Dao
The way — the central concept of Chinese philosophy, used differently by Daoists and Confucians to name the underlying order according to which things should proceed.
Dao (way) is the central concept of Chinese philosophy. The character originally meant a path or road, and the philosophical use ranges from the way of a particular practice or institution to the underlying order of the cosmos itself. Different Chinese schools used the term in different ways, and the disagreements among them can largely be read as disagreements over what the dao is.
For Confucius, the dao is the way of the ancient sage-kings, accessible through ritual propriety, study of the classics, and the cultivation of humanness (ren). For Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi, the dao is something more elusive: prior to all distinctions, wordless, accessible only through wu wei rather than through study or rule. The Daodejing opens with the famous declaration that the dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal dao. Mohist and Legalist thinkers gave the term still other senses, tied to impartial concern or to clear administrative principle. The philosophical history of China is to a significant extent the history of competing accounts of the dao.