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"Tao follows what is natural". Therefore, if you wish to follow the Tao itself, do not follow the Tao itself, follow instead what the Tao itself follows: you should follow what is natural, not the Tao itself. — Arcane Sandwich

"Tao" is usually translated into English as The Way or Path or Map. And the admonition to "follow the path of nature" could be expressed in a modern colloquialism : "get with the program". Which could mean "follow the rules", or "don't buck the system". So a word to the wise is "don't fight nature".

Instead of imagining Nature as the arbitrary laws of an oriental autocrat or despot, a more modern model of Natural Evolution might be as a computer Program, which is calculating a solution to a problem assigned by the Programmer. In that metaphor, homo sapiens or rattus norvegicus are not the chosen ones of a benevolent deity, but an intermediate stage in the process toward an ultimate answer*1.

So philosophical wisdom would be to learn the Rules of the Program : what modern Science calls the "Laws of Nature", or what traditional Philosophy calls "Cosmic Principles". And those laws can be expressed most parsimoniously in terms of Mathematical Logic. But for non-mathematicians that Logic is usually described as verbal expressions of Dos & Don'ts ; Shalt / Shalt Not ; True / False ; plus operators And/Or/Not. These are the "guiding principles" that philosophers and religious founders expound to their followers, as-if established by Mother Nature or by God.

But Laotse says "don't follow the Tao itself" --- as if a human dictator/superhuman god --- but follow the Rules --- as words to the wise. Physical rules are firmly established by science, but Meta-Physical (moral/ethical) rules are endlessly debatable. Except that the Golden Rule*2 is generally accepted as valid.


*1. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" is 42. The answer was calculated by a fictional supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years.
___Google AI overview

*2. Taoism. Golden Rule :"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss."

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Yes. But this is a problem in our contemporary societies across the planet that we inhabit. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm not sure what "this" referred to, but I'm guessing that you think we humans are not following the Tao, hence are lost in the labyrinth. Yet one law of Nature is that the big fish eat the little fish, and another is that omnivores eat everything below them in the food chain. Moreover, a law of Culture is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Does human culture exploit loopholes in the laws of Nature, and explore "ways" that were not in Nature's map? Are we gradually learning by trial & error how to draw our own map of, not The Way, but a workable way into a sustainable future? Isn't that the purpose of Philosophy?

Some disillusioned philosophers propose Anti-Natalism --- or maybe collective seppuku --- as a solution to the plague of human culture infesting and ruining the balance of Nature. I wouldn't go that far, but in the Evolutionary Program metaphor, intermediate solutions are eliminated when they fail to make progress toward the ultimate solution --- whatever that might be. So, while it may be small consolation, human culture is just a blip in the eons of natural evolution to date. Perhaps given time, the "featherless bipeds" might eventually amount to something worth keeping.

Maybe our civilized Culture, and empirical Science, and groping Philosophy are just way-stations on the program of evolution, from Big Bang input to ultimate program output. Another law of Nature is those who persist, continue to exist. The Apocalypse is Not Yet. Hang in there, Sandy!

PS___ The Gia-Fu Feng / Jane English translation is the one I have. It's sufficient for my non-academic needs.

PPS___ One feature of modern scientific civilization, unlike ancient China's pre-scientific culture --- gunpowder made pretty designs in the sky --- is that it doesn't accept things that are "beyond our control". The Atomic Bomb is one example of that over-reach, which we have survived for almost a century. We learned to control Fire only a few hundred generations ago. So it seems that humans are still bumbling toddlers in the universe of expanding horizons, exploring all possibilities.

PPPS___The Tao is lovely philosophical Poetry, but it doesn't spell-out specifically what The Way is, the laws of Nature. So we use Science to learn the temporary limits of our toddling explorations.

As I understand it, we don't look to science for guidance, we look within ourselves. — T Clark

Yes. In Lao Tse's time, there was no formal discipline of empirical Science. So philosophers and sages relied upon Intuition (look inward), Contemplation (observe together), or Meditation (mindful attention) to construct models of how the world works. Such practices might produce superficial (poetic) insights into how the Tao works, but subjective knowledge only becomes common knowledge when shared as objective & technical information : i.e. Science. For example, we now have a theory of Evolution to supplement the poetic imagery about our place in the "chain of being", and a Big Bang theory to provide a technical understanding of the "Mother of all things", plus a theory of Thermodynamics to give us a more detailed understanding of "Wu Wei".

Your understanding of the Tao Te Ching is profoundly different from mine. — T Clark

Not surprising. Would you care to elaborate?
My knowledge of Tao Te Ching is superficial, but I found it generally compatible with my philosophical understanding of how the world works . . . . as philosophical poetry, not empirical science. Declarative poetry on the art of living.