Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao de Jing (Tao Te Ching) and the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) 1118465741, 9781118465745

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Decoding Dao

Decoding Dao Reading the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) and the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)

Lee Dian Rainey

This edition first published 2014 © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Registered Office John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Lee Dian Rainey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for. Hardback ISBN: 978-1-118-46575-2 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-118-46574-5 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover image: View of Sanqing Mountain in Jiangxi Province, eastern China. © Imaginechina/Corbis Cover design by Design Deluxe Set in 10.5/13.5 pt PalatinoLTStd by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited 1  2014

上 士 聞 道 動 而 行 之. 中 士 聞 道 若 存 若 亡. When the best scholars hear about dao, they practice it energetically; when middling scholars hear about dao, dao seems to be there one moment and gone the next. Dao De Jing, chapter 41

CONTENTS

Book Notes

x

Chronology

xi

Section One: The Context Chapter One  The Social and Political Background— Confucianism—Mozi and Mohism (Moe-ds) and (Moe-ism)—Yang Zhu and Shen Dao (Ya-ahng, Jew)— Language and Logicians—Trends During the Warring States Era—Cultural Heroes and Concepts—Summary

3

Section Two: Authors and Texts Chapter Two  The Dao De Jing—Why Does the Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching/Laozi/Lao Tzu Have So Many Names?— Dao De Jing, The Author—Dao De Jing, the Text—The Dao De Jing, the Style of the Text—The Dao De Jing in the West— The Zhuangzi, the Author—The Zhuangzi, the Text—The Zhuangzi, the Style of the Text—The Zhuangzi in the West—Issues in Translation—Summary

27

Chapter Three  The Dao? A Dao? Dao? daos? dao?—Images: Water, Women, Baby, Root, and Others—What Is the

49 vii

Contents Problem?—Conventional Values: Pairs of Opposites— Being and Non-Being—Summary Chapter Four  Illogical Statements?—Decoding—Not Acting, Not Knowing, Not Desiring—Ziran, Self-So, Natural, Spontaneous—Language—Morality—Summary

70

Chapter Five  War—Government, Society, and the SageRuler—The Golden Age—Advice for Would-Be Sages—Losing dao—Summary

90

Chapter Six  What Is the Problem?—Anti-Confucians— Anti-Mohists—Being Useless—Point of View—This and That—Knowing How—Knowing What—Summary

111

Chapter Seven  Language: Convention and Culture—This/ That, True/False—Language Is OK, Up to a Point— How to Use Language—Clarity—Death— Transformation—Survival of Consciousness and an Afterlife—Immortality—Dao—Summary

132

Chapter Eight  Public Life—The Golden Age—What Should We Do?—Mirror—Forgetting—Mind/Heart Fasting—Perfected People—The Relationship of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi—Summary

156

Section Three: Developing Dao Chapter Nine  The School of Zhuangzi and Followers of the Dao De Jing—The Han Feizi—The Guanzi—HuangLao—The Huainanzi—The Liezi—The Han Dynasty and Beyond—Summary

179

Chapter Ten  Organized Daoism—The Search for Immortality—Organized Groups—The Cult of Laozi— Modern Organized Daoism—The Mystical Reading—

202

viii

Contents The Philosophical Reading—Modern Daoism—Dao Lite—A Lao-Zhuang Daoist—What Is Daoism and Other Problems Glossary of Technical Terms

232

Glossary of Pronunciation

235

Further Reading

237

Bibliography

239

Index

252

ix

BOOK NOTES

Before we begin, we need to know that Chinese words and names are transliterated into English using the Pinyin system. The Pinyin system is often not very helpful for English-speaking people, so I will give pronunciation aids in brackets when the word or name first appears. For example, Dao De Jing, (“Dao” rhymes with “how”; “De” is pronounced as “duh” or as “dey”; “jing” is the “jing” of “jingle”). Zhuangzi, (Zhuang is pronounced as “Juh-wahng,” “zi” is the end of the word “ads” without the “a,” and means “teacher” or “master”). There is also a Glossary of Pronunciation at the end. Scholars in the area should know that this is meant to be an introductory text, and many of the complex issues involved have had to be conflated or relegated to endnotes. Readers should know that there is a great deal more information and discussion available and they can find this in the Further Reading section.

x

CHRONOLOGY

16th to 11th century bce 11th century to 256 bce 11th century to 771 bce 771–256 bce 722–481 bce 403–256 bce 221–207 bce 206 bce–220 ce 206 bce–25 ce 25–220 ce 220–280 220–589 581–618 618–906 907–960 960–1125 1127–1279 1279–1368 1368–1644 1644–1912 1911 1949

Shang dynasty Zhou dynasty   Western Zhou dynasty   Eastern Zhou dynasty    Spring and Autumn era    Warring States era Qin dynasty Han dynasty   Western or Former Han   Eastern or Later Han Three Kingdoms period Period of Disunity Sui dynasty Tang dynasty Five Dynasties Northern Song dynasty Southern Song dynasty Yuan (Mongol) dynasty Ming dynasty Qing (Manchu) dynasty Republic of China established People’s Republic of China xi

Section One

THE CONTEXT

Chapter One

Chapter Contents The Social and Political Background—Confucianism—Mozi and Mohism (Moe-ds) and (Moe-ism)—Yang Zhu and Shen Dao (Ya-ahng, Jew)—Language and Logicians—Trends During the Warring States Era—Cultural Heroes and Concepts—Summary

When you begin to read the Dao De Jing, you will find passages like: “Great completion seems not complete, but its usefulness cannot be emptied; great fullness seems empty, but its usefulness cannot be used up” (45).1 Turning to the Zhuangzi, you will find things like: “To use a horse to show that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to show that a horse is not a horse . . . everything in the world is one horse.”2 And you may, as some of my students have admitted, throw the books across the room. Scholarly books are written by scholars mostly for other scholars and, without

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Decoding Dao a good background in the texts, are very difficult for the beginner. What this book is meant to do is to give you something to hold on to while the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi are busy digging the ground out from beneath you. It is important to read these texts because they are written to help us survive bad times and to understand what is going on in the world. But these are difficult texts and beginning readers should not go into them unarmed or alone.

The Social and Political Background If we are to understand the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, we need to know what was going on when they were composed. The period of Chinese history that gave birth to these texts was a time of fierce arguments, social and political upheaval, and war. The China of the time was not the China we know now. It was centered around the Yellow River basin, stretching south to just beyond the Yangzi River. It had been ruled by single families for over 1000 years. The Xia (She-aw) dynasty (circa 2183–1500 bce) was replaced by the Shang dynasty (circa 1500–1100 bce), which was replaced by the Zhou (Joe) dynasty in 1027 bce. One dynasty might fall, but another took its place. These dynasties developed a complex government structure. Government ministers administered transportation, the army, roads and bridges, and law. Government bureaucrats supervised everything from irrigation projects to preparations for war to a music conservatory. Chinese society was very sophisticated. There was a writing system that was already very old and there were books, histories, and poetry. Metal work was carried out on an industrial level. Money was used along with barter in the marketplaces. International trade flourished. A population of about 50 million people lived on farms and in big towns and traveled on roads and canals. They were already using the decimal system. At the pinnacle of this society were the noble families living on great estates. They venerated their ancestors and intermarried with other noble families. They were the warrior elite, ready to fight for 4

The Context their king when called on. Their pastimes included hunting and partying. The elite saw themselves as distinct because of their noble family lineages. Ancestors and ancestral veneration was the central religious duty of these nobles, but they, like the commoners around them, believed in the powers of the gods and spirits and made offerings to them as well. They employed shamans to predict the future, to ward off all evil spirits, and to speak to the gods on their behalf. By 771 bce, royal dominance began to fade as the Zhou dynasty kings began to lose power and influence. Having lost their capital city in the northwest of China, the Zhou kings retreated to central China and their lords took notice. If a king could not protect his own capital, clearly that king was weak. So, during the next century, local lords began to pay less attention – and taxes – to the Zhou king and began gradually to set up their own little states. The Zhou king became unimportant in the political contests that followed, where one local lord would attack another and, defeating that small state, enlarge his own. This process continued: when it began there were about 120 small states, by about 500 bce, there were 40; by about 250 bce, there were seven. This era, for obvious reasons, is called the Warring States period, and lasted to 221 bce. The rulers of these small states lived in a precarious political position. Externally, they were likely to be attacked by neighboring states. Rulers tried to be cunning in making alliances with one state to attack another only to find they had been betrayed and both states were attacking them. Each of these rulers saw himself as the one who would defeat all the others and unify China under his rule. Warfare was continuous. Rulers of these small states also faced major threats at home. After all, none of them were legitimate rulers, even though they called themselves “lord” or “duke” or “king.” Their status was based on being the largest and strongest landowner in the area and thus able to call on the most soldiers, the commoners who worked on the estate. But inside his state, there were other noble families who saw no reason why the ruler’s family should rule when their 5

Decoding Dao claim to rulership was just as strong. Noble families constantly struggled over who should rule that particular state. Inside his family, the ruler also faced threats. He wanted his sons to be strong so that he could pass on his rule to them, but if they became too strong, the ruler would begin to suspect that they wanted to rebel against him. Many rulers ended up exiling or killing their sons. Other family members, uncles, cousins, the wife’s family, all might be plotting to assassinate the ruler and take over themselves, so everyone had to be watched and was under suspicion. This complex situation meant that executions and assassinations were common: the ruler executed family members and people from other noble families, suspecting them of treason; family members and other noble families, either plotting to kill the ruler or knowing they were suspected of plotting, would try and assassinate him. It is no surprise that the culture of this time talked a lot about power, aggressiveness, strength, and honor. Books such as the Art of War were popular because they spoke directly to this kind of dog-eat-dog situation. Rulers were advised to use spies and deceit. Treachery increased. Given the dangers at the courts of these small rulers, you would think that rulers would be careful in how much money they spent and how they spent their time. They were not. Rulers and their courtiers lived extravagant lives, dressed in the finest fashion. They banqueted and had their own orchestras and dancers for entertainment. Ordinary people in their state might be starving, but those at court either did not see or did not care. The Dao De Jing, writing about this situation, says, Those at court are corrupt: While the fields are full of weeds, And the granaries are empty; Still they are dressed in fine clothes, Equipped with swords at their sides, Stuffed with food and drink, And with far too much money. This is called being the leading robbers, And has nothing at all to do with dao.3

6

The Context As we will see, the Dao De Jing is a severe critic of the political and social corruption of the time. Gradually, the older noble families were killed off or lost money and power. As time went on, a new merchant class tried to replace them. This merchant class was based in a growing money economy, where loyalty and family ties were being replaced by money. You might expect that with constant warfare, the economy would not be doing well. But a couple of factors came into play that made the economy richer. The use of iron tools and new technology in farming meant that more land could be farmed and the crop yields were bigger. Market towns expanded into cities as trade increased. Many people were making a lot of money. The situation for ordinary people was not always so rosy. Taxes were high, men could be conscripted into an army, and warfare brought destruction to homes and farms. But even ordinary people saw changes as more and more they were paid for their work either as farmers or as soldiers and the old feudal ties died away. Government officials changed too. Once they had been the family members of the ruler or members of noble families related to the ruler. This got them a job in government automatically. With the breakdown of the Zhou kings’ rule, opportunities increased. Each small court copied the governmental organization of the Zhou court and needed trained bureaucrats to be able to run it. While the bureaucrats were still members of the nobility, they were no longer tied by blood to a ruler and would work for any ruler who would employ them. These bureaucrats needed education and training and would study with scholars like Confucius. Rulers invited famous scholar-bureaucrats to come to their court and to debate with each other – not that the ruler had any intention of following their good advice – this was just a way to show off. Some rulers set up academies where scholar-bureaucrats came to live, to study, to teach, and to debate with one another. The most famous of these was the Jixia (gee-she-ah) Academy, set up in the state of Qi (chee). The rulers there were thought of as the nastiest of the ruling families and they wanted to redeem their reputation, so they set up a very comfortable academy. Eventually, most of the big names in Warring 7

Decoding Dao States scholarship made their way there as either students or teachers. Once their education was done, scholar-bureaucrats would travel to one of the small courts, audition for a job, and, with luck, be hired. A few of these scholar-bureaucrats could not find a job, and so they began to teach students and began to write books about government. Some of their students would carry on their teachings and pass them along to a new generation of students. Both teachers and students were upper-class men. It was only the upper class that had access to education, to reading and writing, and to the books of the time. It is these people who make up the traditions we will look at below and who wrote the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. Scholar-bureaucrats got an education and may have gotten a job in a small state’s court. That did not necessarily mean they were safe. In those courts, as we have seen, there were plots, executions, and assassinations. Even if the bureaucrat did not become involved in a plot to kill a ruler, he might still lose his life for being close to one of the plotters. In Warring States China, these small courts were very dangerous places, and the phrase “knife in the back” was not just a figure of speech. These scholar-bureaucrats all agreed on one thing: the Chinese civilization that had existed for thousands of years was about to crash. The stability and predictability that China had known in the past was long gone. What faced them was continuous bloody warfare and treachery. Rulers and many of their advisors were looking for ways to increase their power and wealth; they were not looking at how to save China. So the question for the scholar-bureaucrats was, “what can be done to fix this?” While they came up with radically different answers to this question, they all agreed on the problem.

Confucianism Probably the first of these scholar-bureaucrats to train students was Confucius (551–479 bce). While he taught them the gentlemanly pursuits of his time, he also taught them the ancient books of poetry 8

The Context and history. He saw the early Zhou dynasty time as a time of peace, unity, and prosperity, so the obvious thing was to return to the ways of that time. The stability of the early Zhou dynasty served as a model for what China should look like. Many writers, including the authors of the Daoist texts, will look back to the past as a golden time. His idealized picture of the early Zhou included an emphasis on the practice of filial piety, respect for, and obedience to, one’s parents. Children should serve their parents, provide for a funeral, and venerate their parents’ spirits after death. Confucius believed that the practice of filial piety was central to developing later human relationships, and it was the first, and most natural, moral attitude. Confucius said that once we understand and practice filial piety, we learn to do our duty, first at home, then in the world. We learn to put ourselves and our desires second and deal with the responsibilities we have first. Other virtues must also be developed. We must be honest and tell the truth. We must be sincere and do what we say we will do. We need moral courage to give us the strength to act in a virtuous manner. None of this happens overnight, but a virtuous attitude can be developed over time by cultivating the virtues within us. Through this self-cultivation, we will finally arrive at the highest Confucian virtue, humanity (also translated as “benevolence”). Humanity means to act with all the moral virtues while putting ourselves in the other person’s place. We must behave well, but always take into account the person we are dealing with and the situation. “Do not do to others,” said Confucius, “what you do not want them to do to you.”4 All of this has to do with developing the inner person, but for Confucius what was important was the way we act out in the world. For this, we need to know and understand ritual. Ritual may be religious ritual – a funeral, for example; ritual may be etiquette, serving the guest first. But Confucius had an insight about ritual: it is the foundation of a civilized society. We do rituals all the time: we say hello, we hold the door open for someone else, and we say 9

Decoding Dao “sorry” when we bump into someone. Ritual is the way we interact with others in the world and through it we show each other respect. Ritual can be empty: we do things because we know we should, not because we mean it. Confucius recognized this and insisted that an inner moral attitude was required to go along with the ritual before you could say you were acting morally. If you could do all of this, you had become what Confucius called “a gentleman.” A gentleman is the model of proper behavior, combining knowledge of the right ritual with an inner moral attitude. We can become gentlemen by becoming educated. We study history, for example, to see the good and bad of the past. A gentleman had two roles in the world. The first was to become a government minister, one of the scholar-bureaucrats, and to work advising a ruler. With a Confucian gentleman as an advisor, a ruler would be swayed toward good behavior. The gentleman in government also provided an excellent model for his peers and for the common people. The gentleman’s second role was as a teacher. If, as was often the case, rulers were not willing to listen to the gentleman’s good advice, he should resign and go to teach others how to become gentlemen. Daoists will argue that all of these nice Confucian virtues are artificial and imposed on us. The Dao De Jing says, So, after dao is lost, there is virtue, After virtue is lost, there is humanity, After humanity is lost, there is rightness, After rightness is lost, there is ritual. And ritual is the thinning out of duty and reliability that is the beginning of chaos. (38)

Confucius came up with all these virtues only when things began to fall apart. They are not the real virtues of dao. Confucius had a political agenda as well. He believed that the foundation of any change for the better was “setting words right.” He meant two things by this. First, we should call things what they are. Using jargon and misdirection is not right: “enhanced interrogation” is torture and that is what it must be called. We need to use 10

The Context the proper word or words, not some misdirection. The second thing he meant by “setting words right” is that there are expectations of behavior around some words. Parents are supposed to care for their children; if they do not, they do not deserve to be called “mother” and “father.” When society and government speak clearly, we can all understand what is going on; when people in positions of responsibility live up to their titles, society benefits. Central to Confucius’ political views is the astonishing assertion that government exists for the benefit of the people. He saw society and government not as a democracy, but as a system where the ruler and his ministers cared for the common people just as a father cares for his son. Only the educated elite can direct government properly and care for the ordinary and uneducated. People would trust a government made up of Confucian gentlemen who were not following their own self-interest but were trying to be good and moral people. Moral self-cultivation in the individual has social and political consequences. We become educated people, moral people, and active in government. This is what will fix the problems of the time. Practicing humanity and ritual, acting out in the world will change everything and change things dramatically. We can reform ourselves and our nations. The Confucian dao (rhymes with “how”), way, is a civilized, orderly, moral society with a government that cares for its people. The word “dao” is not exclusive to Daoists. Almost every thinker used the term, but the word meant different things for different people. Confucius taught a number of students and they, in turn, taught others. This developed into a school of thought that continued long after Confucius’ death. The first great interpreter of Confucius was Mencius (371–289 bce). Like Confucius, Mencius argued that moral behavior begins with a person and then is acted out in the family, society, and government. Mencius stretched Confucius’ ideas by arguing that moral behavior is innate to us. We are born with the seeds, the potential, for moral behavior embedded in our human nature. If we develop this potential through education and selfcultivation, we can become the gentlemen that Confucius described. 11

Decoding Dao Human beings are the only ones who can reflect Heaven, and Heaven is a moral force in the universe (for a description of views of Heaven, see below). Daoists argue that the Confucian enterprise imposes artificial values on us. Becoming a Confucian gentleman means we must remake ourselves into unnatural forms. It is the second great interpreter of Confucius, Xunzi (circa 310–210 bce, Shun-ds), who makes the violent and artificial process of Confucian morality clear. Xunzi defended Confucius, but disagreed with Mencius. Human nature, Xunzi said, was evil and selfish. Left to our own devices, we would live barbaric lives trying to snatch things from everyone else. We need a form of education that straightens us out and Xunzi really means this. A person who learns an artificially imposed morality is like a warped piece of wood that has to be steamed, put in a press, and forced to bend its shape before it can be straight, So it is that a warped piece of wood must first be pressed in a frame and then steamed in order to soften it. This allows its shape to be bent before it can become straight. A dull piece of metal must first be whetted on a grindstone before it can be made sharp.5

We need to be forcibly remade in order to become good. Daoists argue that underneath the nice Confucian agenda is coercion and violence: we must be forced to be re-formed in artificial ways. As well, anyone not agreeing to this is automatically labeled as a bad person and outside of social norms. While the two great interpreters of Confucius disagreed on some points, they both agreed that what Confucius had to say would fix the problems of the time. They both were engaged in debate with people with radically different views. We will look at the problems associated with grouping people together in “schools” later in the chapter, but there was something like a Confucian school, or rather more than one Confucian school. The authors of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi are having none of anything Confucians say. They point to the crushing amount of individual repression one would have to go through to pour oneself 12

The Context into the Confucian mold. Social oppression on a massive scale is needed as well for any Confucian system to work. We would have to control ourselves, control others, and play out our social roles in a totally artificial way. This is internal and external oppression of the worst kind. If there was a Daoist motto, it would be “Scratch a Confucian, find a fascist.” As well, as we shall see, Daoists disagree with Confucians profoundly: Confucians argue that civilization can be fixed; Daoists argue that civilization is the problem.

Mozi and Mohism (Moe-ds) and (Moe-ism) Mozi (circa 480 bce) was not interested in the “frills” Confucius talked about. He wanted us to look at the bottom line and deal with the necessities of life. Food, shelter, and clothing should be provided for everyone. Any activity that does not provide these things is useless. Mozi developed a system of thought based on usefulness and profit. If something is profitable, it is useful and it is good; conversely, if anything is useless, it is not profitable, and it is bad. All the things that help toward the essentials of life are good and useful; those that do not are useless and must be discarded. Everything can be measured and everything can be quantified in terms of money. Mozi had a list of useless things: war, funerals, music, and extravagance of any kind. All of these things waste time and money and ought to be completely abolished. If we do that and go back to the basics, everyone will benefit, society will be better, and we can fix the problems of Warring States China. As well, Mozi argued that it is in our self-interest to love others. This is not an emotional, romantic, or spiritual love. This is the love of neighbor in purely self-interested terms. If we love and help our neighbor, our neighbor will love and help us back. This will get rid of the war and aggressiveness of the times. Mozi also believed that all the conflict around him, whether military or social, could be ended if only we all learned to obey our superiors and do what they say. And if we do all of these things, 13

Decoding Dao Heaven, the gods, and the spirits will bless us. For Mozi, there are clear standards of behavior and of truth. All we need to do is follow them. Mozi’s followers became the largest school in the Warring States period, and they were strictly organized, obeying their superior. While the school had little success in influencing the politics of the time and died out by about 200 bce, they did do one important thing. Mohists developed rules of argument and proof. They discussed what made for a valid argument, what was illogical and why, and what proofs one could offer to defend an argument. This influenced almost every writer throughout the Warring States period – even the Daoists. Mozi and his followers believed that we could be persuaded by argument and they presented arguments at length, often at laborious length. Daoists were not buying Mozi’s arguments either. Zhuangzi will make fun of them by showing that being useless is better than being useful.6 Useful things are used up or killed. To live out our natural lifespan, one of the aims of our texts, it is better to be useless. As well, Zhuangzi will argue that what we consider “useful” is just a matter of our point of view and not based on any solid truth. Nevertheless, Daoists were influenced by the rules of argument and logic that the Mohists set out. Some have argued that the structure of the Dao De Jing is a rejection of Mohist rules of logic (see Chapter Two). Both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi argue that the standards of truth are not as clear as Mohist logic makes them out to be. We get into trouble thinking, like the Mohists, that we have thought our way to the truth. Zhuangzi twists the Mohist rules of logic to parody them and is able to use logical rules to make entirely illogical arguments.

Yang Zhu and Shen Dao (Ya-ahng, Jew) There are two other figures who may have had an influence on the authors of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. The first, Yang Zhu (circa 370–319 bce), we know about mostly from the nasty 14

The Context criticisms from Confucians who said that Yang Zhu would not sacrifice a hair on his body to save the world. Actually, what Yang Zhu seems to have argued was that we should value our lives over the fame and influence of important government offices. We should keep what we have, live out our natural lifespans, and not get involved in all the intrigue and treachery of the politics of the time. If we all took care of ourselves, Yang Zhu argued, the world would be better off. Certainly, there are reflections of this kind of thought in the Dao De Jing, and the “Miscellaneous Chapters” of the Zhuangzi (see Chapter Two) contain Yang Zhu’s thought.7 The second influence is from Shen Dao (circa 395–315 bce), also called Shenzi, Master Shen.8 He argued that dao is amoral, and there is nothing in the universe that leads us to moral behavior. Shen Dao rejects the idea of a Heaven that rewards the good and punishes the bad in this world. Language, he also argued, is incapable of conveying real meaning and so should be abandoned as well. It may be that Shen Dao reflected what others had already seen, that society was so corrupt and artificial that it could not be fixed. Some of these people withdrew from society to become hermits, giving up their social status to live a simpler life. We will see the influence of thinkers such as Shen Dao in the Dao De Jing especially.

Language and Logicians Mozi may not have converted everyone in Warring States China to his views, but he did convert most people to seeing the need for arguments and proofs. Tied to this was the growing understanding throughout the period that language and the words we use have to be clear because so many disputes centered on them. If one person argues that a government bureaucrat must do his duty, another might counter by asking if that duty includes blind obedience. If your superior tells you to kill someone, is it your duty to do that? What does the word “duty” mean? How can we define “duty” so that when we speak to one another, we can agree on what it means, what it encompasses, and what it does not. 15

Decoding Dao Language and the meaning of words are not normally that much of an issue in everyday life: if someone asks you to “hold the elevator,” you know that they really mean to hold the elevator door open for them. You are probably not going to get into a debate with them by saying that you are simply not strong enough to “hold the elevator.” It is in issues of morality and discussions of society that the definition of words often becomes an issue. We debate whether the word “murder” applies to killing someone in a war, legal executions, abortion, or killing someone while defending your property. Often these debates depend on what one person defines as murder and what another does not. In Chinese, the word “ming” (名, rhymes with “cling”) means both “word” and “name.” The issue for people in Warring States China was how to know what word, what name, to properly apply to a thing or situation. This is just the same as the debate as to whether or not capital punishment is murder. Is the word “murder” applicable to capital punishment? How can we define the word “murder” properly and define it so that we can all agree on it? Most texts from this period ended up having to discuss language and how it works. The Mohists led the way in these discussions. They talked about “discriminations,” that is, how to distinguish one thing from another, how to define something. If we can establish a proper definition or discrimination then we can distinguish one thing from another and we can establish what is, what is right and proper from what is not, what is false and improper. We will know what is right and wrong. But what makes one discrimination or definition better than another? After all, your definition of murder is just as good as mine. The Mohists said that things can be defined by what is inherent to them, the way things are. There are real differences among things in the world and by seeing that reality, we can discriminate/define the thing and give it a name. They developed rules to sort this out. These rules were generally based on similarity and difference. So we name something “wood” whether it is wood in a living tree, wood in a desk, wood in a pencil. The “wood” is 16

The Context similar in each case and so we can name it “wood.” By extension, a “tree” can be a living tree, but the word can also be properly used as “family tree.” Definitions or discriminations give us a way to encapsulate a thing or event and a way to close off any other view of the thing or event. While definitions aim to bring clarity, they also end debate over what a thing is. If a thing is called a gourd, then it is a plant from the Cucurbitaceae family. After it grows, it can be dried and hollowed out to make musical instruments, small bowls, or used simply for decoration. That is what a gourd is. The definition of gourd has not allowed for any other approach. It would not be, as Zhuangzi will suggest, a boat one can take on a pleasure cruise. There are a couple of things to note from this. First, these discussions demand both logic and coherence. Second, this enterprise is based in reality, the real similarities and differences among things. And that is the problem – this sort of thinking is fine for classifying things or setting up the genus and species of animals, but does not necessarily solve the problems with debates about morality or our difficulty in defining the word “murder.” However, the Mohists were able to establish some ground rules. They not only discussed how to properly name things by distinguishing them, they also investigated the nature of logic and what made for logical and illogical statements. One of their rules that will have an impact on the Daoist texts is the Mohist position that language must say something. Those who say language is incapable of conveying meaning, say the Mohists, are contradicting themselves. You have made the statement in language, so saying language cannot convey meaning while saying it in language is a contradictory statement. If it were possible to mime the idea that language cannot convey meaning, you would, according to Mohist rules, be all right.9 The Logician Gongsun Long10 (gung, s-wun, lung) looked more closely at the relationship between words/names and the thing itself. He noted that concrete things were named according to custom, but when it comes to abstract things it becomes more complicated. His most famous argument is that “a white horse is not a 17

Decoding Dao horse.” This argument sounds absurd at first, but when we look at what is going on in terms of concrete and abstract, it makes more sense. Both the word “white” and the word “horse” are abstract: you cannot show me “white,” you can only show me white things; “horse” is an abstract word referring to genus and species. A “white horse” is a real, concrete, animal and not the abstract “horse.” So who cares? Well, many do not, and did not in the Warring States era. Gongsun Long began to deal with the ways in which words/ names differ and how we can know them and apply them. Zhuangzi will argue against Gongsun Long, particularly taking on his “white horse is not a horse” argument. One of the other Logicians we know about by name is Hui Shi (h-way, sure).11 He is portrayed in the Zhuangzi as one of Zhuangzi’s friends and someone who argued with Zhuangzi frequently. Hui Shi’s positions are set out in a series of paradoxes: the sun at noon is declining; the grass is as tall as the mountains. They seem to revolve around point of view issues. The sun reaches its height at noon and can only decline from there; grass is tall to a bug and mountains tiny if seen from outer space. Things are different depending on one’s point of view. So, if no discrimination, no definition, will stand as true for all people or all situations, then we cannot divide things at all.12

Trends During the Warring States Era All of these thinkers were focused on the problem of restoring the civilization that was in danger of being lost. As they wrote, taught, and debated, new ideas and new terms arose. People had to sharpen their arguments and provide proofs instead of just statements. Most thinkers had to take all the discussions of language into account as well. Over time, one issue came to the forefront. How can we ensure that language, naming, defining words, and so on is based on some unchanging and logical system of definition-making? What is the way to do that? Can it be done at all? Is there a definition for murder that both satisfy all of us and that is based on some unchanging and 18

The Context self-evident principle? Once we know how to base the way we make definitions, then we can clearly define even slippery terms such as right and wrong. A second broad issue is related to the first. How do we establish a certain and unshakeable foundation among all the conflicting solutions proposed by Confucians, Mohists, and others? It became more and more clear to the people of the Warring States era that what an individual does and thinks is profoundly influenced by culture, how can we be sure that we have arrived at the right way and are not simply echoing what our culture has taught us? How can we distinguish right and wrong? Where, among the many conflicting views, conflicting daos, does one find dao? As Angus Graham says, If we ourselves would prefer to think of it [dao] as absolute Reality that is because our philosophy in general has been a search for being, reality, truth, while for the Chinese the question was always ‘Where is the Way [dao]?’ Chinese thinkers want to know how to live, how to organize community and, at the very end of the pre-Han period, how to relate community to cosmos . . . the purpose of seeking the one behind the many is to find, not something more than what appears to the senses, but a constant Way [dao] behind the changing and conflicting ways of life and government claimed by the competing schools as the Way [dao] of the sage kings.13

The Daoist texts we are looking at will talk about how we should live in order to be successful and how we should live together as a society. Their answers to “where is dao?” are startling.

Cultural Heroes and Concepts People in Warring States China believed that, even before the first dynasties of China, there had been a succession of sage-kings, great rulers who brought the arts of civilization. Sage-kings like Yao (rhymes with “how”) and Shun taught people everything from irrigation to filial piety. One sage-king found in the Daoist tradition 19

Decoding Dao is Huang Di (黃帝, h-wahng, dee), the Yellow Emperor, who is said to have ruled in 2704 bce. Tradition says that he showed people how to make houses and boats, and how to write. His wife is said to have taught people how to make silk. Later stories say he became immortal, rising, with his household, to the heavens. While we now know these stories are myths, many people of the time believed them. There were many gods and spirits too that most people believed in. The central deity was Tian (天, tee-yen), Heaven. Be careful, this is not heaven as a place where one goes after death; this Heaven was seen as the chief god, a moral judge of human actions that rewarded the good and punished the bad in this life, not the next. If you behaved badly, especially if you were a ruler, Heaven would send drought, pestilence or misfortune. As time went on, the notion of Tian, Heaven, began to include an understanding of Heaven as the workings of nature, an impersonal force. We begin to see the use of the phrase tian-di (tee-yen, dee), heaven-earth, to mean the world or the universe. It was seen as impersonal, not a creator of the world, and is often translated as “nature.”14 Another term found in many Warring States texts is qi (氣, chee). Originally, it was used to talk about emotions or character or as the atmosphere of a place. Later, more complex theories of qi were created. In these theories, qi makes up all things and can be heavy or light, making a solid, a liquid, or a gas. Qi in human beings is heavy, like bones, liquid like blood, gaseous like breath, and is also the animating energy that makes us alive. Qi transforms from one form to another constantly in all the things and events of the universe. One term that also causes a lot of difficulty in translation is de (德, duh or dey). It has been translated as “ethical nature,” “spiritual power,” “power,” “potency,” and “virtue.” The usual translations are “virtue” and “power.” Like qi, de is one of those concepts that is specific to the Chinese language and does not translate to a single word in English. It can be used to mean virtue in the sense of moral virtue, an ethical person. This is often the Confucian sense of the word, where a person with de controls others because he is morally superior and his charisma attracts others to him. 20

The Context De may also be used to talk about virtue as power. This is based on older ideas of de, where the de of a person or a thing was the special thing it could do. So the de, virtue, of the plant foxglove is that it produces digitalis for heart problems. Foxglove does this naturally, and the power to do this is inherent to the plant. This led to the idea of virtue as power, potency, the energy, the charisma, of a special kind of person. This de attracts and influences others. It is this sense of de that is most often, although not exclusively, used in the Daoist texts.15 Chinese texts talk a lot about xin (心, shin), the mind/heart. For some thinkers, it was a rational faculty; for others it contained both thought and emotions. The character is a stylized picture of a heart and as a radical, the basis of character, you can find xin in characters expressing thought and rationality and also emotions. Translating xin as “mind/heart” is an attempt to convey both parts of this term. Another phrase that can be misleading is “the ten thousand things” (wan wu 萬物, wan woo) also translated as “the myriad things.” While the early Chinese knew that there were more than ten thousand things in the world, it became an accepted phrase, just as we say “I called you dozens of times” when we do not actually mean multiples of 12. The biggest problem with the phrase “ten thousand things” is the word “things.” While the phrase is meant to include all the objects of the universe, it also includes all events of the universe from supernovas to the white blood cell your body just made. So it is not just things that are referred to, but processes and actions as well.

Summary While the social and political world of Warring States China was a mess, scholar-bureaucrats scrambled to find ways out of the crisis. Confucius and his followers developed a complex approach that included filial piety, moral behavior, humaneness, and proper ritual from the individual. In the government, the ruler was to care for the people as a father for his children. Rulers and administrators 21

Decoding Dao would be models of good behavior, and this would trickle down to the population. Things would return to the standards of the past if only we all behaved better. Mozi, on the other hand, argued that too much of our money and attention were on the frills of life. We must be concerned with the essentials, the useful, and get rid of everything else. Standards of acting, knowing, and being are perfectly clear when we look at what is useful and what is not. Mozi’s followers were challenged over the idea that standards are perfectly clear and so had to try to find ways to establish how we can know that things are right and wrong. While ultimately unsuccessful in establishing an absolute standard for right and wrong, the Mohists opened up the discussion to others and the authors of our Daoist texts jumped in. As well, later Logicians like Gongsun Long and Hui Shi, developed rules of logic and argument and this too affected our authors. The debate became about how to find an absolute standard of truth from which we can know right and wrong and build a system to deal with moral and political issues. Authors of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi will argue there is no such standard and, if it does exist, we could not possibly know it. There are people from the culture mentioned in our texts, such as the sage-kings and in particular the Yellow Emperor. Our texts also use certain terms, such as qi and de, and use them as the culture at large did, but develop them to suit their own approaches. All of this is background to the production of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. How these texts were actually put together is the subject of the next chapter.

Notes   1  The translations here are all mine unless noted. For quotations from the Dao De Jing, I will put the standard chapter number in brackets after the quotation. For other texts, I will cite a comparable translation.   2  I will cite quotations from the Zhuangzi by giving the page number of a comparable translation. Here, Victor Mair, Wandering on the Way:

22

The Context

  3    4    5 

  6 

  7 

  8 

  9 

10  11 

12 

13 

Early Taoist [Daoist] Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998), 16. Dao De Jing, chapter 53. Analects, 4.15. Xunzi, “Human Nature Is Evil”; compare John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Study and Translation of the Complete Works (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 3 vols. 3, 151. In one passage, Zhuangzi says that Mozi does not want us to sing when we are happy or cry when we are sad, but surely that runs counter to “the hearts of the world,” what is natural to human beings. Zhuangzi, Section Thirty-Three, “The World.” Compare Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] (Columbia University Press, 1964), 365–6. Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 120, lists the sources for Yang Zhu’s thought. Shen Dao’s thought is referred to in the Zhuangzi and Han Feizi. See Paul Thompson, The Shen Tzu [Zi] Fragments, (London: Oxford University Press, 1979). In 2007, the Shanghai Museum published a set of bamboo slips that included sayings from Shen Dao. Mohists were convinced that if we do not know something, we can investigate the thing and come to learn about it through observation and thought. For a good description of Mozi and Mohist arguments, see Steve Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy: Vagueness, Transformation, and Paradox (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), chapter five. It is not known for certain just when Gongsun Long lived. Dates vary from 380 to 325 bce. There are no firm dates for Hui Shi, but it is possible that he lived somewhere from 380 to 305 bce. We know about him mainly from passages in the Zhuangzi. As we will see, Hui Shi was a monist, that is, someone who argued that all things in the universe are one; see Chapter Seven. For an excellent description of issues of language and these thinkers, see Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought (London: Oxford University Press, 1992), 233–64. Angus C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao [Dao]: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (LaSalle: Open Court, 1989), 223.

23

Decoding Dao 14  For a good description of the term and its development, see Paul Rakita Goldin, Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), chapter two. 15  For a complete discussion, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, “The Concept of de (‘Virtue’) in the Laozi,” in Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds, Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 239–57. See also Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, A Philosophical Translation (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003), 59–61.

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Section Two

AUTHORS AND TEXTS

Chapter Two

Chapter Contents The Dao De Jing—Why Does the Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching/Laozi/Lao Tzu Have So Many Names?—Dao De Jing, The Author—Dao De Jing, the Text—The Dao De Jing, the Style of the Text—The Dao De Jing in the West—The Zhuangzi, the Author—The Zhuangzi, the Text—The Zhuangzi, the Style of the Text—The Zhuangzi in the West— Issues in Translation—Summary

The Dao De Jing Today, when we read a book, a magazine article, or a blog, we assume that most of the time, it is written by a single person, and it is this person’s voice we are hearing. When it comes to writing books, some people also think that authors begin on page one and work their way through. That is not the case, even for modern books: authors begin with a broad idea of the text, organize it into

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

27

Decoding Dao chapters, organize these chapters in a coherent order, and then begin to write. In ancient times, texts were not produced like this at all. There was often more than one author of a text and texts were fluid. This means there were different parts and different versions circulating. People read and recited them, added to them, deleted sections, changed around the order of the sections, and copied the text by hand. Gradually, these pieces were brought together as a whole, and it is these final, multiauthored and multilayered texts that were passed on as a single text to us. This is the case with the Daoist texts.

Why Does the Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching/ Laozi/Lao Tzu Have So Many Names? The version we usually read today is a translation of the Wang Bi version (see later in the chapter). This version has 81 chapters and is divided into two sections. The first section consists of chapters 1–37 and the first word of the first chapter is “dao.” The second section consists of chapters 38–81 and the first word of that section is “de.” The text then came to be called the Dao De Jing (道德經, jing, a classic). Dao De Jing is the Pinyin version of the Chinese. Pinyin is the transliteration system begun by the Chinese government in the 1950s. Tao Te Ching, pronounced in the same way as Dao De Jing, is in the older Wade–Giles system of transliteration begun in the 1920s. In this system, a “t” is not pronounced, as you might expect as a “t.” It is pronounced as a “d.” If you want a “t” sound, you write “t” with an apostrophe, “t’.” This means that “tofu” in the Wade– Giles system is “dofu” in the Pinyin system and pronounced with an initial “d” in both cases. About 300 years after the text was “written,” the name Laozi (老子, “lao,” rhymes with “how,” ds) was associated with the text. This remains the case today, and people who study the text will refer to it as the Laozi (Lao Tzu) or as the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) interchangeably. Lao Tzu is the Wade–Giles version of Laozi. 28

Authors and Texts

Dao De Jing, The Author If we knew something about the author, would that give us some insight into the text? Normally that would be the case, but there is a problem here: Laozi is not, strictly speaking, a person’s name. “Lao” (老) means “old” or “venerable,” the “zi” (子) means “teacher” or “master.” Laozi then means “the venerable teacher” or “the old master.” This is not a name in the sense of a surname or given name.1 About 300 years after the text was put together, a court historian in the Han dynasty, Sima Qian (circa 145 or 135–86 bc; suh-ma, chee-en), had the difficult task of identifying this Laozi and giving him a biography. Sima Qian identifies the “Old Master” as a Lao Dan or, more properly, Li Er (lee, are). This man, who later came to be called the “Old Master,” was born in the state of Chu (jew) in the southeast of the China of the time, prefecture Ku (coo), Li district, in the small town of Quren (chew-ren). His name was Li Er and he took the literary name of Dan. He then came to be called “Lao Dan,” Venerable Dan. He worked as either a librarian or historian in the archives of the royal state of Zhou. There are problems with Sima Qian’s identification of Laozi as Li Er, later Lao Dan. There was a noble family of the time that claimed descent from Laozi. This family conveniently placed Laozi’s birthplace in the same place as the Han dynasty ruling family’s home in order to gain favor with the royal family.2 So where did the noble family get this Laozi–Li Er–Lao Dan connection? This comes from a story about Lao Dan meeting with Confucius. According to the story, Confucius visited Lao Dan, a librarian for the Zhou dynasty, and asked quite humbly for instruction. Lao Dan did not think much of Confucius’ talents, but did teach him something. Versions of this story are found in both Confucian and Daoist texts. If this story is true, it would mean that Laozi/Lao Dan was a contemporary of Confucius (551–479 bce) and give us an approximate date for his life. 29

Decoding Dao The name Lao Dan also shows up in the other early Daoist text, the Zhuangzi. In it, Lao Dan is shown as a severe critic of Confucius. Lao Dan is also described as going on a journey to the state of Qin (chin) in the northwest. Based on this flimsy evidence, it was said that Lao Dan-Laozi was the Grand Astrologer Dan of Zhou who visited Qin in 374 bce and predicted the Qin victory and empire. This surely would have pleased the Qin emperor. The fact that this Lao Dan-Laozi would have had to have been anywhere from 160 to 200 years old to have both met Confucius and gone to Qin in 374 bce gives us reason to think these stories are nonsense.3 But at this time, all sorts of claims were being made that some people had found the secret to living a very long time or indeed to becoming immortal. The immense age of Lao Dan-Laozi would have been a selling point for this story – especially to an emperor seeking immortality – not a drawback. Sima Qian’s biography continues with the story of Lao Dan-Laozi leaving China because he was fed up with the ignorance around him. When he came to the border, the officer in charge of the border pass demanded that Laozi write down his wisdom before leaving the country. With no good grace, Laozi wrote a two-part book of his teachings. Then he left China, heading west. This part of the story helps with the claim that Lao Dan-Laozi lived to a very long age or was immortal. When asked for proof that Lao-Dan Laozi was an immortal, his supporters could simply say that he had left the country and so could not be produced for proof. The story also helps explain why the text was “written.” If an “author” writes that language is inadequate, he is bound to be asked, “Well, in that case, why did you write a book?” The response his followers can now give is that Laozi was forced to write it and had no choice. Sima Qian finishes by acknowledging that Laozi might also be identified with two other people: Lao Laizi (lie-ds) or Taishi Dan (tie-sure). In the end, Sima Qian throws up his hands and writes that Laozi was an enigmatic sage so it is hard to find out anything reliable.4 It is now generally accepted that Laozi is not the single 30

Authors and Texts author of the Dao De Jing, and that the name “Laozi” is not a reference to any known single historical person.

Dao De Jing, the Text If we cannot find out anything reliable about the author, does the text itself help us by giving us clues about the author or authors and the times they wrote in? There are three versions of the Dao De Jing. The first is the version that has been known and used for centuries and is associated with a man named Wang Bi (226–249 ce, w-ahng, bee). Wang Bi was a brilliant thinker who lived at the time of another collapse of centralized rule at the end of the Han dynasty, about 500 years after the Dao De Jing was produced. He was a minor bureaucrat and died at the age of 24. Despite his youth, he wrote a respected commentary, that is, a book about a book, on the Dao De Jing. His aim, which sounds odd to us today, was to reconcile Confucian and Daoist thought. In his commentary, he argues that dao is the ultimate principle behind all things and that dao is nothingness, non-being (see Chapter Three).5 The version of the Dao De Jing he used is the one used throughout history, and the one most often translated today. It has what we have come to consider the standard 81 chapters, divided into two sections. If you have read a translation of the Dao De Jing, it is likely that it is the Wang Bi version that you read.6 The second version is the Mawangdui (MWD ma, w-ahng, d-way) version dated to 168 bce. It was found in 1973 buried in a noble’s tomb dated to the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce). Actually, two texts were found, now called Mawangdui A and B. Both seem to have been copied from the same original, although at different times: Mawangdui A was copied sometime after the death of the first Qin emperor in 195 bce; the B version copied sometime before 180 bce. The Mawangdui versions differ from the standard Wang Bi version by having more grammatical particles and by switching 31

Decoding Dao the two sections of the text so that the “de” section is before the “dao” section. Both versions follow the same breaks but without formal chapter divisions.7 The third version is the Guodian (g-woe, dee-an) version. Guodian is a village just north of the ancient capital of the state of Chu in modern Hubei (who-bay) province. Texts written on bamboo strips and on silk were found by archeologists excavating a tomb. Three bundles of bamboo strips contain 31 of the present 81 chapters of the Dao De Jing. These bundles are now the oldest version of the Dao De Jing that we have because the tomb has been dated to 300 bce.8 Even though the Guodian version has fewer chapters than the present version, curiously it contains punctuation, something not found in the Mawangdui version. The other peculiarity of the Guodian version is that the anti-Confucian material in the Dao De Jing is missing. Scholars now debate what this means: given that the tomb was for a Confucian scholar and tutor, was the antiConfucian material discarded, or was anti-Confucian material added to the Dao De Jing later? So, if the oldest version is the Guodian version, must it be the proper one? Well, not necessarily. We have the Dao De Jing only once in that version; we have many copies of it in the Wang Bi version. The major differences among the versions are in the order of the chapters and what is included. The Wang Bi, Mawangdui, and Guodian versions are remarkably alike, and this makes scholars think that the written text was already in circulation in some form by 300 bce, and that there were a number of versions of it then. All the versions we have now have been edited, and that process likely continued in the next century or centuries to give us the text we know today. Other scholars use linguistic tools along with the archeological record. Much of the text may be from an oral tradition, using rhyme as a memory trigger as some other ancient texts do. The rhetorical patterns and rhyme pronunciation in the Dao De Jing place it at 400 bce. The general thinking now is that the text, or parts of it, was probably produced by 400 bce and reached its present form somewhere between 400 and 300 bce.9 32

Authors and Texts These archeological finds also tell us that the Dao De Jing, like other early texts, was built of small “building blocks” of pieces arranged in different ways. This is a long way from the single voice, single author works we are used to today. The Dao De Jing we have now is the result of a long process of collection and editing.10 This method of composition also tells us that there was more than one author for the Dao De Jing. Laozi, the Venerable Teacher, was Laozi, the Venerable Teachers. Just who these teachers were is a much debated subject. One view is that the text was a product of a community. This community was not involved in the debates of the Warring States period, but lived in the state of Chu and passed their wisdom down so that they became the “elders,” the lao. This community was focused on self-cultivation through qi (see Chapter Ten).11 The authors of the Dao De Jing were alienated idealists – that is, nobles, possibly dispossessed of power or wealth, who had become scholars. They were critical of the society and politics of their times and looked to self-cultivation for meaning. Their motives in composing the text were “celebratory not instructional, that is, to celebrate dao as experienced in the self cultivation of the individual and the way in which ‘knowing’ it transforms the world.”12 This argument holds that the text was produced by a circle or community of believers while others strongly disagree (see Chapter Ten). Another view is that the authors of the Dao De Jing were scholarbureaucrats, the kind of people described in Chapter One. These people put together various sayings and passages over time to reflect their views. Like all scholar-bureaucrats, their main interest was in running the state and advising a ruler. That is why there is so much discussion of ruling and politics in the text. In addition, they included advice to other scholar-bureaucrats on how to succeed, or indeed how to survive. Those attracted to this text, in whatever version they saw it, were also convinced that it was dao, not the gods or spirits, that runs everything. They also seem to have agreed that human beings, especially when acting through ego, caused most of the misfortunes of the time. 33

Decoding Dao Debates about the authors of the Dao De Jing continue, but is there anything we can know for sure about them? They were almost certainly upper class, because they had the education to be able to write and the leisure time to do it. Many of them were, at least from time to time, involved in government. They were likely all male, given their education and social status. To what extent these people formed a community or school is still debated. Why does all of this matter? With a text as terse as the Dao De Jing, if we know when it was written and who wrote it, it would be easier to see who the authors were arguing against and who they were influenced by.

The Dao De Jing, the Style of the Text The Dao De Jing is surely one of the strangest texts ever produced, whether in classical or modern times. It has no beginning and no conclusion; it has no plot and does not develop an argument. It refers to not even one person by name. It refers to no time and no place. There is nothing in the text that says anything about the historical period it exists in. There is only one brief reference to Chinese political hierarchy, but other than that there is no reference to China.13 The Dao De Jing was one of the first Chinese texts to be translated into Sanskrit in the seventh century ce. Had we found the only version of the text in that Sanskrit translation, we might have assumed it was a classical Indian text.14 The Dao De Jing has been compared to a website giving links to other sites. Material was put on to the “bulletin board” of the text at different times by different people who understood the context of those postings.15 Others describe the Dao De Jing as a text that has “. . . all the determinacy of a Rorshach blot,” and this encourages the reader to blur too quickly “the boundary between reading into and reading out of the text.” The text was written this way on purpose to make it look timeless and ancient.16 A number of scholars agree that there was a conscious attempt to make the text look ancient and older than anything in the Confucian tradition. Unlike other texts of classical China, there are no 34

Authors and Texts master–student dialogues in the Dao De Jing. The speakers in the text are anonymous, and it is up to the reader to provide the thread among the terse statements that use few, and difficult, words.17 Still others argue that there is more coherence to the Dao De Jing than is generally recognized. There are a number of chapters clustered around central themes: natural and conventional morality, war, statecraft, and so on. The text is held together by repeated themes, metaphors, and terms.18 Certainly when reading the Dao De Jing, the reader is struck by the echo of the themes and terms from one chapter to another.

The Dao De Jing in the West Many of the books on Daoism make the claim that the Dao De Jing is the most translated book in the world after the Bible, or at least that it is the “the most often translated Asian work in Western languages.”19 Others say that the Dao De Jing appears in a new English translation once a month.20 Still others that the text is one of the most frequently translated texts, with over 200 versions in 17 languages.21 None of these claims is substantiated, but a look at Amazon.com will show you more than 50 available translations in print today. The first translation into a Western language was a Latin translation by Jesuit missionaries, around 1788; French translations appeared in 1820 and 1842. In 1868, the first English translation was produced by John Chalmers. The text was read with approval by the transcendentalists, Samuel Johnson, Emerson, and Thoreau, at the end of the nineteenth century. They saw it as a nonconformist text, teaching simplicity and freedom.22 The Dao De Jing also influenced a number of other Western thinkers: Tolstoy, Hesse, Brecht, Kafka, Buber, Hiedegger, and Jung used what they saw in the text to advance their own ideas. The Dao De Jing was understood by many as countering the Western ideals of progress and mechanization. Others used the text as an alternative to, and a critique of, Western and Christian ideas.23 Western translations have often reflected the way in which 35

Decoding Dao the text has been understood as anarchist, mystical, antiestablishment, and so on. Victor Mair comments on this acidly, saying, We may account for the enormous popularity of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing] by pointing to its brevity and its ambiguity: everybody can find what they’re looking for quickly. The Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing] in its many American renditions is a kind of Taoist [Daoist] fast food – you devour it in several bites and it doesn’t cost much.24

Certainly, the ambiguity of the Dao De Jing has led to some bizarre interpretations, but as Isabelle Robinet says, “While the text is open to many interpretations, it is not open to any interpretation.”25 We will look at these issues in Chapter Ten.

The Zhuangzi, the Author When we come to our second text, we are on slightly firmer ground both when describing the author and the text itself. Only marginally firmer ground, but better than what is available when discussing the Dao De Jing. Once again, it fell to the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian to create a biography for Zhuangzi (莊子). He begins by saying that Zhuangzi, Master Zhuang, was named Zhuang Zhou (joe) and he was born in the city of Meng (mung) in the state of Song (sung), modern-day Henan (huh-nan) in 369 bce.26 Zhuang Zhou had a minor government job as the “officer of the Lacquer Garden” or officer in the Lacquer Garden. Whether this was an administrative title or a place name is not known. The Lacquer Garden is believed to have been located just outside the city of Kaifeng in modern Henan province. Whichever it was, it gives us a picture of an official, even if a low-status official, and that differs from the pictures we find in the text. He was poor; his wife died before him, and they had children. He had students but we do not know their names. There are stories about Zhuangzi in the Zhuangzi, but none are reliable.27 In them, Zhuang Zhou is pictured as so poor that he had to tie his shoes on with string, had patched clothes, sometimes 36

Authors and Texts had to beg for food, and made an apparently unsuccessful living weaving sandals. Despite his poverty, he sent away any official offering him a job in government. These are caricatures based on a picture of the kind of person who might have written the Zhuangzi, rather than any kind of straightforward biography.28 There is speculation that Zhuang Zhou spent some time in the states of Chu and Qi, where he may have gone to the famous Jixia Academy, because he was certainly completely familiar with all the arguments of his time. He is adept in using Confucian, Logician, and Mohist terms and ideas and spent a lot of his time arguing with them. Sima Qian tells us that Zhuang Zhou was born in 369 bce and died at the age of 84 in 286 bce. This would mean that the Confucian Mencius was his contemporary; the Confucian Xunzi, already a star at the Jixia Academy, was in his 30s, as was the Logician, Gongsun Long. However, Mencius does not mention Zhuangzi, and Zhuangzi has only a little to say about Mencius’ arguments. This makes scholars suspicious of the dates Sima Qian gives us. Sima Qian was not happy about his biography of Zhuangzi, just as he was not happy with the one for Laozi. He concludes by saying, “[Zhuangzi’s] writing and words were so skillful that he could use stories to take a strip off the Confucians and the Mohists and even the deepest scholars of the times could not defend themselves . . . kings, dukes, and great men could not put him to use.”29 There was likely a Zhuang Zhou who came to be called Zhuangzi. It may be that he was the one to write the first section of the Zhuangzi. Which, if any of these traditions about him are true, is something we may never know.

The Zhuangzi, the Text The first sections of the Zhuangzi are different from other classical Chinese texts in that they are not dictated nor are they the writing down of an older oral tradition. What we see here is the switch from a primarily oral tradition that was recited or dictated to a purely 37

Decoding Dao written form where the author is holding the pen, or in Chinese terms, the brush. There is general agreement that only the first part of the Zhuangzi was written by one person, conventionally referred to as Zhuangzi. This first section presents a unique and coherent set of arguments and stories. The first section, from section 1 to section 7, is referred to as the “Inner Chapters” (see Chapter Nine). The second part of the Zhuangzi is called the “Outer Chapters,” and it includes the sections from 8 to 22. The authorship of these chapters is debated. It may be that sections 17–27, as well as 32 are from Zhuangzi’s followers or students. That is because they repeat many of the themes found in the Inner Chapters and develop some of them further. These sections also tend to be in the same style as the Inner Chapters.30 Within the category of the Outer Chapters, there are some sections that reflect the thought we find in the Dao De Jing. Sections 8–10, along with sections 28–31, talk about reaching a simple life outside of society, a golden age, living out one’s life, and so on – all themes we find in the Dao De Jing. In the third and final part of the Zhuangzi, the “Miscellaneous Section” (sections 23–33), as its name suggests, contains the writings of various authors. Sections 28–31 seem to be from the school of Yang Zhu (see Chapter One). Other portions may belong to the Huang-Lao (huh-wahng) school (see Chapter Nine), or what others call “syncretists.”31 The last chapter of the text gives a summary of the main thinkers of the time and a summary of Zhuangzi’s thought. While the Zhuangzi is referred to as a text by the time of Xunzi (circa 312–230 bce), it probably did not reach its present form until the editing of the scholar Guo Xiang (d. 312 ce), who edited the text and wrote a commentary on it.32

The Zhuangzi, the Style of the Text The Dao De Jing refers to no person or place, but the Zhuangzi more than makes up for it. There are all sorts of people, many imaginary, 38

Authors and Texts and place names, also often imaginary, in the Zhuangzi. The people and places put the reader firmly in Warring States China. As well, the style of the Zhuangzi is unlike any other text in classical China or anywhere else. It is a collection of stories, jokes, conversations, logical puzzles, and rants. Figures in the Zhuangzi include people and heroes of his world: Confucius and his student Yan Hui, the Logician Hui Shi, and sagekings such as the Yellow Emperor. There are also criminals, men who have lost their foot by breaking the law, others who eat human livers. There are shamans, deformed characters, talking trees, and talking skulls. The stories that Zhuangzi tells are not true, and this includes the stories featuring Confucius, who at times sounds like a Daoist and at other times like a nitwit. The stories are arguments not presented as arguments. These sorts of contradictions are why scholars have had such a hard time trying to categorize or pin down Zhuangzi. A thinker who uses humor to engage the reader and argue against opponents is so rare that often academics have not known what to do with him. Zhuangzi has been described as an anarchist, a mystic, a skeptic, a relativist, and many other things.33 We will see if we can sort out just what is going on in this text.

The Zhuangzi in the West Given the complexity and specificity of the Zhuangzi, it will be no surprise that this text has not enjoyed anywhere near the popularity of the Dao De Jing in the West. It was ignored by the early Jesuit missionaries and by those Europeans who fell in love with China during the Enlightenment. There were translations of the Zhuangzi by the late 1800s, the first translation to English in 1881. Still, those who read the Zhuangzi became enchanted with it. When Herbert Giles translated the Zhuangzi in 1889, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote that the text was “the most caustic criticism of modern life I have met with in some time which could have the effect of putting some check in our national habit of self-glorification.”34 Even today, 39

Decoding Dao there are far fewer translations of the Zhuangzi than of the Dao De Jing, and often the Zhuangzi is seen merely as a companion volume to the Dao De Jing.

Issues in Translation Translating either the Dao De Jing or the Zhuangzi is a real headache. A translator must first decide which version of the text to work from – most use the Wang Bi version for the Dao De Jing and the Guo Xiang version for the Zhuangzi. Both texts are written in classical Chinese. Classical Chinese is not a language anyone probably ever spoke, except to recite. English does not have anything like it. The closest I could come to describing it would be to say that it is legal-ese – the aforementioned party of the first part – combined with the old English of Chaucer. I often describe translating classical Chinese as doing three-dimensional crossword puzzles. Both modern and classical Chinese are uninflected languages. English is an inflected language where words will change depending on whether or not they are single or plural (word, words); verbs will change depending on what time they are describing (speak, spoke, will be speaking); and generally there is a difference between a noun and an adjective (heat, hot). Chinese does none of these things. Words stay the same no matter if they are single or plural, past or present verb tense, an adjective or a noun. Chinese has other ways of indicating these things, but in classical Chinese, many of those indicators are missing.35 Classical Chinese also often drops the subject of the sentence if it is understood (and even when it is not), particularly if it is a pronoun (he, she, it, they). Conjunctions (and, but) are also often dropped. All of this is because the writers of classical Chinese believed that being brief and capturing one’s meaning in as few words as possible was the height of elegant writing. Julian Pas and Michael LaFargue use the example of a newspaper headline that is also meant to be as brief as possible and that assumes 40

Authors and Texts an audience used to such headlines and used to their context. “Rebels Burn Tanker, Train in Sri Lanka” could mean that rebels burned a tanker and a train in Sri Lanka or that rebels burned a tanker and do their training in Sri Lanka.36 If the problems with classical Chinese were not enough, translators have difficulties translating from any language because words often have more than one meaning or are used in more than one context. In classical China, the words dao and qi were used in different ways, just as in English the word “work” may mean something that is not an amusement, it may mean one’s job, or it may mean a composer’s symphony. Translators also bring their preconceived ideas to a text: some see the text as political, others as mystical. This will mean that their translation will, naturally enough, interpret the texts in those directions. To avoid interpretation, some have tried a word-for-word translation, but even then the words they choose often interpret. To show you just how difficult all of this is, let us look at a few lines from the first chapter of the Dao De Jing. The numbers at the beginning indicate line number. This is followed by the Chinese character and a basic translation for it, then by a more grammatical sentence. Having begun by saying that the dao that can be “dao-ed” is not the constant dao and that the name we give it is not its constant name, line 5 says: 5. 無 there is not/without/non-being ( , ) 名 name/word 天 heaven  地 earth 之’s  始 beginning A:  has no name is heaven and earth’s beginning B:  non-being, it is the beginning of heaven and earth 6. 有 there is/having/being ( , )  名 name/word  天 heaven  地 earth 之’s 母 mother A:  has name is heaven and earth’s mother B:  being, is the mother of heaven and earth 7. 故 therefore  常 constant  無 there is not/without 欲 desires  以 to do/have/take  觀 observe/see  其 its 妙 secrets/mysteries therefore constantly without desires can see its secrets 41

Decoding Dao 8. 常 constant  有 there is/have  欲 desires 以 to do/have/take  觀 observe/see 其 its 徼 appearances/manifestations constantly have desires can see its appearances You can easily see the kinds of problems involved in translating texts from classical Chinese. And you should remember that, even for classical Chinese, the Dao De Jing is notoriously terse. Here are two translations of these lines for comparison: 5. The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth; 6. The named was the mother of the myriad creatures. 7. Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets; 8. But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.37 And a second translation: 5. The nameless is the fetal beginning of everything that is happening, 6. While that which is named is their mother. 7. Thus, to be really objectless in one’s desires is how one observes the mysteries of all things, 8. While really having desires is how one observes their boundaries.38 As you can see, the first translation is less interpretive than the second, but even so, the decision to read lines 5 and 6, especially inserting punctuation, is part of the translator’s interpretation based on what he sees as the major themes of the text. We can also see how much interpretation has to go into providing an English version of this very terse text. Finding a reliable translation is very important if we are going to make any headway with the text. Before buying a book, check the translator’s credentials. They should be able to read Chinese and have been trained in the study of early China. The book should be 42

Authors and Texts published by a reputable press and, preferably, have a detailed introduction. Read carefully for the translator’s credentials and training, and if this is not clearly stated on the cover, check the introduction. When you find things like a “translator” telling you that he cannot read Chinese and saying, “the most essential pre­ paration for my work was a fourteen-years-long course of Zen training . . . ,”39 you can move on. This is an example of Dao Lite that we will look at in the last chapter. One has to be even more careful with online translations. Many of the translators are not identified and biographical information is not given. A number of online translations I have seen are based on James Legge’s translation of the Dao De Jing from 1891,40 just spruced up in modern English. If a website is not willing to tell you who the translator is or what their credentials may be, find another website.

Summary Classical texts such as the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi were generated and compiled quite differently from the ways in which modern books are written and published. We do not know the names of the authors of the Dao De Jing, but we can be sure that “Laozi” does not refer to a single person we can recognize from history. The style of the Dao De Jing does not help either. It is tersely written, and there is a conscious effort to refer to no time, place, or person. The “Inner Chapters” of the Zhuangzi seem to have been written mostly by a single person who may be, tentatively, identified as Zhuang Zhou or Zhuangzi. Other sections of the text were put together by many hands and, like the Dao De Jing, heavily edited after that. Translating these texts is a problem. First, classical Chinese does not work like English and so there must always be some level of interpretation simply on the language to language level. Second, translating texts that were written in another time almost always 43

Decoding Dao means that we are missing something. References and implications that a reader from that time would have instantly understood are lost to us now. Given all these issues, it is important to know who the translator is and what their qualifications may be before relying on their translations.

Notes   1  There is a Chinese family name, “Lao (Lau),” but it has a different character.   2  A. C. Graham, “The Origins of the Myth of Lao Tan [Dan],” in Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986); reprinted by SUNY (1990); reprinted in Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds, Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Taote-ching [Dao De Jing] (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998), 36.   3  Graham, “The Origins of the Myth of Lao Tan [Dan],” 32.   4  See Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Introduction,” in Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds, Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 2–3. For a complete translation of Sima Qian’s biography of Laozi and the Laozi Inscription of 165 ce, see Mark Csikszentmihalyi ed., Readings in Han Chinese Thought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006), 102f.   5  Wang Bi was also the author of a famous commentary on the Yi Jing, the Book of Changes. While he identified himself as a Confucian, he has often been described as a Neo-Daoist and part of the Xuanxue tradition (see Chapter Nine).   6  For a biography of Wang Bi and a good description of Wang Bi’s commentary and thought, see Richard John Lynn, A New Translation of the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing] of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 1–34. For a discussion of Liu Xiang’s editing and that Liu Xiang’s division into 81 chapters may have been numerologically based, but that many of the divisions among chapters can be seen in the earlier versions, see Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, 75.   7  Mawangdui A follows no Han dynasty imperial taboo characters so it is thought that Mawangdui A was copied sometime after the death of

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Authors and Texts

  8 

  9 

10 

11  12 

the First Qin Emperor, 195 bce, and before the Han dynasty was founded in 206 bce. This is reinforced by being written in small seal script, standard in the Qin dynasty. Mawangdui B only follows the taboo characters for the first Han emperor and so was copied sometime before 180 bce written in later clerical script, after Qin, during the Han. See Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, 74. For a good translation and discussion, see Robert G. Henricks, Lao-tzu Te Tao Ching [Laozi De Dao Jing]: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui [Mawangdui] Texts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989). The three bundles are now called Laozi A, B, or C or as a group, the Bamboo Laozi (Zhuqian Laozi). See Robert G. Henricks, LaoTzu’s [Laozi] Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). The Guodian Laozi had a text appended to it: The Ultimate Gives Birth to the Waters, translated as an appendix in Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant. See William Baxter, “Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu [Laozi]: The Probable Date of the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing],” in Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds, Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing] (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 233; 249. Baxter also provides a helpful time line, 232. For a nice introduction to the different versions and how they came to be, see Hans-Georg Moeller, Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), 1–5. For a clear discussion of this process, see William G. Boltz, “The Composite Nature of Early Chinese Texts,” in Martin Kern ed., Text and Ritual in Early China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 50–79. Looking at rhetorical patterns and rhyme pronunciations, Baxter argues that the text is from about 400 bce; see William Baxter, “Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu [Laozi],” 234. Russel Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2004), 62–64. Michael LaFargue, The Tao [Dao] of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A Translation and Commentary (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 197. See also his “Hermeneutics and Pedagogy: Gimme that Old-Time Historicism,” in Gary DeAngelis and Warren Frisina, eds, Teaching the Daodejing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 208.

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Decoding Dao 13  In chapter 62. 14  Wiebke Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center/Harvard University Press, 2010), 207. 15  Hans-Georg Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 4–5. 16  Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 57. 17  Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature, 208–14. “This is all too easily misinterpreted as a mystifying, willfully obscure side of Laozi and has been happily welcomed by present-day esoteric communities in search of powerful texts with puzzling abysses of deep significance,” 214. 18  Ames and Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, 8. 19  Kirkland, Daoism: the Enduring Tradition, 53. 20  Mair, Wandering on the Way, xiii. 21  J.J. Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist [Daoist] Thought (London: Routledge, 2000), 57 22  Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 45. 23  Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 47. See also Moeller, Daoism Explained, 12; 23. 24  Mair, Wandering on the Way, xiii. 25  Isabelle Robinet, “Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations,” in Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue eds, Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing] (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 121. 26  A Tang dynasty decree of 742 ce bestowed the title “Nanhua Zhen Ren” (southern China’s true man) on Zhuangzi and the text’s alternate name is the Nanhua Zhen Jing. 27  Contained in chapters 17, 18, and 20, assigned to the “school of Zhuangzi” category. Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 22. 28  Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy: Vagueness, Transformation, and Paradox (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 24. 29  Sima Qian Shi Ji, section 63. 30  Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 36. 31  Ronnie Littlejohn lists passages and chapters of the Zhuangzi that he sees as Huang-Lao thought and says that the earliest sign of this tradition is in these passages in the Zhuangzi. They can be identified by the prominent role given to Yellow Emperor and also style similarities.

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Authors and Texts

32 

33 

34 

35 

36  37  38 

See Ronnie L. Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction (New York: I. B. Taurus, 2009), 34. Kirkland argues that the Zhuangzi is a creation of Guo Xiang who is the creator of the entire 33-chapter work. Guo Xiang so stretched, edited, and bowdlerized the text that it should not be seen as a Warring States text, but from his time and his mind. Kirkland, Daoism: the Enduring Tradition, 174–6. This interpretation is not generally accepted. Wu Kuang-ming, describing scholarly efforts to deal with the text says, “. . . they said Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] is only an annotator and henchman of Lao Tzu [Laozi] . . . Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] is a pessimist who hates the world, a recluse who flees from the world, an initiator of mystical and superstitious religious Taoism [Daoism], a pre-Buddhist Buddhist whose incoherent naivete is explicable, and therefore replaceable, by later Zen Buddhism. In short, Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] is a sceptic, nihilist, fatalist, relativist, and even an evolutionist. . . . Any provocative or poetic obscurities in it [the text] need only to be smoothed out by some common sense. In other words, Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] is a queer mystical negativist, an obscure prankster, who is not worth taking seriously. In this manner, they succeeded in bypassing him altogether.” Wu Kuang-ming, Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]: World Philosopher at Play (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 2. “It is clear that Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] is a very dangerous writer and the publication of his book in English, two thousand years after his death, is obviously premature, and may cause a great deal of pain to many thoroughly respectable and industrious persons .  .  . He [Zhuangzi] would be disturbing at dinner-parties, and impossible at afternoon teas, and his whole life was a protest against platform speaking. . . .” Oscar Wilde, A Chinese Sage (Dublin: Mermaid Turbulance, 1997), 19–20 (from an 1890 essay). See Julian Pas and Michael LaFargue. “On Translating the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing],” in Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds, Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing] (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 281, for an example of a single phrase translated differently by three translators and a good discussion of the difficulties involved in translation. Pas and LaFargue, “On Translating the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing],” 281. D.C. Lau, Lao Tzu [Laozi] Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing] (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), chapter 1. Ames and Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, chapter 1.

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Decoding Dao 39  Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A New English Version, with Foreword and Notes by Stephen Mitchell (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), xi. Mitchell admits in his Second Book of Tao [Dao] that he does not read Chinese. His version of the Laozi is based on an old translation with English equivalents and consultation of a number of other translations. Pocket sized and heavily interpreted, this is the quintessential “Dao-Lite” translation. 40  James Legge, 1815–1897, the first major translator of classical Chinese texts.

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Chapter Three

Chapter Contents The Dao? A Dao? Dao? daos? dao?—Images: Water, Women, Baby, Root, and Others—What Is the Problem?— Conventional Values: Pairs of Opposites—Being and Non-Being—Summary

The Dao? A Dao? Dao? daos? dao? The Chinese character for dao (rhymes with “how”) is made up of two parts: step, movement 辶, chou (rhymes with “low”) and head 首, shou (rhymes with “low”) that come together as 道. The earliest use of the word is in the ancient Book of History, where it is used to describe a channel that takes water from a main river to prevent flooding.1 Just like the English word “way,” dao’s meaning expanded. In English, “way” can mean a manner of doing something – “that’s the old way of doing it.” “Way” can also mean something we have a habit of doing – “that’s the way she always does it.” It may mean

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Decoding Dao a method – “I had no way of stopping him,” or “way” may mean a direction – “go that way,” or a street – an “84 Aspen Way.” Dao gradually came to have wider meanings as road, path, way, method, teachings, or doctrines. In English, it has been translated as the Way, Nature, nature, mind, reason, logos, God, undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, general cosmic course,2 and, my favorite, the gerundical dao.3 In Chinese thought, the word dao is widely used, not only to mean road or street, but to describe the teachings of each school, so there is a Confucian dao, a Mohist dao, and so on. There are also places in our texts where dao may refer to the dao of a particular thing (dao of heaven, the ruler’s dao), and there can be an infinite number of particular daos. We should be alert then to the possibility that when the word dao is used, it may be multiple daos, not one dao. There are no capital letters in Chinese, so translating the word as the Dao or the Way is not only incorrect, but is based on assumptions Westerners have that the Ultimate or God or is a proper noun, is separate from us, and is a bright shining something we must reach. There is another problem with the standard translation of “the Dao.” There are no articles in Chinese, neither “a” nor “the.” Again, the addition of “the” to “the Dao” makes dao into a noun and something apart from us, out there.4 To try to deal with some of these problems, throughout this text, I will just use dao, with no article and no capital letter. I will italicize it, as one does with foreign words, to try to make it a little less familiar. As will become clear below, we all get into trouble when we are sure we know what dao means and what dao is. The authors of the Dao De Jing were very wary about is telling us what dao is, and when they address this issue, they do so as cryptically as possible. The Dao De Jing, in chapter 25, says: There is a thing chaotically formed, Born before heaven and before earth. Silent, empty. It stands alone and never changes; goes around and around and is never exhausted.

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Authors and Texts It could be called the mother of the world. I do not know its name, but it is called “dao.” If I had to, I would call it “great.” Great, it is called “leaving;” leaving, it is called “far away;” Far away, it is called “returning.”

Little of this is helpful. The text does tell us that dao is the beginning of everything; it is the mother of the world (52). In what may be an explanation of this process, the Dao De Jing says, “Dao gives birth to one; one gives birth to two; two gives birth to three; three gives birth to the ten thousand things” (42). There is considerable debate over this passage. Does “one” mean “One,” some sort of first principle? What does “two” refer to? Heaven and earth? Yin and yang? If we have one and then we have two, we now have three, and so the birth of all the things and events of the universe. It could be that each number refers to some specific thing or concept, or it could be just a counting of how things came to be from dao to the ten thousand things. If the Dao De Jing will not directly tell us what dao is, it is perfectly happy to tell us what dao does. Dao gives birth to everything (51). Dao gives birth to “the ten thousand things,” that is, everything in the universe, but does not stop there. “Dao gives birth to them, nurtures them, raises them to maturity, is always with them, shelters them, and feeds them” (51). The chapter goes on to say that dao does all of this, but does not claim to own anything, does not order anything, has no claim of authority over anything, and this is its “dark de.” The Dao De Jing frequently remarks that despite dao’s overarching power, dao claims no credit, is not looking for fame, and does not act like it rules everything. Everything depends on dao for existence, but dao does not claim any authority over anything. Everything is fed by dao, everything returns to dao, but dao does not claim to be master (2, 34). The text emphasizes the point that dao has no bias but deals with all things in the same way. Anyone who wants to follow dao will have to do the same. Dao follows ziran, self-so, spontaneity (25, see Chapter Four). Yet the name dao, the word we use 51

Decoding Dao for it, is not its name5 (1, 25, 32, 34, 37, see Chapter Four). All of this is tantalizing, but not very helpful.

