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Originally Posted by Greenslade
Lao Tzu said - depending on the translation you read - "The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao."
Then he said
"The Tao is the mother of all things,"
so isn't that line telling the Tao? I suppose calling it the Tao in the first place takes it away from being the Eternal Tao, but then the need to communicate comes into the equation so we need to call it something. The question is though, what is the reality? That the Tao is the mother of its own expression and understanding?
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I don't really see the second line contradicting the first. All things arise from the Tao, but the Tao itself is undefined and undefinable with words or thoughts.
Well, to be honest, I am the Tao, or if you prefer, I am my Tao. Everything I know must first arise within me before I can know it, I am the mother of all things that I know, yet what I am is not knowable. I evad all attempts to define me and my existence can only be inferred from that act of knowing all things (well, not all things, but don't tell my wife I admitted that
).