It (Tao) is eternally without desire. So, it can be called small. All things return to it, although it does not make itself their ruler. So, it can be called great.
I understood . . . that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.
Then is what you see through this window onto the world so lovely that you have no desire whatsoever to look out through any other window, and that you even make an attempt to prevent others from doing so?
That 'simple desire' to share something meant that we could enter the world of language without words, where everything is always clear and there is no danger of being misinterpreted.
I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.
The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out.
Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones.