Tao Te Ching #1: What is the Tao?
A Paradox of Nonduality
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The way you can go isn’t the real way. The name you can say isn’t the real name. Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things. So the unwanting soul sees what’s hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants. Two things, one origin, but different in name, whose identity is mystery. Mystery of all mysteries! The door to the hidden.
To attempt an analysis of verse #1 of the Tao Te Ching is, in a sense, a paradox. The Tao, as is introduced here, is unnamable, ineffable, mysterious. In attempting to elucidate the mystery with my measly language, it becomes no longer a mystery but a dualistic perception of a nondualistic totality.
David Loy states in his ‘New’ Interpretation of Chapter One, “To give the Tao a name is to try to determine that which is indeterminate, to objectify that which cannot be objectified because it is what there is before any bifurcation into subject and object. If the Taoist goal is to experience the nondual Tao, this amounts to an indictment of all philosophy.”1
As we begin our reading of Tao Te Ching, it’s important to know that we will never truly understand it. If we did, it wouldn’t be the “mystery of all mysteries! / The door to the hidden.”
With this in mind, let’s dive into each line of the verse. I will be using the Ursula K. Le Guin translation, but I’ve screenshotted several other translations for comparison2.
The way you can go isn’t the real way. The name you can say isn’t the real name.
Le Guin interestingly uses “way” instead of “Tao,” which is not wrong but perhaps an unecessary simplification. See below for an explanation of the term Tao, again from David Loy’s interpretation.
Regardless, the meaning of the line is not lost in Le Guin’s translation: to “follow” the Tao is a futile effort.
The problem with attempting to follow the Tao is the self-conscious and hence dualistic effort involved. If one is truly harmonized—that is, one—with the nondual Tao, the Way will not be experienced as something external to oneself, as a path which is or is not being followed. Nondual actions performed in harmony with—and hence by—the Tao are wu-wei, nonaction, which, because there is not the sense of a self exerting its will, are best described as effortless activity.
Heaven and earth begin in the unnamed: name’s the mother of the ten thousand things.
The next lines expand on the concept of “naming,” saying that names/forms are only ways of perceiving the world. Heaven and earth, however, which are manifestations of the Tao, cannot be named. Language is insufficient for understanding the whole picture.3
In seeing this, our first clue into what the “Tao” actually is comes into focus. It is the cosmological guiding force behind all things, it is the mother of the universe, it is the unnamed and unnameable, the Great Way.
So the unwanting soul sees what’s hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.
Many translations use “desire” instead of “wanting,” but David Loy prefers to use the word “intention.” He translates these lines as, “Therefore always do not have intention in order to see the wonder / Always have intention in order to see the forms.”
Both translations explicate the same concept: non-action. I discuss non-action in my Siddhartha video linked below, but in essence, Lao Tsu says that in order to see the truth in things, the essence, the mystery, “do not do.” Rather than striving for goals or accolades or wealth or status, simply allow the world to come to you, and be a receptacle for it.
Two things, one origin, but different in name, whose identity is mystery. Mystery of all mysteries! The door to the hidden.
The two things refer to the two perceptions of the world, the named and the unnamed, the desiring and the desireless, the mystery and the manifestations. They each flow into one another to create balance and harmony in everything. They each need the other to have any meaning. As Camus said, “There can be no sun without shadow. And it is essential to know the night.”4
Ursula K Le Guin said in the notes to this first verse of the Tao Te Ching that if you see the verse rightly, it contains the entirety of the Tao Te Ching. As such, I plan on coming back to this once I’ve gone through the book once more, and seeing what else lies within its words.
What do you think of verse #1 of Tao Te Ching? Is there anything you think I missed? Let me know in the comments or the Windblown Curiosities chat for subscribers, where I will post a discussion thread.
reader
says that this is actually a mistranslation. Read their post The Named and Nameless are Wrong.The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
partially inspired by you, i have recently put up a short post about how “named” and “nameless” are translation errors. they do not take too much away from understanding the piece, but a different angle of approach is more accurate, lending to a better understanding of the structure laozi paints for the reader.
the post is here: https://open.substack.com/pub/thingsnnothings/p/the-named-and-nameless-are-wrong?r=4ysygi&utm_medium=ios
excellent work nonetheless!