Laozi · Daodejing · 第十六章
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Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
吾以觀其復
I thereby observe their return.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0A route through this passage
41 Han characters · 27 distinct forms · 10 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
- Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
- Test one unit.
萬物並作，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 3 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Watch recurrence: 復 × 4 靜 × 3 曰 × 3 物 × 2 其 × 2 芸 × 2. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
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1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
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3 · Explain, then revisit
What plural referent is supplied by the context for 其?
Compare the editorial answer
萬物, the myriad things.
zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 吾以觀其復
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Shared wording
Computed exact phrases in the pinned witnesses. These links do not assign a sense or assert borrowing.
老子 · 第五十五章知常曰明。終日號而不嗄。和之至也。知和曰常，知常曰明，益生曰祥，心使氣曰強。物壯則老，謂之不道，不道早已。
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
論語 · Identify means, basis, and purpose使民以時論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective父在，觀其志；父沒，觀其行論語 · Identify means, basis, and purpose為政以德論語 · Identify means, basis, and purpose一言以蔽之Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 老子 · Laozi · Daodejing
- Attribution
- Traditionally attributed to Laozi; composition and textual history are debated.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR5c0057 · base edition tls
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR5c0057_016.txt, lines 14–23. LAO 16.1; tr. D.C. Lau 19i2: 23; here tr. Karlgren 1975
- Version
8f585085ff4ef2580eeb0f4376a763a62bcc7a95- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: ccae8a1f4dac44599f41c5df5ed9e2239f5face03c4afb1b13e206f585cbaab4. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.