What is the Utmost Tao and Void Penetration in Taoism? 至道玄寂
Paul PengWhat is the Utmost Tao and Void Penetration in Taoism?
This is the Dao theory of Cheng Xuanying, a thinker of the Twofold Mystery school in Taoism.
In his Commentaries on the Meaning of the Dao De Jing, Cheng Xuanying integrates Zhuangzi’s idea that “the Dao is one throughout” with the Buddhist view of emptiness, holding that the Dao is the principle of emptiness and pervasion:
“The ultimate Dao is empty and pervasive,
subtly beyond all discrimination;
What is the Utmost Tao and Void Penetration in Taoism?
What is the Utmost Tao and Void Penetration in Taoism?it dwells in the provisional yet is not provisional,
resides in the true yet is not true.”
He also states:
“The Dao is the wondrous principle of emptiness and pervasion,
the true nature of all living beings.”
Since the Dao has emptiness and pervasion as its self-nature,
it can embrace all and generate all things,
as the saying goes:
“The ultimate Dao is empty and mysterious,
pervasively generating all things.”
Yet the Dao “though able to generate all things,
actually generates nothing real….
Thus it generates yet does not possess;
being is yet non-being,
generation is nongeneration.”
Using the method of double repudiation and double negation,
he denies the generative character of the Dao
and provides a deeper exposition of the emptiness and pervasion of Internal Alchemy.
