out of darkness. He does not view things as apprehended by himself, subjectively, but transfers himself into the position of the things viewed. This is called using the light. "There remains, however, Speech. Is that to be enrolled under either category of contraries, or not? Whether it is so enrolled or not, it will in any case belong to one or the other, and thus be as though it had an objective existence. At any rate, I should like to hear some speech which belongs to neither category. "If there was a beginning, then there was a time before that beginning. And a time before the time which was before the time of that beginning. "If there is existence, there must have been non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, then there must have been a time before that—when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the category of existence or of non-existence? Even the very words I have just now uttered,—I cannot say whether they have really been uttered or not.

(10) A: Yea, O Thrice-greatest one, things moved must needs be moved in something void. H: Thou sayest well, O [my] Asclepius! For naught of things that are is void. Alone the "is-not" is void [and] stranger to subsistence. For that which is subsistent can never change to void. A: Are there, then, O Thrice-greatest one, no such things as an empty cask, for instance, and an empty jar, a cup and vat, and other things like unto them? H: Alack, Asclepius, for thy far-wandering from the truth! Think'st thou that things most full and most replete are void?

(14) Nakiketas said: 'That which thou seest as neither this nor that, as neither effect nor cause, as neither past nor future, tell me that.'

(3) He answered: 'This' (repeating some of what they had told him). The teacher said: 'My friend, they have taught you about the worlds, but I shall tell you this; and as water does not cling to a lotus leaf, so no evil deed clings to one who knows it.' He said: 'Sir, tell it me.'

(22) Then I asked regarding it, and regarding all the hollow places: 'Why as one separated from the other?'

(7) "The reality of the formless, the unreality of that which has form,—this is known to all. Those who are on the road to attainment care not for these things, but the people at large discuss them. Attainment implies non-discussion: discussion implies non-attainment. Manifested, Tao has no objective value; hence silence is better than argument. It cannot be translated into speech; better then say nothing at all. This is called the great attainment." Tung Kuo Tzŭ asked Chuang Tzŭ, saying, "What you call Tao,—where is it?" "There is nowhere," replied Chuang Tzŭ, "where it is not." "Tell me one place at any rate where it is," said Tung Kuo Tzŭ. "It is in the ant," replied Chuang Tzŭ. "Why go so low down?" asked Tung Kuo Tzŭ. "It is in a tare," said Chuang Tzŭ. "Still lower," objected Tung Kuo Tzŭ. "It is in a potsherd," said Chuang Tzŭ. "Worse still!" cried Tung Kuo Tzŭ. "It is in ordure," said Chuang Tzŭ. And Tung Kuo Tzŭ made no reply. "Sir," continued Chuang Tzŭ, "your question does not touch the essential. When Huo, inspector of markets, asked the managing director about the fatness of pigs, the test was always made in parts least likely to be fat. Do not therefore insist in any particular direction; for there is nothing which escapes. Such is perfect Tao; and such also is ideal speech. Whole, entire, all, are three words which sound differently but mean the same. Their purport is One.