Asian Religions, page 9
As for Buddhism, the third of the “great religions” of China, another abstraction can be made, and this book will treat Buddhism (including its Indian, Chinese, and Japanese forms) as a separate entity in Parts V and VI. In China's case this is acceptable, as the culture itself has tended to perceive Buddhism as a discrete entity. It is the only one of the three traditions that was not indigenous to China, and it arrived relatively late in Chinese history – in the first century ce. Certainly Taoist and Buddhist institutions – temples, abbeys/monasteries, and so on – are readily distinguishable. But, once again, there is no doubt that scholar–gentry and contemporary intellectuals fully embrace Buddhism as part of a single cultural tradition and that common folk fully incorporate elements of all three forms into their lives. We can only say that the demarcations presented in this book are heuristic devices – useful for thinking, but highly inaccurate at the level of everyday belief and practice.
With these cautions in mind, we can now turn to the organization of this part of the book and to the topics we will explore under the general rubric of “Taoism.”
After some introductory notes in Chapter 8, Chapter 9 summarizes the principal themes of the two great classics of Taoist philosophy: the Book of Zhuangzi and the Daodejing. These texts are the ones best known to generations of Western students of Taoism, and they still are of major significance to Taoism as a global religious phenomenon.
Chapters 10 to 12 discuss three dimensions of religious Taoism, employing yin–yang cosmology as the organizing principle: the temporal, the spatial, and the personal.
Chapter 13 examines Taoism as a global religion and its contemporary relevance to the twenty-first century.
Philosophical Taoism
The phrase “philosophical Taoism” is usually applied simply to the ideas presented in the Taoist classics of the pre-Han period, especially the Book of Zhuangzi and the Daodejing. In the following chapter we will look at the major themes of these two works; but, since so much has been written and speculated about their authorship, we should begin with a brief look at the history of the texts themselves.
The Daodejing is usually given first billing as the seminal text of the Taoist tradition, and several scholars have claimed that it is the most translated text in human history, outnumbering even the translations of the Bible. This is a somewhat deceptive claim – the Daodejing is certainly not as widely read as the Bible – but the sheer number of different translations attests both to its worldwide popularity and to its impenetrability: it is an extraordinarily abstruse work. Here are a few translations just of the first sentence of the first chapter: 道可道非常道 (Dao ke dao fei chang dao).
“The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao.” J. H. McDonald
“The Way that can be told of is not an unvarying Way.” Arthur Waley
“The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao.” Charles Muller
“The Way that can be experienced is not true.” Peter Merel
“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.” James Legge
“Even the finest teaching is not the Tao itself.” Stan Rosenthal
“What we call ‘The Dao’ is not the Dao forever.” Randall Nadeau
Multiply this perplexity at least by the number of the book's chapters (81), and you can get some idea of its “mysterious power” (to use a phrase employed in the book itself, 玄德, xuan-de, to describe the Dao).
Of “Laozi” himself, the purported author of the Daodejing, the only thing that can be said with any certainty is that no such person ever existed or put the Daodejing into writing. Legends began to circulate as early as the fourth century bce of an extraordinarily wise sage, born at the age of 81 (hence his name Laozi, 老子, “Old Infant”), who so disdained the world's ways that he mounted an ox and retired to the barbarian reaches of the West.
This was not before meeting up with Confucius, whom Laozi called a “dead branch.” (Their meeting is depicted in Figure 8.1.) According to the legendary biography of the Taoist master, Confucius asked Laozi about the li (禮) and was so impressed by the Old Infant's enigmatic responses that he described him as a “soaring dragon.”
Figure 8.1 Statue depicting the legendary meeting between Confucius and Laozi. Photo taken by the author at Qingyuan shan (清源山), Fujian Province (June 2009).
As he departed from the Middle Kingdom through a mountain pass, Laozi deigned to share his wisdom in a text of 5,000 characters – another name for the Daodejing in Chinese is the wuqianzi jing (五千字經), “the 5,000-character classic” – expounding the Way (道, Dao) and its Power (德, De). To compound the legend even further, Taoists of the fifth and sixth centuries ce claimed that Laozi ended up in India, where he “transformed himself” into none other than Śākyamuni Buddha and “converted the barbarians” to Taoism! This legend arose during a period of intense Buddhist–Taoist rivalry in China, but it is still repeated today, being used now to promote the underlying harmony and compatibility of the two traditions.
