Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 45 — Great Perfection Seeming Defective
Great fullness seems empty; great straightness seems crooked
Great perfection seems defective; its use is never exhausted. Great fullness seems empty; its use is never drained. Great straightness seems crooked; great skill seems awkward; great eloquence seems halting.
Source context
- Theme
- paradoxical fullness of stillness: the supremacy of subtle completeness over apparent perfection
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta (Advaita)The Advaitic teaching that Brahman is pūrṇa — absolutely full, losing nothing when apparent multiplicity is drawn from it — shows cross-tradition congruence with the Tao's inexhaustible completeness even in apparent lack.
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads)Plotinus's account of the One as overflowing without diminishment parallels the chapter's assertion that true greatness is not impaired by seeming imperfection.
- Christian apophatic theology (Pseudo-Dionysius)The apophatic insistence that divine fullness transcends affirmative predication shows cross-tradition congruence with the Tao's depiction of completeness as irreducible to outward measure.
Chapter 45
Who thinks his great achievements poor Shall find his vigour long endure. Of greatest fulness, deemed a void, Exhaustion ne'er shall stem the tide. Do thou what's straight still crooked deem; Thy greatest art still stupid seem, And eloquence a stammering scream.
Constant action overcomes cold; being still overcomes heat. Purity and stillness give the correct law to all under heaven.