4 - Progenitor

The Way is empty but if using it it remains, yet is not full.
Bottomless it is! It is like the progenitor of the myriad things.
It files the sharpness, unfastens the scatteredness,
Harmonizes the brightness, converges [as one] the dustiness.
Profound it is! It is like [always having been] being and existing.
I do not know whose child it is,
It appears that it precedes the supreme god.

道沖而用之或不盈。
淵兮似萬物之宗。
挫其銳，解其紛，
和其光，同其塵。
湛兮似或存。
吾不知誰之子，
象帝之先。

This chapter describes the Dao (way) as having the qualities of being empty yet limitless, and yet not full. It also precedes any gods, being the unseen progenitor and force of all.

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