PART 1
When Buddhist ideas and practices were carried along the Silk Road from India to China in the second century CE, Indian travellers would have encountered a Chinese society infused with two complementary sets of values: Confucianism and Daoism (or Taoism).
Confucian ideas and ethics dominated the spheres of social and political organisation. The Chinese state was highly regulated and very hierarchical – from the emperor at the top to the lowliest peasant. Government agencies proliferated and minor functionaries could be found working in even the most outlying villages of the Chinese empire. Most educated, literate men, including writers, poets and painters, also had jobs as administrators and government officials. This large, all-pervasive, bureaucracy was a reflection of Confucian ideas about how society should be ordered and how citizens should behave. Confucian values place emphasis upon strict social, legal and ethical conventions that everyone is expected to uphold in order to maintain social stability. Everyone knows his or her place and ‘keeping up appearances’ is paramount. The rather rigid Confucian system of regularised behaviour, knowledge and categorisation seems to have been very effective and efficient. The Daoist worldview, as I hope to show, is very different to the Confucian outlook.
DAOISM – TWO CLASSIC BOOKS:
DAODEJING (or Tao Te Ching) – lit. trans. : ‘Way’ / ‘Virtue or integrity’ / ‘Great book or classic text’. Also known as the Laozi or Lao Tzu (‘Old Master’). Oldest manuscripts date from c.300 BCE – probably based on oral tradition going back many hundreds of years;
ZHUANGZI or Chuang Tzu (‘Master Zhuang’) – title of book and of legendary author late 4th Century BCE.
LAOZI OR LAO TZU – is also the name of the legendary author of the Daodejing (supposed to be a contemporary of Confucius c.551-479 BCE) – though most contemporary scholars consider the text to be a compilation of the work of many authors.
NB. Daoism is both the name of the indigenous religion of China and of a philosophical tradition – it is the latter tradition I am concerned with in this talk.
One underlying idea or belief in Daoism is that the Dao is the ‘way of nature’ – the natural processes inherent in life and the universe. So long as we live in harmony with the Dao, the natural way of things, we will be well and harmonious. If we do things that are contrary to the way of nature, we will not be well, we will be in conflict, discordant and feel ‘out-of-step’ with the way of the world. The more removed we are from nature, the more unhappy, unstable and dislocated we will feel. Hence, an emphasis is placed on being natural, letting things be – not interfering with our natural state of grace or goodness. The Daoist practitioner values wisdom that can’t be put into words, lives a simple life, has few needs and appreciates, and cares for, the natural world.
Process, change, impermanence, flow and growth are characteristics of nature and are deeply valued in Daoism. Daoists refer to water, willow trees and clouds as models of how to behave. Water flows ever onward, eroding even the hardest rocks – hence, Alan Watts refers to the Dao as ‘the Watercourse Way.’ (Watts 2011: 41) Willow trees are very flexible, bending with the wind rather than standing rigid and being blown over. Clouds endlessly change and move with the currents of air. Daoists respect carpenters, cooks and potters for their skills – skills that seem effortless, even though these makers might find it difficult to explain how they do what they do. Likewise, Daoist sages and poets suggest that in order to realise our true nature we need to let go of conventional patterns of thinking that are driven by habit and delusion – far better to be spontaneous, creative and unbound by rigid conventions. There may be similarities here with Buddhist notions of ‘beginner’s mind.’ Daoist writers are very fond of slightly crazy, eccentric characters who live in the mountains free and easy, living simple lives with few needs – untroubled by the wealth, fame and power that most people seem to crave.
Chance and indeterminacy are other qualities inherent in nature and are therefore important to be employed or emulated by Daoists – as exemplified in the I-Ching, or Book of Changes.
Daoist writings tend to place little value on knowledge that can be put into words. The language of both the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi tends to be aphoristic and paradoxical. There are many short sayings, often raising more questions than they resolve. For instance: ‘The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao’; ‘To use words but rarely is to be natural.’ ‘Cherish sincerity; belittle the personal; reduce desires.’
