The more I learn about nondualism, the more sense this makes to me. As a young atheist I just wrote it off as typical religious self-denial. When I drifted into monism, as a result of hanging out with lots of new age travellers, it seemed that to decentre the self was to reject the universal ocean of which I assumed it was a part.

Now I start to realise that the idea of a "self" as a consistent object operating on other objects is an illusion. So, I start to understand the tao as a representation of dynamic equilibrium, of constant change. Not as a monist container of the Ten Thousands Things.

But you know, the tao that can be spoken is not the eternal, ever-changing tao, so who knows? 😋