While I'm writing, this may be worth a read for that "Dao" definition to begin with (wanted to upload file, but it's too big, so here is a copy of paste of pp. 300-305; garbled letters are from Chinese characters that don't copy-paste from the file):
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 42, No. 4 (May, 2003), pp. 287-319
2. "WAY" OR "PATH" (DAO [m] AND ITS COMPOUNDS)
In early medieval Chinese discourse, probably the most ubiquitous way
of nominalizing what we would call "religions" was to speak of one or
multiple "ways" or "paths"-one or more dao [L]. I begin with the treatise,
in dialogue format, known as the Mouzi lihuo lun [4-i ftfi 3e]
("Master Mou's Treatise for the Removal of Doubts"), by an unknown
author.46W hen, as rarely in this text, it is a matter of the foreign whatwe-
would-call-religion nominalized, and it is uncertain what its particular
practices, values, or scriptures are, the term used in every case is "the
dao-way or path-of Buddha" (fodao [fiJ$]). The term first occurs in
the question: "If the dao of Buddha is so venerable, why did not Yao,
Shun, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius practice (xiu [f1]) it?"47 (John P.
Keenan renders fodao here as "the Way of the Buddha"; Erik Ziircher
simply translatesi t as "Buddhism,"a n understandablec hoice, but one that
masks the Chinese metaphor and its difference from the Western "ism.")48
Elsewhere the interlocutor asks why, since the people who constituted
the intellectual and cultural paragons of society at the time-the "forest
of classicists" (rulin [{ft$t], ru being a designation often translated as
"Confucians" [a habit that merits reconsideration])49-did not regard the
"dao of Buddha" as venerable during his visit there, Master Mou holds it
in such high esteem.50
The term dao is also used to summarily nominalize multiple "ways" in
the following passage:
"Inb otht he daos it is a single 'intentionlessa ction.'W hy thend o you discriminate
and rank them, saying they [the daos] are different?"51
Or, in the moder Western idiom: both Daoism and Buddhism employ
the concept, value, and terminology of "intentionless action" (the famous
wuwei); why then do you assert that Daoism and Buddhism are different
paths and that the latter is superior? The implied author, Master Mou,
goes on to pose analogies with the uses of the terms "vegetation" and
"metal": things may belong in common to these genera, but they differ at
the level of species. He then clinches the analogy with this line: "If this
is so of the myriad things, how can daos alone [be different]?" (Keenan
renders dao in the first question above as "teachings," while rendering
the latter one as "doctrines," both of which hide the Chinese metaphor
implicit in dao and set up a too-easy equivalence between it and the familiar
Western tendency to reduce religions to "doctrines.")52
In Wei Shou's treatise we find such usages as the following:
"This,t hen,w as them odestb eginningo f thei nfluxo f theW ayo f the Buddha."53
"In the time of EmperorH uan,[ XiangK ai] spoke of the Way of Buddha,t he
Yellow Emperora, nd [Laozi]."54
"[He] had always honored the Way of Buddha."55
Of course, fodao was also the expression of choice for denoting more
specifically the path to enlightenment established by the Buddha, a set of
teachings and practices more delimited than the more general usage seen
above, where fodao is clearly being used to nominalize the entirety of
what we in English would refer to as "Buddhism."56
In the year 340 C.E., the officials Yu Bing [J 7<Jaun] d He Chong [fiJ C]
debated the issue of whether the Buddhist sangha was autonomous with
respect to the polity.57 Both He, defending the pro-Buddhist position, and
Yu, arguing that monks were obliged to perform obeisance to the ruler,
use the term shendao [Lt$iE] (divine path, or path to divinity, or way of
spirits) in both the singular and plural to nominalize bodies of practice
that seem analogous to what is meant by "religion(s)." (Ziircher, again ignoring
the metaphoric structure of such an expression, renders shendao as
"spiritual doctrine.")
"Them yriadq uartersd ifferi n theirc ustoms;t heirs hendaoa re hardt o distinguish."
58
"Moreoverf, rom its first appearancein Han times down to the present,a lthought
he Law [see the sectionb elow on this metaphorh] as alternatelyfl ourished
andd ecayedi t has not been spoiledb y bogus and wanton[ practices]A. s
a shendao it has lasted longer than any other."59
Again, as in the case of fodao, these uses of shendao are exceptional.
