The two characters 大道 ("Great Way") carry a heavy history in the Chinese language—Daoists use them to refer to the substance of the cosmos, Confucians use them as the highest governing principle, and the Chan school (禅宗, Chánzōng) took them over as a byname for the path of ultimate awakening. All three traditions use the same characters, but they point at different things. To read 大道 in Chan records, one must first return it to Chan's own context.
What This Concept Is Saying
The 大道 (mahāmārga, "the Great Way") spoken of in Chan is not a road leading to some destination, nor something one can possess. It is the substance of the truth of ultimate awakening—a substance that is formless, non-relative, and vast and open, present right now yet hard for ordinary sentiment to see, capable of being matched only by no-mind, never manufactured by deliberate effort, and in whose very presentness nirvāṇa's freedom is already realized.
Breaking it down further, this concept has at least seven layers that must be kept distinct. Each has its own face in the classical records, yet they interpenetrate; none can be removed without loss.
I. The Essence: Formless, Non-Relative, Vast and Open
This is the fundamental determination of the Great Way's essence in the *Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthies* (《古尊宿語錄》, Gǔ Zūnsù Yǔlù):
「大道無形，真理無對，所以不屬見聞覺知。」 *"The Great Way is formless; true principle has no opposite; therefore it does not belong to seeing, hearing, sensing, or knowing."*
Three sentences, three layers of meaning:
- "Formless" — it has no shape. Things that are round, square, visible, or drawable are all not it. - "No opposite" — it is not relative. It is not a concept set up against "the lesser way," "the deviant way," or "human desire." It is itself the absolute. - "Does not belong to seeing, hearing, sensing, or knowing" — the eye cannot see it, the ear cannot hear it, the body cannot touch it, the mind cannot distinguish it. This does not mean it is hidden somewhere; rather, the very acts of "seeing," "hearing," and "knowing" are already outside it.
From here Chan unfolds a series of characterizations of its essence. In the same *Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthies*: "大道絕同，任向西東" — there is no such thing as "the same road"; east, west, south, north, let it go—this is not carelessness, but because it is simply not constrained by any ideal route. And again: "大道坦然，廓落無邊，了了虛徹，寂然何安" — it is clear and utterly still, yet vast beyond any edge or boundary. The *Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp* (《景德傳燈錄》, Jǐngdé Chuándēng Lù) continues: "大道虛曠，常一真心" and "大道廓然，古今常爾" — it has been there since antiquity; from past to present, from present to future, it has always been this way, never changing, never interrupted. The *Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Yuánwù Fóguǒ* (《圓悟佛果禪師語錄》) marks its vastness and impartiality with "體寬" ("the body is vast") and "無背面" ("no front or back"), and again with "大道絕中邊，至真離言說" — no center and no edge, no front and no back, and language cannot truly reach it at all.
In the plainest terms, this layer means: the Great Way is not anything you can think up in your mind. To speak of it is already to err; to think of it is already to veer off. This is not a flaw—it is what it is. It sounds mysterious because the human mind habitually grasps at objects, and the Great Way is precisely what cannot be taken as an object.
II. Right Before Your Eyes, Yet Hard for Ordinary Sentience to See
The second layer is the most easily misread: "It is right here before you, yet ordinary people cannot see it."
The *Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthies* states plainly:
「大道只在目前，要且難覩」「快然大道，祇在目前」 *"The Great Way is only right before your eyes, yet hard to see"; "The Great Way in its ease is only right before your eyes."*
The two characters "要且" are the key — "要且難覩" means "however, it is hard to see." So this is saying: although the Great Way is right before your eyes, the eyes of ordinary people cannot see it.
The word "目前" ("right before the eyes") carries special weight in Chan. It is not the abstract philosophical "present moment," nor the technique-laden "living in the now" of mindfulness — it is the spatial sense of "right in front of you, right here and now."
Why can it not be seen? The *Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp* gives a concrete reason: ordinary people fail to see it because of "a mind that grasps at appearances, discriminating good and bad, existence and non-existence, sacred and profane." You are constantly tagging this as good, that as bad, this as right, that as wrong, this as sacred, that as ordinary—and these very acts of tagging have already separated you from the Great Way.
