RELI 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Wu Wei, Yin And Yang, Tao Te Ching

• School: George Mason University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELI 100
• Professor: David Dakake

Document Summary

Tao: the way to the truth and the truth itself- present in everything. Image of how tao manifests itself into the world = yin yang. ~ yang- light element; activity, masculinity not about absolute, about predominance. On his way out of china (from east to west)- leaving settled human life. He had passed through the last gate of the empire, the gatekeeper asked him to write something that would tell people how to be/live in the way of virtue. ~ says nothing about human beings or any historical figures, emphasis is on leaving. Problem with humans- they abstract a part of the tao from the whole of tao. When beauty is abstracted then ugliness is implied; when good is abstracted then evil has been implied. The sage knows that everything is in everything; he experiences without abstraction and accomplishes without action.