Introduction

After blasting us with Bitter Kindness, the text decides to explain itself a little further. This verse exposes us to a potentially mind-blowing concept called convertibility. It states that the beginning is in the end, and the end is in the beginning. The cause is an effect, and the effect is a cause. This whole web is so big and crazy and vast that human minds can’t comprehend it. It’s why everything about the Dao or similar concepts is reduced to metaphor and silence. 

Fortunately, if we look within, we can know it without a doubt. Just because it’s hard to talk about doesn’t mean it is vague. The common metaphor is that you can never know how the tea I’m drinking tastes. No matter how well I describe it, you must taste it to know what it tastes like. Even if you do take a sip, that’s just how it tastes to you. I know how the tea tastes to me; you know how it tastes to you. Neither of us is uncertain about the flavor we experience, and we can agree on a lot of its qualities, but ultimately, we can, and must, have our own experience to understand. 

Translation

Of all the myriad forms of existence,
  Heaven and Earth are born first.

Silence. Stillness.
Independent and unchanging
  yet it is the Mother of all Creation.

Its name is unknowable,
  so we call it Dao,
For me, the best handle is “vast.”

Uncontainable vastness,
  surpassing all boundaries,
    folding in on itself.

The Dao, Heaven, Earth, and Identity are all Great.
These are the Four Greats of the “nation”
  and “the Person” is one! 

Earth shapes Identities
Heaven shapes Earth. 
Dao shapes heaven. 
Weaving the Way shapes the Dao.

Commentary

Of all the myriad forms of existence,
  Heaven and Earth are born first.

As explored so far in verses 1, 4, 7, 10, and 14, the indescribable, unimaginable, primordial Dao gives birth to the spiritual, active, Heavenly energy (yang) and material, receptive, Earthly energy (yin).