One layer deeper, the *Jingde Record* says directly:
「言語即是大道」 *"Speech itself is the Great Way."*
At first hearing this sentence is easy to misread; note it now, and we will deal with it specially in a moment. The other side to raise here: the difficulty of seeing is not because phenomena must be eliminated, but because of that mechanism of "a mind that grasps at appearances." There is the Way in phenomena, there is the Way in speech—but your "grasping at appearances" pushes them away.
III. The Path of Practice: No-mind, No Artificial Effort
The third layer concerns how one enters into accord. The Chan answer is unexpectedly simple, yet carries a specific meaning.
The *Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthies* has one extremely terse line:
「但無一切心，自然合大道」 *"Just have no mind at all, and you will naturally accord with the Great Way."*
The character "合" ("accord") is subtle here—it is not "cultivating" the Great Way into existence, not "creating" the Great Way, but removing what covers the mind so that it naturally comes into accord with the Great Way that was already there. The Great Way has been there all along; it is the covering layer in your mind—"what am I doing now, what must I achieve, what am I to become"—that obscures it.
From this derive three sets of key phrases:
(1) No-mind (無心, wúxīn) "無心歸大道" ("no-mind returns to the Great Way"; *Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthies*). This "mind" does not mean feeling; it is the sixth consciousness, that mind which ceaselessly selects, grasps, and evaluates. "No-mind" is not becoming a vegetable, not numbness—it is that this discriminating mind no longer takes charge.
(2) No artificial effort (不假造作) "大道不假雕鐫，人心何須造作？" ("The Great Way needs no carving—why must the human mind manufacture anything?") and "從來大道無文字，不要安排喚作禪" ("The Great Way has never had words; do not arrange anything and call it Chan")—the Great Way is already what it is; it does not need you to polish or chisel it. The flaw of the human mind is always thinking "I must do something to get close to it"—and this very impulse to do is itself artificial effort, itself the moving away.
(3) Step back and return to oneself (退步就己) The *Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Yuánwù Fóguǒ* treats this most carefully: to enter the gate one must "退步就己，以鐵石心放下妄想見解、世智辯聰及彼我得失，至情盡見除，淨裸裸赤灑灑處，豁然契證" — this is a very concrete path of practice: "stepping back" means not seeking outward; "returning to oneself" means looking back at that original nature of one's own. Only by letting go of delusive thoughts, worldly cleverness and eloquence, and the gains and losses of self and other can one suddenly realize and attest. After realization there is still work: "一念萬年、萬年一念，二六時中純一無雜" ("one thought for ten thousand years; ten thousand years in one thought; through all twelve hours of the day, pure and unmixed")—this is the maintenance. Then one becomes a "無心道人" ("a person of the Way who has no mind").
This route sounds like "there is still something to do," and the *Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp* adds the cutting remark: the Great Way is "本無迷悟，達者不假修治" — the Great Way itself has no delusion or awakening. So-called delusion and awakening are all expedient words; one who truly arrives does not depend on cultivation or regulation; the ladder of the three vehicles is only a provisional establishment by the wise.
These two statements seem contradictory: is it "step back, return to oneself, let go of delusive thoughts," or "fundamentally no delusion or awakening, no need for cultivation"? The former is a provisional practice set up for ordinary people; the latter is the ultimate reality. Chan never denies practice—but it demands that you understand that practice itself is not the destination.
IV. Nirvāṇa and Freedom
What is the relationship between the Great Way and nirvāṇa (涅槃, nièpán, "nirvāṇa")? This passage from the *Recorded Sayings of the Ancient Worthies* is the most precisely calibrated:
「道是大道，無礙涅槃，妙用自足，始於一切行處而得自在。」 頌云： 「騰騰大道者，對面涅槃門。」 *"The Way is the Great Way, unobstructed nirvāṇa, its wondrous function self-sufficient; from every place of activity one gains freedom."* *Verse: "The soaring Great Way — right opposite is the gate of nirvāṇa."*
The two characters "對面" ("right opposite") are the key—the Great Way is the very gate of nirvāṇa; nirvāṇa is within the Great Way. But "right opposite" also means: nirvāṇa is not some other side of the Great Way; nirvāṇa is already realized in the presentness of the Great Way. "From every place of activity one gains freedom" — nirvāṇa is not something after death; it is that you are already free in all your walking, standing, sitting, and lying down.
