Dao (道) — The Way, the Unnameable Source

The Dao (道) is the unnameable source and sustaining pattern of all existence. Laozi opens the Dao De Jing (Chapter 1) with the paradox: 'The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.' It is not a thing among things but the generative relationship between yin and yang whose interplay produces the ten thousand things (wanwu). Chapter 42 traces the cosmogonic sequence: 'The Dao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, Three gives birth to the ten thousand things' — a cascade from undifferentiated unity through polarity into the manifest world.