Dao
Glossary: dao 道 — 'way' and everything the word carries; why it is left untranslated.
Dao (道, dào) — “the Way”: at once the way things go, the way to go, and the unnameable source and pattern of everything. Daodejing ch. 1 opens with the problem of naming it: “The Dao that can be told is not the constant Dao” (道可道，非常道).
Translation note: the word plays on the double sense “way/path” and “to speak.” English “Way” (capitalized) captures the first sense; no English word captures the cosmic-source sense, so modern scholarship keeps Dao romanized. “The Tao” (Wade-Giles) is the same word; this site uses pinyin. Avoid “God,” “Nature” (too narrow), and “the Force” (popular-culture register).
See the full concept page: Dao. See also the Daodejing and wuwei pages.
Sources
- Daodejing chs. 1, 25, 37; Qingjing Jing opening