This describes the Tao, or the Way, as something beyond human perception and description. It is invisible, inaudible, and subtle, and these qualities prevent it from being captured by language or defined through description. The quote emphasizes that the essence of the Tao can only be understood by acknowledging these paradoxical qualities and blending them together.
“We look at it, and we do not see it, and we name it the ‘invisible’. We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it the ‘Inaudible.’ We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it, and we name it the Subtle.’ With these three qualities, it can not be made the subject of description; and hence we blend them together and obtain The One.” …bars
There is a saying in the Tao Te Ching:
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
Tao is the paradox.
It is what you can hold in your hand—and also what slips through your fingers.
It is what you see and cannot see, what you hear and cannot hear.
It is form and formlessness, presence and absence, action and stillness.
“It Is and It Is Not”: The Paradox of Tao
Many traditions point toward this paradox. Taoism names it explicitly. But for me, much of this thinking first came alive through African Traditional Philosophy—a cosmology where spirit, form, and formless energy are always in relation. Recently, I encountered this paradox again in The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, where he contrasts Taoist logic with Aristotelian reasoning.
Fromm describes Tao not as a static concept but as an unfolding—something to live rather than define. Where the West often seeks truth through dominance, Tao finds balance in contradiction. It says: both things can be true. And that’s the key.
Acceptance Is the Natural State—But It’s Not Passive
As one commenter, @L_D_F, said:
“Tao is everything and nothing. The most important lesson I draw from it is that acceptance is the natural state of things.”
But then they asked: How much acceptance can we actually tolerate?
That’s the question sacred kink—and intentional spiritual practice—takes seriously.
Because acceptance is not passive. It is not resignation. It is not spiritual bypass. It is a full-body embrace of paradox, of shadow, of contradiction. It is action. It is presence. It is alchemy.
Sacred Kink as a Path to the Paradox
When we engage in sacred kink, especially in extended or altered states of consciousness—subspace, top space, breath states, trance states—we often experience this paradox directly. We return to the truth that contradiction is not a problem to solve. It is a condition to inhabit.
We don’t choose either/or—we become the AND.
We experience pain and pleasure, surrender and control, resistance and release, chaos and structure. We allow ourselves to seek both conflict and harmony in the same breath. That tension creates resonance. And that resonance becomes a portal to deeper knowing.
African Philosophy and the Tao: A Synergy
Taoism speaks in symbols and silence. Western thought speaks in conquest and clarity. But African cosmologies? They speak in relationship—in conscious, spiritual coexistence with the universe. They hold reality not as something to dominate or define, but something to dance with. Something alive.
This is where I feel the deepest synergy. Precolonial African philosophy and Taoist paradox both resist binary, rigid truths. They invite us into the liminal, into communion with the seen and unseen, into non-linear time and cosmic responsibility.
And this is also what sacred kink opens: a space where body and spirit can meet outside the constraints of linearity, morality, and shame.
The Way Is Not a Straight Line
So, where does that leave us?
With a Way that cannot be held, but can be lived.
With a truth that cannot be named, but can be felt.
With a path that must be walked in the dark, guided only by breath, sensation, trust, and paradox.
This is the space sacred kink dares to enter. Not as entertainment. Not as escape. But as embodied metaphysics.
As the Tao says:
“When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.”
We don’t fight the paradox.
We let it tie us up—and teach us.
Leave a Reply