Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching is a brief but challenging summary of Taoist philosophy, setting the tone for the remainder of the text. In chapter 1, several key Taoist concepts are introduced.
The Dao that can be told is not the essential Dao.
The name that can be named is not the essential name.
In these first two lines of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu begins with a vital warning that the concepts and words of Taoism are never to be substituted for direct experience of the Tao itself. What is meant here is not the word "Tao" or whatever intellectual concepts this word might signify, but Tao in its trans-conceptual sense - the Tao ofunconditioned experienceIt may seem strange to use words and concepts to talk about going beyond words and concepts, but language is the only tool available which can be used to point beyond itself. And old Zen parable explains this apparent paradox in terms of a finger pointing to the moon - one should not concentrate on the finger, but on the moon itself.
The nameless is the source of existence.
Naming is the origin of all things and distinctions.
Again, Lao-Tzu reiterates that the true nature of existence at the deepest level cannot be captured in words and concepts. It is worth noting that the nameless is described as the "source of existence" rather than as existence itself. This is natural enough, since "existence" is a named thing.
If you have no desires, you will see the mystery.
If you have desires, you will see the manifestations.
From a Taoist perspective, "things" are created by the mind's tendency to make distinctions within a fundamentally undivided whole. Because human beings have goals and desires, they categorize, conceptualize, and divide the world in certain ways that are useful to them. However, these categorizations and divisions are not absolute.
Only the whole of existence itself is absolute, and this is "the mystery" of which Lao-Tzu speaks. Things are distinguished by reference to other things. But the whole of existence is not a thing, because there is nothing else to distinguish it from. If an observer is not motivated by any particular desire that compels them to divide and categorize the world, they will be able to perceive this absolute wholeness.
These two aspects come from the same source, but they have different names.
This is difficult to see.
Here, Lao-Tzu is making two key points. Firstly, that division and unity have the same source and are really only complementary aspects of reality, and secondly, that to reach a true understanding of this fact is no easy task. It may seem simple to say that "unity and duality are the same thing," but when the mind goes a bit deeper and tries to wrap itself around what this really means, paradoxes are encountered.
Taoist writer Alan Watts said, "Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery - the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets - is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together."
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all mystery.
These closing lines of Chapter 1 emphasize the fact that the nature of Tao will always be a mystery to the intellect, simply because the paradox of unity and division being identical cannot be resolved by the logical mind. "Darkness within darkness" poetically describes the intellect's hopeless search for some verbal or conceptual box in which to capture reality.
"The gateway to all mystery" is the realization that what is being described by words and concepts such as "Tao" is not simply more language, but a transcendent reality which must be approached intuitively and experientially. Lao-Tzu is pointing a finger at the moon, urging his readers to look beyond the finger to where it is pointing.
 |
