Best version of the opening of the Tao Te Ching:
"The tau (reason) which can be tau-ed (reasoned) is not the Eternal Tau (Reason). The name which can be named is not the Eternal Name."
so... "The reason that can be reasoned is not the eternal reason."
The word-play thus works in English, just as in the original Chinese :-)
"The way that can be travelled is not the eternal way."
is also close.
This does not mean that the Tao cannot be known or experienced, it just means it must be experienced to be known.
That was a small part of today's lesson with my kid.
She knows this already, but needs to see it articulated.
The hardest part is the next part: the realisation that the transient and the eternal are one and the same.
How did we get there?
We went from Samurai - Edo - Meiji - Shogunate - Hagakure - Shinto - polytheism - syncretism - animism - Mushishi - Buddhism - Shaolin - Taoism - Void.
An amusing couple of hours.
Like a pebble skimming a lake.
This site has 175+ versions of that one stanza!
http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/tao-te-ching.htm
Which one makes most sense? ;-)
This topic was always an overlap (possibly the actual search) I became obsessed with when I was younger.
Some time back we discussed this, when I wrote about differentiating between thoughts and feeling. How when the thoughts were pushed aside for me in various situations I was more connected and capable of action that seemed unnatural to the thinking mind.
I believe in my very limited grasp that another way of viewing those experiences I had that left an indelible mark on me is that it might be the only real way of connecting back to the Tao. And even that is illusory, because we are always a part of the Tao. The act of thinking (creating separations for reference points) by its very nature would act as a barrier to the Tao.
I suspect that the tool of thinking was necessary for survival, as humans as a species are weak compared to the other animals we live(d) with. I suspect that as more humans adopted deduction/thought skills it probably also became even more necessary for survival, increasing our survival from the humans who were using it against us.