The concept of Tao is a Chinese term that means path or way. Teacher Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Tao is best represented through stories.
What is this thing called Tao? – A fish in the ocean.
Once upon a time, a young fish asked an older one, “Everyone talks about this thing called ‘ocean.’ What is it exactly?”
The older and wiser fish replied, “The ocean is what surrounds you from all sides.”
The younger fish didn’t understand. “What does that mean? There’s nothing around me! If the ocean surrounds me from all sides, why can’t I see it?”
“Of course you can’t,” the older fish patiently answered. “The ocean is both within you and around you. When you move, it moves with you. When you stop, it stops. You were born in the ocean, and you will die in it. It wraps around you like your skin.”
“But how can I say it exists when I can’t see it?”
“You must use something more than your eyes. We may not be able to see the ocean, but we can feel it. Trust your feelings – they “They are the key.”
Confucius once said, “Fish forget that they live in water. People forget that they live in Tao.” Tao is an invisible ocean that surrounds us from all sides. It permeates everything on every level of existence, so it is within us and around us. We are wrapped in it like our own skin, yet we cannot grasp it with our physical senses.
The sages of old tried to explain Tao: “Whatever the ultimate principle on which reality rests, we call it Tao. Whatever the truth at the center of all spiritual truths, we call it Tao.”
The only way to approach Tao is to free ourselves from the limiting grip of logic and use a more powerful tool – intuition. When reason fails to grasp Tao, the heart will approach it and embrace it through understanding with intuition.
Excerpt from Derek Lin’s book: Tao in Everyday Life”