Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 56 — Those Who Know Do Not Speak
Mysterious leveling (xuán tóng)
Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. Block the openings, shut the gates, blunt the sharpness, untie the tangles, soften the glare, settle into the dust — this is mysterious leveling. He cannot be made intimate or distant, profitable or harmful, honored or humbled — and so is honored by the world.
Source context
- Theme
- silent knowing beyond speech — the identity of inner stillness with sovereign presence
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Advaita VedantaThe Upanishadic principle of mauna (sacred silence) and the non-dual knower who cannot be objectified by speech mirrors Chapter 56's injunction that one who knows does not speak, pointing to a cross-tradition congruence between Daoist silence and the Vedantic witness-consciousness beyond verbal predication.
- NeoplatonismPlotinus's teaching that the One surpasses all discursive logos and can only be approached through a silence of the intellective soul shows cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 56's identification of the sage's wordless knowing with the deep unity underlying all distinctions.
- KabbalahThe kabbalistic concept of Ayin (nothingness) as the ground from which Ein Sof is approached — beyond speech or conceptual articulation — parallels Chapter 56's structure wherein the highest knowing withdraws from language and rests in undifferentiated presence.
Chapter 56
He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it.
He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'
(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; of nobility or meanness:--he is the noblest man under heaven.