These are certainly fantastical stories, with no bearing in reality. Moreover, the Daodejing itself – as it is currently known and has most often been translated – dates to no earlier than the third century ce, some 500 to 1,000 years after the Sage supposedly lived. However, fragments of the text have been discovered in recent years at burial sites in Mawangdui and Guodian, China – these fragments date to the second and fourth centuries bce. Though incomplete, the fragments do indicate the existence of a collection of aphorisms that can be attributed to the collective memory of a group of wise persons or elders, who passed on their wisdom orally until some of their sayings were written down, on silk or bamboo strips, well before the time of Confucius. One scholar sees in the name “Laozi” a hint of this collective authorship, translating the name as “The Elders.”1
More can be said with certainty of Zhuangzi. He did exist, and though the writings attributed to him were substantially written by others, they contain plenty of biographical information. As part of the educated elite, Zhuangzi was well versed in the philosophical traditions of his day. He cites Laozi (7 times, all in the Outer Chapters) as well as Confucius (3 times in the Inner Chapters, 15 times in the Outer Chapters, 13 times in the Miscellaneous Chapters): he certainly allied himself with the former and distinguished himself from the latter. One of the most amusing features of the Book of Zhuangzi (as much a book of humor as anything else) is the use of a character named “Confucius” as a Taoist teacher who often says things that Confucius himself would have found abhorrent. Despite his own intellectual attainments, Zhuangzi saw no value in book learning or formal education and rebelled against conventional social norms. He was a “noble recluse,” the first in a line of many such figures in Chinese history that extends even to the present day. The Book of Zhuangzi reflects an aesthetic sensitivity that celebrates rebelliousness, intuitive insight, mysticism, and irrationality. We will explore these themes in detail in Chapter 9.
Yin–Yang Cosmology
Though the cosmological system of yin and yang originated with the Book of Changes (易經, Yijing, conventionally Romanized as I Ching) before the Common Era, it was not fully developed until the Song Dynasty (eleventh century ce). From that point on it became a foundational symbol of religious Taoism.
Figure 8.2 Taiji tu (太極圖), “Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate.”
Etymologically related to darkness and light, yin and yang represent balanced interpenetrating states of being and potentiality, which are always described in Taoism in dynamic terms: ever moving, ever revolving, ever circulating. Yin represents receptivity, stillness, and regression; yang represents activity, movement, and aggression. Yin is identified with women or with feminine attributes; yang is identified with men or with masculine attributes. Within Chinese religion Taoism is yin-oriented, Confucianism is yang-oriented. However, as the often replicated Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate illustrates (Figure 8.2), these forces are not seen to be in conflict with one another, but rather exist in a complementary relationship; that is to say, one cannot exist without the other. Humans should strive to preserve the two forces in equal measure in their social interactions, in the natural environment, and in their physical selves.
To the extent that social life and the values favored by the Confucian tradition reward the yang attributes of activity and aggression, the Taoist tradition has tended to favor the yin qualities of stillness and receptivity. As a counterbalancing force to the socially dominant Confucian tradition, both philosophical and religious Taoism favor yin over yang. Traditionally, these qualities have been associated with women, and in both theory and practice Taoism has promoted feminine attributes and women's power. The Daodejing is especially clear about upholding feminine qualities, and it likens the Dao to a cosmic mother. Within the Taoist religion priestly functions were shared equally between men and women, and even today Taoist abbeys recruit both male and female practitioners. Community temples also feature powerful gods and goddesses, from the imperial Wang Ye (王爺, a collective name for a number of gods) to Mazu (媽祖, goddess of the sea), the Eternal Venerable Mother (無生老母, Wusheng laomu), and the Queen Mother of the West (西王母, Xiwangmu). We will explore these themes further in the following chapters.
Note
1 Michael LaFargue, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992).
9
Philosophical Taoism
In this chapter we will explore major themes of the classics of Taoist philosophy, the Daodejing (道德經), traditionally attributed to the “Old Infant” Laozi (老子), and the Book of Zhuangzi, whose first seven chapters (the so-called “Inner Chapters”) were written by Zhuangzi (莊子) in the third century bce. These are unusual and perplexing books, as much aesthetic as they are philosophical, promoting mythic consciousness, intuitive thinking, and a suspension of critical rationality. They are works of poetry and fantasy that express perplexity and doubt about the very words they are written in: their words overcome words, like fire used to overcome fire. They employ imagistic language to disengage the logical, conceptual functions of the mind.
Major Themes of Philosophical Taoism
The themes to be investigated under this heading are:
anti-Confucianism;
uselessness (wuyong 無用);
naturalness and spontaneity (ziran 自然);
non-action (wuwei 無為);
intuition;
transmutability (hua 化);
the “uncarved block” (pu 樸).
Anti-Confucianism
In the Zhuangzi and the Daodejing, the highest values and goals of Confucianism are either explicitly rejected or they are subjected to unrelenting ridicule. When Zhuangzi has a character named “Confucius” speak his mind, the “master” advocates empty-headedness – literally “the fasting of the mind.” Zhuangzi's “Confucius” says that we should close our eyes and practice “quiet sitting,” cultivating stillness. As for the Confucian li (禮), Zhuangzi says they are best abandoned; he did not even mourn his wife's passing, instead beating on a drum and singing a ditty.
