Brendan O’Kane, a China blogger (an native English speaker blogging on topics on China) I like to read wrote a really neat essay describing Dao. He wrote it for some class of his but I find the essay a nice read explaining some etymology of the word Dao in Chinese. I’ve had a faint understanding of the ideas of Daoism but this essay brought up some of the difficulties with trying to fully wrap your mind around such a difficult concept. Here’s a snippet:
Daode Jing, the foundational Daoist text, opens by cautioning its readers that “the Dao which can be expressed is not the eternal Dao” (or, in the Mawangdui version of the text, that “ways may be expressed, [but] they are not the eternal Way”). Then, mindful of its own warning, it goes on to attempt the impossible.
