TAO is the greatest name given to the unknown. It is meaningless; it means nothing. All that can be put into it that it means the way -- not a way to any goal but just the way things are. It gives you on idea of the future, it has no future origination; it simply says how things are, how things work. The river flows to the ocean: this is Tao; the tree grows upwards: this is Tao; the child becomes a young man and the young man becomes old and the old man dies: this is Tao; the way things are. All other words -- God, dhamma, logos – create shoulds in the mind. This is the only word that does not create a should; it simply says, “This is how things are.’ It simply denotes reality, the facticity of it. It does not give you an ought, it does not say anything about how things should be; it has no shoulds. It does not say that trees should be like that, it does not say that man should be like this; it simply says: this is how things are. To try otherwise is to be in misery. Should bring misery: that is the massage of Tao, a very rebellious message. Should takes your astray. The moment you think in terms of ideas, ideology, you are going astray. Then you are bringing some goals into your life, you are not listening to nature, you are trying to improve upon it. And it is utterly perfect; it cannot be improved, there is no way to improve to improve upon it. One has simply to relax into it, one has to be one with it.
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