Dao De Jing – Chapter 4: The Bottomless Cup of Dao

The Dao is a bottomless cup. It cannot be filled, and it cannot be emptied. In this way, it is both inexhaustible and ever-yielding. Laozi opens the fourth chapter of the Dao De Jing with this striking metaphor: “Dao is a bottomless cup that need not be filled.” At once poetic and perplexing, this image invites us to encounter the Dao not as a substance…