The Daodejing has inconsistent editions and versions. There are controversial issues that lie in the theme, the intention, the significance, and the semantic meaning of the Daodejing. This article takes “Dao ke dao fei chang Dao” as an anchor to reexamine the different paths to the Dao of the Daodejing. We regard all of the editions and versions as an enrichment of the Daodejing. Drawing on the Chinese exegetics, we obtain two basic meanings of the verb dao (“to speak” and “to follow”), and two basic meanings of the adjective chang (“eternal” and “common”). Based on a philosophical analysis and review of the sinological interpretations, we discriminate three ways of speaking (conceptual way, metaphorical way, and transcendental way), two modes of following (to imitate the Dao and to merge identically with the Dao), and three types of eternal (immutable eternal, constantly changing as eternal, and eternal in the core). By examining different paths to the Dao, we conclude that Laozi’s Dao cannot be expressed conceptually or metaphorically. We must comprehend the Dao in a transcendental way. The Dao constantly changes with a stable core or law but differs from physical law, dialectical logic, and logos in the Western context. People can follow the Dao and become identical to it.

The Shenxian daohua ju of the Yuan dynasty closely relates to Daoism. However, the essence and boundary of these two concepts have not been clearly defined and delineated in the existing research, which leads to confusion in analyzing their relationship. This article provides methodologies for defining Shenxian daohua ju and Daoism. Based on the extant Yuan zaju texts and confined to the themes of seclusion, deliverance, and ascending to immortality, we enumerate the particular dramatic texts of Shenxian daohua ju. Then, we limit the objects of the concept of Daoism to specific Daoist sects in history and highlight that the criteria for determining whether a Shenxian Dao (Celestial Being Sect) belongs to Daoism are provided by the officially recognized Daozang (Daoist canon). According to the above understanding of these two concepts, we explore their relationship from the following perspectives. First, in terms of composition subjects, these include the frustrated Confucian literati, the vassal Kings, and the imperial literati; the Shenxian daohua ju written by frustrated literati in the Yuan dynasty is not the embodiment of Daoist doctrines as some of the researchers conclude. Second, in light of the “aesthetic distinction”, we can also take Shenxian daohua ju as pure literary works and interpret these dramas from their literary structures and rhythmical forms. Third, from the perspective of the literary tradition, although with the adoption of Daoist themes, the Shenxian daohua ju of the Yuan dynasty still belongs to the Confucian poetic tradition. Its negation of secular life and advocacy of the ideal world follow the Confucian poetic teachings of “criticizing those above”. Objectively speaking, due to the influence of Daoism, the Shenxian daohua ju with the Daoist themes breaks through the taboo topics prescribed in Confucian literary principles to a certain extent and enriches Chinese literature.

Background human cognition is not static. Early human cognition is different from modern human cognition. In the cognitive process of modern people, the information received by the senses from the external world is encoded and translated, and then presented in the form of abstract causal logic through the logical analysis and empirical verification of scientific thinking. However, the cognitive model of early human beings depended on mythological language and metaphorical thinking. Therefore, our purpose in this work is to study the basic operation principle of this mythical metaphorical thinking and the psychological motivation of human beings to use this way of thinking, and to explore the relationship and significance between human scientific cognition and myth. Metaphorical cognition, and emotional behavior. Subjects and Methods Based on Cassirer's mythological metaphorical thinking theory, this study analyzes the comparative texts of ancient and modern human mythological language, and obtains a similar understanding of digital cognition, orientation cognition, attribute cognition and language cognition. Knowledge information is followed by comparative research. In this way, we can confirm the principles followed by human beings and the psychological motivation to apply these principles in the cognitive model of metaphorical thinking relying on mythological language. In order to better study the basic principles of metaphorical thinking and the changes of emotional behavior in mythological language, this study uses the measurement tool and the interpersonal emotion regulation scale (ierq) compiled by Hofmann et al. (2016) to measure how individuals regulate their emotions through others. The scale includes 4 factors and 20 items in total. Five point meter, The higher the score, the greater the degree of using interpersonal style to regulate emotion High. In this study, the results of confirmatory factor analysis are as follows: χ 2 / DF = 7.921, RMSEA = 0.077, CFI = 0.904, TLI = 0.889, indicating that the scale has good structural validity in this study. Internal one Consistence α The coefficient is 0.94, which is the sum of the above four factors α The coefficients are 0.84, 0.77, 0.84 and 0.82 respectively. At the same time, the implicit positive emotion subscale is adopted. The scale adopts the implicit positive emotion subscale compiled by Quirin et al. (2009) and revised by Dong Shanchuan (2016). The scale adopts 4-point scoring to evaluate the correlation between 6 meaningless synthetic words and 3 positive emotion words. The higher the total score, the higher the implicit positive emotion and the internal consistency α The coefficient is 0.93. Results humans who rely on mythological language and metaphorical thinking show a specific cognitive model. Mythology and early language reveal human cognition of themselves and the external world in an intuitive and concrete way. Modern languages are usually more abstract and logical. However, the comparison between scientific cognitive group and mythological metaphorical cognitive group reflects the principle of “replacing the whole with the part”. On the other hand, the psychological motivation of human beings to use this way of thinking is to replace all unfamiliar and difficult to understand abstract things with concrete real things. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between psychological expectation and emotion regulation ability (P < 0.01). Tested by multiple linear regression, interpersonal emotion regulation, regulation difficulty and their interaction items significantly predicted implicit positive emotion. Simple slope analysis showed that when the level of regulation difficulty was low (m-1sd), interpersonal emotion regulation significantly positively predicted implicit positive emotion, β= 0.33，t=12.54，p＜0.001; When the adjustment difficulty level is high (M + 1sd), the prediction coefficient is β= 0.26，t=8.93，p＜0.001. This shows that the predictive power of interpersonal emotion regulation on implicit positive emotion is significantly enhanced with the decrease of regulation difficulty level. Conclusion the principle of “part rather than whole“ is the basic principle of mythological language and metaphorical thinking. It is rooted in and reflects the basic characteristics of primitive thinking, and runs through the early forms of human understanding of the world, such as myth, early language, primitive art and so on. Metaphorical thinking is an intuitive and concrete way of thinking and cognition. The psychological motivation for humans to use this way of thinking may be that they cannot understand abstract things. Therefore, they must replace these inexplicable abstract things with concrete real things. Therefore, the psychological activity process of early humans seems to be different from that of modern humans. Among them, direct Feiling is stronger than logical abstraction, and emotion is stronger than rational thinking. At the same time, in this study, we find that these principles and motives still exist in modern human cognition.