And in chapter 45 : 大 巧 若 拙 where 巧 can be “skillful” or “clever”, and 拙 can mean “stupid” or “clumsy”, both of these are equally likely :
Great skillfulness seems clumsy.
Great cleverness seems stupid.
Finally, even when there is no ambiguity about the meaning of the individual symbols, it sometimes hard to determine what overall meaning was intended. From chapter 35, there is a line : 道 之 出 言 淡 兮 in which the first four symbols literally mean “words of Dao”, but does this mean “talking about Dao” or “the words that come out of Dao”? It can be argued both ways due to subtleties in the meanings of the symbols, but there is a tremendous difference in meaning between the two translations.
In addition, there are a few symbols whose modern English meanings just don’t make sense within the context of the sentence, probably due either to transcription errors or changes in meaning over the millennia. The English words used for these symbols are usually selected according to context.
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Common Terms
Because the translation itself is meant to involve minimal interpretation and explanation, some of the words and phrases that are used repeatedly need to be discussed beforehand for clarity. Keep in mind that volumes have been written about some of these concepts – these are just brief summaries for the reader new to Daoism.
道 Dao : most often translated as the “way”; according to various passages in the DDJ, Dao appears to be the way of nature (or the universe), the process of being in harmony with that way, the source that creates and nourishes all things, and absolute ultimate reality itself (and according to the opening lines of the first chapter, this description is completely inadequate); it is left untranslated so that readers may “fill in the blank” for themselves as they read; “the Dao” is used as little as possible because in English that implies that Dao is more of a thing than a process; Dao is sometimes referred to as “it” to avoid awkward grammar (or if it was written that way in the original Chinese), but do not think of Dao as a noun (just for fun sometime, try reading “Dao” as “Daoing”…); one exception is when “Dao of” is used (for example, “the Dao of heaven”) – this seems to be literally referring to the way heaven does things, so it is translated as “the Way of heaven”, but “Way” is capitalized to remind the reader that this is also Dao; similarly, “this Dao” seems to be referring more to “this way (of following Dao), and is translated “this Way”