Tao: The Golden Gate Vol 1

CHAPTER 1

Just an empty passage
11 June 1980 am in Buddha Hall

THE VENERABLE MASTER SAID:
THE SUPREME TAO IS FORMLESS, YET IT PRODUCES AND NURTURES HEAVEN AND
EARTH.
THE SUPREME TAO HAS NO DESIRES, YET BY ITS POWER THE SUN AND MOON REVOLVE
IN THEIR ORBITS.
THE SUPREME TAO IS NAMELESS, YET IT EVER SUPPORTS ALL THINGS.
I DO NOT KNOW ITS NAME BUT FOR TITLE CALL IT TAO.

THE CLASSIC OF PURITY is one of the most profound insights into nature. I call it an insight, not
a doctrine, not a philosophy, not a religion, because it is not intellectual at all; it is existential. The
man who is speaking in it is not speaking as a mind, he is not speaking as himself either; he is just
an empty passage for existence itself to say something through him.

That’s how the great mystics have always lived and spoken. These are not their own words –
they are no more. they have disappeared long before; it is the whole pouring through them. Their
expressions may be different, but the source is the same. The words of Jesus, Zarathustra, Buddha,
Lao Tzu, Krishna, Mohammed are not ordinary words; they are not coming from their memory, they
are coming from their experience. They have touched the divine, and the moment you touch the
divine you evaporate, you cannot exist any more. You have to die for God to be.This is a Taoist insight. Tao is another name for God. far more beautiful than God because God,

the word ”God”, has been exploited too much by the priests They have exploited in the name of God
for so long that even the word has become contaminated – it has become disgusting. Any man of
intelligence is bound to avoid it because it reminds him of all the non.sense that has happened on
the earth down the age.s in the name of God, in the name of religion. More mischief has happened
in the name of God than in any other name.

Tao in that sense is tremendously beautiful. You cannot worship Tao because Tao does not give you
the idea of a person. It is simply a principle, not a person. You cannot worship a principle – you
cannot pray to Tao. It will look ridiculous, it will be utterly absurd, praying to a principle. You don’t
pray to gravitation, you cannot pray to the theory of relativity.

Tao simply means the ultimate principle that binds the whole existence together. The existence is
not a chaos that much is certain; it is a cosmos. There is immense order in it, intrinsic order in it, and
the name of that order is Tao. Tao simply means the harmony of the whole. No temples have been
built for Tao; no statues, no prayers, no priests, no rituals – that’s the beauty of it. Hence I don’t call
it a doctrine, nor do I call it a religion, it is a pure insight. You can call it Dharma; that is Buddha’s
word for Tao. The word in English that comes closer or closest to Tao is ”Nature” with a capital N.
This profound insight is also one of the smallest treatises ever written. It is so condensed – it is as if
millions of roses have been condensed in a drop of perfume. That’s the ancient way of expressing
truth: because books were not in existence, people had to remember it.

It is said that this is the first mystic treatise ever written down as a book. It is not much of a book,
not more than one and a half pages, but it existed for thousands of years before it was written. It
existed through private and personal communion. That has been always the most significant way to
transmit truth. To write it down makes it more difficult because then one never knows who will be
reading it; it loses all personal contact and touch.

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