The understanding of the men of ancient times went a long way. How far did it go? To the point where some of them believed that things have never existed - so far, to the end, where nothing can be added. Those at the next stage thought that things exist but recognized no boundaries among them. Those at the next stage thought there were boundaries but recognized no right and wrong. Because right and wrong appeared, the Way was injured, and because the Way was injured, love became complete. But do such things as completion and injury really exist, or do they not?
There is such a thing as completion and injury - Mr. Chao playing the lute is an example. There is such a thing as no completion and no injury - Mr. Chao not playing the lute is an example. Chao Wen played the lute; Music Master K’uang waved his baton; Hui Tzu leaned on his desk. The knowledge of these three was close to perfection. All were masters, and therefore their names have been handed down to later ages. Only in their likes they were different from him [the true sage]. What they liked, they tried to make clear. What he is not clear about, they tried to make clear, and so they ended in the foolishness of “hard” and "white. "Their sons, too, devoted all their lives to their fathers’ theories, but till their death never reached any completion. Can these men be said to have attained completion? If so, then so have all the rest of us. Or can they not be said to have attained completion? If so, then neither we nor anything else have ever attained it.
The torch of chaos and doubt - this is what the sage steers by. So he does not use things but relegates all to the constant. This is what it means to use clarity.
Taoist thinking views making distinctions between “things” as arbitrary and something of a mistake. To consider one’s life as anything but a constituent aspect of the totality of existence and therefore functionally necessary and assigning a limited concept of worth is a sorta fundamental error in thinking.