Images: Water, Women, Baby, Root, and Others The text uses a number of images to try to convey dao to us. The first, and probably most helpful, is the comparison of dao and water. Water, the text says, nourishes all living things alike; water has no bias. Water does not favor one plant or animal over another. If water is available, everything can use it. Similarly, water does not favor good people or rich people over bad people or poor people. Water flows to the lowest places, like dao, and it takes no credit for all that it does. “The very best is like water. Water’s goodness benefits all things and never fights with them. Water flows to places people would hate, so it is close to dao” (8). Water flows naturally to the lowest places, not the high places that people strive to get to. Water is weak. Turn on the tap and you can run your hand through the water without harm – it just breaks up. Water is extremely strong and can wear away the hardest rocks to create the Grand Canyon or destroy towns in a tsunami. Water does not struggle to overcome things; it will not fight you, but it can kill you. Water acts without ego, and does not plan anything. Water works spontaneously and forms into any kind of shape.6 Dao works in much the same way. Another image the Dao De Jing uses to describe dao is to say it is like women. Dao is frequently described as a mother.7 Dao gives birth to everything and nourishes everything. “The world has a beginning, this is considered to be the mother of the world. You can get to the mother by knowing her children; then return to the mother, formless and endless” (52). Dao does not create things in the way that the God of the Bible creates the world and the creatures in it. In that model, God is like a painter creating a painting or a carpenter making a table. Both the 52

Authors and Texts painting and table have something of the artist and carpenter in them. They show the skill, vision, and imagination of their makers. The painting and the table are obviously related to their makers, but stand apart from them. Dao is described as “giving birth” to things. Not only is this a different kind of understanding of how the universe is generated, it is an image that allows for a closer connection of mother to child as the mother is “part” of the child biologically. The image also implies ongoing nurturing, something the authors of the text pick up on. The text describes women as passive, still, and lower, and therefore, in the logic of the text, better. “The female always uses stillness to overcome the male; using stillness, she is lower” (61). Clearly, this is not a twenty-first century text, but what, aside from sounding like sexist pigs, do the authors mean by saying things like this? The Dao De Jing is not discussing gender equality; it is using the idea of female as an image of ideal behavior. The authors believed that women win in a sexual war: men lose their sperm; women become fertile. Men are stiff and active during sex, but being lower, still, and passive makes women more like dao than men who are higher (both in social status and sexual position). There are a number of sexual images throughout the text and women are always seen as more like dao than men: “The spirit of the valley never dies. This is called the dark or mysterious female. The gate of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth” (6). It is female genitalia that are like dao and this is reflected in other references to dao like “root.” All of this is why the assumed male reader is told that, while he already knows the masculine, he must maintain the female within him for balance (28).8 Another image of dao is a baby. Citing the beliefs of the time that babies were immune to snake bite and wild animals, the text goes on to say, “A baby’s bones and muscles are weak, but a baby’s grip is firm. A baby boy does not know about sex, but still can have an erection. This is the highest virility. A baby can scream all day long, but never becomes hoarse. This is the highest harmony” (55). A baby’s sexual response is spontaneous and without forethought or 53

Decoding Dao shame. Adults who tried to cry as loud and long as a baby would lose their voice after a couple of hours. Babies are natural and spontaneous and able to do things that socially repressed and physically less limber grownups cannot. Another frequent image of dao is a root. The root of a plant is its foundation. It is the origin of the plant but a root is not apart from the plant. The root delivers the water and nutrients the plant needs, but with many plants, the root is not visible. Plants grow from their roots and, in many cases, when the plant dies, it returns to it. We will see the word “return” again and it is important. Most traditions tell us that life is a journey where we reach some goal. The Dao De Jing insists that we must turn back, we must return to our root, dao: “All of the things of the world arise together, so I watch where they return. The multiple and complex things of the world all return again to their root – stillness” (16). We will look at what the text means by “return” below, but here we can see that the journey of life is not a goal, but a return to dao, the root of all things. Another common image the text uses is uncarved wood. This is wood that is alive, natural, and spontaneous before being cut down and made into planks, doors, or desks. We are told frequently that we must become like uncarved wood. Dao is compared to uncarved wood, and the text says, “When carving begins are there words/ names. When there are words/names, one should know to stop. Knowing when to stop keeps us out of danger” (32). Many of the images used to describe dao are natural ones: water, roots, valleys, and thawing ice. So, is dao just “nature?” In part, it may be. We have to be careful around the word “nature.” What do we mean by it? We use “nature” to refer to the physical world, the world of material things. In this, we include the world of plants and animals and the processes of things like weather and geology. It is often thought of as the opposite of anything artificial and constructed by human beings. We may carry, quite unconsciously, a romantic view of nature and, like Thoreau, see nature as an antidote to a busy urban life. That is why many people like to go camping or fishing to “get back to nature.” We like pictures of sunsets, beaches, and forests. They make us feel 54

Authors and Texts better. But nature can also be seen as something opposed to us, destroying what we love and have worked for. Typhoons, earthquakes, and tornadoes are examples of the power of destructive nature totally indifferent to us. This is nature that is alien and, in many ways, an enemy. This is the nature we try to tame and control. Nature is cruel. No matter if we have a romantic or antagonistic view, or a combination of both, an opposition is established between us, in here, and nature, out there. This is a false opposition. A fellow asked Zhuangzi where dao is and Zhuangzi said it is everywhere. Taken aback, the fellow asked if dao is even in such lowly things as grass and dirt. Zhuangzi replied that dao is indeed in grass and dirt. Then, exasperated, Zhuangzi said, “It’s in the piss and the shit.”9 So dao is in us; it is not “out there.” When we have a cold, battalions of white blood cells do battle with viruses, battles on a scale never contemplated in human wars. The breath we just took, our white blood cells, and our piss and shit are all dao. Dao is in us and all around us – it is not everything outside the house.10 So we have to be careful when we use the word “nature” and be even more careful when we think about the relationship between dao and nature. Does dao mean “ecology?” Scientists use the word “ecology” strictly and use it to encompass the study of the relationships among organisms and their environment. We tend to use the word more loosely, meaning the relationships among weather, land, plants, and animals in an area. Many of us can remember diagrams in school that showed rain falling on soil, plants taking up the water, and, through respiration, putting water vapor back in the atmosphere that then causes more rain. While we know that ecological systems are far more complex than that, we do understand that living things interact with their environment. To some extent, we might think of dao like that. In that case, dao would be the process of the interaction as well as being “in” the things themselves as they interact. Again, we must be careful not to put ecology outside us in nature and think that none of it applies to us. What our use of the word “ecology” tends not to include is the idea of de. De, as we saw in Chapter One, is the inherent power of 55

Decoding Dao something to act the way it does. The de of a grass seed is to become, if conditions are right, a grass plant. Things and events contain within them the de that makes them what they are and the energy to develop the way they are naturally intended to do. Our use of “ecology” often ignores this dynamic power inherent in things. Chapter 21 of the Dao De Jing tells us that, while dao may be obscure and shadowy, the de, the essence within it, is completely genuine. Why did the authors not just tell us directly what dao is? They could have just said, here’s dao, it’s A, B, and C. Instead, the text is at pains not to tell us anything directly. The authors were committed to the idea that dao could not be conveyed in language, so they can only point to it. This has left interpreters and translators free to speculate. As we have seen in the first chapter of the Dao De Jing, we are told that dao that can be dao’ed is not a constant dao and the name that can be named is not its constant name. Is dao constant? What does “constant” mean here? “Constant” can mean eternal, without beginning or end, and this would make “constant dao” a universal principle, a norm. Based on this understanding, traditionally, scholars have said that what this means is that there is an unnameable, indescribable, un-expressible dao, and there is a dao we can talk about. Some argue that dao is the cosmic reality. What the text is trying to describe is a dao that existed before all things and gave birth to all things. Dao is the principle of order, a natural order based on spontaneity. It is a reality that cannot be perceived by the senses that existed before all things and gave rise to all things. Other scholars challenge this and see “constant dao” as something that eternally moves and changes, acting through spontaneity (see Chapter Four). That would mean that the beginning lines of Chapter One do not describe the existence of some inexpressible permanent Something behind the changes of the world. The beginning lines simply describe how words are inadequate to pin down dao.11 Once dao gives birth to things, it is still a part of things, pushing all things to unfold in their given ways: a plant to flower and seed; 56

Authors and Texts a person to grow, mature, and die; a comet to orbit in a certain pattern. None of this is from intent. Dao does not have a to-do list. Everything works through the de, the virtue or power, particular to that thing. It is this understanding of dao that has led some to see dao as transcendent (beyond this world), divine, and eternal. They argue that dao is a permanent thing/event “behind” the things of this world. Dao is the first principle. Others disagree. They say dao is found in all the ordinary things of this world. As Zhuangzi says, “it is in the piss and the shit.” Dao may be the source of all things, but it is not the One behind the many things of this world. We all have a tendency to this transcendent view. It may be that the transcendent view is also based on reading dao as “the Dao.” 12 The Daoist texts use the word dao in the same ways their contemporaries did. Had the Daoist texts changed the meaning of dao to refer to a transcendent eternal Dao, surely their opponents would have noticed.13 We will need to keep all of these issues in mind as we work our way through the text. There is an analogy that is helpful in approaching some understanding of dao and how it works. Imagine a field. The field is a natural field, untended, and grows on its own. It is not a cultivated farmed field. Think of the soil as dao and the plants and grasses are the “ten thousand things” that dao gives birth to. In winter, the field is barren, undifferentiated, all snow white. It looks empty, tranquil, and there are no signs of life. In the spring, grasses and all sorts of plants begin to grow, and we understand that, in winter, the soil was a womb containing the seeds and roots of all these plants. Throughout the growing season, the soil continues to nourish growth, providing minerals and water so the plants can develop and grow. The soil does not discriminate but provides for all the plants equally. It does not control how the plants develop, and it does not ask for credit in their development. The soil stays in the boring background, not being noticed. The soil appears to do nothing, everything happens spontaneously, on its own, while the soil does nothing, plans nothing, has no to-do list, and takes no credit, and is responsible for everything.14 57

Decoding Dao

What Is the Problem? If the Dao De Jing will not tell us what dao is and scholars seem to be at odds, we can look at other issues to see how we can get some better understanding. One of the ways to understand what a text is saying is to try to see what the authors viewed as the problem. Like people in the Warring States era, we assume that human intelligence and technology allow us to control and master our world. After all, nowadays, we can be in instant communication with anyone anywhere in the word – if we have the right technology. We feed huge populations, build enormous cities, send rockets far into space, and look at the most minute neutrons. A volcano erupting in Iceland grounded airplanes around the world, and all the technology of Japan could not stop, or even cope with, an earthquake and tsunami. But no matter, we are in charge, we have mastered nature, we are the top species, and we are in control. The Dao De Jing rejects all of this and says things that are so surprising that our immediate reaction is to label it all as nonsense. The Dao De Jing says that it is dao that is in charge, it is dao that always acts most efficiently and best and human intervention will inevitably screw things up. Not only are we not the height of creation or the top species, it is only human beings who lose their spontaneity and naturalness. We are the problem. We do not see that because we are caught up in anthropocentrism, putting human beings (anthro) at the center of all things. Nature then is something outside of us, something we conquer and then sentimentalize.15 The authors of the Dao De Jing would likely agree with Nietzsche that human beings are “the sickest animal.” The root of this skewed view of the world and elevated view of ourselves is desire. Desires are not just for food, fine clothes, and money; we also desire fame, status, and power. “All sorts of colors make our eyes blind; too much music makes us deaf; many flavors make our palate discriminating; racing around on horses in the hunt make our hearts gallop; goods that are difficult to get frustrate us” (12). “Goods that are difficult to get” are the expensive, 58

Authors and Texts high class, cutting edge, stylish things we are taught to want. Societies teach us these desires; convention tells us that what is valuable is anything difficult to obtain. Once we start having desires, it becomes harder and harder to satisfy them. We become entangled in wanting. Desires spring from what society tells us is valuable and that, in turn, comes from valuing something and not another. Diamonds are precious, we are told, because they are so rare, so difficult to obtain, and so they are expensive. Actually, there is a very large supply of diamonds, carefully regulated by diamond companies to make them artificially rare. It was only beginning in the 1900s that advertising convinced people that diamonds were the symbol of engagements and led us to wanting to buy them as engagement rings. Valuing a diamond ring over a plastic ring is based on making a distinction that the diamond is better than plastic. We value the diamond, not the plastic. The Dao De Jing links this desiring and valuing to naming things. Desires create conflicts within us and conflicts with other people.16 Valuing something as good or expensive or rare tells us it is something we should want. The words we use for these things – “ex­­ pensive,” “rare,” “unique,” “top of the line,” “high class,” “latest thing” – all reflect how we value them. After all, if it is the latest mobile phone or the world’s largest ruby or being a famous multimillionaire movie star, these are all good things, things we want and want to be. We label them, name them, value them, and desire them all in one move. We blame ourselves for not having done what we should in order to get these things. We may even begin to envy those who have them. If there are very few of the latest mobile phones when they go on sale, people will fight with each other to get them. What the Dao De Jing argues is that distinctions/definitions/naming leads to valuing one thing over another (diamonds are better than plastic). Once that is set in place, we desire the things we have come to value. Society reinforces the valuation system that has been set up. We feel inadequate if we do not have these things and we are willing to fight others to get them. So the problem is not with the emotions of desire, envy, and jealousy, though none of these emotions are good for us. The real 59

Decoding Dao problem is not with human emotion. Unlike many other traditions, the authors of the Dao De Jing are not trying to figure out and regulate the relationships among the emotions, reason, and the body. Many traditions view the emotions and desires as dangerous and argue that the cause of our troubles is that we do not follow reason. The Dao De Jing makes no such argument. The problem is not psychological, the problem is what we should do and how we should behave.17 Any society based on desires and valuing, and almost all societies are, makes people envious and competitive. This is all based on valuing one thing over another and that is based on making definitions or distinctions among things. “Everyone in the world knows that beautiful is beautiful and that is what makes for ugliness. Everyone in the world knows what is good and that is what makes for not good” (2). Once we define something as beautiful, something else must be ugly; once we define one thing as good, its opposite is not good. Defining wealth as good means that poverty is bad. Just in defining a thing we also define and judge all the things that do not fit the definition. Beauty is a good example of that. In our culture, women who look like young men but have big breasts are considered beautiful. Any other female body configuration is not beautiful. In the Tang dynasty (618–907) in China, women who were rotund were considered beautiful; other women, especially skinny ones, were considered ugly. Once the culture has decided how to define beauty, everything that does not fit that definition is ugly. Our use of language, of naming things, and using words leads us, whether we like it or not, to valuing things. This is why the authors of the Dao De Jing are very nervous about the use of language and what happens to us when we use it. Definitions, discriminations, and distinctions lie at the base of valuing one thing over another. Growing up, we learn to master these socially approved definitions and values. We learn that good things are expensive; we learn that everyone wants a good job, a car, and a house; we learn that the only things that matter are things that can be measured. Mastering the vocabulary and the 60

Authors and Texts distinctions of our society makes us successful. The process of socialization is to teach us to define certain things as valuable and to want them.18 The Dao De Jing sets out to reverse those definitions, counter all our years of socialization, and rid us of the artificial and distorted approach that definitions, values, and desires have given us. It really is a radical text, attacking the very roots of what we would usually accept. Confucians came along with their moral cultivation and wanted us to replace lying, competition, and intrigue with honesty, rightness, and humanity. This is certainly an improvement, but for the authors of our text, it is just replacing one set of values, and the desires for those values, with another. Confucians called their actions right, but they were acting out of ego, they were interfering, and they could not fix a society that was corrupt. The Confucian enterprise is based on anthropocentrism and assumes that human beings can fix the mess that human beings make. Civilization, as Daoists will point out, cannot be fixed. Civilization functions on desires, valuing, and making distinctions. The Mohists were busy trying to set up rules of logic and use those rules to arrive at solid definitions of things. Once those definitions are established, we could use them to arrive at what is true. The Dao De Jing rejects this enterprise. Definitions or discriminations are simply a matter of social convention. They will always come from a human and limited point of view. We learn what to value and what to desire from our culture and that is what we are driven by. Social convention is not a solid ground for arriving at any kind of truth, absolute or not.

Conventional Values: Pairs of Opposites One of the ways the Dao De Jing tackles the issues around desires, judgments, values, and distinctions is to use pairs of opposites. Throughout the text we find lines like “Water defeats what seems to be solid; soft defeats what is hard” (78) and “Without fighting, dao is good at winning; without using any words, dao is answered; 61

Decoding Dao without calling out, things come to dao” (73). If we take the opposites in the Dao De Jing and list them, they would look like this: A

B

Hard Big Fast Doing Something Full Moving Knowledge Male High Strong Active Front Straight

Soft Small Slow Not Doing Nothing Empty Still Ignorance Female Low Weak Still Behind Bent19

Our society, like the Chinese society of the Warring States era, values column A. We think that things, people, or events that are hard, big, fast, that do something, that are full, moving, that know things, are male, high, strong, out-front, and straight are best. We do not value things, people, or events that are soft, small, slow, that do nothing, that are empty, ignorant, female, low, weak, behind, and bent. The authors of the Dao De Jing see that human beings make distinctions or definitions dividing the world into pairs of opposites. Society then teaches us as we grow up to value one of the pair and hold the other part of the pair in contempt. You never see an ad for a car that tells you the car is slow, small, has no power, and will be behind all the other cars. We do not value those things in cars; we want fast, powerful cars that will put us out in front. We want to be on top of things, to stand up for ourselves, to get ahead, to be proud of ourselves, to be masters of our souls, to move forward, to be high class, and to do something with our lives. The authors of the Dao De Jing reject conventional values and value their opposites. In the world of this text it is far better to be 62

Authors and Texts soft, weak, and yielding than to be hard, strong, and aggressive. When we are alive, we can bend, our bodies are soft and supple. When we die, our bodies become rigid and hard. Plants bend in the wind when they are living, but become brittle and tough once they die. The Dao De Jing says that the lesson to take from this is that hard, rigid, and tough things are the “companions of death,” while soft, pliable, bending things are the “companions of life” (76). The Dao De Jing repeatedly tells us that soft things defeat hard things, just as water and wind wear down rocks.20 Our cultures, however, teach us to be strong and aggressive. “That water overcomes rock and the weak overcomes the strong – there is no one in the world who does not know this, but no one puts that knowledge into practice” (78). The Dao De Jing is right. We do not believe any of this, let alone practice it. It is all very well to say that water wears away the hardest rocks, but that does not apply to human society where clearly the strong get what they want and the weak are pushed aside. Just because being weak and pliable works in nature does not mean it works with us. Surely these examples are not applicable to human beings. Well, maybe they are. There are two problems with this standard rejection of the Dao De Jing’s argument. First, nature is not outside of us or different from us. To think so is to be anthropocentric, as we saw above. Human beings are enmeshed in dao as surely as water and rocks are. Second, while it is true that horrible dictatorships can forcibly control populations and kill millions and millions of people, they do not do it for long. Hitler’s thousand-year Reich lasted only 12 years; the 10,000-year reign of the First Emperor of China lasted for 14 years (221–207 bce); the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics lasted for 70 years. Strength and harshness works in the short term, and while we must never minimize the horror that these times were for the people who had to live through them, it is only a short time, even when viewed from the perspective of human history. Is it that our culture, like so many others, has programmed us to believe that only the strong and hard survive and win? Or is it that, when society rewards the hard and the strong, it should be no surprise that hard and strong win? 63

Decoding Dao When reading these pairs of opposites, so prevalent in the text, some people see the pairs as part of a cycle where one side of the pair becomes the other: soft becomes hard, strong becomes weak. That is not what the Dao De Jing does with these pairs. First, the text is firmly on the side of column B. Anything that is weak, soft, and nonaggressive is good. Anything that is strong, hard, and aggressive is bad. There would be no point in being on the side of column B if all that it did was turn into column A. Second, the Dao De Jing always talks about “return,” or “reversal” as the way things work. Things return to the root, they revert to dao. There is no cycle of weak becoming strong and then becoming weak in the text. Not only does everything return to dao, the text is trying to get us to reverse our values, to choose more from Column B, to get away from conventional values that our culture has taught us.21 Finally, while the authors of the text do believe that the weak will always overcome the strong, part of their strategy in saying it this way is to overthrow the accepted and conventional ways of seeing things. The Dao De Jing never misses an opportunity to blow up our brains and challenge what society has taught us. We will see more of this as we go on.

Being and Non-Being The most famous set of opposites in the Dao De Jing is the opposition of being and non-being. Being is a concept we can cope with easily: there are books, chairs, a moon, lotus flowers, ducks, and all the things of the universe. We can know them through our senses. Non-being is more of a problem because, given it is non-being, we cannot get at it with our senses, we can only think about it. Thinking about non-being often brings on brain freeze. How can something “be” that is not? Part of the problem we have with this is that both “being” and “non-being” are presented to us as nouns, as things. When we try to make a thing out of non-being, it is 64

Authors and Texts impossible to picture. It may be more useful to think of them as verbs. “I am present” and “I am absent” are not hard concepts to wrap our heads around. “Being present” and “being absent” are just what the authors of the Dao De Jing are talking about in chapter 11, where they directly address this pair. “Thirty spokes come together to make one hub. It is through non-presence/emptiness/non-being, that one can use the wagon.” This is far more straightforward than it first sounds. The spokes are present (being), but where they meet is absent, empty, the round hub (non-being). As there is an empty hole, the hub, one can place the axle through it and use the wagon. The chapter goes on to say “. . . a cup is made and it is the non-presence/emptiness/ non-being that makes the cup useful.” This example works the same way as the wagon wheel does. We have a cup made of clay, that is present (being), but in the middle of the cup, there is absence, no-cup, non-being. That is a good thing because that way we can pour our coffee in the cup. If the whole thing was a lump of clay, we would have no place to put our coffee, and this would not work as a cup. Cups work because what is there (being present) works together with what is not there (being absent). The next example in the chapter you can probably now work out for yourself. “Doors and windows are taken out of walls. It is the nonpresence/emptiness/non-being that makes the walls useful.” Doors and windows work only because the wall around them is present and the door and window are absent. That way, we can open and close the door and window and get in and out of the room. Otherwise, there would just be walls, being, presence, and we could not use the room. There is nothing metaphysical going on here. The authors were just excited because they had discovered this amazing relationship between being present and being absent, and in it they found one of the ways dao works. Given the tendency of the text to celebrate the lower, less status, and less respected term in any pair, the Dao De Jing often privileges “being absent” over “being present.”22 Given what we now know, we should be able to approach a chapter of the Dao De Jing and see what is going on in it. 65

Decoding Dao Know the masculine and hold on to the feminine. That way you will be a river to the world and constant de will not leave you. If constant de does not leave you, you can return to being like a baby. Know the world’s orderliness and hold on to the murky. That way you will be a valley to the world and constant de will be enough. If constant de is enough, you can return to the uncarved wood. Know the world’s white, but hold on to the black. That way you can be a pattern to the world and constant de will not be harmed. When constant de is unharmed, you can return to the boundless. When the uncarved wood is cut, then tools come into existence. When a sage makes use of tools, he becomes the leader of officials. So it is that great woodcarving cuts nothing at all off. (28)

Chapter 28 begins by speaking to the reader. It assumes a male reader and so says, “You know the masculine, maintain the feminine and become a river to the world.” Had it been addressing a female audience, the text would have to switch things: women already know the feminine, so women should hold on to the masculine to become a river to the world. Rivers are water, a favorite image for dao. So, by choosing a value from Column B, we can become like dao. The chapter continues, “If you are a river to the world, then constant de, virtue, inherent power, will never leave you.” If we become like water, like dao, then constant de stays with us. “If constant de does not leave you, then you again become like an infant.” Again, the infant is an image of dao, natural and unspoiled by social conventions. The chapter continues, “Know the white and hold on to the black to be the world’s valley.” As in the first lines, we are told to hold on to values from Column B, and this brings us to another image of dao, a valley. Valleys are low places, not the high mountains we conquer to look down on everything else. “Be the world’s valley and constant de will be enough and you will return to the uncarved block.” In both verses, we are told to hold on to 66

Authors and Texts Column B in order to become like dao, like a river, a valley, and an uncarved block. The last verse concludes: “When the uncarved block is separated, then there are tools. The sage makes use of the tools, becoming the leader of all the officials. But the greatest woodcarving does not cut anything.” We will look at these kinds of paradoxical statements in the next chapter. Here, we have a play on the word “tools,” or as it is sometimes translated “vessels.” This was a word used to describe government officials. “Tools” is sometimes used today as a term of abuse and so many might find it an appropriate term for bureaucrats. The sage-ruler (see Chapter Five) leads the officials and runs the government so that everyone returns to dao. This is the greatest carving, a carving that cuts nothing from uncarved wood.23

Summary Translating 道 as “the Dao” tends to be a reflection of the preconceived notions of translators and interpreters. Rather than directly telling us what dao is, the Dao De Jing uses a number of images to try to convey dao to us. Dao is compared to water, women, babies, roots, and uncarved wood. In trying to understand dao, we have to remember that dao is not out there, outside of us. Scholars have quite different views of what dao is, so we have to be very careful when we are trying to understand dao. The major problem in life, according to the Dao De Jing, is the assumption that human beings are in charge and that we know what we are doing. The reason we think this is that society lies to us. Cultures teach us to value, and desire, masterfulness. Things that are hard, strong, fast, active, and rare are good. The Dao De Jing says that these values are arbitrary and mere social convention. As well, preferring the values of column A brings us serious trouble, wars, and early death. Values derived from social convention are not reliable for establishing any kind of truth. This is why the Dao De Jing values column B – all the things society rejects. Society teaches us its social conventions and its assumption 67

Decoding Dao that human beings are smarter than anything else and in charge of everything. Rejecting this is the basis of much that is going on in the Dao De Jing.

Notes   1  Ames and Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, 57.   2  Moeller, Daodejing (Laozi), 48.   3  D.C. Lau and Roger T. Ames, trans., Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to its Source (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), 27.   4  Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 36. Hansen argues that “The Chinese counterpart of interpretation is not an account of truth conditions. Rather, to interpret a dao is to perform it.” (author’s italics). Regarding the use of “the” to translate dao, he says, “. . . nothing in Chinese corresponds to the definite article the. Translators conform to their own community practice of always putting the before dao . . . The translating convention embodies an ancient interpretive hypothesis that all Daoists must worship a mystical godlike dao. Thus, they presume in translation what they cannot find in the original: an assertion of the existence of a single, ineffable dao,” 215.   5  In the Dao De Jing, see especially chapters 1, 4, 6, 7, 14, 21, 25, 32, 34, 37, 39, 41, and 52.   6  See, for example, chapter 8.   7  Once is dao described as “father.” See chapter 21.   8  See chapter 28. See also Hans-Georg Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 22–29. “When the gates of heaven open and shut, can you keep to the role of the female?”, chapter 10.   9  Zhuangzi, “Knowledge Wandered North.” Compare Watson, 240–41. 10  Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 211, suggests that it is more likely that these natural images are meant to counter the artificiality of social convention. 11  Ames and Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, 14. Liu Xiaogan argues that “constant” means a lasting or stable state of affairs, a state of naturalness that remains constant until interfered with from some external force. “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy,” in Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds, Religious and

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12 

13  14 

15 

16  17  18  19  20  21  22 

23 

Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 224. There is no foundationalism (based on God or Platonic forms or Reason) found commonly in Western thought in Chinese texts either. See Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 161. Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 207. Robert G. Henricks, “Re-Exploring the Analogy of the Dao and the Field,” in Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds, Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 163–64. Henricks notes that this is not a complete analogy, for it implies an orderly round of growth, death, and rebirth, 165. Graham Parkes, “Natural Man in Nietzsche and Taoism [Daoism],” in J. Baird Callicot and Roger Ames, eds, Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 80. See Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action, 79–80 for a discussion of this process. Ames and Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, 39. Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 211. Graham, Disputers of the Tao [Dao], 224. “Soft and weak things defeat strong things” (36). “The softest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world” (43). For a discussion of this, see Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 144–5 Hansen points out that many commentators have taken the celebration of non-being/being absent in the text as a sign that we should not make dao into a thing. A Daoist Theory, 138. The order of the lines in this chapter is not clear. See D. C. Lau, Lao Tzu [Laozi] Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing], 85 for a note; compare with the translation of Hans-Georg Moeller, Daodejing (Laozi): A Complete Translation and Commentary (Chicago: LaSalle, 2007).

