载营魄抱一，能无离乎？专气致柔，能如婴儿乎？涤除玄鉴，能无疵乎？爱民治国，能无为乎？天门开阖，能为雌乎？明白四达，能无知乎？生之畜之，生而不有，为而不恃，长而不宰，是谓玄德。
When carrying on your head your perplexed bodily soul
Can you embrace in your arms the One and not let go?
In concentrating your breath can you become as supple
As a babe?
Can you polish your mysterious mirror
And leave no blemish?
Can you love the people and govern the state
Without resorting to action?
When the gates of heaven open and shut
Are you capable of keeping to the role of the female?
When your discernment penetrates the four quarters
Are you capable of not knowing anything?
It gives them life and rears them.
It gives them life yet claims no possession;
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;
It is the steward yet exercises no authority.
Such is called the mysterious virtue.
Can you keep the unquiet physical-soul from straying, hold fast to the Unity, and never quit it?
Can you, when concentrating your breath, make it soft like that of a little child?
Can you wipe and cleanse your vision of the Mystery till all is without blur?
Can you love the people and rule the land, yet remain unknown?
Can you in opening and shutting the heavenly gates play always the female part?
Can your mind penetrate every corner of the land but you yourself never interfere?
Rear them, then, feed them,
Rear them, but do not lay claim to them.
Control them, but never lean upon them;
Be chief among them, but do not manage them.
This is called the Mysterious Power.
When the intelligent and animal souls are held together in one embrace, they can be kept from separating. When one gives undivided attention to the (vital) breath, and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy, he can become as a (tender) babe. When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights (of his imagination), he can become without a flaw. In loving the people and ruling the state, cannot he proceed without any (purpose of) action? In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be without knowledge? (The Dao) produces (all things) and nourishes them; it produces them and does not claim them as its own; it does all, and yet does not boast of it; it presides over all, and yet does not control them. This is what is called 'The mysterious Quality' (of the Dao).