What Is Tao?

Taoist stories are filled with accounts of the return of the liberated sage into worldly affairs.

In other words, when we think of beauty we know very clearly what beauty is, but it is absolutely impossible to write down a set of laws and rules that can show us how to create beautiful objects.

In Chinese the second principle is called wu wei, and it means literally “not doing,” but would be much better translated to give it the spirit of “not forcing” or “not obstructing.”

If you look at what I would rather call the order of design, however, and not the order of words, you find a rather different situation because all of the elements of the design come at you together. They are, as we would say, “of a piece,” and you see their relationship to their context and meaning all at once, much as you see the image appear whe

In the same way, you will find that if you look up “to be” in a dictionary, it is defined as “to exist.” Then when you look up “to exist,” you will find it defined as “to be.” And are you any the wiser? A dictionary cannot really completely define itself; ultimately it can only put words together that correspond to other words. In this sense, to tr

And mathematicians, for example, often feel that certain equations, certain expressions are peculiarly beautiful. Because they are meticulous people, they try to think out exactly why they are beautiful, and ask if we could make up a rule or formula to describe when beauty will or will not appear. Although they have proposed the criteria of eleganc

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doi

House of Lords in England concerning a Church-related matter. Apparently one of the representatives had put forth the argument that it was not proper for a governing body with so many atheists to rule on a religious issue. One of the members rose to the occasion, however, and replied, “Rubbish, Sir! I am quite certain that everyone here believes in

In its final form, however, it is so similar to Buddhism that Taoist terms are often used to translate Sanskrit texts into Chinese. Once Buddhism was imported to China, Taoism so completely permeated Mahayana Buddhism in general and Zen Buddhism in particular that the philosophies of these schools are often indistinguishable.