This is far from the image contemporary people fear—that nirvāṇa means "extinguishing the body and annihilating consciousness." In Chan, nirvāṇa is right here in the present walking, standing, sitting, and lying down.
V. The Engine of the Lineage: Pointing at the Moon
The fifth layer is how the Great Way is put to use in the gōng'àn (公案, "public cases"). This layer seems technical, but it is the closest to "right before your eyes, touching everywhere is it."
The most famous is Zhàozhōu's (趙州) "大道通長安" ("the Great Way leads to Cháng'ān"). Someone asked what the Great Way was, and Zhàozhōu answered: "The Great Way leads to Cháng'ān." This sounds like giving directions, but it is in fact a direct pointer: the Great Way is on the very road you take in your daily going to the places you go. It is not in the sky, not in the scriptures, not in some profound state—it is on the road between here and there. "Leads to Cháng'ān" later became the classic image of the whole Chan "pointing at the moon" (指月, zhǐyuè) style of instruction.
Even more distinctive is the exchange in the *Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp*:
僧問：「如何是大道？」師曰：「我無小徑。」 再問：「如何是小徑？」師曰：「我不知有大道。」 *A monk asked: "What is the Great Way?" The master said: "I have no small path."* *Again he asked: "What is the small path?" The master said: "I do not know that there is a Great Way."*
A classic mutual elimination (相互遣除)—the Great Way and the small path negate each other, demolishing any mind that would take the Great Way as a fixed name-and-form and try to grab something out of it. The questioner asks "where is the Great Way," and the answerer deliberately says "I do not even have a small path"—this directly dismantles the framework that "the Great Way and the small path are two different roads."
The *Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Yuánwù Fóguǒ* closes with the plainest line: after passing through the gate of entering principle, in the end it is only "飢餐渴飲" ("eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty"), no longer clinging to names and forms, to views of Buddha or views of Dharma—"本分大心大見大解脫無為無事真道人" ("a true person of the Way who, in their own lot, has great mind, great vision, great liberation, is unconditioned, and has nothing to do"). The Great Way in the end returns to the most ordinary things—eating, drinking water.
VI. The Place of the Great Way in the Whole Path of Liberation
To pin the Great Way onto the map of the path of liberation, several contrasts must be seen clearly:
(1) With nirvāṇa: The Great Way is the gate of nirvāṇa; the two are "neither separate nor identical" (非離非即)—not two separate things, yet not the same thing. The Great Way is the entering into accord that leads to nirvāṇa; nirvāṇa is the present freedom of the Great Way.
(2) With Buddha-mind / true mind / suchness: The *Jingde Record* speaks them in one breath—"大道虛曠，常一真心" ("the Great Way is empty and vast, constantly one true mind"), and pairs them: "達大道兮過量，通佛心兮出度" ("reaching the Great Way is beyond measure; penetrating the Buddha-mind is beyond all bounds"), and says that according with the Great Way is "契合真如" ("matching and according with suchness"). In Chan these terms point to the same reality in substance, differing only in the angle of entry: the Great Way enters from the "road," true mind from the "mind," suchness from the "substance."
(3) With the small path: Mutual elimination; it cannot be grasped as a fixed name-and-form.
(4) With "awakening": The Great Way fundamentally has no delusion or awakening. "Awakening" is not a change in the Great Way; it is only a matter of recognizing or not recognizing. The ladder of the three vehicles is a provisional expedient; Chan opposes linearly grading realization into stages like "first ground, second ground, tenth ground."
Placed on the overall map of the path of liberation: the Great Way is not "a goal to be reached" at some stage of practice, but the upward step (向上一着) toward which the ultimate aim of all practice points. It is not on the boat crossing "from this shore to the other shore"; it is in your present moment right now—the only question is whether you recognize it.
VII. Two Seemingly Contradictory Propositions That Must Be Read Together
"言語即是大道" ("speech is the Great Way"; *Jingde Record*) and "至真離言說" ("the utmost true is beyond speech"; *Recorded Sayings of Yuánwù Fóguǒ*)—at first glance contradictory, in fact two sides of one body:
- The side of non-separation (不離門): the Way never leaves the sounds, forms, and speech before your eyes. The Way is in phenomena. - The side of transcendence (超越門): the Way is not anything that any single sentence or concept can grasp.
