The Dao occupies a position of supreme conceptual priority across the depth-psychology corpus that engages Chinese thought, functioning simultaneously as cosmological ground, ethical ideal, and the ineffable source from which all differentiation proceeds. Within the Daoism Handbook tradition surveyed by Livia Kohn, the term carries at least two distinct registers that exist in productive tension: in philosophical Daoism (daojia), the Dao names the absolute, self-subsisting principle that is both transcendent and immanent, identified with nonbeing (wu) yet productive of the ten thousand things; in religious Daoism (daojiao), the Dao becomes personified in the divine Laozi and institutionalized through revelation, ordination hierarchies, and liturgical transmission. Wang Bi's interpretive tradition, as mediated through the I Ching commentary, introduces a third valence: the Dao as the dynamic reciprocity of yin and yang, a name for nonbeing that pervades and underlies all change without itself being reducible to any particular substance or place. Han cosmology further integrates the Dao as the totalizing matrix of correlative homologies linking heaven, earth, and human order. The competing emphases — Dao as ineffable ground versus Dao as cosmological operator versus Dao as revealed teaching — constitute the central interpretive tension the corpus inherits and perpetuates.
In the library
12 passages
The reciprocal process of yin and yang is called the Dao. {What is this Dao? It is a name for nonbeing [wu]; it is that which pervades everything; and it is that from which everything derives.}
Wang Bi identifies the Dao as the name for nonbeing (wu) that underlies and pervades all phenomena, equating it with the dynamic reciprocity of yin and yang while insisting it transcends any particular substance or image.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994thesis
the Lao::,i considers it an end in itself... The Daodeji,ng (ch. l) underscores both the ineffability and creative power of the Dao. Whereas the former suggests radical transcendence, the latter depicts the Dao as the origin of the 'ten thousand things.'
This passage establishes the defining tension within the Daodejing's treatment of the Dao: its radical ineffability (transcendence) stands in permanent tension with its role as the creative, sustaining source of all existence.
the Dao came to represent the universe of homologies that were the basis of the multitude of mantic techniques... the Dao was both immanent and transcendent, because the operations of the universe were 'deeply implicated in the human order.'
In Han cosmology, the Dao is reconstructed as the totalizing entity that integrates all correlative schemata — yin-yang, five phases, qi — into a single immanent-transcendent structure undergirding both natural and political order.
According to Wang Bi, the Dao is the 'beginning' of the 'ten thousand things'... The ground of being, however, cannot be itself a being; otherwise, infinite regress would render the logic of the Laozi suspect.
Wang Bi's philosophical reading of the Dao as pure nonbeing is grounded in a logical argument: the ground of all beings cannot itself be a being, which is why the Laozi speaks of the Dao only as wu.
the Dao 'lives forever and does not die'... The concept of ziran occupies a pivotal position in Yan Zun's commentary. It describes the nature of the Dao and its manifestation in the world.
Yan Zun's commentary locates ziran (naturalness/spontaneity) as the key attribute of the Dao, arguing that self-cultivation must conform to this naturalness rather than violate it through willful effort.
the divine Laozi was recognized as the Daoist tradition took root... Laozi is seen as the personification of the Dao. He is thought to have undergone a series of 'transformations' (bianhua).
Religious Daoism collapses the philosophical distinction between the Dao and its personified mediator by identifying Laozi as the Dao's living embodiment, whose repeated historical transformations ensure the transmission of its mysteries.
the Changes deals with the way things start up and how matters reach completion and represents the Dao that envelops the entire world.
The I Ching is presented as the systematic representation of the Dao insofar as it traces the complete arc of becoming — beginning through completion — thereby mapping the Dao's all-encompassing structure.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
One who understands how change operates will retain its essentials. This is why the text says: 'But if one is not such a person, the Dao will not operate in vain.'
Wang Bi insists that the Dao's efficacy in the Changes is conditional upon the interpreter's capacity to grasp the logic of change, linking the Dao's operation to the cultivation of understanding rather than mere textual compliance.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
sections begin with a discussion of the transformations of the Dao, including the meaning of the term, that is largely reflective of the Daode jing... the ways to salvation through the scriptures and the practice of the Dao.
Tang Daoist encyclopedic literature structures its cosmological exposition around the Dao's transformations, treating both the term's philosophical meaning and its soteriological function as inseparable dimensions of religious practice.
Free from personal considerations and utterly impartial, he abides in 'the bright and the great [Dao].'
Wang Bi's commentary associates moral impartiality and centrality (the Mean) with abiding in the Dao, framing the Dao here as an ethical-political standard rather than a purely cosmological principle.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994aside
the triumphant return to the 'original energy,' the attainment of mystical union with the Dao.
Tang inner-cultivation texts frame the goal of meditative practice as a return to primordial qi, which is equated with mystical union with the Dao itself.
just as the unity (sameness) of the Kui hexagram consists of contrary (different) parts, so the noble man appreciates how the unity of the whole Dao incorporates individual phenomenological differences.
Wang Bi uses the Kui hexagram's logic of unity-through-contrariety as an analogy for the Dao's capacity to integrate phenomenological differences within a single encompassing wholeness.
Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994aside