| Chungsoo J. Lee |
| A philosophic and religious corner |
In the beginning.... (God and Tao)
Something unformed and complete
Before heaven and earth were born,
Solitary and silent,
Stands alone and unchanging,
Pervading all things without limit.
It is like the mother of all under heaven,
But I don't know its name--
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light" and there
was light.
All that is good, powerful, and mysterious -- we call him/her God: the unnameable,
the undefinable, the greater than that which cannot be conceived, the One who
grants all beings while remaining beyond being, the One whom mystics refer as the
darkness at the center of light.
Are not God and Tao the same?
TAO called TAO is not TAO...
Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth.
Naming: the mother of ten thousand things....
The gateway to all mystery.
Great TAO overflows
To the left To the right.
All beings owe their life to it
And do not deport from it.
It acts without a name.
It clothes and nourishes all beings
But does not become their master.
All things originate from being.
Being originates from non-being.
Before heaven and earth were born,
Solitary and silent,
Stands alone and unchanging,
Pervading all things without limit.
It is like the mother of all under heaven,
But I don't know its name--
- Better call it TAO.
Better call it great.
- Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu, Ch. 25
Trans. by Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo
(Hackett Publishing Co.: 1993)
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light" and there
was light.
- Genesis 1:1-3, NRSV
All that is good, powerful, and mysterious -- we call him/her God: the unnameable,
the undefinable, the greater than that which cannot be conceived, the One who
grants all beings while remaining beyond being, the One whom mystics refer as the
darkness at the center of light.
Are not God and Tao the same?
TAO called TAO is not TAO...
Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth.
Naming: the mother of ten thousand things....
The gateway to all mystery.
- Tao Te Ching, Ch. 1
Great TAO overflows
To the left To the right.
All beings owe their life to it
And do not deport from it.
It acts without a name.
It clothes and nourishes all beings
But does not become their master.
- Tao Te Ching, Ch. 34
All things originate from being.
Being originates from non-being.
- Tao Te Ching, Ch. 40.
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