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Chapter Four

Chapter Contents Illogical statements?—Decoding—Not Acting, Not Knowing, Not Desiring—Ziran, Self-So, Natural, Spontaneous— Language—Morality—Summary

Illogical Statements? The Dao De Jing is famous for statements that seem illogical, vague, and self-contradictory. It says things like, “The greatest fullness looks like it is empty, but using it will not drain it” (45). Reaction to these sorts of statements varies: some people think that they must, by their very nature, be profound; some see them as mystical (see Chapter Ten); some think that this shows the Chinese are incapable of philosophy; others argue that the Dao De Jing’s logic is to accept contradiction. Often, these kinds of statements that look illogical are dismissed, misread, overinterpreted, or rejected. Before we do any of those things, let us look at them seriously and see what is going on.

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Authors and Texts We are all taught that we cannot logically say that something both is and is not simultaneously. In logic, this is called the Law of the Excluded Middle: any statement must be so or it must be not so; any description of an object is true or it is not true. While this is a rule of logic, it is not a rule that most of us follow. Take the example of a sapling, a young tree. It is a tree and it is not a tree. It is a tree because it belongs to a certain genus and species that we call tree. It is not a tree because it has not grown big enough to be considered a tree.1 It is and is not. This common sense usage runs counter to logical rules, but we do it all the time. Sometime this week, most of us will say the following, “Well, yes and no.” When we do, no one will think we are crazy and the logic police will not arrest us. That is because we mean that, depending on certain variables, it could be true or not. For example, if someone asks me if all the religions of the world have a mystical component, my answer can be “yes and no.” It would depend on how one defined religion and how one defined mysticism. While logic rules are fine, we all break them every day without being thought insane or even illogical.2 So let us not get too excited about illogical statements in the Dao De Jing; they may be structured in ways that may counter the rules of logic but still contain meaning.

Decoding We should not be trapped by what are supposed to be illogical statements in the Dao De Jing. What we need to do is to decode them. Let us go back to the example I gave at the beginning of this chapter, “The greatest fullness looks like it is empty, but using it will not drain it” (45). We know that “empty” is a good thing in the Dao De Jing: it is a Column B term and means non-being/not being present. We know from chapter 11 that non-being/not being present gives things their usefulness. So, whatever the “greatest fullness” is, probably dao, it looks and acts like non-being/not being present. That way it can provide infinite usefulness that cannot be used up. 71

Decoding Dao Chapter 38 is an excellent example of when decoding of paradoxical sounding text is necessary. It says, Highest virtue (de) is not virtuous and that is why it is virtuous; lower virtue holds on tight to virtue and so there is no virtue. Higher virtue does not (ego) act and there is nothing left undone; lower virtue does not act and leaves things to do. Higher humanity acts and there is nothing left undone; higher rightness does not act and leaves things to do. Highest ritual acts and, when nothing responds to it, rolls up its sleeves and resorts to violence. So, after dao is lost, there is virtue, After virtue is lost, there is humanity, After humanity is lost, there is rightness, After rightness is lost, there is ritual. And ritual is the thinning out of duty and reliability that is the beginning of chaos. Foreknowledge is the flower of dao and the beginning of being stupid. So the great person holds on to the thick, not the thin; takes the fruit, not the flower. Gets rid of that and holds on to this.

The chapter begins by saying, “Highest virtue is not virtuous and that is why it is virtuous; lower virtue holds on tight to virtue and so there is no virtue.” This is all a play on the Chinese word “de” (see Chapter One) that can mean either moral virtue or the power, potency, the energy of something. So, decoded, our first phrase is saying that highest virtue is not the moral virtue of the Confucians and that is why it has virtue – potency and power. The second phrase is, “lower virtue holds on tight to virtue and so there is no virtue.” The Confucian moral virtues, the lower virtue, hold on tight to moral virtue and so has no power or potency. Real virtue is not the socially accepted, Confucian, virtue.3 How are we supposed to know that this is what it means? The more we read other chapters of the text, the more we can see how the authors are approaching things. We see, for example, that 72

Authors and Texts holding on to things and ego-acting are considered to be incorrect. In the case of chapter 38, these first two sentences are explained in the rest of the passage. It says that the higher virtue does not ego-act (see later in the chapter), so we know that it is the preferred one. When lower, Confucian, virtue tries to not act, there are all sorts of things it cannot do. This theme continues in the next lines: “Higher humanity acts and there is nothing left undone; higher rightness does not act and leaves things to do.” The natural virtue of humanity, not the artificial Confucian virtue of humanity, acts naturally and works properly. The artificial Confucian virtue of rightness tries to do this, but is unable to. The text then goes on to say, “Highest ritual acts and, when nothing responds to it, rolls up its sleeves and resorts to violence.” When Confucians see that no one responds to their ritual, they roll up their sleeves and resort to violence, shoving their ritual and their virtues down people’s throats. Confucians are convinced they are right; they have hold of an unchanging and eternal dao. Violence lurks under the nice Confucian moral system and Daoists have sniffed it out. Confucian virtues are artificial and are practiced to coerce and control others.4 Real virtue is natural, nonviolent, and has no ulterior motives. In order to be a good Confucian gentleman, we would have to deform ourselves. Once we have done that, we are supposed to go to force others to do the same. Let us look again at the rest of the passage that makes this clear, So, after dao is lost, there is virtue, After virtue is lost, there is humanity, After humanity is lost, there is rightness, After rightness is lost, there is ritual. And ritual is the thinning out of duty and reliability that is the beginning of chaos. Foreknowledge is the flowers of dao and the beginning of being stupid. So the great person holds on to the thick, not the thin; takes the fruit, not the flower. Gets rid of that and holds on to this.

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Decoding Dao When we lost touch with dao, we developed systems of virtues, such as humanity, treating others as we would wish to be treated. When this did not work, we moved to rules of right and wrong, “rightness.” When these rules did not work to control people’s inner motivations, ritual was set up to make us at least conform to proper behavior outwardly. But, the authors say, ritual is just a way to cover up the cracks in people doing their duty and doing what they say they will do. That is why the appearance of ritual is a sign that social chaos is coming. There is a devolution in human behavior: losing touch with dao, to humanity, to rightness, to ritual. Once we see this, we can go back and read the first four sentences of the chapter and understand them more clearly. The last three lines read: “Foreknowledge is the flowers of dao and the beginning of being stupid. So the great person holds on to the thick, not the thin; takes the fruit, not the flower. Gets rid of that and holds on to this.” Claims to foreknowledge, predicting or knowing the future, are stupid. While this may be a sensible thing to say, why it is included here is not clear. But the idea of “flowers” is picked up again in the next line, where we are told that the great person chooses the thick, the fruit, the substance, rather than the thin, the showy appearance, the flower. The last two lines, “So the great person holds on to the thick, not the thin; takes the fruit, not the flower. Gets rid of that and holds on to this,” reflects another passage. Chapter 12 says “So the sage chooses the belly, not the eye. He takes this and gets rid of that.” This is just one example of the echoes that run through the Dao De Jing where passages and words reflect each other throughout the text. So we can see in the first two sentences of chapter 38, the author is setting up two views of how to act, his own and the Confucian one, and condemning the Confucians. The two sentences at the beginning that looked so illogical and paradoxical at first sight make sense when we read the rest of the chapter and when we understand the context that the rest of the text provides. So why will the Dao De Jing not just tell us straight out that this is what it means? There are a number of reasons. First, as a teacher, 74

Authors and Texts I know that the answers to questions that stick with students are the answers they work out for themselves. That “aha” moment changes the way they think. If the answer is simply provided, the student is less likely to really get it. Working it out for yourself is better than having someone tell you. As well, it is Confucians who want to enforce a single correct answer on everyone. The authors of the Dao De Jing are not happy with either Confucian teachings or Confucian technique. Second, as we shall see, the authors of the text were uneasy with how much can be conveyed in language. Being straightforward may not be straightforward at all. Or, as one of the more annoying passages in the Dao De Jing says, “Clear-cut words seem to be the opposite” (78). Third, remember that the authors are living in a world with Mohists and Logicians. These people were convinced that by using the rules of logic, we can finally come to a truth, that truth can be defined, and that truth can be stated in language. The authors of the Dao De Jing are countering this not just in what they say but in how they say it. Finally, the text has a number of agendas and one of them is to derail the mind. Unless we begin to see things in radically different ways from the ways our culture has taught us, we cannot understand anything.5

Not Acting, Not Knowing, Not Desiring “Anyone who acts on things will be defeated by them; anyone who holds on tight to things will lose them. So the sage does not act and is never defeated by things; does not hold on tight to things and never loses them” (64). Throughout the Dao De Jing, we are told that not acting is better than acting. But what does that mean? How can we be alive and not act? “Not acting” or “non-action” are misleading translations of wuwei (無為 woo-way). Wuwei, literally translated, does mean “not” (wu 無) acting/action (wei 為),6 but the authors of the text are not 75

Decoding Dao telling us we can sit on the couch and watch the soaps all day. Wuwei means not-ego-acting, and that means doing things naturally, without going through steps, and without imposing our desires or our egos on it. Wuwei is not as exotic as it sounds. We all do some things with wuwei. We drive cars, type, read, swim, and ride bicycles and we do these things with wuwei. Try to remember when you were first learning how to drive a car. There were so many things to remember to do and to do in a certain order. It seemed confusing and overwhelming. Later, we can just get in the car and go, not thinking about the steps involved because they come to us naturally. Driving has become wuwei, what Edward Slingerland marvelously translates as “effortless action.”7 Wuwei can be learned – after all, we learned how to read and how to drive. What is the difference between not-ego-acting, wuwei, and egoacting, wei? For the authors of the Dao De Jing, ego-acting is artificial, not effortless or natural. Ego-acting imposes our desires on things and so interferes with them. It is aimed at controlling the world in ways that we want. Society teaches us ego-acting and tells us that ego-acting, controlling our world, is a good thing. We are told to learn certain skills because that will help us get the education we need to get the job we want to be able to buy the things we desire. Ego-acting feeds into desires and is driven by desires. Ego-acting also feeds into controlling. We need all sorts of sophisticated social and technological controls to make water flow to our homes so that we can shower in the morning and get to work. We need to pave the earth to have roads so we can drive in rush hour to get to work on time. All of this control over things and people is necessary if we are going to fulfill our desires for money, a nice house, good clothes, fame, and power. Wei, ego-acting, may be driven by our individual egos, but it is shaped and channeled by what our society teaches us. Ego-acting is interfering and controlling and closely connected to desires. Ego-acting is stressful. If you have never put up wallpaper, you will need to read the instructions on how to do it. You will have to measure carefully and cut properly. You go back to read the 76

Authors and Texts instructions again. You put the roll in the water and time it, take it out and “book” it – something the instructions have told you about. Then you get on a ladder and try to hang the sheet so that it is straight and matches the design on the previous sheet. The chances are high that, when we do this for the first time, we will make a big mess. Professional wallpaper hangers will do the job in a quarter of the time and do a better job. That is because they can do it with non-ego-action, not having to think through each step. Trying all the time to impose our egos on the world means stress. When we ego-act, we are trying to impose our will on things. We become entangled with things; we are in conflict with things. We want what we want and are willing to fight to get it. When we “contend with things,” as the text says, our stress levels go up and we find ourselves angry and frustrated. For most of us, contention with other people, computers, the traffic, and thousands of other things is the way we spend our day. We are miles away from the Dao De Jing’s description of a sage: “He does not contend, so no one in the world contends with him” (22, 66). The Dao De Jing continuously tells us that dao never acts and leaves nothing undone. What it means is that dao does not act through ego: it has no to-do list; it has no bias; it does not control anything; it never uses coercive force; it only non-ego-acts. We are told to do the same: “When we study every day, we increase; dealing with dao daily, we do less and less. Do less and less until we reach wuwei, non-ego-acting. Non-ego-act and nothing is left undone” (48). Non-ego-acting is effortless action that is natural and spontaneous. When we use the word “spontaneous,” we tend to think of it as subjective, what I happen to feel at the moment – a great expression of ego. But “spontaneous” here means going with something larger than our own desires and ego. We will look at the idea of spontaneity next. Non-ego-acting means that we are spontaneous, but always in the context of what is happening around us. It is not that we are some mindless person moving according to whatever impulse may come along,8 but that we are not trying to enforce our ego or desires on the world. Imagine a day in which you did not 77

Decoding Dao contend with anything and were not in conflict with anyone. We could respond to things as spontaneously as our nose responds to a smell.9 We could flow through the day as effortlessly as water. By rejecting ego-action, the Dao De Jing is telling us to get rid of yet another thing our culture has told us ever since we were able to understand. Again, the text sides with Column B, all of the things rejected and despised by societies. Throughout the Dao De Jing, we see that, whatever culture tells us to do, the text tells us to do the opposite. This is the case with “not knowing” (wu zhi 無知 woo jur) as well. Cultures tell us that knowing things and knowing them in certain ways is good. The Dao De Jing predictably counters that by saying that not knowing is better. This needs to be taken with a grain of salt. What they mean is that we should not claim to know things and know them absolutely. We have no foundation to base absolute truth claims on. We are not even able to make proper definitions of things. This is a theme Zhuangzi will explore further. When we think we know things, we make a mess. In the 1950s, we thought we knew how to kill insects that attacked crops. We sprayed the agricultural pesticide DDT on everything and the result was that thousands of birds died, some becoming extinct. With no birds, there were more pests, so we used more DDT and poisoned fish, animals, soil, and water. Even though DDT has been banned for decades, you and I have some DDT in our livers because it has stayed in the food chain. Human beings are smart, but just not smart enough. We think we know things but are not able to see the complex interactions of things. We could not predict the outcome of spraying DDT, but nonetheless we were sure we knew what we were doing. Our “knowing,” says the Dao De Jing, is based on definitions, values, and desires, and this gets us into serious trouble. Chapter 65 says that the reason people are difficult to govern is that they know things. What sorts of things? The things the culture has taught them: they know what is valuable; they know what is right and wrong; they know morality, humaneness, and rightness; they know ritual; they know rules. Knowing all these things, it is 78

Authors and Texts no surprise that we think we know how to intervene in the world and that we think we can intervene in the world successfully. The Dao De Jing is not telling us to be ignorant louts. It does say that we should be ignorant, but again that word needs to be decoded. By “ignorant,” it means we should be without desires, honest, straightforward, and non-ego-acting. “. . . Ordinary people have lots of things, I alone have given up, I have the heart of a fool . . . Ordinary people all know what they are doing, I alone am stupid and vulgar. I differ from other people – I esteem the mother who nurtures me” (20). This kind of “ignorant” and “foolish” is one where we have given up culturally sanctioned desires and act like dao. The definitions we make, based on what we know, define what is valuable and what is not. We desire valuable things. True to form, the Dao De Jing tells us to “not desire” (wu yu, 無欲 woo, you). Once again, we have to think carefully about this. We define things and put them in Column A or B. We give things value and desire what is valuable. We then ego-act to get valuable things. If we cut this chain at the stage of desires, we can break with what society has taught us. But does that mean we should never want anything again? Probably not. We are going to want to eat when we are hungry and sleep when we are tired. These kinds of desires are not the desires the Dao De Jing criticizes. They are not based in the definition-value-desire-ego-acting chain. Desires are all right if they are not part of that chain and if they do not result in us trying to control, or own, the thing we desire. The “non” of nonacting, nonknowing, and nondesiring is not there to tell us to never do anything, never know anything, and never desire anything. It is meant to tell us to stop acting through socially constructed and egoistic forms of control.10

Ziran, Self-So, Natural, Spontaneous Chapter 25 says, “People model themselves on earth; earth models itself on heaven; heaven models itself on dao and dao models itself on ziran, self-so.” Ziran (自然, ds, ran) means “self-so,” what is 79

Decoding Dao natural, spontaneous, and self-derived.11 When we use the word “spontaneous,” we often use it to mean acting on a whim, from a sudden impulse where I decide to do something. This kind of spontaneity is the height of ego-action. If I spontaneously decide to go out drinking tonight, I am probably disregarding my work commitments for tomorrow, my health, and my budget. I am doing what I want to do. This kind of spontaneity is simply unplanned self-indulgence. This is not what the Dao De Jing means by spontaneity. It uses the word in its other sense to mean self-acting, growing naturally like a seed. With the proper conditions, grass seed spontaneously grows into grass. It does so from natural forces within the seed: it happens without any outside control; there is no effort, no forethought or plan required from the grass seed. The seed grows selfso, spontaneously. This is the way the Dao De Jing thinks we should do things. Let things develop naturally and stop interfering and trying to control things. Spontaneity is autonomous, so it is not forced, controlled or molded from the outside.12 Spontaneity, self-so, is natural and not ego-acting. It is important to understand how the text sees spontaneity because if we read it as egoist self-indulgence we will see the text as advocating the highest kind of selfishness.13 We interfere with the spontaneity of things, manipulating them for our own purposes. Take apples as an example. Apples grow naturally in many places in the world; in other places, like North America, they were introduced. Of the thousands of different types of apples that grow naturally, we find only a dozen kinds in our grocery stores. These apples have been specially cultivated to withstand pests, have a longer growing season, few blemishes or bruises, and be of a certain size. We manipulate the spontaneity of an apple seed to become an apple tree and produce fruit through crossbreeding and genetic modification. We use pesticides and grow apples by industrial methods. It is no surprise that these apples have few nutrients and no taste. The spontaneity of apples is unacceptable to industrial agriculture and mass distribution. We have intervened and made apples what they are now – the idea of an apple rather than a real apple. 80

Authors and Texts The same goes for many of the fruits, vegetables, and other foods we are presented with. They are grown to specifications that have to do with long shelf life and standard sizing. Tomatoes and chickens are the size they are because they are meant to meet the demands of large fast food chains. This all means that nutrients and taste are lost while we eat more chemicals and hormones. Standardizing type means that pests and diseases can spread easily through the entire crop and so we need to use more pesticides to control them. We get into trouble when we insist on forcing things to be artificial and refuse to deal with the spontaneous self-so-ness of things. We will see how that works into other ideas in the Dao De Jing in the next chapter when we look at their ideas of government and society and how rulers are advised to follow nonaction and be spontaneous. Spontaneous, self-so, is the opposite of artificial, human constructed and controlled. Spontaneous does by itself. It has no plans, no ego action. And it does it better than anything artificial that we construct and control. We ego-act and impose our will on the earth to get a sidewalk, or a city, or a civilization. We want them because they are good things, things from Column A – strong, hard, straight, forceful. None of them last and we have to continually replace them. This is a lesson we do not want to learn because we are invested in having these things. Dao, through spontaneity, destroys all these things. Anything that goes against dao dies.

Language The Dao De Jing is often described as a text that rejects language. Clearly, it does not reject all language, after all the text is in language. Instead of just categorizing the text as rejecting language, we need to be more careful and look at what the text says about language. It does say that language is not able to clearly set out what some things are. This is especially true when we look at what the Dao De Jing says about using language and naming, dao. As we have seen, 81

Decoding Dao chapter 1 begins by telling us that the word we use, dao, is not the constant name for whatever dao is. This is repeated in chapter 32, “constant dao has no name.” But then, as we have seen, the text goes on to tell us things about dao. As we have seen, the text uses images of water, women, babies, and uncarved blocks. Having said that there are no words adequate to name dao, the text goes on to tell us about dao. This is very strange. We can understand why people describe the text as antilanguage, but this is not borne out by what the text does. The text uses lots of language to talk about dao, but insists that what we would call, or define as, dao is not what dao is. It is not clear why this should be. Are the authors of the Dao De Jing rejecting the idea that dao can be named because they are rejecting the idea that we can define it? Is that because language cannot stretch far enough to name such a complex phenomenon as dao? Is it because human beings are just not smart enough to be able to know the complexities of dao? Is it because the authors of the Dao De Jing are rejecting the use of language when language claims to be able to set up definitions that establish an absolute truth, a real and constant dao?14 Chapter 56 says, “Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know,” and this smug saying has the same problem of paradox we saw when it comes to using language to reject language. If the authors of the text know something, then according to this passage, they would have nothing to say at all. But we have a text where they say all sorts of things. My sense is that the author of this saying was trying to sound profound and, with any luck, there was someone in his audience who explained paradox to him.15 This passage in chapter 56 is countered by another in chapter 70 that admits to saying something: “My words are easy to understand and to practice.” Insisting that the words in the Dao De Jing are easy to understand is irritating and saying that they are easy to practice flies in the face of everything we have seen so far. Is the Dao De Jing arguing that language is inadequate? Yes, when it comes to defining or naming dao. What about when it comes to saying anything at all? The text says all sorts of things, so the authors cannot really argue that all language is inadequate. 82

Authors and Texts However, the style in which the text says things is as dense as it can be. This may be a way to argue with the Mohists. The Mohists were very keen on finding ways to accurately define things and they established rules for logic. Mohists were convinced that it is possible to investigate things and learn about them in order to have knowledge. A great deal of what the Dao De Jing says, and how it says it, counters this. The text rejects the possibility of defining things accurately. The definitions we make are social conventions, not an absolute truth. The Dao De Jing points out that language is a tool of social control. The text denies that we can have any absolute or solid knowledge about things that count, like dao.16 The Dao De Jing has a lot to say about the misuse of language, particularly when it comes to bragging, showing off, being famous, and taking credit. If you remember, one of the things they told us about dao was that it does everything and claims no credit. Anyone who follows dao is modest, sincere in what they say, not conspicuous, and does not take credit (22, 30). “Infrequent words are ziran, spontaneous, natural” (23). We can speak, but not brag and we cannot say a lot. “As soon as we start to carve there are names/words. Once there are names/words, we should know to stop. When we know when to stop, we avoid danger” (32). Carving here is the carving of the uncarved wood. Once we begin to do that, we are using names/words. At that point, and not before, we should know when to stop. The Dao De Jing talks a lot about knowing when to stop. It is better to know when to stop than to fill something up over the brim (9). If we know when to stop, if we know when we have enough, we avoid danger and can live a long life (44). Living out our natural lifespan, living a long life, and growing old is one of the highest goals in the Dao De Jing. This runs counter to what our culture tells us. Society teaches us that we should want more, do more, be more. The concept of stopping when we have enough is not what we talk about. Our consumer culture is based on never having enough. If we all decided we had enough things, we would not buy any more. The economy, we are told, would collapse. Advertising is there to tell us what we need 83

Decoding Dao and convince us that the newest, latest, improved version is what we need. Popularity, success, and the good life will be ours if only we have whatever the new thing is. The Dao De Jing says we should know when we have enough, have done enough, and are good enough and stop there. This applies to language as well. Language is a tool of social control, teaching what is good and bad, valuable and trash. We define and discriminate, value one thing over another, and desire what is valuable. As we grow up, our family and teachers tell us what is valuable and good. Language may be natural to us, but in any culture, language is used to reinforce social norms.

Morality So far, we have a very strange picture. We are told not to ego-act, not to think we know anything, not to desire too much, to be natural and spontaneous, and not to talk too much. If we did all of these things, would we be good and moral people? Certainly, there is not much we have seen so far that would make us think so. Dao is not a moral actor and does not care about the death and destruction that floods, earthquakes, tornados, or volcanoes cause. As the Dao De Jing says, “Heaven and earth have no humanity, they treat everything in the universe as straw dogs” (5). Straw shaped into the form of dogs was part of the rituals of the time. Straw dogs were revered and an important part of the ritual, but they were thrown out once the ritual was over. So heaven and earth, dao, does not act with kindness toward anything but destroys everything once its time has passed. The chapter goes on to say, “The sage-ruler has no humanity, but treats the people like straw dogs.” The sage-ruler treats the people he rules with utmost respect, but he does not sentimentalize them and understands that, like all things in the universe, people pass on. Clearly there is no sign of morality, or even kindness, here. Is the Dao De Jing rejecting morality and ethics? There have certainly been people who thought so. The Legalists, a tradition that 84

Authors and Texts developed at the end of the Warring States era, understood the Dao De Jing as a text that taught a ruler to be distant, cruel, and calculating when governing (see Chapter Nine). In the movie “The Juror,” a psychopathic killer quotes extensively from the Dao De Jing throughout the movie to justify his actions. The maker of this movie, like many others, reads the text as saying that morality and kindness are not natural to people or society and certainly have no place in the automatic and amoral functioning of dao. The Dao De Jing is not saying that. In chapter 67, it says, “I have three treasures that I hold tight and treasure: the first is compassion, the second is simplicity, the third is not daring to be the first in the world.” It goes on to say that having these things means we can be courageous and generous. Not being first means that we can lead – an idea we will look at in the next chapter’s discussion of government. However, the view that the Dao De Jing advocates cruelty or serial killing is not found in most of the text. We have already seen one passage that describes what happens when dao is lost (earlier in chapter 38). Chapter 18 says, “When great dao is no longer used, then there is humanity and rightness.” When we get off the track and are no longer with dao, that is when we have to start discussing, and enforcing, humanity and rightness. Humanity and rightness are two of the cardinal virtues of the Confucians (see Chapter One). The chapter continues, “When cleverness and smartness comes along, that is when we have hypocrisy.” Daoists often describe Confucians as clever – not intelligent, wise, or really knowledgeable. “When family relations are a mess, then we start talking about filial piety.” It is only when families are not getting along that we have to discuss filial piety, another cornerstone of Confucianism. “When the state is in a mess, then we hear about loyal ministers.” Loyalty would have been natural when things were in order, that is, one with dao, but now that things are a mess, we have to start defining loyalty and discussing it as a concept. This chapter is aimed at criticizing Confucians, but in terms of a discussion of morality, what the author is saying is that we once did all these things – humanity, rightness, filial piety, and 85

Decoding Dao loyalty – naturally enough when we were with dao. But now that dao has been lost, we have to talk about moral values and how to enforce them. Are they really saying that we were naturally moral when we were with dao? If we look at the first part of chapter 19 (originally likely part of chapter 18), we see this discussion continued. “Exterminate sages and abandon wisdom and all the people will benefit a hundredfold.” By saying “exterminate,” they do mean “kill them all,” but the sages the passage refers to are Confucian sages. The wisdom they want to get rid of is what passed for wisdom in their time. “Exterminate humanity and get rid of rightness and the people will return to filial piety.” If we get back to dao and get rid of the artificial Confucian virtues of humanity and rightness, people will naturally practice filial piety and behave well to their families and others. “Exterminate cleverness and get rid of profit and there will be no more thieves and crime.” People rob because there are things that are valuable. If we stop being clever and defining things as valuable, no one will have to steal them. Confucians tell us to behave morally, but that morality is artificial, thought up only because we lost dao. By defining things, valuing things, Confucians come up with definitions of what is good and humane. The Confucians may be responding to the problems of their times, but their response only makes things worse and leads to hypocrisy, cleverness, profit, and robbers. If left to our own devices in a noncoercive society, with no artificial desires, we would behave perfectly well. We will look at this extraordinary claim again in Chapter Ten.

