"Something mysteriously formed, born before Heaven and Earth," Lan Wangji says, his own calm and precise recitation. "In the silence and the void, standing alone and unchanging, ever present and in motion. Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things. I do not know its name: call it Tao.¹"

¹This is specifically the Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English translation of the Tao Te Ching.