The Daodejing expresses similar sentiments: Confucian kindness (仁, ren) and righteousness (義, yi) reflect the “decline” of the Dao, not its culmination, and “sageliness and wisdom” (at least in Confucian terms) are explicitly rejected. Laozi envisions a country where there are no books or schools, no government institutions, not even writing or record-keeping, and where people are perfectly content with their simple huts and plain clothes. The Daodejing turns many Confucian values on their head. Instead of being whole, straight, full, new, famous, and luminous, Laozi says he would prefer to be crooked, bent, hollow, worn, hidden, and receding. “Mine is the mind of a fool – it's empty,” he says, and he wishes to be “floating in the dark … drifting with the wind.”1
Uselessness (wuyong, 無用)
The philosophical Taoists were part of an early Chinese eremitic2 tradition, defined in opposition to government service and Confucian norms. Zhuangzi said he would rather be a turtle dragging his tail in the mud than a high-paid counselor to a mighty lord. He rejected public display and social service in favor of a simple life in a natural setting. Government service just gets you killed. The heroes of Zhuangzi's tales and stories are misfits, cripples, madmen, hunchbacks, gnarled trees, and giant gourds; what these characters have in common is that they can't be “used” for conventional purposes such as going to war, performing hard labor, being cut down for the construction of ships and houses, or being molded into ladles and spoons.
Ironically, such “uselessness” is extremely “useful” – Zhuangzi calls this the “usefulness of uselessnesss” (無用之用, wuyong zhi yong). Cripples and misfits live long because they are of no use to the state; gnarled trees live long because they are of no use to carpenters; weak and docile animals are left alone because they are of no use to builders and farmers. Then again, they possess a different kind of utility, if we just know how to look for it: instead of cutting down a giant tree, Zhuangzi recommends that the carpenter have a nap under its shady outstretched limbs; instead of discarding a huge gourd (which is too bitter to eat and too big to shape into a utensil), Zhuangzi suggests that the artisan fashion it into a boat and float merrily down the stream. Similarly, the mind can be put to uses other than rationalistic thinking: dreaming, imagining, creating images and sounds, art and music. We usually think of “schoolwork” (education and learning) as “useful” enterprises, but the Taoists don't see the point. “Stop learning!” says Laozi; “you'll stop worrying.”
Naturalness and spontaneity (ziran, 自然)
Both Confucianism and Taoism emphasize “harmony” as a primary goal; but for Taoists, the Confucian scope of harmony is too narrow, extending only to the harmonizing of human relationships. Taoism advocates instead a harmonizing of the self with the cosmos, especially the natural world. The Taoist classics are full of trees, fish, bugs, streams, mountains, oxen, weasels, rabbits, birds. Taoist-inspired landscape paintings, perhaps the most representative and best known of China's contributions to the history of art, show humans in harmony with nature, usually by indicating the vastness of nature towering over tiny human figures who have found their proper place within the natural scene.
In Chinese the word for nature, ziran (自然), also designates personal naturalness, “doing what comes naturally,” “spontaneity” – literally, the characters mean “self-so-ly,” that is, in a manner of self-becoming, self-generating, self-directing, self-evolving. This is the way of nature, and we should pattern our own lives on nature's self-unfolding.
One of my favorite anecdotes from the Book of Zhuangzi recounts a conversation between Zhuangzi and his friend Huizi. They are gazing at some minnows swimming about in the shallows below a bridge over the River Hao.
Zhuangzi said: “How I love the happiness of fish.”
Huizi argued with him: “You are not a fish. How would you know that they are happy?”
Zhuangzi replied, “You are not me, so how would you know that I do not know that they are happy? In fact, even in asking the question, you knew that I knew it. I know it standing here on the bridge over the River Hao.”3
From a purely logical point of view, Huizi is probably right, and Zhuangzi's argument is rather spurious. But what he is expressing is a different way of looking at nature, perhaps a more sympathetic or empathic approach, which relies on intuition rather than rational thinking and argumentation. Zhuangzi's “trick” is simply to show the pointlessness of argument – and to enjoy nature intuitively, “just as it is.”
While China in the past century has been hell-bent on catching up with the industrialized world, with horrendous consequences for the natural environment, we have in Taoism a home-grown system of values that might one day stem the flow of unbridled growth and its negative environmental impact. One example of this is in the traditional use of fengshui (風水, “geomancy”) to design and construct human habitations in a way that is environmentally friendly and naturally harmonious; we will look at some examples in Chapter 11.
Non-action (wuwei, 無為)
The doctrine of “uselessness” in civil or social affairs is extended to one's personal self-cultivation through the idea of wuwei, “non-action.” Partly this means just what it says: simplicity, stillness, quiescence. These are Taoist values, and they are part of the Taoist meditative tradition – think of the slow, peaceful movement of taijiquan (太極拳, “shadow boxing”), which, while not literally “not moving,” certainly takes physical movement to its most flowing, tranquil level. In fact “flowing” or “going with the flow” is perhaps a better way of thinking of wuwei than through its literal meaning of “non-action,” and we can consider wuwei to be synonymous with ziran, “spontaneity.” Wuwei designates non-purposive or non-manipulative action, non-interference, taking no artificial action, letting things take their own course; spontaneous transformation, non-aggressive manipulation. It means “unforced action” or “unforced living.”
As with naturalness, mastery of this “non-active” approach is quite powerful. Laozi likens it to water. Though water is “soft and yielding,” nothing in the world is stronger. Water “dwells in the lowest places,” yet it can wear down the hardest rock. To be “like water” means to be yielding, supple, receptive, and yet powerful, strong, and successful.
