C.concede that its ideas cohere to the point where we must posit the existence of someone under whose influence the book took shape, and have no objection to our calling him Lao Tzu.

198 / HUSTON SMITH The Three Meanings of Tao On opening Taoisms bible, the Tao Te Ching, we sense at once that everything revolves around the pivotal concept of Tao itself. Literally, this word means path, or way. There are three senses, however, in which this way can be understood.

First, Tao is the way of ultimate reality. This Tao cannot be perceived or even clearly conceived, for it is too vast for human rationality to fathom. The Tao Te Ching announces in its opening line that words are not equal to it: The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. Nevertheless, this ineffable and transcendent Tao is the ground of all that follows. Above all, behind all, beneath all is the Womb from which all life springs and to which it returns. Awed by the thought of it, the author/editor of the Tao Te Ching bursts recurrently into praise, for this primal Tao confronts him with lifes basic mystery, the mystery of all mysteries. How clear it is! How quiet it is! It must be something eternally existing! Of all great things, surely Tao is the greatest. But its ineffability cannot be denied, so we are taunted, time and again, by Taoisms teasing epigram: Those who know dont say. Those who say dont know.1

Though Tao is ultimately transcendent, it is also immanent. In this secondary sense it is the way of the universe, the norm, the rhythm, the driving power in all nature, the ordering principle behind all life. Behind, but also in the midst of all life, for when Tao enters this second mode it assumes flesh and informs all things. It adapts its vivid essence, clarifies its manifold fullness, subdues its resplendent luster, and assumes the likeness of dust. Basically spirit rather than matter, it cannot be exhausted; the more it is drawn upon, the more it flows, for it is that fountain ever on, as Plotinus said of his counterpart to the Tao, his One. There are about it marks of inevitability, for when autumn comes no leaf is spared because of its beauty, no flower because of its fragrance. Yet, ultimately, it is benign. Graceful instead of abrupt, flowing rather than hesitant, it is infinitely generous. Giving life to all things, it may be called the Mother of the World. As natures ag