The Meaning of the Chinese character Tao

The character Tao is made up of two elements. The left element means to run. The right element means head. Tao means a road, a path on which something goes. The common English translation is Way. In this translation we have chosen Way because we like the depth of its meaning in English.

The first verse of the Tao Te Ching lays out a cosmology. Reality has both an unmanifest, unchanging aspect and a manifest, always-changing aspect. And these two aspects are ultimately not two, but one.

The character Tao has these two elements united in single character. Therefore, this first character, Tao, by itself, contains an expression of the whole cosmology.

The head element suggests that, while transcendent, it is not nothing. It connotes wakefulness, consciousness, the source of all the orderliness in the manifest universe. The to run element suggests action, process, constant change. Action that is orderly, informed by the head.

Tao is the Way of nature. It’s the invisible paths that birds follow on their migration routes. It’s the paths followed by the planets and the stars. It’s the paths that light takes passing through a prism. It’s all the processes and events in the universe conforming to natural law including their unmanifest source.

The Way I say is not the Way unchanging.
The name I name is not the changeless name.
Yet from the nameless came the heavens and the earth,
And from the named a million things took birth.
While desirelessness reveals its core,
Desire will show its boundaries more.
And though they may seem two in name,
We know in truth they are the same,
And that this mystery is the deepest door.