Introduction

“Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.”

I’ve been waiting to work on this iconic opening line, not knowing what I’d find. I’ve discovered this iconic translation, and its use is way off the mark. 

Overall, this verse invites us to recognize that direct experience with the Way through deep meditation is essential to the inner transformation required to Weave in Integrity with it. No amount of speaking about the teachings will ever replace intuitive knowledge. Many different verses come together in what can be considered a summary statement. 

Here we go!

Translation

Knowing is speechless.
  Speaking is not knowing.

Shut one’s eyes and ears,
  Block one’s gates,
    Harmonize one’s vastness,
      Unify one’s dusts,
        Nourish one’s basin,
          Eliminates one’s agitation.

This is called Deep Unification.

Therefore:
  There can be no familiarity,
    and there can be no closeness.
  There can be no benefit,
    and there can be no harm.
  There can be no admiration,
    and there can be no humiliation. 

Therefore becoming world cherished.  

Commentary

Knowing is speechless.
  Speaking is not knowing. 

These iconic lines are often translated as, “Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.” I’ve heard this sentiment used to create bizarre cultures in spiritual communities. Cultures where anyone who tries to articulate their experience intelligently is told to be quiet. Teachers challenged for their vagueness pull this out to quiet students they can’t otherwise handle. Having worked intimately with the text to this point, something that bothered me is now revealed as a complete mistreatment of the statement. 

The confusion comes from whether the character 者 (zhě) is understood in its function as marking the transition between the subject and predicate of a sentence or to make a phrase describe a person, as in “The one who X.” In most instances in the Dao De Jing, it makes more sense for 者 (zhě) to serve as the former, as it does here. This means these lines do not describe a person; they make statements about knowing and speaking. 

Knowing is speechless. We know, then we speak. We don’t have to have words for something we directly experience to understand what we have experienced. Recall the first verse’s statement that the “unnameable is the embryo of existence.”

Speaking is not knowing. We frequently use words to talk about stuff we have no experience of. Parroting someone else’s words does not equal direct knowledge of a thing. You get the idea.