I didn't encounter the Dao de Jing until later in life, but the opening bit has always seemed straightforward to me. I first saw it as "the way that can be described is not the Way", but also "the way that can be traveled is not the eternal Way". That is, the eternal (spiritual) Way cannot be concretized, just as a name is not the real thing. Or, given that this is HN, "the software development methodology that can be executed like a program is not software development methodology". ("The Agile that can be PM'd is not Agile.")

However, I think it might require some life maturity to recognize that. Certainly a recovery from Englightenment rationalism. My person experience is that an understanding that "the name that can be named/identified is not the eternal Name" and "the way that can be walked is not the eternal Way" took me until around my 40s to appreciate.

Daoism also appears to have taken a literalist turn (ironically). The book "Taoism: the Parting of the Ways" [1], by (former) Harvard Professor Holmes Welch, interprets the text as being a guide to a mystical way of living, similar to St. John of the Cross (minus the Christian part), which is fascinating. Then he describes how the two main factions took the text literally, and how that evolved.

[1] I have a summary at http://geoffprewett.com/BookReviews/TaoismThePartingOfTheWay...

Interesting. Your comparison reminds me of something from Lacanian psychoanalysis: the idea that people often mistake themselves for the symbolic labels they occupy, their title for instance. Like a doctor who would praise himself for being a doctor, a president a president. From that perspective, both versions of the Tao Te Ching line point to the same thing: what can be named, praised, or socially recognized isn’t the true underlying reality. Different phrasing, but the same structural idea.

> it's hard to translate it into Chinese.

It's a text about non-duality, among other things. Like the Heart Sutra, or the Diamond Sutra, or 101 Zen Stories, it's not supposed to make sense in an ordinary way. A successful translation is, like the original, intended to catalyze a shift in awareness.

EDIT: For those with a nerdy or scholarly bent, I suggest Red Pine's translation[0], which includes translation of historically relevant commentaries.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Lao-tzus-Taoteching-Lao-Tzu/dp/155659...

Thank you, this there is the first version I see that feels like it's got solid cultural context. I like Ursula's version and have read her books over the years, but for example when she write "mystery" in there I always felt she was dropping the ball a bit.