As Alan Watts rightly observed, “The origins of Zen are as much Taoist as Buddhist.”[1] Or as Ray Crigg puts it, “Zen is Taoism disguised as Buddhism.[2] For this reason, we will explore the most famous Daoist text, the Dao De Jing—the classic of the Way and Virtue. It will offer us a window into Zen.
Below are two versions of Chapter 1 of the Dao De Jing. You may be more familiar with the older Wade–Giles transliteration, which renders the title as Tao Te Ching and the author’s name as Lao Tzu. I’m using the modern Pinyin system here, China’s official romanization system and the one used by many contemporary scholars.
G. G. Alexander’s translation uses “God” for Dao, but the translation as a whole is a loose rendering. John Heider’s work is hardly a translation at all; it is closer to a paraphrase or commentary. Neither is a formally equivalent translation. In my opinion, the best translation is the one by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English (1972).
These translations are important to Deism because, once God is no longer understood as a personal supreme being, the idea that the “Tao is God” no longer seems strange. Ultimate Reality is one, though sages call it by different names.
First Translation
God (the great everlasting infinite First Cause from whom all things in heaven and earth proceed) can neither be defined nor named.
For the God which can be defined or named is but the Creator, the Great Mother of all those things of which our senses have cognisance.
Now he who would gain a knowledge of the nature and attributes of the nameless and undefinable God, must first set himself free from all earthly desires, for unless he can do this, he will be unable to penetrate the material veil which interposes between him and those spiritual conditions into which he would obtain an insight.
Yet the spiritual and the material, though known to us under different names, are similar in origin, and issue from the same source, and the same obscurity belongs to both, for deep indeed is the darkness which enshrouds the portals through which we have to pass, in order to gain a knowledge of these mysteries.[3]
Second Translation
Tao means how: how things happen, how things work.
Tao is the single principle underlying all creation.
Tao is God.
Tao cannot be defined, because it applies to everything.
You cannot define something in terms of itself.
If you can define a principle, it is not Tao.
Tao is a principle. Creation, on the other hand, is a process.
That is all there is: principle and process, how and what.
All creation unfolds according to Tao. There is no other way.
Tao cannot be defined, but Tao can be known. The method is meditation, or being aware of what is happening. By being aware of what is happening, I begin to sense how it is happening. I begin to sense Tao.
To become aware of what is happening, I must pay attention with an open mind. I must set aside my personal prejudices or bias. Prejudiced people see only what fits those prejudices.
The method of meditation works, because principle and process are inseparable. All process reveals the underlying principle. This means that I can know Tao. I can know God.
By knowing Tao, I know how things happen.[4]
Endnotes
1. Alan Watts, The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 3.
2. Ray Grigg, The Tao of Zen (Edison, NJ: Alva Press, 1999), xiii.
3. Translated by G.G. Alexander (1895) https://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/tao-te-ching.htm
4. Translated by John Heider (1985) https://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/tao-te-ching.htm