The Dao can be translated to a variety of things and meanings. The path, the way, the ideal life, the road, the bridge etc… We see some similarities between these translations, however, like most translations, we are missing context. If we think of Dao as a road, bridge or path, the appropriate question is where does it lead to? The answer in my mind is enlightenment. The path to inner peace, to put aside worldly matters and understand things for what they are and what they represent.
How do we reach enlightenment? Inner reflection and an understanding of the outside world as it applies to all things around us. If we look at the readings we have done so far, a common practice in teaching philosophy is the heavy use of metaphors. A person who intrinsically understands an idea, often struggles to conceptualize it into being. The use of metaphor is then used to draw parallels to the underlying idea, in an effort to explain a way of thinking by linking it to a natural phenomena.
One of my favorite quotes is Bruce Lee’s “Be like water…”. He links his fighting style, and fighting philosophy to the characteristic of water to adapt to it’s environment. In a lot of the arguments that Mencius displays he takes the Dao of his opposition and applies a property to a comparative that directly a contradicts his opponent. The use of the willow to make bowls is a great example. Kao claims that “ Man’s nature is like the willow, and righteousness is like a cup or a bowl.” To which Mencius proclaims that in order to extract a bowl or cup from the willow you must do great violence to it.
Another great metaphor is the four limbs or sprouts of humans. He claims that we all experience righteousness, propriety, knowledge, and benevolence, as surely as we have four limbs. To take a page out of his book, are not there naturally born missing limbs. So too could a person be intrinsically missing one of these sprouts? But then we must realize that that becomes the exception rather than the rule. He claims that a child falling into a well automatically makes us distressed and agitated, then why are they so many YouTube montages of children falling and hurting themselves given a tag of humor and comedy.
The Dao is the path to enlightenment. It used the physical world to draw connections to the immaterial in order to better understand other concepts in the pursuit of knowledge and inner peace. The process is used to this day, where would we be in quantum physics if Schrodinger didn’t compare the property change of something being observed to a cat in a box.
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