[Note: I italicize phrases I borrow from the chapter, and link to phrases I borrow from other chapters to help tie chapters together. While making it more tedious to read, the Tao Te Ching is best pondered in the context of the whole.]

The more poetic wording of D.C. Lau's version rolls of the tongue beautifully. After 40 years of reading it that way it surprises me a little how naturally the more literal wording flows. Each lends perspective to the other. What stands out especially is 'lose through death'. Weakness and death are really the unsung heroes of nature's ebb and flow. Naturally, that not surprising given our instinctive aversion to this 'dark side'. How much easier life becomes when we can appreciate its mysterious beauty.

That all things are born out of having corresponds to The illusion of self originates and manifests itself in a cleaving to things. While having is not cleaving per se, it is in the ball park. This, and the fact that 'having is born out of nothing', shows the inevitability of an 'illusion of self'. It is natural, making any notion of eliminating it unnatural, unnecessary and futile. That said, simply knowing that self is an illusion helps force us to place less and less faith in our illusion of self. This is enough to do the trick, and prod us into moving in the opposite direction.

First the grammatically massaged:
In the opposite direction, is how the way moves.
Loss through death, is how the way applies itself.
All under heaven are born out of having,
Having is born out of nothing.

Now, the literal Chinese:
turn over (in opposite direction) way of move.
weak (lose through death) way of use (employ).
heaven under 10,000 things born (bear; grow; existence) in (at, to, from, by, out of) have (there is, exist),
(there is, exist) have born (bear; grow; existence) life in (at, to, from, by, out of) nothing.