Taoist philosophy
The term Tao communicates an entire philosophy, an outlook
on the fundamental nature of life and the universe, expressing the path human
beings must take to join, rather than disturb, that unity.Early
Taoist philosophy was influenced by observations of nature.
Taoist philosophers determined that everything has its
complementary opposite. More than this,
they saw that everything can only be understood by comparing it to its
opposite. For example, day is only day in relation to night, cold is only cold
in relation to hot, and soft is only soft in relation to hard. Looking deeper
still, they realised that these relationships are in a constant state of
movement, day flows gradually into night and back again and so on.