Read together, the meaning is: the Way is not separate from language; language is not the Way. These are the two legs of Chan most easily stepped on crookedly: read only "speech is the Great Way," and you will mistake some true sentence for the Way; read only "the utmost true is beyond speech," and you will think you should shut up and say nothing. Neither leg can be discarded.
A Walk-Through in Everyday Life
Let me walk through the layers above step by step, using several concrete scenarios contemporary people will recognize.
Scenario A: The "Right Before Your Eyes, Hard to See" on Your Commute
You spend over an hour on the subway every day. Your own face is reflected in the window; outside the window is the dark tunnel; inside the car are the backs of strangers' heads, all kinds of advertisements, everyone wearing their own earphones.
The classical definition says: "大道祇在目前，要且難覩" — this "目前" is literally "right before your eyes," right here in this very car you are in now. But why can you not see it? You are occupied by "a mind that grasps at appearances"—"this ad is so annoying," "that stranger should give up their seat," "I'm late again today," "last night's meeting was so meaningless"… you are ceaselessly tagging, discriminating, grasping at appearances. The Great Way is standing right there at the back of the head of the person wearing earphones in front of you, but you cannot recognize it, because your mind will not stop jumping.
The landing point of this walk-through: it is not about "stopping thought" to "live in the present"; it is recognizing that the reason you cannot see is that the mind of ceaseless evaluating, discriminating, and grasping is operating—and this recognition itself comes from the Great Way.
Scenario B: "Speech" and "Beyond Speech" While Scrolling Short Videos
You scroll to a short video of a Zen saying, with a snowy mountain in the background and the caption "本來無一物，何處惹塵埃" ("Originally there is not a single thing—where could dust alight?"). You feel struck by it, like it, save it, forward it to a friend with the caption "The most important thing in life is letting go."
"言語即是大道" — this Zen saying is itself language, and it can move you at this moment precisely because it is one manifestation of the Great Way; language is not separate from the Way. But "至真離言說" — this Zen saying is not the Way itself. When you grab this sentence, turn it into the principle "the most important thing in life is letting go," and then use this principle to measure others and yourself—this act of grabbing, measuring, and turning it into a standard is precisely what covers the Great Way again.
The landing point of this walk-through: you scroll to a sentence, and the stirring at that moment is real—this is the side of "speech is the Great Way." But when you forward, save, and apply it, at that moment you solidify speech into a principle—this is the side of "the utmost true is beyond speech." The Way is in language; language is not the Way — this contradictory sentence is not knowledge; it is two forces you can directly observe while scrolling on your phone.
Scenario C: "Just Have No Mind at All" During Late-Night Overtime
The deadline is six hours away. The more anxious you get, the less efficient you are; the less efficient, the more anxious.
"但無一切心" is not "forcing yourself to be calm" — that, too, is artificial effort. Nor is it "thinking nothing" — that is avoidance. It is loosening the desperate grip of "I must finish it." It is not putting down the work; it is putting down the posture of "gripping."
"大道不假雕鐫" — you already know how to do this thing. The "you" that knows how to do it, the "you" that suddenly comes up with a new idea, the "you" that rests when tired—that is the Great Way operating in the present. Anxiety is not "you." What is above anxiety, the one that can observe the anxiety—that is.
The landing point of this walk-through: in this scenario, "according with the Great Way" is most easily misread as "cultivating a calm working state"—but that is called focus, that is called mindfulness, that is called flow. What Chan means by "according with the Great Way" is more basic: it is simply that you see that you already knew how to do this thing; the anxiety is added on afterward and is not necessary.
Scenario D: "The Great Way Has No Same" in Close Relationships
You and your partner are arguing over "who is more right." You have one direction in mind, your partner has another; you are both trying to pull the other toward your own direction.
"大道絕同" — this is not "right and wrong are all the same," not nihilism. It means: the moment the attachment to the direction "I must be right" stands up, it has already blocked the Great Way behind you. East, west, south, north—let them go. This does not negate directions; it says no single direction can represent the ultimate right.
The landing point of this walk-through: the easiest place to map it wrong is to take "the Great Way has no same" as "each side gives a little and find the middle"—that is political compromise. "The Great Way has no same" is saying: what makes you suffer is that you have made "I am right" the most important thing; when this structure loosens a little, east, west, south, and north are all still there, but the relationship is already different.
