In the West, the Dao is for most people a very mysterious concept. Even in modern China, the Dao is often a mystery, as society in modern China is progressively adopting Western notions and abandoning the basis for understanding the Dao. Note that the word Dao has often been written Tao in the past, but is now usually written Dao, in line with the actual pronunciation and how it is transcribed in modern China.
The cultures of the speakers of the Indo-European family of languages, a group of languages that includes English, are subdivided cultures. Such societies naturally evolved to develop two competing models of nature, two models of nature that seem to be completely incompatible with each other, so much so that most people seem to appreciate only one or the other. These models are known as science and religion. For whatever people think of the relative merits of one or the other, there is no doubt that the goal of each was and is to explain the nature of nature. The complete incompatibility of our most important models of nature represents a good example of the subdivided nature of our culture.
The ancient Chinese culture, which evolved into the modern Chinese culture, on the other hand, was a unified culture. This society naturally evolved to develop one model of nature, which is a unified model. This model is known as the Dao. The goal of the Dao as well is to explain the nature of nature.
Many in the West think of the Dao as a religion. This is a limited way to think of it. The Dao is a unification of our religion and science, and is not only a religion. In modern China, for many people nowadays the Dao is not seen in the same light as Western science. Many in modern China also consider the Dao only in terms of Daoism, and of religious considerations.
However, the Dao is much more than that. Chinese medicine is steeped in the concepts of the Dao. Every introductory book on Chinese medicine begins with an explanation of the Dao, and every advanced book assumes a deep understanding of the fundamentals. Chinese medicine is completely based on and dependent upon the principles of the Dao.
The fundamental force behind change over time that is observed in the West, the change that is observed in science, is the force known as evolution. The fundamental force behind change in nature that is observed in China is the force known as the Dao. The Chinese concept of the Dao corresponds to the Western concept of evolution. The Dao is a model of nature that represents the types of changes that everything in nature undergoes over time.
In this part of the blog, we will examine evolution, and the changes that space undergoes over time. We will explore models of nature, which represent human awareness of such change. We will begin with a short introduction to an important Western model of nature, for comparison, to provide us with a context for exploring the nature of the Dao. We will then examine the Dao, and see that it is a completely different model of nature from Western models, and yet it is a model of the same nature. Exploring the Dao will offer us tremendous insights into our own models of science and religion, by providing a greater context for understanding how human beings have become aware of nature and how our ancestors were able to develop models of nature, through language.