Translation: Tao Te King – Chapter 47. Looking far

Chapter 47. Looking far

Human can know the world without leaving his own house.

Picture of a statue of Laozi
“Drop it like an eighteen tonne feather.” ~ Apotheker on this chapter. CC-BY-SA 3.0 by photographer and uploader 氤氲小调.

Through his own windows he may see the high Tao.

The farther he goes, the less chance he stands of finding.

That is why a wise one knows and recognizes without traveling, names beings without seeing and completes everything without action.¹


  1. Mr. Ervast: “Deep experience, because the life of the spirit is not in doing but being.”

Own translation from 1925 Finnish translation by Pekka Ervast (ISBN 951-8995-01-X) with kind permission of Ruusu-Ristin Kirjallisuusseura ry.

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