Lux Esoterica (Nifiluz)

The taijitu — the symbol of yin and yang — perhaps the most elegant philosophical diagram ever created: two complementary forces, each containing the seed of the other, endlessly rotating within the circle of the Tao. The first line of the most influential book in Chinese history is also one of the most profound opening statements in all of world philosophy: Tao ke tao, fei chang tao — "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao." In four short words of classical Chinese (and seven in translation), Lao Tzu established the central paradox of Taoism : the ultimate reality — the Tao, the Way, the Ground of all being — cannot be captured in concepts, described in propositions, or possessed by the mind that seeks it. Any definition of the Tao immediately excludes what it defines from what the Tao actually is. To say "the Tao is X" is to limit the unlimited, to freeze what flows, to silence what speaks in everything. And yet the Tao Te Ching — the small, d...

There is a path through the forest that no human cleared. Animals made it by walking — each one following the most natural route around obstacles, through clearings, along the contours of the land. The path exists because nature constantly finds the way of least resistance that nonetheless reaches its destination. It is efficient without effort. It is beautiful without design. It is the Tao. Taoism (also spelled Daoism, from the Chinese Dào jiā 道家 — "school of the Way") is one of the most ancient and most enduringly influential philosophical and spiritual traditions in human history. Emerging in China around the 4th–6th centuries BCE, it offers a vision of the cosmos, the self, and the proper relationship between them that is simultaneously simple enough to be expressed in a short poem and profound enough to occupy a philosopher for a lifetime. At its center is a single concept: the Tao (道, "the Way") — the ultimate principle underlying and animating all of rea...