words are not the thing
“If you hear the wordless sutra once, the heavens will become sutras filled with golden words, clear and obvious before you.” - Bassui Tokushō
Ironically, the Tao Te Ching opens with a paradox: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.”
The very first thing Lao Tzu tells us is that the Tao cannot be captured by words.
Words are signs, not substance. They point to things but are never the things themselves. I can try to describe a song to you—its rise and fall, its beauty, its power—but until you hear it with your own ears, you do not truly know it. The same is true of the Tao. We can speak of it endlessly, yet no amount of talk will reveal its essence. Only direct experience can.
So why read the Tao Te Ching at all? Why read these words? Think of words as training wheels: they help us begin the journey, but at some point, they must fall away if we are to truly ride. Words can guide us toward the Tao, but they can never replace it. This is why silence, stillness, and meditation are so central to Taoist practice—they return us to a place where the Tao can be felt, rather than thought about.
Sometimes we believe we are living wisdom when, in truth, we are only carrying its vocabulary. I’ve called myself Taoist because I’ve read the verses, pondered their meaning, and spoken of them to others. Yet in moments of stress or disappointment, I have seen how far I am from embodying what I claim to understand.
Being Taoist is not a label one adopts; it is a way of being that gradually flowers from lived experience. Understanding takes root not through clever words or deep study, but through walking the path, meeting life as it comes, and allowing the Tao to shape our actions, thoughts, and hearts over time.
We should not dismiss words entirely, however. They have their place. Sometimes it is only by tracing the pathways of thought, letting language guide us like a lantern in the dark, that we glimpse the hidden framework beneath a complex idea. Too few words can flatten or even distort the truth. Words, then, are not useless—they are tools, fingers pointing toward the moon. But they are not the moon itself. They can suggest the way, sketch the outline of truth, yet they can never substitute for the living, breathing experience of it.
quotes
"The Tao that can be called is not the eternal Tao." - Lao Tzu
“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” - Aesop
“The foolish understand the words, the wise understand the sense.”- Lao Tzu
“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you
if you do not act on upon them?” - Buddha
"Knowledge is not wisdom." - Euripedes
“Where can I find someone who has penetrated beyond words? That's who I'd like to have a word with.”
- Chuang Tzu (from Stephen Mitchell)
“Those who know value deeds, not words." - Heshang Gong
“I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the
experience I had of things.” - Plutarch
“The Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to retention of concepts and so the Way is entirely misunderstood…
The first step is to refrain from knowledge-based concepts.” - Huangbo Xiyun
“Possessing much knowledge is like having a thousand foot fishing line with a hook,
but the fish is always an inch beyond the hook.” -Mumon Ekai
“If you hear the wordless sutra once, the heavens will become sutras filled with golden words,
clear and obvious before you.” - Bassui Tokushō
“The majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities,
and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.” - Machiavelli
“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.” - Montaigne
“Only if you can forget the words and embody the meaning will you (have) [truly learned]". -Yuanwu Keqin
questions
How might assigning a word or name to something influence how we understand that thing?
What words do you use to understand yourself and your life? How do these restrict your understanding of yourself?
Think about how words came to be. How would this process have oversimplified the actual meaning
of the thing being described?
Think about an intense experience you've had in life. How much different was your actual experience from what you had heard about such an experience through someone else's words?
To what extent does the modern world value words over true understanding?
Can you think of examples of this?
How does giving something a name change the way you experience it? Does the label reveal its truth, or does it place boundaries around it?
What words do you habitually use to describe yourself and your life? If you set those words aside for a moment, who or what might you discover yourself to be?
Consider how language first came to be—how vast realities were reduced to sounds and symbols. What might have been lost in that translation?
Recall an intense moment in your life—a birth, a loss, a breathtaking view, a moment of love. How did living it feel compared to anything you had ever heard or read about it beforehand?
In what ways does the modern world prize clever words, arguments, and explanations over the quiet wisdom of direct experience? Where have you seen this in your own life?
What truths have you felt in silence that you could never put into words?
affirmations
My life is richer than any story I can tell about it.
I let go of names and labels; I seek the thing itself.
Words may guide me, but only experience can awaken me.
The Tao is always here, flowing through every breath, every moment, every place I stand.
I value becoming over knowing; wisdom is a path I walk, not a thought I hold.
I protect the quiet spaces of my mind from the clamor of endless words.
I listen more deeply than I speak, for truth often arrives in silence.
I trust what I feel in the marrow of living more than what I can explain.
I release the need to define life and instead allow life to define me.
The Tao teaches without words; I open myself to its wordless lessons.