The Tao Te Ching is a work of more than three thousand years ago, and as for what the original meaning of the original text means, no third party can completely restore it except the author Lao Tzu himself.
Therefore, the interpretation of the classics usually falls into the embarrassment of "self-talk", in order to avoid this situation, the ancients invented a small trick to interpret the classics - to interpret the scriptures.
It is to use similar works of the same era to explain the concepts and meanings in related works. The contemporary of Lao Tzu was Confucius, and Confucius's relatively close descendants also continued his lineage, which can be used to compare the scriptures of the Tao Te Ching well.
Of course, although Confucianism and Taoism are divided into three religions, at the academic level, from a philosophical point of view, their underlying logic and ultimate goal are consistent, so of course, the confucian and Interpreter sutras are an important means of interpreting the Tao Te Ching.
Relatively close to the Spring and Autumn Period of Lao Tzu's life, there is also the Han Dynasty, and what is important is that the three generations and their previous learning have not been destroyed by the Han Dynasty, and most of them have been inherited, especially in the early Han Dynasty.
Zhang Liang, as a super think tank of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, is said to have received the guidance of the Duke of Huangshi before he became famous, and gave him a copy of the "Book of Plains", which deals with the meanings and relationships of "Tao" and "De".
The Book of Plains: The Tao, the one who does what man does, makes all things know what they have to do; the virtuous, the one who gets man, makes all things get what they want. What does that mean?
That is to say, to be born between heaven and earth, one must follow the Tao and not go against the heavens; and virtue is the concrete manifestation of the Tao, and the original meaning of virtue is to accomplish all things.
If this meaning is not obvious, we can continue to look down, the five virtues of Tao, Virtue, Benevolence, Righteousness, and Etiquette in the Book of Plains are inherited all the way down the same way, and "benevolence" is the inheritance of "virtue".
And what exactly is "ren"? "The benevolent one, the beloved of man, has the heart of compassion and compassion, so that he can be born." Benevolence is benevolence, with compassion and benevolence, the beauty of adulthood, the beauty of all things.
We are now talking about morality and morality, the Tao governs morality, and virtue inherits the Tao; the Tao is the source of virtue, and virtue is the tangible embodiment of the Tao. For example, air can't be seen or touched, how do you prove it exists? When water vaporizes into water, we can see it and touch it.
When the water freezes, it is tangible, it can really be felt. Because the Tao is invisible and invisible, we cannot perceive it, but we can observe it through natural phenomena, and we can think about it through man's group consciousness.
The avenue of the world is often invisible to control the tangible, and the invisible to promote the tangible. Although the Tao is invisible, it is the rule of virtue, which determines the way in which virtue is presented and the direction of development.
For the purpose of the Weak Dao, it has no direction and no substance, you can't feel the power of the Tao itself, but all the most powerful and weakest things in the world are generated by it, and it is also driven by it.
We can also refer to another sentence in the Tao Te Ching to understand the relationship between Tao and virtue: "Man's law, earth's law, heaven's law, heaven's law, heaven's law nature."
Man should imitate the earth, learn like the earth, learn the virtues of things, and learn to achieve all things. And the earth must conform to the Heavenly Dao, conform to the strength and vigor of the Dry Dao.
The Path of Heaven is to imitate the way of nature, and nature here does not refer only to nature, but to the source of nature if it is not moving.
Therefore, there is a saying in the "I Ching": Learn to see the heavens and the earth, and the virtue is in harmony with nature. Just like the proverbial "reliable", playing music should refer to the musical score, and people's words and deeds should refer to heaven and earth and the way of nature.
If you put it more bluntly, you can say that it is the original force that gives birth to the universe and the world, and virtue is the embodiment of the Tao in human society, the Tao is the law of nature, and the Tao is the law of the reproduction and activity of human society.