Publisher's Synopsis
As a Chinese saying goes, a stone from a remote mountain can compete with jade. Whilst the West build all knowledge on logic, the concept of logic does not even exist in Chinese culture. In lieu of logic, the Chinese way of thinking is Dao.
Dao is the key to understand China and Chinese culture. Exploring Dao is the lifetime mission of every Chinese. To westerners, without the knowledge of Dao, Chinese can be as foreign as aliens. Then, what is Dao? Dao asserts that the ten thousand things are neutralizing themselves. If we assume that Dao is true, because Dao is also a member of the ten thousand things, it needs to follow the rule of Dao by neutralizing itself, therefore Dao is false. However, if we assume that Dao is false, this means that there is, at least, one thing that will not be neutralized. Is it humanity, the earth, the sun, the galaxy or the universe? Apparently, none of them can withstand the test of time! Since, in the sensible sphere, even if we exhausted all samples, nothing is really constant and eternal, we realize that the only candidate that can pass the test of time is the statement that "the ten thousand things are neutralizing themselves". Therefore, Dao is true. In short, if Dao is true, Dao is false, while if Dao is false, Dao is true. Dao is a paradox. However, Dao is not the kind of paradox that people normally run into because it is a self-consistent and self-explanatory paradox. If you ask why "if Dao is true, Dao is false", it is because the assumption of Dao being true is neutralizing itself making Dao false and meanwhile, if you ask why "if Dao is false, Dao is true", the same rule applies. Since Dao is capable of justifying its own behavior, Dao is the origin of the universe and the ultimate Truth in the world. As a reason and result, we can use Dao to explain all existing phenomena and predict the evolution of any existent. For example, we can use Dao to rationalize the God paradox: if God is almighty, can God create a mountain that he cannot lift? No matter God answers "yes" or "no", he will be proven not almighty either. With logic, this becomes a paradox that bewilders people, but, with Dao, we know that it is because God follows the rule of Dao and therefore needs to neutralize himself. As logic cannot tackle paradox and has its limitation in explaining the world, Dao has no such restraint. Moreover, application of logic is convoluted as there are many rules to follow and it usually takes many steps to reach a conclusion but application of Dao is simple. Conclusions can be directly drawn from Dao. For example, if you want freedom, discipline yourself. If you want peace, prepare for fight. If you want an easy life, face the difficulties and overcome them. The rationale behind them is that, since the ten thousand things are each evolving to be its opposite, people can only seek solutions from the opposite side of what they want. Then Dao will reverse their action and make reality meet their desire. This approach is called "Wu Wei", or to achieve the goal without relying on action, as it adopts a means that contradicts its end. More importantly, logical conclusions, although supposedly true, are often proven otherwise and therefore unreliable. However, you can always trust conclusions directly drawn from Dao because Dao has reached self-consistency, which is the touchstone of Truth. Furthermore, according to the rule of Dao, except Dao, nothing, no matter it is God or logic, is self-consistent. Therefore Dao is the Truth and the ONLY Truth. Of course, it is not because a statement is concluded from Dao that it can be exempt from the rule of Dao. The rule of Dao is truly consistent and universal that even Dao itself needs to follow the rule of Dao. This phenomenon is called "Dao that can be described is not the constant Dao", which is the first, and most famous, sentence in Dao De Jing and a proof of Dao's self-consistency.
