It is essential to explore Taoist cosmology before understanding the origin of Taoism. The Dao is the central belief in Taoist religion. According to Taoist scriptures, the Dao existed prior to the cosmos itself; it is the ultimate embodiment of the cosmos, existing in quiescent and formless, transcending all temporal and spatial notions. As such, it eludes definition. As Laozi declared,
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The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao
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, and
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I know not its name, thus I provisionally call it Dao
”
.This quiescent Dao is also referred to as the Ultimateless, which contains all latent possibilities of existence. The Ultimateless generates the Great Ultimate. The term
“
generate
”
here does not imply creating offspring, instead, it facilates human understanding only. The Ultimateless and the Great Ultimate are related as substance and function: the Ultimateless is the Dao itself, while the Great Ultimate expresses its function, marking the transition from chaos into the duality of Yin and Yang. As stated in Daodejing,
“
Everything was born from Being; Being was born from Non-Being
”
. In this context, the Great Ultimate represents Being, which harbors the dialectical unity of Yin and Yang, while the Original Pneuma resides within it. Original Pneuma is neither a gaseous matter nor a particulate substance; instead, it represents the subtle function of the Dao, the dynamic essence that constitutes all phenomena. In essence, the Great Ultimate contains the Yin and Yang, and the cosmos was generated through the interaction between them.
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