The king is the law of the earth, the law is every day, the law is the way, and the law is natural.
Since ancient books generally do not have punctuation and segmentation, later generations are limited by different knowledge when annotating, so they have different understandings of the meaning of this sentence. This division was formed by Li Yue in the Tang Dynasty in the "New Commentary on the Tao Te Ching", in which he changed the word "person" to "king" and connected the four great kings of the country in the previous sentence.
Li Yue's note: "The Tao is great, the sky is great, the earth is great, and the king is also great", which is called the "four major in the domain". The three kings of "Law and Land", "Law and Heaven" and "Law and Dao" are naturally and rationally in the world. The world is safe, so it is called "virtue". Whoever speaks belongs to the ear, its righteous cloud "law and land" is like the selflessness of the earth. "Law every day", such as the selflessness of the sky. "Dharma Dao Dao" is just like the selfless generation of Dao. For example, kings, ministers, fathers, and sons. The latter word is passed down from one to another, and it is all clouds that "man is the law of the earth, the earth is the law of the sky, the heaven is the law, and the Tao is the nature". There are five non-four major elements in the domain. How can the king only have the "law of the earth", but not the "law of the heavens" and the "law of the way"? Heaven and earth have no heart, and they can also turn into laws? Moreover, the way of "the law of the earth, the law of heaven, and the law of nature" is the father of heaven and earth, the son of nature, fragmented, and estranged from righteousness. Gao Ming also believes in the "Silk Book Laozi Proofreading" that although Li Shuo distinguished, scholars of the past dynasties mostly abandoned it or said that the words "are children's teeth" overlapped, not Lao Tzu's. Although it is not a word, it is indeed one of the ancient sayings, and there are still believers today. According to the words of "man is the law of the earth, the earth is the law of the sky, and the heaven is the law of the Tao", the non-king can only have the "law of the earth" and not the "law of the sky" and "the law of the road", but the people, the earth, and the sky are all the law in the Tao. If this syntax is like the forty-two chapters, "The Tao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things", although it is self-evident that "three begets all things", the one who gives birth to all things should be regarded as the "Tao" and will never be understood as the "three" ears of the one who gives birth to all things.
Gu Di explained these four sentences in "Lao Tzu's Proofreading" and said: "The law is the land", which means that the reason why the land is the land is the law, and the reason why the land is the land, that is, the land is selfless; "Fa Tian Tian" means that the reason why the sky is the heaven, is the law, and the reason why the sky is the sky, that is, the sky is selfless; "Dharma Dao Dao" means that the reason why the Tao is the Tao is the Tao is the Fa.
The reason why the Tao is the characteristic of the Taoist is that "the Tao is natural". "Nature" is self-cause, self-formation, self-origin, self-root, "Tao law is natural", that is, Tao is like itself, self-formation, self-cause is the law, and does not intervene, that is, "non-action". The word "law" here has the meaning of law, and the king should take the selflessness of the earth, humility and non-contention as the law, the selflessness of the heavens as the law, and the nature of the Tao as the law, so that the Tao and nature are one.
The Dharma here is the Dharma of the Dao, and the observance of the Dao can make the three worlds of heaven, earth, and man orderly and governed. Gao Dingyi believes that this sentence expresses the view of the ancients on the system theory, that all things in the universe are a whole, and that man, heaven, earth, and nature constitute a hierarchical, structured, and holistic system, which are interrelated and mutually restrictive.
Of course, from the king to the earth, to the sky, and finally to the Tao and nature, Ye Haiyan believes that there is also the meaning of transcendence in this layer of progression, that is, "law" can be expanded to the meaning of "returning" and "transcending", rather than "following" and "emulating".