形而上之道与形而下之道 The Above-Form Dao and the Within-Form Dao

我们都知道，读中国古书不易。难在哪里呢？难在有时一字多用，或者多字同义。

例如，谈中国文化，一个‘道’字最难解释。这个道字，有时候讲形而上，有时候讲形而下。

我们说过，形而上的道是不可命名，不可说的。老子说‘道常无名’中的道就是形而上的道。

问题是，很多时候形而下的法则也叫道，甚至我们走的路也叫做道，如果读古书不求甚解，就会被误导了。

易经其实是讲阴阳和人生哲学比较多。虽然讲明‘形而上者谓之道’，可是对这个形而上的道的阐述并不多，反而讲的多数是应用之道，读时我们不可不察。例如，易经讲‘一阴一阳之谓道’就是形而下的应用之道。

在道家思想中，我们知道有‘有’与‘无’，‘有名’与‘无名’的区别，其实只有‘有名’和‘无名’的区别，‘有’与‘无’是‘有名’和‘无名’的简称而已。‘无’和‘无名’是相同意思的。

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We all know it is not easy to read the Chinese classics. Why? Because very often, a single word or term is used in different contexts to mean different things and in other cases, a single concept can be called by many names.

The word Dao is one of the most difficult words to understand in the Chinese literature.

We have noted that Yijing says that what is above form is called the Dao and this above-form Dao is unnameable. The is the same Dao when Laozi said: "Dao is eternal, nameless."

However, quite often, Dao is also used to represent the within-form namable rules or principles, and this can cause confusion to whose who are not familiar with its usage.

One has to understand that Yijing is basically a Book of Changes based on Yin-Yang theory and it does not elaborate very much on Dao, especially on the above-form Dao. Very often, when it talks about Dao, it really refers to the within-form Dao, or the Way (guiding principles). For example, when it says, 'The successive movement of the inactive Yin and active Yang operations constitutes what is called the Dao.' The Dao here refers to the within-form Dao, or the course of things.

In the Daoism philosophy, there is a distinction between You and Wu (Being and Non-being), and between You-Ming and Wu-Ming (Nameable and Unnameable). These two distinctions are in fact only one, for You and Wu are simply the abbreviated terms for You-Ming and Wu-Ming. Wu and Wu-Ming are used interchangeably.