Summary What we have found so far is that the Dao De Jing counters almost everything that society tells us. If cultures have told us that something is good, you can be almost certain that the text will tell us it is bad. This is why the Dao De Jing is such a radical and drastic text: it does not attack bits and pieces, nor does it use a simple ax to 86

Authors and Texts attack the trunk of society’s tree. The Dao De Jing brings chainsaws and bulldozers. Many of the paradoxical statements found in the Dao De Jing are not contradictory when we understand how to decode them and know the context that the rest of the text provides. Illogical statements need decoding – we need to think carefully about what is being said. The Dao De Jing is not a text we can read in an hour or two, despite it being so short. The Dao De Jing tells us that we should not ego-act. Non-egoacting is natural, spontaneous, and effortless action. Interference with things is based on our desires. We want the things we have been told are valuable and good. The Dao De Jing tells us we should break the definition-value-desire-ego-acting chain at the point of desires. Societies tell us to ego-act, to know, and thus control, things, and to desire the best. The Dao De Jing tells us to not-ego-act, to not know in the sense of thinking we control, and to not desire. Like dao, we should act spontaneously. This does not mean acting on a whim or simply lurching through the day according to our appetites. Spontaneity is the opposite of artificial, human constructed, human controlled. Like dao, spontaneity does by itself, naturally, without plan, without control. For a text that is supposed to be opposed to using language, the Dao De Jing says a lot. The text does criticize language, but does so in two ways. First, it is wary of our ability to describe or define dao in language. Second, it understands that language can be a tool of social control, telling us what to desire, what to do, what is good, and what is bad. So, for the text, once we have language, we should stop there and not use it to control others or to allow us to think we control the world. If the Dao De Jing counters all that societies teach us, does that mean it rejects morality too? What the text is rejecting is enforced, controlling, moral systems that are unnatural to us. That is the Confucian sagely teaching of humanity, rightness, and ritual. In order to work, it must be forced on people in an artificial way and anyone who does not fit into the Confucian system’s straightjacket must be attacked. The Dao De Jing thinks that, when we were with 87

Decoding Dao dao, when we lived more naturally, we were naturally kind and moral. This claim has been rejected by most readers, but, as we shall see, it is not as outrageous as it sounds.

Notes   1    2    3    4    5 

  6    7 

  8 

  9  10 

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Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 109–24. Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 121. Philip Ivanhoe, “The Concept of De (‘Virtue’) in the Laozi, 247. Liu Xiaogan, “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy,” 225. Michael LaFargue, The Tao [Dao] of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing], argues that many of these paradoxical or dense sayings are “polemical aphorisms,” that is, sayings that run counter to what is generally accepted to be true (slow and steady wins the race). They are deliberately exaggerated and shocking to wake people up. They may be as ungrammatical and obscure as many English sayings are, such as, “a miss is as good as a mile” or “not enough room to swing a cat,” 201–204. Hansen points out that wei can mean “do,” “to regard as,” “to act,” “to make,” “to do,” and “artificial,” A Daoist Theory, 213. Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action, defines wuwei as “. . . a state of personal harmony in which actions flow freely and instantly from one’s spontaneous inclinations – without the need for extended deliberation or inner struggle – and yet nonetheless accord perfectly with the dictates of the situation at hand . . . ,” 7. Graham Parkes, “Natural Man in Nietzsche and Taoism [Daoism],” 92–93. Parkes says, “.  .  . we must remember that this image [the uncarved block] for the reductive and subtractive aspects of the Taoist [Daoist] project is deceptively simple. The paring away of accretions of conceptual thinking is a long and arduous process, and the natural ease of Taoist [Daoist] spontaneity strangely difficult to obtain. ‘Wherever desires and cravings are deep,’ Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi] said, ‘the impulse which is from heaven is shallow.’ ” 97. Slingerland, Effortless Action, 8. Denecke argues that all of this is an attack on Confucius’ idea of setting words straight, the rectification of names (see Chapter One). Words

Authors and Texts

11  12 

13 

14  15 

16 

that represent the sanctioned and conventional ways we do things, words that Confucius wanted to use and enforce, are to be replaced with the “nonwords” of the Dao De Jing, where we act, know, and desire naturally and spontaneously. The Dynamics of Masters Literature, 218. Hall and Ames, Daodejing, 42. Hall and Ames, Daodejing, 23, see also 68–69. Liu Xiaogan, “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy,” argues that naturalness, is a constant and steady state, the continuation of spontaneity, self-so, 232. See Liu Xiaogan, “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy.” He argues that naturalness, ziran, is the core value of the text and that non-ego-acting is the principle or method of realizing naturalness, 211. See Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 203. Michael LaFargue, The Tao [Dao] of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing], argues that this saying is not to be taken literally, but means that just because there is an eloquent speaker, there may not be real knowledge. It is the substance that is important, not the show, 204–205. Hansen, A Daoist Theory, says that the Dao De Jing pairs names/words and dao because it is dao that guides behavior. Using names/words is at the root of any guiding discourse system, 116.

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Chapter Five

Chapter Contents War—Government, Society, and the Sage-Ruler—The Golden Age—Advice for Would-Be Sages—Losing dao—Summary The Dao De Jing has sometimes been described as an anarchist text, but it is not. The authors have a lot to say about a radical makeover of government and society, but they do not say that government can be done away with. Some commentators go so far as to describe the Dao De Jing as a purely political text, arguing that dao should be understood as dao of government. Once the authors had worked out dao of government, they went on to develop the idea of dao into other areas.1 In this view, the Dao De Jing was written specifically for a ruler to encourage him to follow dao. Those who read the text as entirely political argue that the text was meant to be read by rulers, not a general reader.2 Whether that is a correct interpretation or not, the Dao De Jing spends a lot of time talking about what is wrong with society and politics, how a ruler should rule, and what a perfect society would look like. The Dao De Jing looks at the political and social situation in the short and long term. In the short term there are two important

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Authors and Texts things to work on: the issue of warfare and how a ruler should act to change things.

War Clearly, war was a major issue of the Warring States era. While the authors of the Dao De Jing are not pacifists, but they reject war and the military. War should be avoided. War is the highest expression of desires, aggression, hardness, and macho values. War is all about imposing desires and ego-acting. The Dao De Jing condemns even those who like weapons and collect them: “To look at weapons as beautiful is to enjoy killing people” (31). Instead of admiring the workmanship of weapons, the Dao De Jing says, “Weapons are tools that are ill fated and everyone hates them” (31). The macho culture of the Warring States era celebrated courage and honor. The Dao De Jing does not: “To be courageous in daring results in death; to be courageous in not daring results in life” (73). Being aggressive, controlling, and courageous runs counter to dao and will get you killed. There is no admiration for courageous heroes and no such thing as a just war.3 War wrecks the economy. When the world has dao, horses graze in the fields and provide fertilizer for farming; when the world does not have dao, warhorses are bred on the outskirts of the city (46). Money is spent on paying soldiers, buying weapons, and raising horses that could be better used to improve people’s lives. When armies pass through an area, fertile and productive areas become brambles and bushes (30). As armies march through farms and towns they burn and destroy, killing the inhabitants or making them run away. Marching armies often bring disease with them as well. The result is death for thousands of ordinary people. A state run by a sage-ruler would not contend with other states and so not become involved in warfare. “When a ruler rules using dao, then weapons are not used in the world” (30). There is advice in the text for rulers of both large and small states about how to avoid conflict. Chapter 61 restates the argument that women win 91

Decoding Dao over men by being still and underneath and then goes on to compare this to large and small states. If a large state wants to take over a smaller one, war is not needed. The large state should take a lower position and amalgamate with the small state in a nonaggressive way. A sage-ruler would not be imposing his desires and ego on the situation and so conflict would not begin. If all the methods of avoiding war have been exhausted and one is invaded, the sage-ruler should continue to act like dao. If war is inevitable, the Dao De Jing gives advice about how to win it. Of course, one should fight a war like dao. The sage-ruler’s attitude should not be angry or aggressive, things dao never is. “Anyone who is good at war is not aggressive. Those who are good in battle are never angry” (68). He should allow the enemy to act: wearing out the enemy. The best way to defeat the enemy is to not engage them in battle. Let the enemy’s aggressiveness defeat itself. Keep the enemy aggressive and so off balance. Let the enemy attack and wear himself out. Retreat and misdirection work better than full-scale battles. Much of the strategy set out in the Dao De Jing will be used by the martial arts. The first aggressive punch from an opponent puts the opponent off balance. An opponent who is off balance can easily be taken down using the force of his own momentum. Guerilla warfare, used by the Chinese against the Japanese in World War II and the Vietnamese against the Americans in the war in Vietnam, rested in strategies in the Dao De Jing and other strategic books of the time, like the Art of War. At no time should a sage-ruler enjoy war and, when the war is finished, there should be no victory celebrations. “Large numbers of people have been killed and we must look at that with sorrow. When we win a war, we should end with funeral rites” (31). People have died and there is no reason to celebrate.

Government, Society, and the Sage-Ruler Rulers of their time, like ours, surrounded themselves with the greatest luxuries, sought to increase their own wealth and the 92

Authors and Texts wealth of those around them, and were perfectly happy to go to war to get what they wanted. As we have seen, the Dao De Jing describes this in chapter 53. Those at court are corrupt, While the fields are full of weeds, And the granaries are empty; Still they are dressed in fine clothes, Equipped with swords at their sides, Stuffed with food and drink, And with far too much money. This is called being the leading robbers, And has nothing at all to do with dao.

The fields are not being plowed because the people have died fighting the ruler’s wars and so the granaries are empty.4 But, at court, the nobles wear the finest clothes in the latest fashions and keep sharp swords at their sides, signs of luxury and aggression. They feast until they can eat no more and have more things than they know what to do with. The chapter ends this description by saying, “This is called being the leading robbers and has nothing at all to do with dao.” Rulers and their noble courts were seduced by desires, and they had the means to fulfill them. All the wealth was concentrated in a few hands, while the majority of people were poor. Rulers interfered in politics, society, and the economy to ensure their wealth and prestige. “The people are difficult because the nobles engage in action” (75). Like other traditions of the time, the authors of the Dao De Jing believed that the ruler was the center of government and society. Rulers acted as models for everyone else and what the ruler does will be reflected in the society around him. The chapter that sums up most of what a sage-ruler should be is chapter 57: Govern a state by being straightforward; fight wars by being clever; win over the world by not doing things. How do I know it works like that? Because of this: The more taboos in the world, the poorer the people.

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Decoding Dao The more people have sharp tools, the more the mess in both state and families. The more people have skill and cleverness, the more new and rare things there will be. The more laws are known, the more robbers and thieves there will be. Therefore a sage says: I do not ego-act and people change by themselves. I love stillness and the people correct themselves. I do nothing and the people prosper by themselves. I have no desires and the people turn to simplicity by themselves.

One should govern by being straightforward, using the military craftily, and governing the world by non-ego-acting. At the moment people are bound by custom, at odds with their families, neighbors, and those in their own country. The more laws that are passed and enforced, the more criminals there are. In contrast, the sage-ruler does not ego-act, loves stillness, does not act, and does not desire. This will lead to people changing and correcting themselves, finding prosperity for themselves, and finally returning to dao, simplicity, by themselves. A sage-ruler would act like dao. That means he would non-egoact and not interfere with schemes he has thought up and insists on enforcing. That is the idea behind the Dao De Jing’s famous line, “Governing a country is like cooking small fish” (60). If you are frying small fish and continue to flip them over from side to side, you will end up with a pan full of mush. Not interfering with society means that the ruler does not ego-act by imposing his own desires. This quotation has been used, particularly by Ronald Reagan, to mean unbridled ego-action, capitalism, and removing restrictions from banks and stock brokers. That is not what the line means at all. As we have seen, non-ego-acting means responding to things naturally. It does not mean not doing anything at all. A ruler’s ego-acting makes for more laws and for more sophistication among the people. The more active a government, the more laws, rules, and regulations it makes. The more laws there are, the more criminals there are. The Dao De Jing points out the obvious: 94

Authors and Texts every time we make a new law, we define more people criminals. That is because what used to be acceptable, for example, not wearing a seat belt in a car, is now a criminal offense. The more laws and regulations passed by governments, the more sophisticated people have to become to get around them. We pass on tips on how to avoid paying tax, and contractors like to be paid in cash so they do not have to pay income tax. The more laws and rules enacted by government, the smarter we get in getting around them. This all comes from rulers interfering. Sage-rulers have to be unbiased, like water, like dao. Both water and dao treat all things in the same way. So the sage-ruler cannot treat one person or one group better than another. A sage-ruler has no favorites and treats all people in the same way. Sage-rulers do not impose an agenda and they are unbiased, like dao, and therefore they have no preference for one ideology over another. The result of lack of bias and having no ideology is that no one can contend with, or argue against, the sage-ruler. As many of us have seen recently in our own politics, it is only when there is a leader with an ideology that we have to have ideological debates. With a sage-ruler there is nothing to argue against. If the ruler has no position and belongs to no faction, is unbiased in his treatment of everyone, then the factional power politics of the Warring States era cannot develop. While this unbiased approach may sound outrageous, surely it is better than what we have now when governments are run favoring certain interests and groups.5 The Dao De Jing also describes the sage-ruler as having no heart, but taking on the heart of the people (49). This does not mean that the sage-ruler has no feelings, but that he is like dao, unbiased and open to all. That is why he can take on other people’s hearts, but still not be entangled with them. How do sage-rulers rule then? Why would anyone take them seriously? The sage-ruler influences others by drawing them to him. The reason people find the sage-ruler attractive, the Dao De Jing says, is because, like dao, the sage-ruler places himself below people, like water, valleys, and dao. The natural tendency of these things is to move to lower places, so the sage-ruler is advised to be below 95

Decoding Dao the people. Confucians envisioned a sage-ruler who would be so moral that he would act as a model and his charisma would attract people up to his level. The Dao De Jing reverses that and tells a sageruler to be beneath.6 Sage-rulers take the lowest position, not oppressing people from above. Like dao, the sage-ruler non-ego-acts, is unbiased, and is unnoticed. “The best ruler is unnoticed; the next best is loved and honored; the next best is feared; the worst is insulted” (17). Like dao, the sage-ruler claims no credit. He is not looking for fame or praise. When he finally turns things around, “people say, it happened to us naturally” (17). Chapter 22 sums up what we have seen so far, Therefore the sage holds on to one and is a model for the whole world. Does not show himself and so is clear; Does not consider himself right and so is evident. Does not brag, and accomplishes things; Does not boast and so lasts long. Because he does not fight with anyone, no one in the world can fight with him. The ancient saying, “Bent and so whole,” is no empty saying. Truly whole and so returning.

The sage-ruler holds on to dao and everyone follows his example. He does not show off and so is effective. He does not demand credit and praise for what he has done, and so is successful. He is not conceited, acting out of ego, and so lasts for a long time. And, because he does not contend or fight with anyone, no one can fight with him and the vicious political infighting of the Warring States era is avoided. In many ways, the ruler is like dao: hidden, unbiased, not fighting with other people or things, bent and twisted but complete, returning, as all things do, to dao. The ideal ruler also follows the rules of the Dao De Jing by not bragging or boasting – treating language carefully. In turning things around, the sage-ruler will have to rein in desires, whether for fame and position or for the most expensive, designer, latest things: “When worthy men are not promoted, this 96

Authors and Texts means that people will not contend for office. When rare and valuable things are not thought of as rare and valuable, this means people will not become thieves” (3). When both fame and consumer goods are not valued, then people lose their desires for them. People fight for power because society values it. People want to have high positions as officials because then they can exercise power and enforce their will. The sage-ruler does not promote people and ensures that high office is not viewed as a reward. This stops the nobles and bureaucrats of that time – and ours – from struggling with each other for position instead of doing their jobs. The sage-ruler stops showing off things that are hard to get, and that way no one develops envy, competition, or the desire to steal. When worthy men are not promoted, people will stop fighting over promotion. When rare and expensive goods are not valued, people will not become thieves. Not being able to see desirable things, people will not be in a state of unrest. So when a sage-ruler rules, he empties people’s hearts and fills their bellies. He weakens their desires and strengthens their bones. He always makes sure that people have no knowledge and no desires. The one who knows does not dare ego-act. Acting through non-ego-acting, then there is nothing that is not well governed.(3)

In the government, if promotion is not offered, bureaucrats stop squabbling about it. In the culture, if the focus is not on the rare and valuable, the Lexus, the diamonds, the money, then people have no reason to want to steal. If things are not labeled as desirable, people do not develop envy and do not compete with each other. The next lines, where the sage-ruler is described as emptying hearts and weakening desires, echoes what came before. The ruler ensures that people are strong and well fed. Ensuring people have no knowledge does not mean censorship or a denial of education. It refers to the 97

Decoding Dao kind of knowledge of how rare and valuable things are and then the desire for those rare and valuable things. The sage-ruler does all this through non-ego-action, just as dao does.7 When everyone has returned to a more natural state, stress and competition lessen. There is, however, a strong patronizing tone throughout the text in terms of how to treat the people; the sage-ruler treats the people as children (49). As well, underlying this approach is the idea that desires for valuable things are artificial. These desires are not the same kind of desires as being hungry and wanting our suppers. These desires have been taught to us by our society and they are at the core of what is wrong (see Chapter Three). Passages where the sage-ruler is described as making the people ignorant can be read as keeping people ignorant while only the sage-ruler knows what is really going on. Certainly, people, like the later Legalists, read the text that way. But to see these passages as advocating oppression is to ignore the rest of what the text says.8 When we read that the sage-ruler must keep people ignorant, we tend to think of modern dictatorships where the news is censored, access to the Internet restricted, and what can be taught in schools or said in public are under police surveillance. The elite has all the power and riches, and the people are deprived and often starving.9 This is not the kind of “ignorant” the text has in mind. Ignorance for the Dao De Jing is to not have knowledge of the latest, greatest things and so to not desire them. If you had been living on a beautiful south Pacific island for the last 30 years at harmony with others and your surroundings, do you think you would have spent your time wishing for a smart phone? The only reason we want the latest cell phone with all the greatest apps is that society has told us, through advertising, that these are necessities. Peer pressure, the competition to keep up with everyone else, fuels our desires. In keeping with reading the Dao De Jing as a text advocating amoral behavior (see Chapter Four), there are those who say that the text aims at manipulating people and seizing power while pretending to do the opposite. By being natural and submissive, the sage-ruler can attract others to him and manipulate them into 98

Authors and Texts doing what he wants. According to this view, the Dao De Jing is just a sophisticated scheme to get and use power. This approach misreads the Dao De Jing because it is based in the assumption that having power is a good thing and that when one has it, it is natural to dominate others. What we find in the Dao De Jing is not an alternative view of politics and power, but a critique of the whole process of power and domination.10

The Golden Age We have seen that the Dao De Jing says that when dao was lost, we began to hear talk of humanity, rightness, ritual, and filial piety – cardinal Confucian virtues. But what were things like before dao was lost? How did we live? According to the Dao De Jing, there was a time in the past when society worked properly, in accordance with dao. Like other traditions of their time, the authors placed this golden age far back in time because the more ancient a tradition, the more weight it had. But this is also something that they see for our future as well. There were small states with few people. Even though people had the weapons for a platoon or even a battalion, they did not use them. Because they looked at death as a serious thing, they did not move to distant places. Even though they had ships and carts, they did not use them. Even though they had armor and weapons, they did not parade them. Let us return to the use of knotted ropes as they did. And enjoy our food, Find our clothes beautiful, Be safe in our homes, And happy in the way we live. Though neighboring communities were in sight of one another and the sounds of each other’s dogs barking and cocks crowing could be heard, yet the people of one neighborhood grew old and died without travelling to the other (80).

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Decoding Dao In a past – and future – golden age, we lived in small groups in small communities. We had swords, and shields, but did not use them; apparently there was no war. We had boats and wagons, but did not use them because, as we shall see, no one moved around a lot. The text says that in the golden age, we took death seriously and that seems an odd thing to say because surely everyone takes death seriously. That may be true in normal times, but when things get bad and ordinary people can no longer make a living and feed their families, people may not care if they die. Recently, we saw the death of a retired pharmacist in Greece who committed suicide in front of government buildings to protest the decrease of his pension to the point where he could not feed himself. For other people, it may be the lack of freedom that drives them: dozens of Tibetan Buddhist monks have set themselves on fire in the last couple of years to protest the oppression of their religion and their people. In both cases, we see people taking death lightly. There would be no such oppression in the Daoist golden age. Going along with the theme of not using technology, the chapter says that we return to the use of knotted ropes. Before the invention of writing, we used knots in ropes as memory aids for business and remembering poetry and stories. Here, writing, and presumably the use of fancy language, is discouraged. Certainly, this is the opposite of the Confucian emphasis on education in the classics. People would be happy with their food, not fascinated with gourmet cooking. People would be happy with their clothes, not desiring the latest designer fashions. People would be happy with their homes and not driven by envy and desires to continue to move up. Not driven by desires, people would be happy with the way they lived. The naturalness and spontaneity of dao would apply to human society. The chapter concludes by saying that, even though people living in these small states would be able to hear each other’s dogs bark and chickens crow, they would live out their lives without visiting back and forth. This concluding bit is the one that usually outrages most people. It seems a rejection of curiosity and a celebration of small-mindedness. That may be a possible interpretation, but what 100

Authors and Texts the text is trying to convey is that, without desires driving us, we have no need to travel about and be curious. We are told we should be curious and that curiosity is a Good Thing. I suppose that depends on curiosity for what. If we are curious about the venoms that some amphibians emit so that we can make them in a lab, patent them, and have them sold by some big drug company, it is not clear to me that this is the kind of curiosity that is a Good Thing. Curiosity for its own sake, being curious about archeology or classical Chinese thought, is not anywhere nearly as well rewarded in our culture. The curiosity that we encourage – and pay for – is a curiosity linked to desires and valuing. When we were not enmeshed in valuing and desiring, was this then what our original human nature was like? It is hard to even imagine. From the time we could understand language, we have been raised to make discriminations, definitions, and to value all sorts of things. Most people reading the Dao De Jing, and almost all scholars, reject this golden age as “pie in the sky” at best and the promotion of feeble-mindedness at worst.11 We will talk more about this golden age vision because it is also found in the Zhuangzi. However, it is useful to know that modern human beings go back at least 50,000 years and we lived in small hunter-gatherer groups for most of human history. We did not pollute the planet, poison the oceans, or kill off a species a day. When we settled down and began agriculture, 7000–10,000 years ago, we developed technologies and the art of mass warfare. We began to industrialize about 200 years ago, and in that short time have managed to kill millions and poison the planet. So perhaps we should not instantly dismiss the Daoist golden age.12

Advice for Would-Be Sages We have seen that sage-rulers act and rule like dao. How does one become a sage-ruler? How does one become a sage? The Dao De Jing gives us advice for achieving this. It says, as many ancient texts do, that knowing how other people operate may be smart, but real 101

Decoding Dao wisdom is knowing oneself. You may have the strength to overcome other people, but if you can overcome yourself, you are truly strong (33) So any advance toward sagehood seems to require introspection and self-control. Sagehood cannot be reached by studying: “When we study every day, we increase; dealing with dao daily, we do less and less. Do less and less until we reach wuwei, nonego-acting. Non-ego-act and nothing is left undone” (48). We are told to do less and less until we reach wuwei, nonego-action. So this “doing” is ego-action and study is the accumulation of data. An additional difficulty with study is that it makes us think we know what we are doing. Once we have established a foundation of knowledge, however imaginary, we go on as if we are in control and that will always get us into trouble (71). Zhuangzi will have a lot more to say about how this works. It is all very well to say, do not study and do less until you do all things with non-ego-acting, but how do we get there? First, by balancing. We have seen the Dao De Jing tells its male readers, “You already know the male, so keep to the female and so become a river to the world” (28). By balancing or harmonizing both Column A and Column B, we become balanced, unbiased, and like a river, like dao. Throughout this chapter, we are told to keep both socially approved of values and socially disapproved of values. We are told that by doing this, we become like dao. When we embrace all things, become impartial and wise, then we are like dao and will suffer no harm (16). The advice on how to become a sage applies to people who are rulers or want to be rulers. There is also advice for those who have government jobs in the small courts of the time. If you remember, this was dangerous because of the constant intrigue and plotting that went on. Just being suspected of being part of a plot to overthrow the ruler could get you killed. For those people, the Dao De Jing has particular advice, Your reputation or your life, which is more important? What do you value more, your life or your things? Gain or loss, which is a greater curse?

