Verse 73: A Wide Net

Verse Seventy-Three
The Tao is always at ease.
It overcomes without competing,
answers without speaking a word,
arrives without being summoned,
accomplishes without a plan.
Its net covers the whole universe.
And though its meshes are wide,
it doesn't let a thing slip through.
~ Stephen Mitchell translation ~

For me, this verse underscores a major difference between the Abrahamic religions and the Taoist philosophy. The former hold that all existence was created and is overseen by a sometime benevolent and sometime angry being -- Yahweh, God or Allah -- which humanity should worship. Taoism, on the other hand, sees no being or entity at all. We view the underlining of life to be a process and we call that process Tao.

And the most remarkable thing, from a Taoist perspective, is that each of us is part of this process. There is no and can be no separation or estrangement from it. While a Christian can say that a person has turned away from God, a Taoist would never suggest it is even possible to turn away from Tao because Tao incorporates everything and everything is incorporated in it. It would be like saying that a person could hide from their own shadow!

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.