The Dao That Can Be Spoken

First: words cannot catch up with what is real. For a thinking creature, what has no name hardly exists. The person you pass in the street is just "somebody"; the thing that darts through the grass is just "some animal." A name can even outlast the person: little Tom changes every single day from kindergarten to graduation, yet call "Tom!" and he turns round. But names are human agreements, the world moves every moment, and the Dao fits inside no name at all. Western thinkers said the same of ultimate being: you can only say what it is not. It is not the sun, not the moon, not the sea. Every sentence is true, and nothing has been said. Laozi begins by admitting the limits of language. That is not mystification. It is honesty.

Second: nameless and named, wanting and not wanting. We have two basic powers: we think in names, and we act from desire. Before names, there is the beginning of heaven and earth; with names, things are sorted one by one. Likewise, only when you want nothing do you see a thing's wonder. When you want something, you see its edges: its use, its price, what it does for you. We need both ways of seeing. With only the second, the world turns into a toolbox.

Third: one source, one gate. Named and nameless, wanting and not wanting, come from the same place. Laozi doesn't ask us to choose. He points to their common root and calls it dark and deep. "Deep upon deep" is not a fog; it is a stair going down, step by step, to the gate of all wonders.

It isn't so different now: effort goes unrewarded, plans fall apart, and it is easy to feel that nothing means much. Laozi offers no new slogan. He asks you to look one layer down: under your job title, your circumstances, your mood, is there anything that does not change?

The first of these thirty pages is a gate. It cannot be fully described. But you can walk through it.