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T ao has reality and evidence but no action or physical form. It may be transmitted but cannot be received. It may be obtained but cannot be seen. It is based in itself, rooted in itself. Before heaven and earth came into being, Tao existed by itself from all time. It gave spirits and rulers their spiritual powers. It created heaven and earth. It is above the zenith but it is not high. It is beneath the nadir but it is not low. It is prior to heaven and earth but it is not old. It is more ancient than the highest antiquity but is not regarded as long, ago.

quote 2237 | Tchuang Tzu
Chuang Tzu, chapter VI, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 8.

W hether things are produced or destroyed, [Tao] again identifies them all as one.

quote 2220 | Tchuang Tzu
Chuang Tzu, chapter II, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 8.

T he all-embracing quality of the great virtue (te) follows alone from the Tao.
The thing that is called Tao is eluding and vague.
Vague and eluding, there is in it the form.
Eluding and vague, in it are things.
Deep and obscure, in it is the essence. (1)
The essence is very real; in it are evidences.
From the time of old until now, its name (manifestations) ever remains,
By which we may see the beginning of all things.
How do I know that the beginnings of all things are so?
Through this (Tao).

quote 2187 | Lao Tzu
Laozi 21, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 7.

Philosophically this is the most important chapter of the book. The sentence "The essence is very real" virtually formed the backbone of Chou Tun-i's (Chou Lien-hsi, 1017-1073) Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate, which centers on the "reality of the Non-Ultimate and the essence of yin and yang." And Chou's work laid the foundation of the entire Neo-Confucian metaphysics. Of course Neo-Confucian metaphysics is more directly derived from the Book of Changes, but the concepts of reality in the Book of Changes and in this chapter are surprisingly similar.

T ao is empty (like a bowl),
It may be used but its capacity is never exhausted,
It is bottomless, perhaps the ancestor of all things.
It blunts its sharpness,
It unties its tangles.
It softens its light.
It becomes one with the dusty world.
Deep and still, it appears to exist forever.
I do not know whose son it is.
It seem (1) to have existed before the Lord.

quote 2176 | Lao Tzu
Laozi 4, in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 7.

(1) The word hsiang here means "seems" and repeats the feeling expressed in the "appear" two lines before. To interpret it as "image," as does Arthur Waley, would be to make the Lao Tzu more metaphysical than it really is.

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