Tao

“ She saw the eternal Tao flowing like a great green river of souls, smooth and mighty and resistless; and she willed that she too might become a part of that desirable self-effacement, safe in surrender. Men striving to create a Tao for personal ends beat out their lives in vain. ”

“ Comm. heard this, he said, "Those who exemplify Tao are sought after by all the best men in the empire. Now if one who has not attained to more Tao than the ten-thousandth part of the tip of an autumn spikelet, is still wise enough to withhold vain talk and die,—how much more those who exemplify Tao? To the eye it is formless, and to the ear it is noiseless. Those who discuss it, speak of it as 'the obscure.' But the mere fact of discussing Tao makes it not Tao." ”

“ He travels like the bird, leaving no trace behind. If there be Tao in the empire, he and all things are in harmony. If there be not Tao, he cultivates virtue in retirement. After a thousand years of this weary world, he mounts aloft, and riding upon the white clouds passes into the kingdom of God, whither the three evils do not reach, and where he rests secure in eternity. ”

“ Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things; it contains the visible universe and everything that we call reality. He who apprehends the mysteries of Tao sees clearly all that was and will be."
"Rubbish!" I retorted.
"Tao resembles a great animal, recumbent, motionless, containing in its enormous body all the worlds of our universe, the past, the present and the future. We see portions of this great monster through a slit, which we call time. With the aid of this drug I shall enlarge the slit. ”

“ No manifesting form has Tao Great, and yet he made and keeps the heavens and earth.
23. No passion has our Tao Great, and yet he causes sun and moon and all the stars to rise and set.
24. No name has Tao Great, and yet he makes all things to grow; he brings in season both the seed time and the harvest time. ”

“ Aiming at Tao, he perfects his virtue. By perfecting his virtue he perfects his body, and by perfecting his body he perfects his spiritual part. And the perfection of the spiritual part is the Tao of the Sage. Coming into life he is as one of the people, knowing not whither he is bound. How complete is his purity? Success, profit, skill,—these have no place in his heart. Such a man, if he does not will it, he does not stir; if he does not wish it, he does not act. If all the world praises him, he does not heed. If all the world blames him, he does not repine. ”

“ He who is enlightened by Tao seems wrapped in darkness. He who is advanced in Tao seems to be going back. He who walks smoothly in Tao seems to be on a rugged path.
The man of highest virtue appears lowly. He who is truly pure behaves as though he were sullied. He who has virtue in abundance behaves as though it were not enough. He who is firm in virtue seems like a skulking pretender. He who is simple and true appears unstable as water.
If Tao prevails on earth, horses will be used for purposes of agriculture. If Tao does not prevail, war-horses will be bred on the common. ”

“ Where then does what the ancients called the system of Tao come in? There is nowhere where it does not come in.
It may be asked whence our spirituality, whence our intellectuality. The true Sage is born; the prince is made. Yet all proceed from an original One.
He who does not separate from the Source is one with God. He who does not separate from the essence is a spiritual man. He who does not separate from the reality is a perfect man. He who makes God the source, and Tê the root, and Tao the portal, passively falling in with the modifications of his environment,—he is the true Sage. ”

“ Keep back your knowledge, and concentrate your thoughts upon One,—and the holy spirit shall abide within you. Virtue shall beautify you, Tao shall establish you, aimless as a new-born calf which recks not how it came into the world. ”

“ To preserve one's form, live out one's life, establish one's virtue, and realise Tao,—is not this complete virtue?
"Issuing forth spontaneously, moving without premeditation, all things following in his wake,—such is the man of complete virtue!
"He can see where all is dark. He can hear where all is still. In the darkness he alone can see light. In the stillness he alone can detect harmony. He can sink to the lowest depths of materialism. To the highest heights of spirituality he can soar. ”

“ Tao is the source of all creation. Men have it, and live. They lose it, and die. Affairs in antagonism thereto, fail; in accordance therewith, succeed. Therefore, wherever Tao abides, there is the reverence of the true Sage. And as this old fisherman may be said to possess Tao, could I venture not to respect him? ”

“ Thus it may be said that the world destroys Tao, and that Tao destroys the world. And the world and Tao thus mutually destroying each other, how can the men of Tao elevate the world, and how can the world elevate Tao? Tao cannot elevate the world; neither can the world elevate Tao. Though the Sages were not to dwell on mountain and in forest, their virtue would still be hidden;—hidden, but not by themselves.
Those of old who were called retired scholars, were not men who hid their bodies, or kept back their words, or concealed their wisdom. ”

“ He was a man of no ambition, content to earn a few cash by selling pea-nuts and spend his life in a philosophical melancholy. As he sat tapping the tin with an elongated finger-nail and droning out a mournful eulogy of his wares, To Tao, the hunchback, passed.
To Tao by his infirmity was unfitted for heavy manual labour, but his distorted body seemed to be endowed with some marvellous power of rendering natural objects equally grotesque. No one for hundreds of li around could produce small trees in such fantastic shapes and weird eccentricities of growth as he. ”

“ Earth is great; and the Sovereign also is great. In the Universe there are four powers, of which the Sovereign is one. Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from Tao; but the law of Tao is its own spontaneity.
Tao in its unchanging aspect has no name. Small though it be in its primordial simplicity, mankind dare not claim its service. ”

“ Tao roofs over the sky and is the foundation of the earth; it extends north, south, east, and west, stretching to the eight extreme points in those directions. Its height is beyond reach and its depth is unfathomable; it enfolds both the sky and the earth, and produces things which had been formless. It is like the flow of a spring, which starts bubbling up from nothing but gradually forms a volume of rushing muddy water which again gradually becomes clear. Therefore, if set vertically, it will block all the space between the sky and the earth ”