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Authors and Texts That is why excessive love of reputation and the love of things is sure to lead to great expense; Too much stored away is sure to end in enormous loss. Know when you have enough and you will not be disgraced. Know when to stop and you will not be in danger. When you are not in danger, you can last for a long time (44).

It asks people who worked in governments what is more important, your life or your reputation? Your life or your possessions? Is it better to be promoted, famous, wealthy, and in the ruler’s favor or to be obscure and out of immediate danger? Knowing when you have enough is unlikely to bring you disgrace. Knowing when to stop in your career climb is less dangerous. You will then be able to live out your natural lifespan and grow old or, in the Dao De Jing’s terms, succeed. Life at these small courts was dangerous. Even when one was in the ruler’s favor, when he rewarded you with rank and wealth, this could disappear in a moment on the ruler’s whim. This is why the Dao De Jing describes both favor and disgrace at court as things that startle and worry us (13). Both could lead to disaster. This is why the text often counsels us to not get entangled: “There is no greater disaster than not knowing when to stop at enough; there is nothing more misguided than desiring to get things; so knowing when to stop at enough is all you have to do” (46). The more ambitious and envious we are, the more likely we are to meet disaster. If we keep our desires to a minimum, know when we have enough, and do not become entangled in wanting what others have, whether possessions or status, then we can live out our natural lifespan: “one who lives out their days naturally has had a long life” (33).13 Some scholars have argued that there are other kinds of sages in the Dao De Jing. They point to various passages that seem to describe a solitary figure, although whether this is a hermit or a solitary sage-ruler is debated. Chapter 15 describes sages in ancient times. Like dao, they are hard to describe and can be given only a tentative description. Like dao, they are described as like a valley and uncarved block. The words used for them are “cautious,” 103

Decoding Dao “careful,” “hesitant,” “vacant,” and “murky.” Even though this sage is murky, like muddy water, if the water is stilled, it becomes clear. We have already looked at chapter 20, one of the loveliest sections of the Dao De Jing and one of the very few passages that uses the word “I” and speaks from an individual point of view. It describes other people as purposeful, happy, clear, and having a lot of things. The author says that he feels alone, different, separated from the mass of people. He has given up everything, has the mind of an idiot, is like a newborn baby, feels stupid and muddled. He concludes by saying, “I differ from other people – I esteem the mother who nurtures me.” The mother is dao and the author is drawing a picture of himself not entangled in the desires of others. The mood of most of the passage is sad and somewhat bleak, as if the author regrets what he has lost. It is only at the end that he returns to dao. This is the best passage in the text for describing what it is like, or what it might be like, to be a Daoist sage. There is nothing specifically in these passages that relates this kind of sage to government and so some argue these are descriptions of a hermit sage.14 Here the concern is with survival in a very dangerous world and, when we are like dao, we live out our natural lifespans and have increased vitality.15 Finally, there are descriptions of sages and advice on how to become a sage that are highly debated. In chapter 52, we are told to “Block the openings, shut the doors. Then you need not labor through life. Open the openings, be busy doing things, and for your whole life, nothing can rescue you.” There is a similar passage in chapter 56, Block the openings, shut the doors. Soften the sharpness, settle down the many things. Dim the light, let the dust settle. This is called obscure concord.

This last phrase, obscure concord, (xuan tong 玄同), is often translated as “mysterious unity” or “dark oneness.” This kind of translation, and the interpretation it represents, is something we will look at in Chapter Ten. 104

Authors and Texts We are told to block openings and shut doors, but then to dim the brightness, settle down, and dim the lights. If we do so, we reach or become obscure concord or mysterious oneness. So what is going on here? It is likely that openings and doors refer to the senses, sight and hearing, for example. Are these passages giving us directions on how to be like dao? Certainly we are to close down the senses and to dim what is around us and untangle what is in us in order to reach something significant. Some scholars argue that what this means is that the authors of the Dao De Jing were teaching methods of self-cultivation.16 They point to another chapter, chapter 10, as another description of this self-cultivation. Can you carry your po [see below], embrace the one, and not let go? Can you concentrate your qi to become as supple as a baby? Can you polish your mysterious mirror so that there is no flaw? Can you love the people and govern the state through non-ego-action? When the gates of heaven open and shut, can you be female? When your wisdom reaches everywhere, can you not know anything? It gives birth to things and rears them; It gives birth to things but does not have them; It aids everything but is not a master; This is called mysterious virtue [xuan de 玄德]

The “po” (魄) is one of the two parts or “souls” of a person that was thought to survive death in the Warring States era. The po stayed with the body after death, while the other ascended. It says, “Can you carry your po, embrace the one, and not let go?” This echoes the “mysterious unity” we saw earlier. “When you concentrate your qi, can you become as supple as a baby?” Again, some scholars argue that these were breathing and bodily exercises meant to make the body more supple and in line with dao. “Can you polish your mysterious mirror so that there is no flaw?” The mirror referred to here is usually understood as the mind. “When the gates of heaven open and shut, can you be female?” The phrase 105

Decoding Dao “gates of heaven and earth” is debated, but it looks like it means the dao giving birth to things. As we have seen before, the authors assume a male reader, and so he must be female to be balanced. Women, again as we have seen, are considered still and receptive, like dao. “When you know what is going on in all four directions, can you still not know anything?” This is a play on “knowledge” and “real knowledge,” where regular knowledge is about knowing things and facts. That is not the kind of knowledge we have when we are like dao. Some say that these passages point to a system of self-cultivation that included physical and breathing exercises along with what we would nowadays call meditation. The authors of the Dao De Jing, they say, were part of a community that taught these systems and exercises in order to become like dao. What kind of community that may have been is debated. Other scholars argue that even if this community wrote some parts of the Dao De Jing, they were only part of its authorship. They point to chapter 55, where it says, “To add to life is a bad omen; when the mind/heart drives the qi, this is called ‘forcing things.’ ” This clearly runs counter to anyone teaching exercises in controlling qi or prolonging life. The exercises these teachers provided may have been meant to bring us to immortality. There are those who see the Dao De Jing as a text teaching us how to become immortal – to never die (see Chapter Ten). The main source of this approach is based in chapter 50, Entering into life, going into death. The followers of life will be a third; the followers of death will be a third; of people who are alive and move into death, this is a third. Why? Because they emphasize life too much. I have heard that those who are good at holding on to life do not meet with rhinoceros or tiger travelling on the road nor are they touched by weapons when attacking an army. The rhinoceros has no place to put its horn, the tiger has no place to put its claws, and swords have no place to plunge in a blade. Why? Because for them there is no death place.

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Authors and Texts This chapter is problematic indeed. The first line is, even for the Dao De Jing, obscure: “Entering into life, going into death” is the bald, and unhelpful, statement. The next line says, “The followers of life will be a third; the followers of death will be a third” and does not make clear what the author means by “followers.” The third part of this statement, “of people who are alive and move into death, this is a third” is a real problem. What does this mean? Is it referring to people who do not try to live long or become immortal? “Why? Because they emphasize life too much.” This statement is a good example of the problems of classical Chinese. Which group does the “they” of “they emphasize life too much” refer to – is it the first, second, or third group? The second section of this chapter has its own problems. The words of the text are clearer: “I have heard that those who are good at holding on to life do not meet with rhinoceros or tiger traveling on the road nor are they touched by weapons when attacking an army. The rhinoceros has no place to put its horn, the tiger has no place to put its claws, and swords have no place to plunge in a blade. Why? Because for them there is no death place.” Despite the words being clearer, the meaning is highly debated. Some argue that these people have learned to become immortal and have no place in their bodies where death can enter. Others interpret this passage differently as meaning that a person who is like dao avoids situations that are dangerous and thus lives out their natural life, not allowing a premature end to their lives. The Dao De Jing cherishes long life and cultivating it because old age indicates a life lived properly in that we did not die prematurely.17 Others say this passage means that they have gotten rid of the ego-self. They are then capable of enduring because they are impervious to the outside world.18 Or it may be that this passage means being unconcerned about death because when we identify with dao, dao transcends life and death.19 The interpretations, and translations, of this passage vary widely. We will see a great deal more of these debates in Chapter Ten. 107

Decoding Dao

Losing dao The Dao De Jing leaves us with another major problem. Dao gives birth to all things and nurtures them, deals with everything without bias, and all things return to dao. Things themselves “contain” the de, the potency or power, to spontaneously become what they are. That makes sense. But, if that is true, how is that human beings, and human beings alone, become not like dao? And, further, why is it so hard for us to get to be like dao? The Dao De Jing tells us that defining-discriminating-valuing-desiring is the problem. Could we argue that these things are the very things natural to human beings? Is spontaneous human behavior to be clever, to ego-act, and to have desires? This has led to a lot of speculation. Some argue that there is dao and the human dao, the one that inquires and desires. Others argue that any action we take in the world is based in desire, so there is no way to solve this problem. The Dao De Jing seems to sometimes point to this as well: in chapter 1 we saw the text say that without desires, we can see secrets, and with desires we can see appearances (see Chapter Two).20 It may be that what the Dao De Jing is saying is that, of course, human beings are part of dao. There is no possible way we could not be. Dao gives birth to us, nurtures us, and we return to dao. But human beings are the species that fights this. We want to think we are in charge; we want what we want; we ego-act, creating an artificial society and civilization in which we play out our desires and egos. However, what we think – that we are in charge – and what is really going on – dao is in charge – are radically different things.

Summary The Dao De Jing has a lot to say about politics and government. In no uncertain terms, it rejects war and the glorification of war and weapons. If war is forced on us, we should behave like dao, not in the aggressive macho way most militaries do. Running away and 108

Authors and Texts being elusive are good things, not acts of cowardice. When we win a war, we should not celebrate; we should mourn for all the dead. The Dao De Jing also rejects the luxurious and first-class lifestyles of the upper classes and rulers. It criticizes the meddling and aggressive actions of rulers for causing poverty, hardship, and crime. In their place, the text describes and ideal sage-ruler. This sage-ruler is unbiased, works only through non-ego-action, takes the lower position, is unnoticed, and gradually reduces desires in the people by making people ignorant of the latest, greatest things. These kinds of sage-rulers would lead us back to the way we lived in the past. In the Daoist golden age, we would take death seriously, not use any technology we might have, not be curious, and not have to travel much. We would be satisfied with what we have because what we have would be enough. We are told that we can become sages by practicing non-egoaction, being balanced and unbiased – in short, becoming like dao. The Dao De Jing also gives advice for those who are simply trying to survive the deadly times of the Warring States. We should reject society’s values An issue that remains after this look at the Dao De Jing is the problem of losing dao. How can it be that everything in the universe follows dao except for human beings? A second question associated with it is: if dao is all around us and in charge of everything, why is it so hard for us to get back to dao?

Notes   1  For example, see Moeller, Daoism Explained, 8.   2  Moeller, Daoism Explained, says that the text is primarily political, and the use of “I” in the text is meant for the reader, the sage-ruler, not the author. This dimension of political thought grew in the Huang-Lao texts into an important political teaching, 7–8.   3  See Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 82–85.   4  More directly, the text says that the reason people are hungry is because taxes are too high (75).   5  Moeller, Daoism Explained, 88.

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Decoding Dao   6  Philip J. Ivanhoe, “The Concept of De (‘Virtue’) in the Laozi,” 242. He says the sage-ruler “empties, unravels, and settles” people, 245.   7  See also chapter 12, “The sage-ruler looks after the belly, not the eye.” It is the eye that sees and wants things.   8  See Slingerland, Effortless Action, 110–11.   9  Liu Xiaogan, “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy,” 228–29. 10  Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, 225–26. 11  The golden age is rarely taken seriously. Liu Xiaogan, “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy,” says it is just a yearning for a life with no conflict and part of the text’s antiwar sentiment. As well, he says, it is part of the critique of contemporary life and not to be taken as a real political statement, 230–31. 12  Extinction rates in the past are estimated to have been one species every four to five years. Today, four species a day go extinct in Brazil alone and it is thought that by the end of the century, we will be counting extinction rates not in years but in hours. Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), 45. 13  This line in the Mawangdui version reads, “One who dies but is not forgotten has long life.” “Dies but not forgotten” is an often used Confucian phrase. 14  See also chapter 70, describing a sage as dressed in coarse clothes but hiding a piece of precious jade beneath them. 15  Slingerland, Effortless Action, 107. 16  See, for example, Michael LaFargue, The Tao[Dao] of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]. 17  Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 121–26. 18  Slingerland, 102. 19  Robert Henricks, Lao-tzu Te Tao Ching [Laozi Dao De Jing], xxix. 20  Slingerland, Effortless Action, concludes that “The text actually gives expression to a subtle religious sensibility that is built around the deepest level of paradox of wu-wei: the mystery of trying not to try, desiring not to desire.” While the text is contradictory, it asks us to transcend that and possibly to use breathing and meditative exercises to nip desire in the bud, 112–15.

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Chapter Six

Chapter Contents What Is the Problem?—Anti-Confucians—Anti-Mohists— Being Useless—Point of View—This and That—Knowing How—Knowing What—Summary

What Is the Problem? If we imagine the Dao De Jing as a still lake deep in the woods, the Zhuangzi is more like a busy city street with all its bustle, noise, and variety. There are a few things to remember when reading the Zhuangzi. First, a lot of it is meant to be funny. You are expected to laugh – and the more you know about what he is saying, the funnier he is. Second, before we get to the content of the text, we need to look at the structure of many of the stories. Sometimes, Zhuangzi’s stories are just a story. In the first section, a little quail laughs at a

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Decoding Dao gargantuan bird whose wings fill the sky. The little quail says that the kind of flying quail do is the proper kind of flying. The story ends with the comment, “That is the difference between big and little.”1 Here we have Zhuangzi talking about point of view and the difference it makes in our understanding (see below), but the story itself is straightforward. Other stories and jokes follow another pattern. The first step in this pattern is to say something. For example, Zhuangzi tells us that Liezi (列子, lee-eh ds, see Chapter Nine) could ride on the wind for weeks and never walk, Liezi could ride the wind and go where he wanted with ease and skill, but after fifteen days he returned to earth. He wasn’t worried about looking for good fortune so he didn’t care about walking, but he had to depend on something. If there was someone who could ride the truth of heaven and earth and the changes of the six qi, and so wandered outside of bounds, what would he have had to depend on?2

Liezi’s abilities sound marvelous, but Zhuangzi points out that Liezi still had to depend on the wind to travel. So, while Liezi has great abilities, he is still depending on something. The second step poses another option. In this case, suppose there was a person who could ride on the truth of heaven and earth, use the truth of heaven and earth and the transformations of the six vital qis, and so wander endlessly, would he be relying on anything? Is there some way to do these marvelous things and not depend on anything? This story, and many like it, is structured in this way: the first statement sets up a situation (A) and points out its problem (not A); the second step sets up another situation (B) and poses that as a response to A. There is no conclusion. The conclusions we may draw are up to us. There is nothing to tell us whether Zhuangzi believed either of these descriptions to be possible or disbelieved both. That is why it is important to read the whole text and to have some sort of context for dealing with specific passages. We have to be careful when we read the Zhuangzi because much of it is set up to examine propositions, but Zhuangzi does not 112

Authors and Texts usually box this in by making a firm conclusion. As you will see, it is not always easy to establish just what Zhuangzi thought about things and he is trying with all his might to dispute the idea of believing anything.3 It is probably best to begin by seeing what Zhuangzi considers the problems he is trying to deal with. Like the authors of the Dao De Jing, Zhuangzi sees human beings as the “sickest animal.” Human beings are not the height of creation – we are the problem. Zhuangzi sets out his views of what we are doing wrong in a long rant in Section Two. Great wisdom is wide; petty wisdom is cramped. Great speech blazes; petty speech is flashy. While we sleep, our souls go wandering; when awake our bodies run around. We become entangled with everything we meet. Every day we use our mind/hearts for contention and conflict that is sometimes deep and sometimes petty. Our little fears make us wobbly; our great fears stun us. Nonetheless, off we go like an arrow being released from a bowstring, absolutely sure we know what is right and wrong, true and false.4 We hold on to that as if we had sworn an oath or made a solemn pact, convinced we are on the winning side. We decline like autumn and winter, fading day by day. We drown in the things we do. There is no way to renew ourselves and, as the mind/heart nears death, nothing can revitalize it . . .5 Once we have received a completed body, we are aware of it all the time while we await death. But we gallop on, sometimes getting on with things, sometimes in conflict, always unable to stop. Are we not sad? We work all our lives without seeing success; we wear ourselves down with labor always ignorant of where it all ends. Are we not sad? We can say, “well, I’m not dead yet,” but the mind/heart and the body both decay and dissolve. There is no way to deny that this is the saddest of all. Is our life as messed up as this? Am I the only one in a mess? Are there others who are not?6

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Decoding Dao When we sleep, our minds run on with the problems of the day; when we wake up, we run around dealing with those same problems. We come into contact with things and we fight with them. We have small, worrying doubts and great stunning fears. We are absolutely certain we know what is right and wrong, as if, Zhuangzi says, “sworn an oath or made a solemn pact.” We have set up definitions of what is good and bad, right and wrong, and we want to follow society’s standards to become clever, rich, and famous. We follow these values and believe in them deeply.7 As we age, we do not change these beliefs, so we sink into senility. We gallop around, working hard, and still do not know what it is all for. We drown in what we do. Like the authors of the Dao De Jing, Zhuangzi locates our problems in definition, values, and desires. Zhuangzi is particularly focused on our desire to be right, to have the right answer, to know for sure what we are doing and how things work. We lock ourselves into systems of thought and belief as if we had sworn an oath or made a solemn pact.

Anti-Confucians The prime example of this for Zhuangzi is the Confucian system of thought. Confucians set themselves up as the authorities on right and wrong. They not only know what is absolutely right, but they force it on others. In one story, Zhuangzi describes a meeting between Confucius and a madman who tells Confucius to stop teaching people virtue because it is dangerous to mark off distinctions and definitions.8 The madman then calls Confucius a fool. In other passages, Zhuangzi makes nasty remarks about Confucius as a man who is punished by heaven.9 In an imagined conversation between Confucius and his favorite student, Yan Hui (yan h-way), Confucius is reduced to asking if he can become Yan Hui’s student.10 114

Authors and Texts The miscellaneous chapters of the Zhuangzi are even more vicious about Confucius and his followers. One passage shows Confucians robbing graves while performing all the proper rituals for doing so and quoting the Confucian classics.11 That passage is followed by another, totally imaginary, conversation between Confucius and Lao Laizi (see Chapter Two). Confucius is described as having short legs, a humped back, and looking like someone trying to oversee everything in the world. Lao Laizi says to Confucius that, if he can get rid of his façade of pride and knowledge, he might actually become a Confucian gentleman (see Chapter One). Lao Laizi says, “You cannot bear to watch the suffering of one generation, so you go on to make trouble for ten thousand generations to come.” Truer words were never spoken: Confucians, with their repressive rules, were trying to save people, but this would have a terrible effect on people throughout history. Lao Laizi continues, “Is this because you are naturally an idiot or can you simply not understand what is going on?” Lao Laizi goes on to criticize Confucians for developing a system that praises some and condemns others when it would be better to forget praise and blame.12 In another imaginary meeting that did not go well, Confucius decided to try to reform the greatest robber of the day. He finds the robber and his men eating a lunch of human livers. Confucius begins his pompous sermonizing when the robber yells at Confucius, saying that he is a hypocrite, a useless parasite, and someone who makes up right and wrong in order to confuse the rulers and scholars of the day. The robber then tells Confucius to go home or the robber will add Confucius’ liver to his lunch.13 Surely the nastiest attack on Confucians appears in the outer chapters of the Zhuangzi. In this story, the bodies of people who have been executed are piled up in the streets; there are so many prisoners wearing chains that they bump into each other; people who have had their nose, hands, or feet cut off as punishment are found everywhere in the market. In the midst of this, Confucians 115

Decoding Dao and Mohists swagger around waving their arms in argument with each other, oblivious to the suffering they have caused. This is what comes of holding beliefs so tightly that anyone not conforming to them is condemned. The self-righteous ignore that reality and continue to try to force others to believe as they do.14 In some passages in the text, Confucius speaks like a Daoist or sometimes like someone trying to understand Daoism. We need to be careful when we see that Confucius is part of the story: Zhuangzi may be criticizing him or using him and his name. Remember too that almost all the stories in the Zhuangzi are completely imaginary. With Zhuangzi pretending that Confucius was a Daoist and also telling anti-Confucian jokes and stories, it is a wonder to me that Confucians did not just strangle him.

Anti-Mohists The other major group of the time was the Mohists (see Chapter One). If you remember, in simple terms, the Mohist position was that “good is useful and useful is good.” Zhuangzi, as we shall see below, will attack that idea. The text also criticizes Mozi’s idea that things like funerals and music are useless. Describing Mozi as opposing both grief and joy, the Zhuangzi says that people want to sing, but Mozi says we must not; we want to cry, but Mozi says we must not. One wonders if Mozi was even a human being.15 Zhuangzi, however, is very much influenced by the later Mohist and Logicians’ discussion of language and logic and, as we shall see, Zhuangzi knows all the technical terms and arguments – he will just overturn them all.

Being Useless Basic to the Mohist system is the idea that what is good is useful and what is useful is good. Zhuangzi attacks this directly by first arguing that the term “useful” depends on the situation and, second, that it is better to be totally useless. 116

Authors and Texts Zhuangzi tells a number of stories about how usefulness depends on the situation. In a conversation with his friend Hui Shi (see Chapter One), Hui Shi tells Zhuangzi that he has some impossibly big gourds (gourds are vegetables, related to squash and melons, that can be hollowed out and used as cups or bowls). Because the gourds were too big, Hui Shi could not fill them with anything and so be able to use them, so Hui Shi just smashed them. Zhuangzi tells him that he could have used them as a boat or as a float he could tie to himself when he went swimming. Hui Shi could not see that the gourds were useful, not for their usual purpose, but useful for something else. This, Zhuangzi continues, is like an ointment developed by a family to prevent their hands getting chapped when they were washing silk. A stranger came along, bought the recipe for the ointment, and used it for soldiers fighting in the winter. The stranger was rewarded by the king. The ointment worked for chapped hands in both cases, but one used it to make a living, one used it to get a big reward.16 The usefulness of a thing depends on how one can imagine uses for it and what the situation is. The proposition that what is useful is good is not written in stone: usefulness depends on how we see things. The Mohist agenda has already decided what it will consider as useful and thus as good. These are all measureable things like wealth, food, housing, and clothing. Zhuangzi argues that this agenda is based on a point of view where useful things are quantifiable things. There may well be other things, like music, that can be seen as useful too. Zhuangzi’s second argument is that being useful is not a good thing. He tells a story about a tree that is useless, Ziqi of Nanbo was wandering on Shang mountain. He saw a very odd tree that was so big that thousands of horses could stand beneath it and be shaded by its leaves. “What kind of tree is this? It must have extraordinary timber.” However, when he looked up at the smaller branches, he saw that they were all twisted and not suitable to cut into beams. Looking down at the tree’s trunk, he saw that it was so gnarled that you could not even make coffins from it. If you licked a leaf, it stung the mouth and left a sore; one sniff of a leaf would make

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Decoding Dao you drunk for three days. “This tree is really useless,” said Ziqi, “and that is why it has grown to be so big. This is the unusable-ness that the spiritual man makes use of.”17

The tree is useless, worthless. Zhuangzi points out that trees like that are left alone: they are not chopped down because their wood cannot be used for lumber. Useful trees are killed. Similarly, animals with deformities cannot be sacrificed in religious rites. So, useless things live out their natural lifespans while useful things are used up.18 This applies to people too. Zhuangzi describes a person who is “useless” because he is crippled, yet he works at the jobs he can find sewing and washing. When the army comes to conscript ablebodied men, they do not take him. When the authorities come to force men into a big labor project, they do not take him either. As a result he is able to live out his natural lifespan.19 Zhuangzi says, “Everybody knows how to use the useful, but nobody knows the usefulness of the useless.”20 Our cultures teach us that we must become adult, useful people. That is why we get an education and a job. We can pay taxes, buy things to support the economy, and go off to war when our governments call us. How useful we are, just like the concrete blocks used in buildings. Zhuangzi tells us that being useless is much better because it allows us choice and allows us to live out our natural lifespan. To the Mohist proposition that what is useful is good, Zhuangzi replies that this is not a clear proposition because being useless is better than being useful. As well, usefulness depends on the situation and the need. Usefulness is tied to point of view.

