The Tao Te Ching opens by disqualifying its own subject: whatever can be pinned down in language is not the thing. This is not mysticism for its own sake — it is a claim about categories, that naming carves the world into pieces the world does not actually have, and that the carving is where trouble starts. Everything downstream follows: if the Way cannot be stated, it can only be aligned with, which is why Taoism produced practices and paradoxes rather than a creed.