What is the Orthodox One in Taoism? 什么是正一
Paul PengWhat is the Orthodox One in Taoism?
Also known as the Real One.
According to Records of the Mystic Pearl, Wang Xuanlan used the analogy of peeling a plantain to explain the quest for the mind:
“It is like a plantain: you peel the skin seeking the core.
When you obtain what you take to be the core, it is all just skin.
What is the Orthodox One in Taoism?
What is the Orthodox One in Taoism?Peel until you reach the point where there is no skin and no mind — this is called the True One.
Hence the saying:
The closer you approach it, the farther you are from reality.
When you reach a state with neither proximity nor distance, that is called the Real One.”
The meaning is: peeling the skin to seek the core can only attain superficial appearances.
Only when you peel to the state of no skin and no mind do you reach the Dao of the True One and Real One.
One must break through the “mind” and achieve no‑mind in order to truly awaken to The Dao.
The Dao, as it is called, lies precisely in the state of no‑mind.
The True One is identical with the Great Unity that Wang Xuanlan expounded using the Buddhist Madhyamaka “Four Propositions”.
This thought belongs to the core teaching of Taoism.
