For example, in Chapter 15 of Laozi’s Tao Te Ching, there is a particular passage. At the time, Martin Heidegger was dissatisfied with all existing translations of the text. He attempted to collaborate with a Chinese scholar to retranslate Laozi. However, due to the barriers and fundamental differences between their two cultural systems, their collaboration not only remained incomplete but ended on bad terms. Later, however, Heidegger made a request to this scholar, his former collaborator: he asked him to write out two lines from Chapter 15 of the Tao Te Ching as a couplet. Heidegger then hung this couplet in his study and contemplated these lines daily.
I’m not sure if I recall them perfectly, but I’ll say them: “Who can make the turbid still? Let it settle, and it will gradually become clear.” That’s the first line. The second line: “Who can make the still endure? Let it move, and it will gradually give birth to life.” These two lines became profoundly important propositions in existentialist thinking.
What do these lines mean? The first line: “Shu neng” (孰能) means “Who can?” “Zhuo” (浊) means turbid, muddy, like the silt-laden waters of the Yellow River. If you scoop up a bowl of Yellow River water, it’s completely muddy. But observe: if left undisturbed and still, over time the water becomes clear. “Shu neng zhuo yi jing zhi xu qing?” (孰能浊以静之徐清) – So, who can achieve this? Our minds and nature need to settle into stillness. Settling into stillness is the process of cultivation, right? But stillness doesn’t necessarily mean sleep. As Bertrand Russell once said – though I can’t recall the exact quote – it’s like the current trend of “lying flat.” He essentially argued that forcing yourself to be frantically active when you have nothing truly meaningful to do is pointless; proper rest is important. The stillness here is about settling down internally, “jing yi fu ming” (静以复命) – stillness to return to the source/life. This “return to the source” relates to the Fu Gua (复卦, Hexagram of Return) in the I Ching. How do you achieve this return? By settling into stillness. This settling must be something you genuinely feel internally for it to be effective. It’s not about others perceiving you as calm; it’s your inner experience. Especially in an act like writing: stillness isn’t about writing fast or slow; it’s about the inner experience. When one enters this stillness, clarity and transparency emerge – “cheng huai wei xiang” (澄怀味像) – achieving a state of purified mind and savored essence.
Now, the second line: “Shu neng an yi dong zhi xu sheng?” (孰能安以动之徐生) – So, who can take that achieved stillness (“an”) and gently stir it into movement (“dong”), so that life (“sheng”) gradually re-emerges? Heidegger’s existentialism grapples with the question: What is Being?
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