清靜經 Qing Jing Jing - Quiet Calm Weave #5

Within the old oracle and bronze scripts, 清 is composed of 'water + bud + moon or cinnabar'. The bud and cinnabar combined are often defined as implying 'blue, green'. The plausible concepts are numerous, including thoughts of blue waters, blue water lilies, quiet waters, and peaceful inward tones. Various dictionary definitions say that the word implies 'clean, clear, innocent, pure, quiet, still' and numerous others.

濁 is composed of 'water + worm'. The concept therefore could imply [1] a water worm that moves rapidly, [2] water that is unfit to drink because of the worm, [3] the negative inward tones of repulsion, and several others. The common dictionary definitions are 'dirty, muddy'.

清 and 濁 are used as contrasts. To find the intended meaning of one word, requires finding the meaning of the contrasting word. If 濁 definitely implied 'dirty', then 清 ought to infer 'clean'. However, the words' meanings are also dictated by the sentence stating that man has both. Too, the sentence is, of course, metaphorical, as is the whole of the book, which renders all of the words to not mean what the words mean. The translation, therefore, requires the reader to already possess the self-understanding of having personally self-learned through the self-observation of self-experience: merely choosing dictionary definitions cannot meaningfully translate the book.

A public domain translation: "The Dao has pure and impure; it has action and it has stillness".