Discourse on the Ontology of Dao 道体论

Originally attributed to "Narrated by Mr. Tongxuan".

This Mr. Tongxuan is suspected to be Zhang Jianming, a Taoist Priest of the Five Dynasties.

Some also argue that this book was written by Zhang Guo or Sima Chengzhen, Taoist Priests of the Tang Dynasty.

Discourse on the Ontology of Dao

Both Bibliography of the Chongwen Imperial Library and Bibliography of Literature in Comprehensive Records of the Song Dynasty recorded this work, yet without specifying the author’s name. The existing version is included in the Taixuan Section of The Daozang.

The book is divided into three chapters: Treatise on Laozi (Scripture of the Dao), Treatise on Inquiring the Dao, and On the Meaning of the Substance of the Dao, all in the form of self-posed questions and answers, expounding the meaning of the "substance of the Dao". Its ideological viewpoints and argumentation methods are consistent with the Chongxuan Philosophy of Taoism in the early Tang Dynasty.

From different perspectives such as identity, difference, generation, and transformation, the author repeatedly deduces the relative and unified relationships between philosophical categories including Dao and De, The Dao and things, name and reality, emptiness and existence, falsity and reality, namelessness and namedness, emptiness and stillness, and chaos.

It holds that The Dao is the substance of all things; all things and The Dao are identical yet different, sharing one substance but differing in position. The book states: "Things take The Dao as their substance, and The Dao in turn takes things as its substance"; "Judging from the differences between things, The Dao and things are always distinct; speaking from the perspective of substantial reality, things are The Dao, and The Dao is things".

The substance of The Dao is neither existent nor non-existent, without beginning or end, transcending form and name yet permeating all things; it can embrace all things and generate all things, yet embraces nothing in particular and generates nothing in particular, existing independently without depending on all things. The substance of The Dao and all things are neither identical nor different, but are one and not two; one can negate both, and also affirm both, yet neither negation nor affirmation can grasp the substance of The Dao.

It is said that neither namelessness nor namedness can grasp its substance, neither existence nor non-existence can grasp its substance, and neither the absence of existence and non-existence can grasp its substance. "It is not confined to these four, yet not separated from these four; it can be grasped only by subtle insight." However, the so-called grasping here means actually grasping nothing; "to grasp the state of grasping nothing, yet not being separated from these four, is to attain it".

This view obviously absorbs the dialectical logic of Buddhism, which advocates the double negation of affirmation and negation, transcending the four propositions, eliminating affirmation and negation, and returning to the state of grasping nothing. Ultimately, the book regards "forgetting both extremes and eliminating both existence and non-existence" as the ultimate profound purport of realizing the substance of The Dao.

Although this view is based on Zhuangzi’s concept of "sitting forgetting", it also draws on the meaning of "double negation" in Buddhism. This work is an important material for studying the Taoist philosophy of the Tang Dynasty.