something not material, something silent.
Something free -- dependent on nothing, being nothing in itself,
empty and silent, everywhere yet unchanging and inexhaustible.
What was there before the Big Bang?
One can think of it as the pre-origin of the universe,
or god or goddess, or natural law, or physics.
Still, it really has no name.
The way, or the Dao, is simply the nickname I give it.
If I felt compelled to call it something else,
I'd call it "great" because it extends forever
and in going on forever,
it returns back to itself.

The Dao is great, so is the sky, the earth,
and also the human being.
In the universe there are four great things,
and humanity is one of them.

Humanity follows the nature of the earth,
earth follows the nature of the sky,
the sky follows the nature of the Dao,
and the Dao follows its own way -- naturally.