OK, someone had to ask obvious question about this news item in today’s People’s Daily:

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Wednesday established the Center for the Studies of Taoist Culture.

The center will focus on advancing academic research on Taoist
studies, promulgating knowledge of Taoist culture to the general
public, developing Taoist education in local secondary schools and
enhancing cultural and academic exchanges among Taoist organizations in
Hong Kong and on the mainland, Lai Chi Tim, Professor of the Department
of Cultural and Religious Studies and director of the new center said
at the inauguration ceremony.

      And that obvious question is: how can there be a Center for Taoist Studies, indeed how can there be a project called "Taoist Studies" at all, when the Tao Te Ching tells us things like:

Cut off learning and there will be nothing more to worry about.
How much difference is there really betweena polite "yes" and an emphatic "no"?
How much difference is there between what is deemed beautiful and ugly?
(20)

    Ames and Hall, whose translation is used above, go on to interpret passage 20:

Learning is all about being on the right side of conventional distinctions.  Yet these distinctions – assenting and rejecting, deeming beautiful and otherwise, fearing and being feared, and so on – are at best porous and perspectival. (106)

    Which is a fancy academic way of saying you cannot really "learn" Way (Tao) in the conventional academic manner.  It is something to be apprehended gradually over time through experience and reflection (or, reflecting on how not to reflect but simply absorb).  Of course, something about Way can be taught in a classroom; if not, then I would be out of a job.  But it cannot be learned as such.

    I am sure the Taoist teachers at CUHK, a university I know well and respect a great deal, know all of this better than I.  So, why would they want to have a Taoist Studies Center?  Why not a Tao Confluence Site?  Or, since emptying the mind is the method of Tao, perhaps a Tao Empty Place?  It might be hard to get donors to support such a thing, but it might be more in keeping with the spirit of Tao.