Scenario E: "The Great Way Has No Center or Edge" in Self-Doubt
You are thirty-five, and you feel you are "neither good enough nor bad enough," stuck in the middle, unable to advance or retreat.
"大道絕中邊" — but note, this is not the doctrine of the mean (finding a balance point). Nor is it saying "you are actually fine, believe in yourself" (that is self-help). It is saying: "good," "bad," and "middle"—these three evaluations are all marks (相, xiāng), and marks are not the Way. What gets you stuck is that you have stuffed yourself into an evaluative system and cannot find a "correct" slot to put yourself in.
The landing point of this walk-through: what loosens is not finding yourself a new evaluation ("I am actually unique"), but seeing the operation of the whole evaluative system itself—and this seeing does not require evaluation; it is already standing on "the Great Way has no center or edge."
Where People Most Often Map It Wrong
1. Taking the Great Way as a state that can be "cultivated into existence" — the Great Way fundamentally has no delusion or awakening, and does not depend on cultivation or regulation. 2. Taking "no-mind" as "numbness" or "having no feelings" — no-mind is not discriminating and not grasping; it is not dead. 3. Taking "living in the present" as the Great Way — mindfulness is a tool; the Great Way is seeing that the tool itself is only a tool. 4. Grabbing hold of some sentence as the Way — "speech is the Great Way" must be paired with "the utmost true is beyond speech"; read either one alone, and you will veer off. 5. Taking "letting go" as passive surrender — "stepping back and returning to oneself" is actively seeing clearly, not lying flat.
Why Contemporary People Need It
Modern people face pains different in substance from those of the ancients, but the word "suffering" (苦, kǔ) has not changed. There are several reasons contemporary people especially need the concept of the Great Way:
(1) An antidote for the age of excess
Contemporary material abundance is extreme, and information is overwhelmingly flooded—yet the human mind has not been made lighter thereby. The classics say "大道不屬見聞覺知" — in today's age, this sentence hits a precise problem: what you receive in a single day is more than what ancients received in years, yet the Great Way is precisely what does not belong to seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing. What your eyes see, your ears hear, your body touches—that is "what happens"; but it is not "how things happen, how they do not happen, why they happen." The more you grasp, the more you misrecognize.
(2) An antidote for the age of excess self-consciousness
Social media polishes the "I" to an extraordinary fineness—my image, my taste, my opinions, my boundaries, my values. What Chan offers here is not "love yourself more," nor "let go of the self," but seeing the way the concept "I" operates: "ordinary people fail to see because of a mind that grasps at appearances, discriminating good and bad"—this mechanism of "having a mind" (有心) is the core disease of the age of excess self-consciousness.
(3) An antidote for the age of efficiency worship
One of the core beliefs of contemporary culture is "everything can be optimized"—sleep can be optimized, relationships can be optimized, emotions can be optimized, the spirit can be optimized. "大道不假雕鐫" ("the Great Way needs no carving") and "從來大道無文字，不要安排喚作禪" ("the Great Way has never had words; do not arrange anything and call it Chan") precisely puncture this optimization mania. It does not oppose effort; it says that the thing you think you must strain to "work on" was already there all along.
(4) An antidote for the age of anxiety
The core structure of anxiety is "I must grasp something, or I will lose." "大道無形、無對、不屬見聞覺知" — you cannot grasp it, so you also cannot lose it. "大道絕中邊" — so both poles of anxiety's "center" and "edge" can loosen. "The Great Way is not in the future, nor does it depend on cultivation" — this judgment hits directly the two pillars of anxiety: grasping at the future, and the fear that the present is not good enough.
(5) An antidote for the age of true-and-false discernment
What contemporary people lack most is not new information or new methods, but the ability to discern "what is true and what is covering." The two propositions "speech is the Great Way" and "the utmost true is beyond speech" taken together are precisely a concrete training in this discernment—you can see through speech as the Way, and you can also see through the delusiveness of speech.
An interesting contemporary mirror: recommendation algorithms take "what you liked" as a signal and "how long you lingered" as an optimization target, and in the end give you a content feed that is ever more precise, ever more like "the way you already are." But is this thing the Great Way? It belongs more and more to your seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing—yet the Great Way is precisely what does not belong to seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing. This contrast is only a mirror for contemporary experience; it does not prove the truth of the Chan proposition — Chan's Great Way is not established by analogy with algorithms; this is merely a foil that modern people can recognize immediately.
