The Nameless Beginning
The Teaching
The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.
Commentary
The first line of the Tao Te Ching is arguably the most important single sentence in world philosophy: reality in its ultimate nature cannot be captured in language or concept. Every tradition’s name for the ultimate is a map, not the territory.
John’s Gospel opens: ‘In the beginning was the Word (Logos).’ Lao Tzu opens: ‘The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.’ One says everything flows from the generative principle. The other says the generative principle transcends all speech. Two hands pointing at the same moon.
‘Darkness within darkness’, the apophatic tradition in Christianity calls this the divine darkness: the place beyond concept where God is most fully encountered. The Kabbalistic Ein Sof is also ‘darkness’ in this sense, infinite and therefore not illuminated by any finite concept.
Themes
Connections 35
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No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
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No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Neoplatonism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Hermeticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
The Heart Sutra’s date and origin are argued; if it was composed in China (Nattier 1992), Taoist vocabulary may be in it.
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No known transmission between Hinduism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Hermeticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
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No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Gnosticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Gnosticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Hermeticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Hinduism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
Unsure
Chinese yin-yang and Taoist practice reached Japan (Onmyōdō). How much they shaped Shinto is argued.
Unsure
Chinese yin-yang and Taoist practice reached Japan (Onmyōdō). How much they shaped Shinto is argued.
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No known transmission between Sikhism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Stoicism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Taoism and Zoroastrianism while these teachings took shape. Zoroastrian temples stood in Tang Chang’an, but no exchange of ideas is known.
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No known transmission between Taoism and Zoroastrianism while these teachings took shape. Zoroastrian temples stood in Tang Chang’an, but no exchange of ideas is known.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
Unsure
No documented reading of Taoism by Krishnamurti.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
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No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
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No known transmission between Gnosticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
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No known transmission between Egyptian religion and Taoism while these teachings took shape.