The term's more standard meanings in religious discourses include the
paths of rebirth as spirits as opposed to humans,60 the way of serving
spirits, a way of characterizing a religious path or method as superior,61
or the inscription-lined pathway leading to a prominent person's tomb.
In the fifth-century Celestial Master scripture Inner Explanations of
the Three Heavens (Santian neijie jing [-_ I rt /g ]), which offers a
mythic "history" of what we would term "religions" in China up until its
own time, religious plurality is similarly a matter of various daos, and
central to the scripture's agenda-as we will see below-is to narrate the
history of these daos' interrelationships so as to clarify their respective
statuses and identities (and so as to privilege the one championed by the
scripture's authors). We find such statements as the following:
"At this time, he [Lord Lao] issued the Three Ways to instruct the people of
heaven.... At that time, the rule of the Six Heavensf lourisheda nd the Three
Ways and Teachings were put into practice."62
These "Three Ways" are not the "Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism"
familiar from textbooks on Chinese religions over the past century but
"the Great Way of Intentionless Action" (wuwei dadao [,, :,tk ]),
"the Way of Buddha" (fodao [f M-]), and "the Great Way of the Pure
Contract"( qingyue dadao [- K,t X ]).
Later, after narrating the Buddha's birth, the text observes:
"Att his, the Way of Buddhaf lourishedo nce more."63
Then, in its version of the most common story of how the "way of Buddha"
was introduced to China-that of the dream of Han Emperor
Ming-the scripture observes:
"His officials interpreted this dream to mean that this was the perfected form of
the Buddha, so they sent envoys into the Western Kingdoms to copy and bring
back Buddha scriptures. Then [or: because of this] they built Buddha stiipas
and temples, and so [the Way of Buddha?B uddhas tuipasa nd temples?]c overed
and spread across the Central Kingdom, and the Three Ways intermingled
and became confused. As a result, the people became mixed and disordered;
those of the Center mingled with outsiders, and each had his own particular
object of veneration."64
There is an odd vagueness as to the intended subject of the second sentence:
perhaps it is the "way of Buddha," or perhaps the "Buddha stupas
and temples," that are said to have "covered and spread across the Central
Kingdom." In any case, flourishing, covering and spreading an area
(perhaps), intermingling and becoming confused: these are the actions,
and the only actions, attributed to daos.65
Elsewhere, in a passage lamenting people's tendency to continue "revering"
or "upholding" (feng ) daos for which there is no longer any
need, we read:
"Todayt, hought here are some who reveret he "Wayo f Five Pecks of Rice,"
therea re othersw ho upholdt he "[Wayo f] IntentionlessA ction"a ndt he "Way
of Bannersa ndF lowers,"w hichf ollows the Wayo f Buddha.A ll of these [deviant
ways] are old matters of the Six Heavens. All have been abolished!"66
Finally, when this scripture wants to indicate that multiple "ways"
have a common source, it resorts to a different metaphor commonly used
in Chinese discourses for this purpose: that of trunk or root versus
branch.
"Now the three Ways are but different branches extending from the same
root.... These three Ways are equally methods of the Most High Lord Lao,
thought hey differ in their teachingsa nd transformativeef fects. All threef ind
their source in the true Way."67
What are the implications of the dao metaphor? Although many scriptures
of Celestial Master, Shangqing, and Lingbao provenance personify
dao as an ultimate cosmic deity or force with wishes and commandments
for humanity, such is not its sense in the contexts under survey here; it is
used rather to nominalize things that seem analogous to what we would
call "religions." It does so by imagining them as paths. Imagined as the
objects of human agents' actions, paths may be issued, set forth, laid
down, upheld, followed, strayed or deviated from, or lost,68 or the wrong
path may be taken; imagined as agents, they may deviate or be correct,
they may flourish or decline, or they may remain distinct or become intermingled
and confused. These are very weak senses of agency, and they
are nonorganic. "Path" metaphors are, however, rather holistic in at least
two senses: a path, unless broken, runs continuously from beginning to
end, whether it divides or rejoins, and it is not possible for an individual
to walk-practice (the double sense of a common verb in such contexts,
xing [f]) more than one path at a time unless the paths have merged to
form one. But note, finally, that people's relation to daos is not one of passive
containment, membership, or sheer belonging. People seek, travel,
follow, abandon, or deviate from daos, rather than simply being contained
in them; the verbs are verbs of doing, not copulae.69