The Dao is the self-generating order that energises the universe. Daoists consider the universe to be, as David Hinton puts it, ‘a boundless generative organism.’ (Hinton 2009: xiv) Everything that exists emerges and returns to the source or womb – known in Daoism as ‘wu.’ This process of emergence and return, growth and decay, is known as ‘tzu-jan’ – what Hinton translates as ‘appearing of itself. (ibid) Everything that emerges in this way is both unique, of itself, yet also connected to every other entity that emerges from the source. This process can be seen most clearly in the life cycles of all natural beings and things – from a mayfly to an ancient pine tree, from rivers to mountains, and from mountains to gossamer misty mornings – hence the reoccurrence of mountains and rivers as motifs in Chinese poetry and painting. The open spaces that are very distinctive in classical Chinese landscape paintings are, if you like, the source out of which the brushstrokes and washes of ink emerge. Even the apparent emptiness in these pictures is actually a dynamic ‘fullness’ of energy and potential.
The Dao itself is in a continual process of balancing complementary forces – particularly the male and female, positive and negative, energies of yang and yin. These complementary forces, held in a dynamic balance, are inseparable. It is only in the abstract, and artificial, realm of concepts and categories, that we can talk about them as independent entities. They are always two sides of a coin with no thickness. Thus, up only exists in relation to down; big in relation to small; male in relation to female; light to dark; soft to hard; and so on with any other complementaries we care to identify. (see Watts 1989: 175) When the natural balance is temporarily disturbed – for instance, by human interference – nature will always be moving to restore the balance. Like the Buddhist worldview, this is a profoundly ecological conception of the universe – always in motion, always interacting, always balancing itself.
PART 2
Another important Daoist concept is denoted by the term Wu-wei – often misleadingly translated as ‘non-action’ or ‘not doing.’ But wu-wei doesn’t mean to be passive or inactive – it refers more to an attitude of not doing anything that goes against the way of nature. Instead, we should act with nature, acting naturally. Judo exemplifies this approach – using, and working with, an opponent’s force and energy to achieve one’s goals – applying little force oneself. Wu-wei is likened to the action of wind and water – being fluid and flexible, rather than rigid and resistant to how nature works. In a similar vein, Daoists suggest that it is often better to learn by unlearning, to know by unknowing – to let go of conventional patterns of dualistic thinking that are driven by habit and delusion. Far better to be spontaneous, creative and unbound by rigid conventions.
So, in the Daoist universe of clouds, process, flowing water and doing-by not-doing, how do people make wise decisions? How do we decide what to do and how do we determine what is good or bad, right or wrong? There is an ancient Chinese tale about an old man living at a frontier fort whose horse runs away. His neighbours are sad and full of sympathy for his loss, but the old man seems to be unconcerned and asks them how they can be sure that it is bad luck. Months later the horse returns, bringing with it other horses of fine quality. The old man’s neighbours are delighted and congratulate him. He seems unmoved and this time he asks them how they can be sure it is good luck. The horses enable the old man to become prosperous. His family share in his seeming good fortune, until one day his son breaks a leg while out riding. His neighbours are very distressed by this turn of events, but the old man is once again unperturbed and asks them how they know that this is bad luck. Not long afterwards enemy tribesmen attack the fort, and many young men are killed. However, as the son has a broken leg he cannot fight, and both the old man and his son are unharmed. (see Moeller 2006: 99) Not only is the old man not disturbed by changing events he maintains that he does not know whether they are good or bad. He remains unmoved by different interpretations and does not attach himself to any particular truth-claim.
The Daoist interpretation of this story is that we can never know when good luck will become bad, or when bad luck will turn into good, and therefore the old man is wise in not getting too carried away by each turn of events. He remains in a state of equanimity – neither particularly happy, nor overly despondent. The old man recognises that as we live in a stream of ever-changing sensations, experiences and events, each inextricably linked to what came before and to what follows, we can never be sure of what is ultimately good or bad. The fact that life is a continuum means we can never be certain how to separate one moment or event from another. All such separations or divisions can only be highly provisional and temporary. Even the old man’s neighbours can see that what happens can be both good and bad, positive and negative. But because they cling to the idea that things are either good or bad, they are upset by change, while the old man accepts change, doesn’t cling to events, and is not too disturbed.
