In the twentieth century and after, more and more Asian scholars are forced to confront the cross-linguistic encounter between Eastern and Western academia. As a result of this encounter, using Western concepts to interpret Eastern thought has become a common practice in the academia on both sides. Intriguingly, while the practice itself has yielded instances of cultural misunderstanding, in response there has also been found critical efforts to clarify and to reconstruct the academic languages involved in those instances. The evolution of modern hermeneutics of Taoism is a case in point. Within this modern hermeneutic tradition, the works of Mou Zungsang undoubtedly signify a paradigm shift: Against the conventional practice to interpret Taoism through the prism of Western speculative metaphysics, Mou breaks new ground by bringing back the prism of Eastern practical metaphysics. On the basis of this new interpretation, Mou also makes a great contribution to the hermeneutics of Eastern practical philosophies by producing a critical reconstruction of Mou’s interpretation of Taoist metaphysics. While sharing Mou’s basic assumption about the importance of practical metaphysics, I propose to go beyond this assumption by turning to a Heideggerian alternative of ontology, so as to envisage a possible way to integrate ontology and aesthetics.