Tai-i

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T'ai-i (Chin., ‘the supreme one’). The ultimate source of all appearance in Taoism, which has received very different characterization in the many different forms of Taoism. In religious Taoism, he is personified as the supreme God; in philosophical Taoism, it is the unproduced source of all appearance; in interior Taoism, he is the controlling deity within the human system. T'ai-i is also equated, at times, with t'ai-chi.