Tao te Ching: 25

There was something undifferentiated and yet complete,
Which existed before heaven and earth.
Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing
and does not change.
It operates everywhere and is free from danger.
It may be considered the mother of the universe.
I do not know its name; I call it Tao.
If forced to give it a name, I shall call lit Great.
Now being great means functioning everywhere.
Functioning everywhere means far-reaching.
Being far-reaching means returning to the original point.
Therefore Tao is great.
Heaven is great.
Earth is great.
And the king is also great.
There are four great things int he univers, and the king is
one of them.
Man models himself after Earth.
Earth models itself after Heaven.
Heaven models itself after Tao.
And Tao models itself after Nature.

Taoism is very cyclical. The returning to the root is a very prominent concept in the east. The beginning of the chapter reiterates what the Tao is, in a way we saw in chapter 1. We see how it arose from nothing and is undifferentiated. Lao Tzu says it has no name so he calls it Tao. This "Tao" isn't a label to differentiate it and hence break it apart, but a way to try to discuss the concept with others. Of course, eventually one would be forced to give it a name which does indeed pull it apart.

I think it's interesting how he describes great as functioning everywhere, and functioning everywhere as far-reaching. That part is easy enough to understand but, when functioning everywhere means to return to the original point one can see how far reaching it must be. It encompasses and circumscribes all things and returns to the center. There are a lot of meditations that are like that. Returning to the center isn't necessarily a shrinking, in fact my experience says that it seldom is. Instead it is expansion to the point that all is encompassed and you wind up back where you started.

Two quick notes on the translation. When he talks about the king, he also means the sage or man. The king is simply a proxy for a successful human in this instance. Remember the emphasis put on ruling by the Tao te Ching. It isn't simply ruling of a land, which it could apply to, but also to ruling one's own life and affairs.

The other is in the progression from man to Earth, Earth to Heaven, Heaven to Tao, and.... Tao to Nature? Nature is often translated as Heaven and Earth. This could be the cyclical nature again, and I think it is. Certainly Tao does not model itself off of man, but since Heaven and Earth are the two things descended from the great Tao, it is only natural that it functions very similar to them and identical to the two of them taken as a whole.