tián dàn
Also rendered: Tranquil and indifferent (Common; risks implying apathy)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
The interior state in which the chapter’s protection works: quiet, unstirred, free of appetite. The transmitted text varies between 惔 and 淡; the variant is recorded in the collation notes rather than settled here.
The two graphs are near-homophones doing one job: a mind that is quiet and a palate that is not inflamed. The line reads 恬惔虛無 — tranquil, unstirred, empty, without craving — four words for one condition.
Translators differ over whether to render this as calmness or as indifference. The chapter argues for the first: what follows is not listlessness but true qi following of its own accord.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
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Reading path
This term belongs to Foundations — the five core concepts, in the order the Suwen introduces them.