Chapter 16第16章

Attain the utmost emptiness. Hold firm to complete stillness. The ten thousand things arise together, and I watch them return. All things flourish and bloom, then each returns to its root. Returning to the root is called stillness. Stillness is called returning to one's destiny. Returning to destiny is called the eternal. Knowing the eternal is called enlightenment. Not knowing the eternal, you blunder into disaster. Knowing the eternal, you can embrace everything. Embracing everything, you are impartial. Being impartial, you are kingly. Being kingly, you are one with heaven. Being one with heaven, you are one with the Tao. Being one with the Tao, you endure — and to the end of your days, nothing can harm you.

Push emptiness to its extreme. Hold fast to stillness at its core. The ten thousand things rise and fall, and I observe their return. The teeming multiplicity of things — each returns to its root. And this returning to the root is called stillness. Stillness is called the return to fate. Return to fate is called the constant. Knowledge of the constant is called illumination. This is essentially a meditation manual — a description of what happens when consciousness is stripped of content and allowed to rest in its own nature. And from this vantage point, you see the great cycle — the arising and dissolving of all phenomena. Ignorance of this constant leads to disaster. Knowledge of it leads through tolerance to universality to kingliness to heaven to the Tao to permanence. This is the chain of being — the ladder of return. It's available to anyone who can sit still long enough.

Wang Bi says: push emptiness to its utmost extreme, guard stillness with perfect sincerity — and you arrive at the genuine nature of things. All things move and grow, but by observing from emptiness and stillness, you see their return. Everything that moves originates in stillness; therefore the myriad things all move and stir, but they all return to their root. Returning to the root is called stillness; stillness is called returning to one's mandate; returning to the mandate is called the constant. To know the constant is called clarity — free of all confusion and darkness. Not knowing the constant, one recklessly acts and invites disaster. The constant is what does not lean to one side, does not favor, has no confusion or obscurity. It contains everything without exclusion, and so arrives at impartiality. Impartiality leads to kingship; kingship leads to heaven; heaven leads to the Tao; the Tao leads to endurance. When one has reached the Tao and attained the constant, there is no limit and no danger, even unto the end of one's body.

Wang Bi’s commentary on this chapter reveals the entire architecture of his cosmology. Push emptiness to the absolute limit; guard stillness with utmost sincerity — this arrives at the genuine nature of things. All movement originates in stillness; therefore all things, despite their dynamic activity, ultimately return to their root. And the root is stillness. Stillness is the return to the original mandate — fu ming. The mandate is the constant — chang. To know the constant is clarity — ming. And then comes the great chain: the constant contains everything, therefore it is impartial. Impartiality is kingship. Kingship is heaven. Heaven is the Tao. The Tao is endurance. Wang Bi is building a nested hierarchy from stillness all the way to cosmic permanence. Not knowing the constant — acting recklessly — produces disaster because one has departed from the cycle of return. This is essentially an entropy argument: systems that do not return to their root dissipate. Systems that cycle through emptiness endure. The constant is the attractor basin to which all things return when undisturbed.