What is the Mysterious Tao in Taoism? 什么是玄道
Paul PengWhat is the Mysterious Tao in Taoism?
“Dao” and “Mysterious” are ontological categories in Ge Hong’s Taoism philosophy.
Inner Chapters of Baopuzi states: “The Dao is that which molds all schools, forms Heaven and Earth, gives birth to all beings, and nurtures the universal order.”
Chapter on Expounding the Mysterious in Baopuzi says: “The Mysterious is the ancestor of Nature and the great source of all multiplicity.”
What is the Mysterious Tao in Taoism?
In Ge Hong’s Taoist philosophical system, “Dao” and “Mysterious” become the origin of the generation and transformation of all things in the universe. Ge Hong further combined the two into “Mysterious Dao”: “As for the Mysterious Dao: to attain it inwardly, to preserve it outwardly, to employ it is divine, to lose it is mere form—this is the essential instruction for contemplating the Mysterious Dao.”
Chapter on Expounding the Mysterious states: “Only the Mysterious Dao can be eternal.” The “Mysterious Dao” is the unity of the “Mysterious” and the “Dao”; it is the ultimate source of all things in the world, and one of the highest ontological categories in Ge Hong’s Internal Alchemy philosophy.