“ Jen Ch'iu made no answer, and Confucius continued, "That will do. Do not reply. If life did not give birth to death, and if death did not put an end to life, surely life and death would be no longer correlates, but would each exist independently. What there was before the universe, was Tao. Tao makes things what they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce Tao; yet everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.
In its offspring.
And the endless love of the Sage for his fellow-man is based upon the same principle." ”

“ He thus places himself outside the universe, beyond all creation, where his soul is free from care. Apprehending Tao, he is in accord with virtue. He leaves charity and duty to one's neighbour alone. He treats ceremonies and music as adventitious. And so the mind of the perfect man is at peace. ”

“ A man looks upon God as upon his father, and loves him in like measure. Shall he then not love that which is greater than God?
Sc. Tao. A man looks upon a ruler of men as upon some one better than himself, for whom he would sacrifice his life. Shall he not then do so for the Supreme Ruler of Creation?
Sc. Tao, the omnipresent, omnipotent Principle which invests even God himself with the power and attributes of divinity. The careful student of pure Taoism will find however that the distinction between Tao and God is sometimes so subtle as altogether to elude his intelligence. ”

“ All-pervading is the Great Tao. It can be at once on the right hand and on the left. All things depend on it for life, and it rejects them not. Its task accomplished, it takes no credit. It loves and nourishes all things, but does not act as master. It is ever free from desire. We may call it small. All things return to it, yet it does not act as master. We may call it great.
The whole world will flock to him who holds the mighty form of Tao. They will come and receive no hurt, but find rest, peace, and tranquillity. ”

“ The Tao is in the Passage rather than the Path. It is the spirit of Cosmic Change,—the eternal growth which returns upon itself to produce new forms. It recoils upon itself like the dragon, the beloved symbol of the Taoists. It folds and unfolds as do the clouds. The Tao might be spoken of as the Great Transition. Subjectively it is the Mood of the Universe. Its Absolute is the Relative. ”

“ All things that exist submit to Tao as their chief, but it displays no lordship over them.13 In the spring time it quickens the dead world, clothes it as with a garment, and nourishes it, yet the world knows not its foster-mother. ”

“ The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!
2. We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue! ”

“ The Tao which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao; the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name. Without a name, it is the Beginning of Heaven and Earth; with a name, it is the Mother of all things. Only one who is eternally free from earthly passions can apprehend its spiritual essence; he who is ever dogged by passions can see no more than its outer form. These two things, the spiritual and the material, though we call them by different names, in their origin are one and the same. ”

“ The Master said, "How profound in its repose, how infinite in its purity, is Tao!
"If metal and stone were without Tao, they would not be capable of emitting sound. And just as they possess the property of sound but will not emit sound unless struck, so surely is the same principle applicable to all creation.
Meaning that all creation is responsive to proper influences, in accordance with Tao, if we only knew where to seek them.
"The man of complete virtue remains blankly passive as regards what goes on around him. He is as originally by nature, and his knowledge extends to the supernatural. ”

“ Scholars who wear square shoes know the shape of Earth.
According to ancient Chinese cosmogony, "Heaven is round: Earth is square." And scholars who loosely gird themselves are ready to decide whatever questions may arise. But scholars who have Tao do not necessarily wear robes; neither does the wearing of robes necessarily mean that a scholar has Tao. If your Highness does not think so, why not issue an order through the Middle Kingdom, making death the punishment for all who wear the robes without having the Tao?" ”

“ This branch consists of the literature of Taoism, or that which has gathered around what is known as the Tao or Way of Lao Tzŭ, growing and flourishing alongside of, though in direct antagonism to, that which is founded upon the criteria and doctrines of Confucius. Unfortunately it is quite impossible to explain at the outset in what this Tao actually consists. According to Lao Tzŭ himself, "Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know." ”

“ But in self-esteem without self-conceit, in moral culture without charity and duty to one's neighbour, in government without rank and fame, in retirement without solitude, in health without hygiene,—there we have oblivion absolute coupled with possession of all things; an infinite calm which becomes an object to be attained by all.
Such is the Tao of the universe, such is the virtue of the Sage. Wherefore it has been said, "In tranquillity, in stillness, in the unconditioned, in inaction, we find the levels of the universe, the very constitution of Tao." ”

“ Therefore, those of old who apprehended Tao, first apprehended God. Tao came next, and then charity and duty to one's neighbour, and then the functions of public life, and then forms and names, and then employment according to capacity, and then distinctions of good and bad, and then discrimination between right and wrong, and then rewards and punishments. Thus wise men and fools met with their dues; the exalted and the humble occupied their proper places. ”

“ That is Tao. And for man a state of indifference and calm, the ἀταραξία not of the sceptic but of the mystic, a passive reflecting of the Eternal, is the ideal end. "The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep. And thus he can triumph over matter without injury to himself" (See p. 98.)
It would of course be presumption to attempt to assign a meaning to Tao, and still more to discover an equivalent in Western thought. But it may be lawful to say that Heracleitus often speaks of Λόγος as Chuang Tzŭ speaks of Tao. ”

“ He rejoices exceedingly in all creation. He exults to see Tao diffused among his fellow-men, while suffering no loss himself.
Tao is a constant quantity. It can be shared, but cannot be divided.
"Thus, although silent, he can instil peace; and by his mere presence cause men to be to each other as father and son. From his very return to passivity comes this active influence for good. So widely does he differ in heart from ordinary men. Wherefore I said, 'Wait for Kung Yüeh Hsiu.'
"The true Sage is free from all embarrassments. All things are to him as One. ”