In the Chuang-tzu it is argued that heated debates, in which opponents claim that this is right or that is wrong, are futile because the objects of debate and reality itself are ever-changing and indefinite. There is no stable, permanent reality, made up of things with fixed essences, about which we can be objective or about which we can form absolute distinctions or judgements. Things only exist in relation to other things in a fluid and ever-changing relational universe. Thus, the Daoist sage, like the ancient Greek sceptic and Gotama Buddha, suspends judgement and maintains a state of equanimity.
This distinctive Daoist understanding of how the universe is composed is echoed in a similarly distinctive view of the mind. Seen from a Daoist perspective there are two primary states of mind: ‘hsin’ – ‘galloping around;’ and, ‘wu-hsin’ – ‘sitting still and void.’ (Izutsu 1984: 324) ‘Hsin,’ refers to the state of mind in which our thoughts ‘gallop around,’ chasing after ideas, fretting about this and that, running after one idea of truth or another, changing opinions and positions. This is the state of mind of the old man’s neighbours in the story. In contrast, the mind of the old man, seems to be at ease, ‘sitting still,’ letting go of events and absolute notions of good and bad – open to the flow of experiences, accepting the impermanent nature of reality. Hsin, or ‘galloping around mind,’ is characterised by clinging to, or being led around by, distinctions and differentiations; the mind of the old man, on the other hand, is attuned to, and at rest in, the open field of indefinable possibilities that swirl around him like clouds. This is what is known as ‘wu-hsin,’ often translated as ‘no-mind.’ (Watts 1989: 23) As we shall see later, this echoes Zen notions of ‘beginner’s mind’ and ‘Buddha mind.’
One other aspect of Daoism, and another of the many meanings of the Dao or ‘way,’ is that there is a way to do something, a craft to what has to be done. Learning how to cook, garden, make a pot or a painting, is to learn the way to do these things – and for a Daoist the best way to make a garden, or a pot or a meal is to do it as simply and directly as possible – to learn from the Dao of nature. In this sense the Dao is creativity – ways of doing or making that emulate the generative processes of nature. And these ways of doing are often difficult to put into words but can be shown by example. So, a potter learns to make pots by working alongside a potter who knows how to craft a pot. A cook learns to cook by watching and cooking alongside another cook. This process of learning by example, rather than by being told or by reading texts, is a process that becomes central to Chan and Zen training. It is also one of the reasons why people who have learnt a craft, the Dao of making, are so highly valued in the Zen tradition.
Finally, given all that I have said about Daoism, perhaps we can understand why in Chinese history great value is placed upon those individuals who go off into the mountains, sometimes, for years to learn how to live well – to learn from the Dao. Even today, as Bill Porter has shown, the hermit tradition is alive and well in China. While Confucian ideas and values still underpin contemporary Chinese approaches to governance and social order, there is also a reverence for people who take time out of their busy social lives to learn the art of the Dao and to return from their solitary retreat in the mountains bringing with them what wisdom and skill they have picked up along the way. If this interests you, I recommend Bill Porter’s book, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits – a book that came as a revelation to many contemporary Chinese readers who hadn’t realised that Daoist hermits still lived among them.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Graham, A.C. trans. 1986. Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters. London: Mandala.
Hinton, David. 2009. The Selected Poems of Wang Wei. London: Anvil Press Poetry.
Izutsu, Toshihiko. 1984. Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts. Berkeley, USA: University of California Press.
Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2006. The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia University Press.
Porter, Bill. 1994. Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits. London: Rider.
Tzu, Lao. 1963. Lao Tzu: Tao te Ching. London: Penguin.
Watts, Alan. 1989. The Way of Zen. New York: Vintage Books.
Watts, Alan. 2011. Tao: The Watercourse Way. London: Souvenir Press.