Introduction

This verse mirrors the first by highlighting that the Dao is both beyond description and exactly within whatever we might want to describe. Also, like the first verse, it puts two opposing modes, fusion (yin) and separation (yang), into their proper relationship. 

In this worldview of meditative living, Perfected Integrity is only available when our lived experience freely harmonizes yin and yang. Yin is a wordless knowing of the energetic essence unifying all that is. Yang is the capacity to name and organize those aspects of experience so we can engage in our environment as individuals. 

Translation

The Dao constantly undoes names.
  It is raw but refined.

Heaven and Earth dare not
  consider themselves greater.  
If Leaders preserve the Dao,
  all things will host themselves.

Heaven and Earth in harmony
  is like a gift of sweet rain.
Without laws and decrees
  people treat each other equally.

The origin is built
  by having names.

Naming is already existing.
Knowledge of this process
  prevents it from causing harm.

For example:
The Dao is in Creation
  like a stream
    is in the rivers and oceans. 

Commentary

The Dao constantly undoes names.
  It is raw but refined.

Whenever we look with truly opened eyes, all we see is the interplay of energetic forces. The language we use to describe our reality is always inadequate. It is inadequate because what we really experience is so primal that it is ambiguous beyond capture while, at the same time, being so specific that any words are vague. 

Exploring our use of language in relation to concepts and concepts in relation to reality is rather abstract. Here is a more concrete thought experiment. 

Take a moment to think about a table. What kind of table is it? How many people does it sit, or is it made of columns and rows? What shape is it? What is it made of? What color is it? Is it a dining table, a laboratory table, or some other kind?

If you happen to have the chance, ask someone else to close their eyes and describe a table to you. With similar life experiences, the descriptions may approximate one another. The longer you talk about it, the more different your respective tables will turn out to be. Yet, somehow, we would all recognize the other person as describing a table. Our descriptions for the table can be pages long and highly refined, yet still not capture every detail. Yet, at the same time, each new detail that adds precision to our experience of a table separates our experience further from everyone else’s. 

What a table is has nothing to do with being called a table or how we describe it. The thing itself is more raw, more primal, than any refinement. It’s just something that we use in a certain way. If we all agreed that the thing we used as a table was to be called a waffle, and we all knew that, then we would eat our meals at the waffle. 

The thing itself wouldn’t be changed at all. Studying other languages can really drive this home. The same thing we call a table is known as a “zhuōzi” in Mandarin, “mesa” in Spanish, etc. Yet the essence of the table, whatever form it takes and whatever we call it, is recognizable in any culture that uses elevated flat spaces to gather, eat, or work.