The Way It Is provides a modern, readable and relevant English language version of the Chinese classic text on the nature of the unnameable Tao, how the individual can live in harmony with it and the state govern in accord with it.

From the Introduction "Unlike the idea of God, who oversees the world, or Heaven, which is always above, the Tao is always 'below'. It is the source of all that is, the foundation upon which everything rests, the valley into which all waters flow, the beginning to which all living things return. It does not use its power to dominate or control the world. It uses its power to sustain the world. The desires of men and the ambitions of states are illusions destined to fail and fall, and when they fail they fall back to the source, for all forms of power that are not in accord with the Tao have no permanent foundation. Hence the Tao is described as weak, soft, yielding and, paradoxically, as empty but always full. These terms are the very opposite of the words we would normally associate with the idea of power."