[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.

Oh, I just love how this chapter begins! It ranks right up there with 'The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way'. It used to haunt me as well. No sooner would I open my mouth, fully certain I knew what I was saying, when into my mind would pop up ‘One who knows does not speak…’ This is just not what self-righteous emotions want to hear. Fortunately, I can deeply feel now that anything I say, or indeed think, is not real; knowing lies so much deeper than any thought or speech can reach. Why did it take so long to ‘realize’ this? I suppose I just needed time to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt to myself. Although, it hasn’t taken that long really; even a life time being but the wink of an eye.

The literal Chinese is interesting in that it coveys to me a more indistinct and shadowy view of the ‘know versus speak’ issue. Just compare the literal, ‘know-able not speak; speak-able not know’ with the common, ‘one who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know’. Somehow the former speaks to a subjective experience, while the later make a statement of objective ‘fact’. Or am I just spitting hairs here?

Now compare the literal Chinese, ‘same as dust’ to D.C. Lau's ‘let your wheels move only along old ruts’. While both can lead to the idea of ‘profound sameness’, the view ‘same as dust’ conveys it better for me, e.g., as in specks of dust are more similar than different. There is also a subtle difference in flavor between the more literal ‘unobtainable yet intimate, unobtainable yet distant’, and D.C. Lau’s, ‘hence you cannot get close to it, nor can you keep it at arm's length’. What’s the difference? Here again the later feels more objective oriented, i.e., what you can or can’t do to ‘it’. Indeed, I’ve often heard ‘the way’ portrayed as an objective phenomenon that is distinct in some way - almost like God. The English language’s reliance on articles such as ‘the’, ‘an’ and ‘a’ don’t help muddy the water either. How we think about things affects how we feel about things, and our language influences how we think about things. Given this, I can see how easily it becomes difficult to truly 'think outside the box'.

Clad in a little homespun:
Know not speak; speak not know.
Subdue its sharpness, untie its tangles,
Unify its light, be the same as dust,
This is called profound sameness.

Unobtainable yet intimate,
Unobtainable yet distant.
Unobtainable yet favorable.
Unobtainable yet fearful.
Unobtainable yet noble.
Unobtainable yet humble.
Unobtainable yet noble.
Hence all under heaven value it.

The bare bones literal:
know-able not speak.
speak-able not know.
subdue its sharpness, separate its tangles, harmonize its light, same its dust.
no may obtain yet intimate (blood relative, parent, close).
no may obtain yet scattered (scanty, thin).
no may obtain yet sharp (favorable, profit, interest).
no may obtain yet evil (harm, impair, kill, feel afraid).
no may obtain yet expensive (valuable, precious, noble).
no may obtain yet cheap (lowly, humble, base).
no may obtain yet expensive (valuable, precious, noble).
hence do (act as, serve as, become) heaven under expensive (valuable, precious, noble).