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
(1) "The Great Way" = some kind of mysticism or metaphysical speculation?
Wrong. The Great Way is not a mysterious force from a transcendent realm; it cannot be venerated like a god, nor studied like an abstract principle. One of its essential qualities is "being right before the eyes"—right in front of you. Your neighbor, the cat on the roadside, the coffee in your hand—these are the places where the Great Way manifests. Mystifying it actually violates the spirit of Chan.
(2) "The Great Way" = "let go of everything and stop trying"?
Wrong. The *Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Yuánwù Fóguǒ* states plainly: "道由悟達，立志為先" ("the Way is reached through awakening; establishing the resolve comes first") and "英靈衲子應超生出死、絕聖越凡，發志高超佛祖，荷擔重任" ("the heroic monk should transcend birth and death, surpass the sacred and leap beyond the ordinary, resolve to rise above even Buddhas and patriarchs, and bear the heavy burden"). The Great Way is absolutely not passive; it is action taken after establishing an iron resolve. The difference is only: is it "I" who strives (effort driven by self-consciousness), or is it the Way acting through you (functioning after self-consciousness has thinned)? The same action, completely different structure.
(3) "The Great Way" = a special state attained after "awakening"?
Wrong. "大道本無迷悟，達者不假修治" ("the Great Way fundamentally has no delusion or awakening; one who arrives does not depend on cultivation"). Awakening is only recognizing what was already there; it is not acquiring anything new. Treating the Great Way as a state is like treating the moon as "the finger pointing at the moon"—the finger is an expedient, but if you keep staring at the finger, you will never see the moon.
(4) "Speech is the Great Way" = some true sentence is the Great Way?
Wrong. "Speech is the Great Way" must be read together with "the utmost true is beyond speech." The Way is in language, but language is not the Way. Read the two apart, and you will always veer off.
(5) "No-mind" = numb, without feeling?
Wrong. "No-mind" means the discriminating mind no longer takes charge, but it does not mean feeling disappears. In Chan stories, people who have awakened still cry, still laugh, still shed tears at beauty. It is only that they are no longer carried away by these feelings, no longer shaped by them into the whole story of a "self."
(6) "The Great Way" = abstract big words like "cosmic truth" or "ultimate wisdom"?
Wrong. This is the pit most people fall into. Translating the Great Way as "cosmic truth" sounds solemn, but words like "truth" and "wisdom" are themselves relative—truth corresponds to falsehood, wisdom to folly. The *Jingde Record* states plainly that the Great Way "不落善惡、智愚、迷悟等對待" ("does not fall into such pairs as good and evil, wisdom and folly, delusion and awakening"). Once you translate it as "ultimate wisdom," it has already fallen into the pair "wisdom corresponds to folly." The Great Way is not about seizing the top position within that pair—it dismantles the whole pair.
(7) "The Great Way" vs. Mindfulness?
Contemporary mindfulness is a psychological technique derived from the Buddhist insight (vipaśyanā, 內觀, nèiguān) tradition, teaching people to "live in the present" and "observe without judgment." It has something in common with the Great Way—both try to keep people from being dragged around by thoughts. But the difference is:
- Mindfulness is a technique—it has exercises, courses, and standard operating procedures. - The Great Way is not a technique — it is seeing that the technique itself is only a tool, not the destination.
Mindfulness is a good tool, but it is not itself the Way; however deeply you cultivate it, it remains only a way of focused abiding. The Great Way is a more thorough step—it sees through the very structure of "I am cultivating," "I am abiding," "I am practicing."
Returning to the opening of this exposition. The biggest mistake contemporary people make with the word "大道" is to take it as something higher that can be pursued—some state better than one's present self. But the classical records blocked that road from the very first sentence: "大道無形，真理無對，所以不屬見聞覺知" ("the Great Way is formless; true principle has no opposite; therefore it does not belong to seeing, hearing, sensing, or knowing"). It is not better; it is something else entirely—it is neither above you nor outside you, but in the present moment of yours that you have never truly seen clearly.
This is also why Zhàozhōu said "大道通長安" — he was not telling you to go find something; he was telling you to recognize: the very road you have been walking all along—that is it.