What is 道 ?

It should be noted that I am not a Chinese speaker; English is the only language in which I am fluent. I make use of resources available via the internet and texts in my personal library to glean definitions as best as I’m able.

::: WHAT IS 道 ? :::

From an entirely rational point of view, 道 is a word of convenience. 道, as a word in the Chinese language, has several meanings attached to it. Such as it is with many words in the English language, e.g., ‘case’, the definition of 道 at any given moment seems wholly dependent upon the context in which it is used.

Definitions include: road, direction, path, way, principle, truth, morality, reason, skill, method, say, speak, express, barriers, questions, commands. 道 is also referred to as a ‘measure word for long, thin things’. Measure words are apparently far more common in the Chinese language than they are in English, even though they are fairly prevalent in English as well (a gallon of water, a pinch of salt, &c).

In Chinese script, nouns don’t have a plural form as they do in English (the word for ‘person’ and ‘people’ is the same: 人); similarly, nouns do not take on suffixes (道 is the word for both Dao/Tao and Daoism/Taoism). It’s interesting that there should be a specific word to be used as a measurement for long, thin things — but then again, pancakes are thin things that are sometimes long and who doesn’t love a good pancake? I have no qualms with a special word for measuring the longness of pancakes.

Clearly, some of the definitions of 道 can be grouped together. Road, path, way — these words broadly mean the same thing. Even so, the common definitions of these individual groupings are, to me, disparate enough in the parlance of our times to suggest that any separate etymological associations of these groups are probably quite far in the past of the linguistic evolutionary chain.’

That said, in some cases they don’t seem so hard to link together. ‘Way’ may better group with ‘road’ and ‘path’, but I think many people would suggest that it could also be grouped with ‘truth’ and ‘morality’.

Thus, 道 is a word of convenience in that it is like elastic: bound, yet pliable.

In my opinion, frequently used phrases such as ‘that special something’, or ‘the x-factor’, or ‘je ne sais quoi’, or ‘you know, that *thing*’, could easily be replaced with 道 and still be colloquially correct.

It’s also a helpful word when one is uncertain which of those many synonyms might be best — e.g., in the Hobbit movies, the character Bofur has a moment of linguistic indecision: “we were on a road… well it’s not so much a road as a path… actually it’s not even that come to think of it, it’s more like a track. Anyway the point is we were on this road like a path like a track, and then we weren’t! Which is a problem because we were supposed to be in Dunland last Tuesday.”

Since 道 is a word of convenience in the practical sense, it stands to reason (for me anyway), that a precise spiritual definition of the word would be just as elusive as a colloquial definition.

How, then, to understand what 道 is? If we think of 道 as an automobile, are we able to drive it even if we do not understand all the nuances of how the engine works? Do we get better at driving it the more we practice? If we want to, can we learn about those engine nuances and understand the car better? Can we then learn about other engines, other configurations, other adjustments, and so on, expanding our understanding of the automobile even further?

The answer to all of those questions is: yes. This is how one can best approach 道.

How, then, to define it? Defining 道 is like defining the universe: the more we learn about it, the more we realize there is to learn. Therefore, to define 道, we must understand what it is to define.

The verb define essentially means to make something finite, but to try and make spiritual concepts like 道 finite is akin to determining the final decimal of π. We need to think of defining in another way.

The television show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ has an episode wherein there is a theme portraying several contrasts between male/rigid/militaristic and female/mystical/spiritual perspectives — particularly during the naming process. The male/militaristic characters make a point of having important work filing things, giving things names — making them finite. The female/mystical characters have recently adopted a kitten and are waiting for the kitten to tell them its name, which they will determine by observing how the kitten grows and expresses itself.

The 道德經 takes the approach of the mystic female and, using 道 as a word of convenience, does its best to describe to us, as simply as possible, observations of its behavior so that we might better understand it. And, like the automobile, the more we practice these observations, the more we learn about what we are observing and the more we realize there is to observe, ad infinitum.

That is 道 

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