The Book of the Simple Way of Laotze Author:Laozi Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE BOOK OF THE SIMPLE WAY LAOTZE '??-,; I .' s - —— i MARKING OUT THE PATH The Tao that is the subject of discussion is not the true Tao. Th... more »e quality which can be named is not its true attribute. That which was before Heaven and Earth is called the Non-Existent. The Existent is the mother of all things. Therefore doth the wise man seek after the first mystery of the Non-Existent, while seeing in that which exists the Ultimates thereof. The Non-Existent and Existent are identical in all but name. -7" This identity of apparent opposites I call the profound, the great deep, the open door of bewilderment. The Old Philosopher must not be mistaken for a Gymnast in thus placing his subject at the outset beyond the pale of discussion. Behind Brahma the Vedantins have placed Para- brahm; beyond the Elohim the Kabalists have set Ain Suph, an unfathomable depth of unthinkable mysteries, upon the clear surface of which, as upon a veil, a man may write whatever name he pleases ; or standing there, robed in the thought of his own divine kinship, the pure in heart may look into its crystal depths and see Himself reflected. Can any man by searching find out God? asks the Hebrew. The Christ said, "The pure in heart shall see God." Laotze will tell us later on in his book the means whereby the seeker shall find, whether within himself or in the universe without. But since knowledge can only affirm, while doubt may reason and discuss, it is certain that " the Tao that is the subject of discussion is not the true Tao." And further, because to qualify is to define, and to define is to limit, and because every limitation connotes Ian imperfection, we can name no quality which is the real I attribute of Tao. The Causal Principle of all effects Laotze calls the Non-...« less