Residing Within You, A Portal

Residing Within You, A Portal

The valley cradles the river,
The river, soft and low,
Gives life.
The Tao, mother of all
Both everywhere and empty
creates and nourishes life.

Residing within you
A portal into a vast universe
Into the Tao.

. . .

Reflection

Chapter 6 of the Tao Te Ching

Based on chapter six of the Tao, this selection explores the essential mystery of the Tao. It is both everywhere and empty, both inside of each of us and throughout the universe. We can, in quiet, retreat into it and link up with the rhythms and energy flows of the universe.Chapter six is among the most compressed of Lao Tzu's verses — its image of the valley spirit and the dark womb has drawn Taoist readers into stillness for more than two thousand years.

The valley spirit that doesn't die we call the dark womb
as real as gossamer silk and yet we can't exhaust it.
The valley spirit that doesn't die
we call the dark womb the dark womb's mouth we
call the source of creation as real as gossamer silk
and yet we can't exhaust it.
- Red Pine

. . .

Journal

Describe the portal, your portal, into your deeper wisdom, into your interior life, into the Tao.

Does it have an honored place in your life?

Translations & Interpretations

Here are a couple of my favorite interpretations of chapter six by others:

What is complete
The valley spirit never dies.
Call it the mystery, the woman.
The mystery,
the Door of the Woman,
is the root
of earth and heaven.
Forever this endures, forever.
And all its uses are easy.
- Ursula Le Guin