The Way Is Forever Nameless
The Text
道常无名，朴虽小，天下莫能臣。侯王若能守之，万物将自宾。天地相合，以降甘露，民莫之令而自均。始制有名，名亦既有，夫亦将知止，知止可以不殆。譬道之在天下，犹川谷之于江海。
The way is forever nameless. Uncarved wood, small though it is, nothing under heaven can subdue it. If lords and kings could hold to it, all things would come of themselves; heaven and earth would join to send sweet dew — no one ordering, yet evenly it falls. Begin to carve, and names appear; names once given, know where to stop. Knowing where to stop, one avoids danger. The way to the world is like streams to valleys and rivers to the sea.
Reading it
The uncarved block holds every possibility of shape and therefore submits to none. Names are the first cut, and the chapter does not forbid them — it only insists on knowing where each one stops. Sweet dew falls evenly precisely because no one apportions it.
未雕的原木握有一切形状的可能，因而不臣服于任何形状。命名是第一刀——本章不禁名，只坚持知道每个名字止于何处。甘露自均，正因为没有人去分它。
Pick a label you apply to yourself or others. Find where it stops being true — and stop there.
挑一个你贴给自己或他人的标签。找到它失效的那一点——在那里停下。