The term ‘Way’ occupies a vast and structurally irreducible position across the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as cosmological principle, soteriological path, and phenomenological orientation. Its most rigorous philosophical elaboration derives from Taoist sources—Zhuangzi’s radical claim that the Way admits no exclusion (‘there’s no place it doesn’t exist’) and the Tao Teh Ching’s insistence that the Way transcending verbal definition is the only enduring one—yet the concept’s force radiates far beyond Chinese philosophy. In Dōgen’s Zen, the Way is something one actively ‘studies,’ polished like a jewel through communal practice and perseverance. In Climacus’s Christian ascent theology, ‘the way’ multiplies into distinct spiritual modalities—bodily tears, rapture, stillness, obedience—suggesting a typology of approaches rather than a single road. Johnson’s Jungian analysis radicalizes this plurality still further: modernity dissolves the ‘one prescribed way’ into ‘only a way—your way,’ placing individuation at the center of the concept. Campbell, Trungpa, and Armstrong each map the Way as a graduated discipline, whether the Middle Way of Buddhism or the heroic versus genuinely hard paths of tantric maturation. The creative tension running through the corpus is thus between the Way as impersonal, all-pervading ground (Tao) and the Way as a singular, irreducibly personal itinerary that each psyche must discover for itself.
There’s no place it doesn’t exist… you must not expect to find the Way in any particular place—there is no thing that escapes its presence! Such is the Perfect Way
Zhuangzi argues that the Way is not localizable but is the universal ground of all existence, from the ant to the piss and shit, dissolving any hierarchical restriction on its presence.
, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, 2013thesis
The word Tao, ‘the way, the path,’ is in as much equivalent to dharma as it refers to the law, truth, or order of the universe
Campbell establishes the Tao as a cross-cultural structural equivalent to dharma—both denoting the cosmic order underlying all phenomena—while distinguishing the Eastern devaluation of ego implicit in this concept from Western individualism.
, Oriental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume II, 1962thesis
there is no longer one prescribed way, but only a way—your way, which is as valid as any other
Johnson applies Jungian individuation to the concept of the Way, arguing that modernity demands each person discover an irreducibly personal path through Active Imagination rather than a collectively prescribed one.
, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, 1986thesis
There is the way of bodily tears and there is the way of the tears of the soul… the way of rapture, the way of the mind mysteriously and marvelously carried into the light of Christ.
Climacus enumerates a taxonomy of spiritual ‘ways,’ treating the term not as a single path but as a spectrum of qualitatively distinct modes of divine approach available to the ascending soul.
, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 600thesis
The conditions of studying the Way are also like this. Each of us attains the Way because of the assistance from people in the sangha… We should not underestimate ourselves nor slacken our practice of the Way.
Dōgen frames the Way as a communally sustained discipline of cultivation, analogous to polishing a jewel, emphasizing that attainment is never solitary but depends on the relational fabric of practice.
thesis
Having gone through the way of heroism, you still have the hard way to go through, which is a very shocking thing to discover.
Trungpa distinguishes the heroic or ‘soft’ way—a form of spiritual self-deception—from the genuinely hard way that confronts the self directly, mapping two structurally opposed approaches to spiritual development.
, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, 1973thesis
he instructed him in the Middle Way, step by step, beginning with very basic teaching about the importance of avoiding tanha and sensual pleasure
Armstrong presents the Buddha’s Middle Way as a graduated pedagogical itinerary calibrated to the readiness of the student, positioning the Way as both path and transformative teaching.
, Buddha, 2000supporting
You have only to rest in inaction, and things will transform themselves… forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great
Zhuangzi articulates the Way as the principle underlying spontaneous self-transformation through wu-wei, or non-action, where relinquishing the separative self allows alignment with the Way’s inherent movement.
, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, 2013supporting
Waley, The Way and Its Power, p. 43… Tao Teh Ching 6; translation, Waley, The Way and Its Power, p. 149.
Campbell’s dense citation apparatus for Waley’s ‘The Way and Its Power’ establishes a scholarly genealogy linking Taoist canonical texts to comparative mythological analysis across the corpus.
, Oriental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume II, 1962supporting
a positive presentation of the ‘way’ that Christians should follow and a vigorous rebuttal of the false teachers’ accusations
Thielman shows how early Christian usage of ‘the way’ functions as both normative ethical path and doctrinal boundary, distinguishing orthodox practice from deviation in the New Testament epistolary tradition.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting
Just as Hermes leads, secretly and miraculously, to the place of fulfillment, so, in reverse, he is a watchful guide for one who wishes to steal away.
Otto presents Hermes as the archetypal guide of the Way, whose psychopomp function operates bidirectionally—toward fulfillment and away from entanglement—embodying the Way as both direction and divine accompaniment.
, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, 1929supporting
Now he must return and choose a new way, not even indicated on the map.
Jung interprets a patient’s dream as demanding a genuinely new psychic itinerary that no existing map can indicate, situating the Way within the individuation process as something discovered rather than inherited.
, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984supporting
A man who is awake in the open field at night or who wanders over silent paths experiences the world differently than by day.
Otto’s phenomenology of nocturnal wandering links the experience of ‘the way’ to the Hermetic dissolution of spatial measure and fixed orientation, situating the path itself as a liminal, ambiguous phenomenon.
, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, 1929supporting
if we have not perceived and understood others’ virtues, we should not criticize them… a wise person sees another’s virtues and not their faults
Dōgen invokes ethical attentiveness as a precondition for practicing the Way, treating moral discernment as integral to the path rather than separable from it.
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