The Tao defined by Confucius is the Man s Tao, and not Tao in itself. It is an image of Tao, just like Yin and Yang mingling together in the well-known icon . Many people have criticized those definitions of Tao because they fail to express its globality, its trancendent side. One cannot use words to define it, because words are, in a way, mortal. Since greatness implicates extension.
Extension implicates distance.
Distance implicates a return. Listening to it, one doesn t hear it, for we name it the Inaudible. Touching it, one doesn t feel it, for we name it the Impalpable. It is evasive and unseizable. We look at the Tao, and this is not enough to see it.