Where the Author Introduces a Deliberately Odd Term

Many of the best works on daoism don't even mention the word "dao."  This makes perfect sense.  After all, the daodeing, though it is a book that uses the word dao still begins with the warning

Dao called Dao is not the eternal Dao
Names that can be named are not eternal names.

One book that is long on daoism, but short on using the word is The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander. After the opening pages of the book, which read as mysticism [1], Alexander proceeds in pages 29 to 40 to prove the need for the mystical language by giving a demonstration of the inadequacy of language to describe what makes spaces wonderful to be in and around.  To begin with, he tries to use the dichotomy of alive/lifeless:

Things which are living may be lifeless; nonliving things may be alive.  A man who is walking and talking can be alive; or he can be lifeless.  Beethoven's last quartets are alive; so are the waves at the ocean shore; so is a candle flame; a tiger may be more alive, because more in tune with its own inner forces, than a man (pg 29).

But alive is just a metaphor, and that leaves the word too imprecise.

The metaphor makes us believe that we have found a word to grasp the quality without a name.  But we can only use the word to name the quality, when we already understand the quality (pg 30).

So, he tries the word "whole," but then finds that whole implies enclosure.  The word is more cramped than the quality (Quality?)

So, he tries "comfortable."  But you can become so comfortable that you become lifeless, too sheltered.

So, he tries "free." But finds that could be "too theatrical: a pose, a form, a manner" (pg 34).  So-called "free style" art is often not whole, and certainly rarely comfortable.

So . . . "a word which helps restore the balance is the word exact" (pg 34).  That's an odd turn for mysticism, no? Well, so be it.  Alexander uses the example of trying to add a table to a landscape so that blackbirds would made us of it. To make it work, you need to make it exact in ways that work for the birds.  If you keep observing and adjusting, you'll probably get there.

Of course "exact" is loaded down with too much linguistic baggage as well -- too mechanical, cold, cookie-cutter.

So. . . egoless?  But we're not trying to efface the creator. The creator has forces that need to be balanced harmoniously as well.

So . . . eternal?  No.

It hints at a religious quality.  The hint is accurate.  And yet . . . It is not mysterious.  It is above all ordinary.  What makes it eternal is its ordinariness.  The word "eternal" cannot capture that (pg 39).

As a person who had made a study of daoism/quietism for some time before reading these passages --  which, I had read after A Pattern Language -- and thought I had a good grasp on the subject, I was greatly surprised and then moved by this argument that the dao is unnameble because it is more precise than any word we can use [2]. I felt my mind put up resistance to the idea, but quickly realized it was the truth [3].

ii

Our words are what traps us.  But since we are still trapped using words, ie there is no outer text, what are we to do?  We still must use words, but provide the feedback when someone tries to use words as a replacement for reality more precise than the word used.  This bears repeating:

Dao called Dao is not the eternal Dao
Names that can be named are not eternal names. 

To help the process along, I think there is a lot to be gained from using a word outside of one's language.  It gives a connotation of the exotic which can help you from too quickly settling upon one meaning and then making the map-replaces-territory mistake.

It is like yoga instructors using the word "namaste" at the end of a session, rather than "farewell."  Even if you put quite a bit of spiritual lilt into your voice when use that old timey English word, and, it just is not the same.  With that said, this use particular use of namaste shows how quickly a word can be encapsulated in bullshit.

The word dao/tao, as well as the Chinese symbols, really just means way, or path.  They are everyday words, and their spiritual use exist both is so-called daoism as well as Confucianism [4].  This allows for some great confusion as these two schools say very different things about the nature of hierarchy, ritual, and the like [5].

Instead of a word from another language, I propose a deliberately odd term, however, to try to keep the conceptual space in free play:

GQTIMPTAN!

Which comes from the acronym of a (others would say "the" or "The"; I still content a) Good Quality That Is More Precise Than any Name.

Also, to keep the play going, keep shifting around which letters are capitalized

GqTIMptan, gqtimPTan

. . . and so on. The idea is to always leave it something weird.

Perhaps this will be a worthy contribution to a cluster of ideas I cherish so well.


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[1] For example

There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness.  This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. pg ix.

The dao meets architecture and city planning.

[2] See Sarah Perry for a discussion of Alexander's sense of objectivism. One, two, three

[3] My first understanding of dao all had to do with pace. I noticed the beauty in those who take their time.  I saw it in my grandparents, and I saw it the unfolding of nature over a season.  I now realize that one takes ones time to make sure their is precision where it matters.  A system needs slack.

[4] See Slingerland's Trying Not to Try for a great discussion of this.  The whole book is the discussion.

[5] As an example of this confusion:

It is melancholy, and slightly disturbing, to realize that these passive, mystical doctrines, expressed with such beauty and vigor, helped set in motion a system of despotism that lasted almost unchanged for 2,000 years.

To attribute this all to daoism with no mention of Confucianism and its fundamentally conservative project is a mistake.