Point of View Zhuangzi spends a lot of time talking about point of view. Some animals sleep in bogs, some in trees. Human beings would find it difficult to do either. Deer eat grass and hawks like to eat mice. We would not want to eat either of those things. Monkeys think other monkeys are sexy, fish think other fish are sexy. Human beings do 118

Authors and Texts not. So, in all these cases, Zhuangzi asks, who knows the proper place to sleep, the proper food to eat, and the proper partner to have sex with? While we may think someone good looking, a deer would run away from them in panic. Different standards of beauty depend on different points of view.21 There is no way to make a single universal judgment that applies to all creatures. That is because our knowledge is relative based on our limited experience. In the first section, Zhuangzi talks about a mushroom that sprouts in the morning and dies by the evening. It would know nothing of the cycle of night and day. An insect that lives only in the summer would know nothing about winter. “Small knowledge cannot match large knowledge.”22 We can only know what our senses and experiences tell us. It was only last year that researchers discovered that elephants talk to each other. Researchers were using microphones that picked up the elephants’ low resonance voices, sounds that human beings could not hear unaided. Apparently, elephants have been talking to each other all this time and we had no idea. As Zhuangzi says, our lives have a limit in terms of experience and what our senses and brains can tell us. Zhuangzi says, “My life has a limit, but knowledge has no limit. To use what is limited to chase after what is not limited is dangerous. That is why, if we still go after knowledge, we are in danger.23 He is not saying we should not try and know things. He is saying that we have no way to know everything and trying to know everything is bad for us. We also have a problem knowing reality with any absolute proof. One of the most frequently quoted, and most misunderstood, passages, in the Zhuangzi is about Zhuangzi dreaming: Once Zhuang Zhou (joe) dreamed he was a butterfly, spirits flying, he was a butterfly flittering about. He did not know about Zhou. When suddenly he awoke, he was Zhou, solid and aware. He does not know whether he is Zhou who dreams he is a butterfly or a butterfly who dreams he is Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some difference. This is called the transformation of things.

Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly and felt completely like a butterfly. Then the butterfly woke up and was clearly and 119

Decoding Dao physically Zhuangzi. In the dream, the butterfly was sure it was real; awake, Zhuangzi is sure he is real. Clearly, the butterfly and Zhuangzi are different. What is the way one can distinguish one reality from the other? On what basis do we make judgments that are certain? All our judgments are based on a point of view that is changeable.24 Reality, or what we call reality, is based on our perception of it. Zhuangzi is not saying we do not see reality when we are experiencing it, he is saying that when we are sure, absolutely sure, we know reality, we are wrong. Added to all of this is the problem of actually defining who the “I” is that makes the judgments about reality. Mencius, the great interpreter of Confucius, had argued that human nature is good and from it grow the sprouts of goodness. The mind/heart then becomes the judge of good and bad behavior. It is the center of the person, the “I” of my decisions. Responding to this, Zhuangzi says that it is not clear to him what part of the self is in charge. He points out that he has bones, eyes, ears, a nose, and internal organs like the liver, kidneys, and heart. Which of them is the “I?” Why would we prefer one over the other? We cannot get along without most of them. Are they the servants of some “I?” Do they take turns being in charge and being servants? Where is this “I” to be found?25

This and That In Section Two of the Zhuangzi, there is a difficult passage discussing point of view that is based on the two words “this” and “that.” In order to understand it, and understand the arguments Zhuangzi will then make, we need to get straight in our minds what he is talking about. Generally, we use the word “this” to refer to things that are close to us. If you and I are sitting in a room and each of us has a book on the table, I will refer to my book, the one closest to me, as “this book.” I will refer to your book, the one further away, as “that book.” That is easy enough. However, if I stand up, walk over to your side of the table and look at my book, it has now become 120

Authors and Texts the one further away and I will call it “that book.” Same book, but my point of reference has changed, so “this book” has become “that book.” Zhuangzi says, “Everything has its ‘that,’ [when seen from a distance] everything has its ‘this’ [when seen from close up] . . . So it could be said that ‘that’ depends on ‘this’ and ‘this’ depends on ‘that.’ So it could be said that ‘this’ and ‘that’ give birth to each other.”26 That is not too hard, but there is more coming. Zhuangzi wants to include all sorts of other terms, birth and death, affirming and denying, and right and wrong along with his discussion of “this” and “that.” He says, When something is born, it must later die. If something dies, it must first have been born. When you affirm something, you deny something else. When you deny something, you affirm something else. When you say something is right, you are also saying something is wrong; when you say something is wrong, you are also saying something is right.27

Do not get upset; Zhuangzi is not saying here that right is wrong and wrong is right and there is no way to tell the difference – or at least not yet. He is using the “this/that” model to show that, when we affirm something – capital punishment is wrong – we deny something else – capital punishment is right. Whenever we say something is right or wrong, we are, at the same time, saying the opposite is wrong or right. This works the same way as “this” and “that.” The big question is, does “right/wrong” depend on point of view as much as “this/that?” Zhuangzi continues this passage, Sages do not do this sort of thing, [accept the absolute opposites described above], but see things in the light of nature. They see “this” as “that” and “that” as “this.” “This” contains right and wrong; “that” contains right and wrong. Then is there really a “this” and a “that?” Is there really no “this” and no “that?” The place where there is no “this” and no “that” that are opposites is called the hinge of dao. When the hinge fits into the socket, it can move back and forth infinitely. It can move endlessly to right and endlessly to wrong. So I say that the best thing to use is clarity.28

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Decoding Dao The big question was, does “right/wrong” depend on point of view as much as “this/that?” What we get, instead of an answer, is the image of a door, swinging open and swinging closed on its hinges. Zhuangzi says that sages look at this/that, birth/death, affirming/denying, right/wrong, not as firmly entrenched opposites, but as possibilities depending on whether one swings the door open or closed. His final sentence, to use clarity in all things, is one we find throughout Section Two, and it is particularly infuriating. After he has taken us through such a difficult passage, it would have been nice if Zhuangzi himself had used some clarity. Is Zhuangzi a moral relativist? That is, someone who thinks that there are no absolute standards of right and wrong and that they just depend on point of view. We will discuss that question in Chapter Ten. For now, we need to know what he thinks about point of view, the limitations of knowledge and “this” and “that,” so that we can understand what he has to say about language in the next chapter. It is no accident that his discussion of point of view comes in the same Section Two where we find some heavy-duty weirdness in his discussion of language.

Knowing How If Zhuangzi is going to critique the judgments we make on the basis that they are merely point of view, he will have to talk about how we know things and how really knowing things works. For Zhuangzi, the best knowing is “knack” knowing (sometimes translated as “intuition”). Zhuangzi tells us the story of Cook Ding, who is an expert butcher. When Lord Wenhui admires Cook Ding’s skill, Cook Ding says, What your servant loves is dao, this is beyond just skill. When I first started to carve oxen, I saw only the whole ox. After three years, I no longer saw the whole ox and now I look at it with my spirit, not my eyes. My senses stop and my spirit moves along. I follow the natural lines, I am guided by the main joints, and go by the self-so-ness of

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Authors and Texts what is there . . . A good cook changes his cutting knife once a year because he chops; a regular cook changes his cutting knife once a month because he whacks. I have had this blade of mine for nineteen years and used it to carve thousands of oxen, but its edge is as fresh as the day it came from the grindstone . . . When I come to a tricky spot that I know will be difficult, I slow down and I am careful. I focus my eyes and slow down my movements. You barely see the flick of the knife when all at once the flesh is cut, like a clump of earth sliding to the ground. . . .

After this description of knack knowing, Lord Wenhui says, “Amazing. Listening to the words of my cook, I have learned how to nurture life.”29 When he first started, Cook Ding just saw the whole ox, but now that he has the knack he can cut without using his senses, his “spirit moving along.” The result is that his knife is as sharp as the day it came from the factory because he does not hack at the meat, but his blade moves through the spaces in the meat. Even with this skill, Cook Ding has to focus carefully when he comes to a difficult place.30 This kind of knack knowledge is a skill where the ego is not active. It is just done naturally, intuitively. This is Zhuangzi’s expansion of the idea of non-ego-acting that we saw in the Dao De Jing. The Zhuangzi describes a number of other people with skills at making wheels, woodworking, catching cicadas, piloting boats, and teaching dao, who are also described as having knack.31 We have seen this knack knowing described in the Dao De Jing, as well as wuwei, non-ego-acting. As we have seen, when you think of any activity you can do, typing, swimming, driving a car, or riding a bicycle where you do not think about the steps involved, but do automatically, you are doing non-ego-acting or knack knowing. And, unlike the material we learned in Psych 101, once we learn how to ride a bicycle, we never forget how to do it. Knack knowing, whether riding a bicycle or tasting for the right ingredients in spaghetti sauce, becomes natural to us. We can learn knack skills, but once we do, they become second nature. Knack knowing is often not easily conveyed in language. A good baker 123

Decoding Dao knows by feel just when the dough is too dry but may be unable to tell anyone else just what that feeling is. Knack knowing performs actions correctly but is not ego involved and not based in language.

Knowing What Studies have shown that, if you test people who took an introductory psychology course at university 10 years after they took the course, they will do about as well as people who never took the course. Why is this? Zhuangzi argues that it is because book learning knowledge is artificial. We have to pound it into our heads and we lose the material very quickly. That is why it is so hard to study for a test and so easy to forget the material once the test or course is over. Artificial knowledge is not natural to us; if it was, we would be able to remember it as easily as we remember how to ride a bike. Artificial knowledge is language based. We hear the lecturer talk about the subject; we read textbooks on the subject. It depends on definitions, words, and artificially setting up divisions among things. If you have taken any university course, you know that half of the course is learning the jargon used in that particular discipline. Artificial knowledge tends to depend on rules, whether those are rules about how to do a proper statistical survey or how to dig a proper archeological trench. Zhuangzi says, “Dao has never been divided, while words have never been constant.”32 Knack knowing, non-ego-acting, does not depend on artificial learning. Artificial learning is based in words that are not “constant,” not eternal, not absolutely true. Artificial knowledge, he then says, is based on deciding a truth.33 Zhuangzi gives us a list of the ways in which artificial knowing divides dao. “There are left and right, theories, disputes, discriminations, and arguments.”34 Scholars, like Confucians and Mohists, set up basic definitions, develop theories, and then argue over them. That is why Zhuangzi says, “Words have never been constant.” The words 124

Authors and Texts of the Confucians and Mohists cannot be based on anything constant, eternal, because what they are trying to do is to divide dao. Artificial knowledge is less effective than knack knowledge because it is not based in anything really, absolutely reliable. Zhuangzi is not telling us that we cannot do mathematics or psychology or philosophy. He is telling us that we cannot be so sure of what we think we know. I am so old that I can remember as a child in grade school when we all looked at a map of the world and asked the teacher why Africa and South America looked like they had once fit into one another. We were ridiculed by the teacher, who said that this new theory of continental drift was nonsense – continents are huge and cannot move. That was what everyone knew was true. Now, of course, we know that continents have moved and continue to do so. This is what happens when we are sure of what we know using artificial knowledge. Children could see it, but the experts could not. Or rather, the experts could “see” it, but they refused the information of their eyes because their theories, the ones they had sworn an oath or made a solemn pact about, could not include it. They held on to them as an absolute truth. Two characters in the Zhuangzi have the following conversation, Gaptooth asked Wang Ni, “Do you know what everything agrees on as true?” Wang Ni said, “How would I know that?” Gaptooth then asked, “Do you know what it is you do not know? Wang Ni said, “How would I know that?” “Well, said Gaptooth, “does no thing know anything?” Wang Ni responded, “How could I know that? But, I’ll try to say something in answer. How can we know that what we call knowledge is not really ignorance and what we call ignorance is not really knowledge?”35

This is a typical Zhuangzi passage. We begin with a difficult enough question, “How can all of us know what is right – on what basis can we agree?” Given Wang Ni’s refusal to answer, the next question Gaptooth asks is, “Well, if you say you do not know, can you at least say there are things you do not know?” And, as you see, he gets no joy there either. So, if there is nothing we can say we 125

Decoding Dao know and we cannot say we do not know things, is there at least any possibility of knowing anything? This is difficult on this theoretical level, so let us try it with something more concrete. Is there any way to define life so that we would all agree on when life begins and when it ends? If we cannot do that, can we say that we know for sure there is no definition that will work to define the beginning and end of life? If we cannot do that, can we look at the methods we are using to see if there is any method we could use in order to answer the question of when life begins and ends? According to Zhuangzi the answer to all three questions is, “I do not know.” This is typical of Zhuangzi’s argumentation. As the passage continues, Wang Ni brings the discussion back to the point that everything we know is based on point of view and may be the height of ignorance. He then goes on, in the passage we saw earlier, to talk about how all things depend on point of view when it comes to places to sleep, food to eat, and what we find sexy. All of our “knowing what,” our artificial knowledge, is based on our point of view, our limited experience, and language that, as we shall see, is not on firm ground either. That does not mean we cannot proceed with what we think we know. It does mean that we cannot bind ourselves to it as if it were some ultimate truth, as if we had sworn an oath or made a solemn pact. Zhuangzi says that this artificial knowing is just prejudice. This is using the basic meaning of the word, to judge before the facts are in, to prejudge. Anyone, smart or stupid, can simply follow their prejudices. To take these prejudices as the absolute and utter truth, to, as Zhuangzi says, “insist on one’s rights and wrongs,” is as selfcontradictory as saying you are traveling to the south of China today but got there yesterday.36 We are sure we know what we are doing, we are sure we know how things work, and we are more than willing to debate and define. This brings us to one passage in the Zhuangzi that has driven people crazy for years. In it, Zhuangzi is attacking the Logicians, particularly the Logician Gongsun Long (see Chapter One). He was the one who argued that a white horse is not a horse because both “white” and “horse” are universals and cannot refer to a specific 126

Authors and Texts white horse. “White” is a quality or definition that can only exist by itself in the abstract, not the concrete. Zhuangzi’s famous response to this argument is, To use a quality/definition [white] to show that a quality/definition is not a quality/definition is not as good as using a non-quality/ definition to show that a quality/definition is not a quality. To use a horse to show that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using a non-horse to show that a horse is not a horse. The universe is one quality/definition and everything that exists is one horse.37

Well, the first thing we can do here is laugh. Zhuangzi has framed his response as a joke. Clearly, it would be better to use a leaf in order to prove the leaf is not white and a saucer to show that a saucer is not a horse. Zhuangzi sets this out to make all the logical “noises” that would be expected in this kind of argument and so he makes fun of the Logicians. The last line is the most interesting one and we will look at it again when we come to discuss Zhuangzi’s view of dao (see Chapter Seven). From the ultimate point of view, there are no qualities/definitions/divisions, so the whole cosmos is the horse. Zhuangzi’s more serious purpose behind this nonhorse statement is to show the futility of the definition-making and pseudodebates of his time. Once we have defined X as X, a definition we have artificially made and that stands on no really solid ground, going on to hotly debate the nature of X becomes a little silly. We can see that, because right after the non-horse passage, Zhuangzi says, “Affirming something comes from our affirming it; denying something comes from our denying it. A road gets made because people walk on it. Things are so because we call them so.”38 All of this fancy talk about qualities and universals depends on definitions we have made and language we have used. But this is simply social convention and, like the road, exists because that is what we decided on. We must not elevate this social convention to the status of absolute truth or at any point think that what we are debating has some absolute reality. That is when we get into trouble. 127

Decoding Dao Zhuangzi is not irrational – he is not even antirational. He is opposed to our believing that our rationality is ultimately true and then forcing that on to others. Zhuangzi describes someone who has reached the peak of knowledge as someone who knows what heaven, the universe, does and knows what human beings do. Knowing what the universe does means we can live according to it. Knowing what human beings do means we deal with what we do not know by working out answers from what we do know. This will allow us to live out our natural lifespans and not die unnaturally. This, Zhuangzi says, is the height of knowledge.39 We could do with a little more clarity here, too. Knowing what heaven or the universe does presumably means going along with dao. Knowing what human beings do means knowing our limitations and those of others. We can use what we do know to know other things – provisionally. This does not tie us to some ultimate truth that we have to go out and die for. The passage continues by noting that, even if we do this, there is still a problem and that is that knowledge has to depend on something in order for knowledge to be correct. The problem is that all things are unstable. As a result, it is difficult to know what is heaven and what is human.40 So even provisional knowledge, the perfect knowledge, is wobbly.

Summary The primary problem, for Zhuangzi, is the way human beings think and act. Waking or sleeping, we become entangled with things and fight against things and other people. We are so busy running around that we drown in what we do. The reason for this is that we all think we know true and false, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. We are certain of our definitions of truth as if we had sworn an oath and made a solemn pact. For Zhuangzi, the basis of desire that the Dao De Jing criticizes so much is the assumption of truth for whatever it is we desire and value. This is particularly true for our desire to be right and to know things for sure. 128

Authors and Texts The Confucians were particularly involved in this sort of thing. Having worked out a system of thought that they defined as right, they wanted to force that down everyone’s throat. Their opponents, the Mohists, were just as bad. Using rules of logic that they considered to be absolutely correct, they wanted to force everyone to follow what they believed. Zhuangzi counters the Mohist argument that useful is good by arguing that it is far better to be useless. That way, one can live out one’s natural life without being used. Zhuangzi argues that what we know depends entirely on our point of view. “This” and “that” are two words that depend on what point of view we have. Zhuangzi argues that they work just like other opposites: birth and death, affirming and denying, and right and wrong. We are further limited by artificial knowledge. Zhuangzi argues that “knack” knowing, non-ego-acting, is a better way to know things. With knack knowing, we do not get our egos involved; we do things smoothly and easily, and we never forget how to do them. Artificial knowledge is hard, easily forgotten, and involves us in theories, divisions, and ugly debates. This does not mean we cannot do artificial knowledge, it is just that, given its limitations, we should not be so very sure that we know what we are doing or that we are absolutely correct.

Notes   1  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 5.   2  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 5.   3  Another good example of posing a question and refusing to answer it is the first passage in Section 18, “Reaching Happiness.”   4  “That’s it/that’s not it” – see the discussion below and in Chapter Seven.   5  A passage discussing the nature of the true self is interpolated here. For a discussion of that passage, see the discussion in Chapter Seven.   6  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 13–14.   7  If we do not live up to standards, we are considered deformed or lacking, and this must be fixed. See section eight, “Webbed Toes.”

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Decoding Dao   8    9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24 

25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34 

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See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 40–41. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 46; 61. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 64. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 270–71. Compare Mair Wandering on the Way, 271–72. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 98f. See Mair Wandering on the Way, 94. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 336–37. We saw this passage before in Chapter One. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 7–8. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 38–39. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 8; 37–39. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 39–40. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 41. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 20–21. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 4. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 25. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 24. Here I am following Moeller’s translation and interpretation, “. . . the butterfly did not know about Zhou [Zhuangzi]. Suddenly it awoke – and then it was fully and completely Zhou [Zhuangzi]. One does not know whether there is a Zhou [Zhuangzi] becoming a butterfly in a dream or whether there is a butterfly becoming a Zhou [Zhuangzi] in a dream . . . ,” Moeller, Daoism Explained, 50. He also points out that the narrator is neither the butterfly nor Zhuangzi. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 13–14. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15–16. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 26–27. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 26–27. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 28–29; 176–77; 182–83. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 19. Literally, “It is by a ‘that’s it/that’s what it is’ that boundaries or definitions are made.” Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 19. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 18–19. Zhuangzi concludes by saying, “That is why, whenever there are big arguments, something is sure to have been left out.”

Authors and Texts 35  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 20–21. These two characters show up again in Section 7, where Gnaw Gap is described as being so happy at Wang Ni’s nonanswers that he ran off to tell his friend. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 66. 36  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 14. 37  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 16. 38  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 16. 39  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 51. 40  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 51–52.

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Chapter Seven

Chapter Contents Language: Convention and Culture—This/That, True/ False—Language Is OK, Up to a Point—How to Use Language—Clarity—Death—Transformation—Survival of Consciousness and an Afterlife—Immortality—Dao— Summary

We have seen Zhuangzi saying that when it comes to how we know things, we are on shaky ground. What we think we know is based on point of view. He will continue these lines of thought when he comes to talk about language and how we establish the word or name for something. Once we name things, how are we to judge them to be right or wrong? A discussion of language may not strike the reader at first as the most interesting, but it is central to what Zhuangzi is saying. If we are to make any sense of the very convoluted passages in the Zhuangzi’s Section Two, we need to understand his discussion of language.

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Authors and Texts

Language: Convention and Culture For Zhuangzi, and for many others in the Warring States era, it was clear that the words we use, the names we give things, are just convention. As we have seen Zhuangzi say, “A road gets made because people walk on it. Things are so because we call them so.”1 As we grow up, we learn our native language and, while doing so, we take in our culture’s assumptions about things. We learn what is important and what is secondary – adults and children are different in ways our culture sets out, as are men and women. We learn what is good and bad: killing someone in a war is legal; killing someone in civilian life is murder. We learn what is acceptable to talk about and what is not: in Western culture, you would not dream of asking someone how much money they make. So language is not just a straightforward means of communication: languages carry the definitions and distinctions that a culture makes over time. We learn these standards as we grow up and internalize them as what is normal and how we should think and behave. However, as Zhuangzi and others pointed out, that does not mean that language is based on Truth.

This/That, True/False We have seen Zhuangzi talk about “this” and “that,” saying that these are terms that depend on point of view – what is closer to me is “this,” what is further away is “that.” They are words that depend on context. This means they are not “constant” words, words that are based on something solid and eternal. The Mohists were busy trying to find definitions for things so that they could set up logical and reasoned arguments. If we define a horse as a mammal with four legs, as part of a certain genus and species, then the Mohists say we can “shi” (是 sure) this. They used shi to mean “is this,” “correct,” or “right.” If we define a horse as a reptile that can fly, the Mohists would say that is “fei”(非 fay), meaning “is not this,” “incorrect,” “false.” 133

Decoding Dao Zhuangzi plays a word game that is not always clear in an English translation, but can be seen in the Chinese. The word shi can mean “is this” or “true,” as we just saw, or it can mean “this.” So shi is the “this” of “this/that.” Zhuangzi then plays out his word games by pairing this/that with true/false, right/wrong. It may be of some comfort to you to know that Zhuangzi is just as confusing in the Chinese as in the English. Mohists were busy making their definitions by talking about how to make distinctions and arguing over the proper methods for defining and distinguishing things. Then they would be able to say that something is true and right, while other things are untrue and wrong. Then they would have a constant, eternal, and absolute Truth that applies to everyone. One of the problems with this, Zhuangzi says, is that we are not just defining a horse as a mammal with four legs and shi-ing that, saying that is true. We shi, affirm, whole truckloads of things. For example, if we shi, affirm, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are likely to also think that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair are great world leaders, that powers should intervene when their economic and security interests are threatened, and that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator who should have been overthrown for the good of the people in Iraq. If, on the other hand, we fei, reject, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are likely to also think that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair are war criminals, that the invasion of Iraq was only to ensure an oil supply for the West, and that the people of Iraq are even worse off now than they were under Saddam Hussein. We hold our shi or fei as truths from which we will not retreat, as if “sworn an oath or made a solemn pact.”2 Our behavior will follow our affirming and denying as we may go to a demonstration or counterdemonstration on these issues, buy or not buy from certain companies, and vote in ways that are part of our affirmations or denials. To this, Zhuangzi says, “What can cover up dao so that there can be true and false (shi and fei)? How can it be that words have gotten so murky that we have right and wrong (shi and fei)? Is it possible that dao has disappeared?”3 Making definitions and distinctions 134

Authors and Texts takes us into an artificial world where dao is hidden and we play games, thinking we know absolutely what is right and wrong and what we are talking about. Zhuangzi continues by saying, “Dao is hidden by the establishment of lesser things, words are covered over with jargon and eloquence. That is why we have the ‘that’s it, the true’ and the ‘that’s not it, the false’ of the Confucians and Mohists where what is true for one is false for the other.”4 Because we have lost dao and we have lost the original simplicity of words, we have disputes between groups who are sure they are right. Zhuangzi argues that when we take all the things that agree with us as “this” or “true,” we have two problems. First, we reject everything that is not part of our affirmation, our “this” and “true,” missing out on things that might be important. Second, and more fundamentally, whenever we shi, affirm, something, we are inherently fei-ing, denying, something else. As the Dao De Jing pointed out, accepting one thing must mean that we deny its opposite. This is a problem particularly in a world where things are in flux and where we can change our minds. And it gets worse. We argue vehemently with each other, all of us sure that we know the truth. In Warring States China terms, Zhuangzi says the Confucians want to say “true” to whatever the Mohists say “false” to, and, similarly, the Mohists want to say “true” to whatever the Confucians say is “false.”5 How can they ever agree? Zhuangzi points out that there is no way to settle an argument set up like this. If one side is right, the other must be wrong, but what if they are both wrong? If there is a judge who agrees with one side or the other, then that gives us no fair arbitration; if the judge agrees with neither side, he or she cannot make a decision. How can you have an argument to settle how to win arguments?6 On what basis of truth could a judge stand in order to decide which is true and which is false? It is so much easier to say, “that’s it,” “that’s true,” “I know the answer.” Then, we do not have to rethink the sides of the issues and include any new information. Our tendency is to hold on as if we had “sworn an oath, made a solemn pact.” 135

Decoding Dao

Language Is OK, Up to a Point Zhuangzi is not asking us to stop talking – heaven knows he could not have managed it himself. He disagrees with Shen Dao (see Chapter One), who argued that language is incapable of conveying real meaning and so should be abandoned. Zhuangzi says, Speaking is not just blowing air out of our mouths, speaking says something. The problem is that what it says is never fixed. If it is not fixed are we really saying something? Or have we never said anything? We may think that speech is different from the squawks of baby birds, but what is the proof of the difference? Or isn’t there any?7

Language is not just sound. Language does convey meaning and allows us to communicate. If we have no foundation on which to base the truth of our words, do our words have meaning or not? Words may convey more meaning than just the baby birds’ call for food, but how can we establish what that is? We run into trouble when we think that our words really describe what is going on and, in general, we should take them less seriously. We cannot reject words and language as Shen Dao and as some of the authors of the Dao De Jing may have. That is not only illogical (using language to say language conveys no meaning), but untrue because we do communicate with each other. What we must not do is cement things into rigid categories and concepts that we elevate into an absolute Truth. How did we get into this mess? Zhuangzi tells a story comparing the present with the past. In the Zhuangzi, as in the Dao De Jing, the present is not as good as the past: everything always goes downhill. Zhuangzi says that way back in the most ancient of times, people were at the state where there were no things. This sounds stranger than it is. He means people had not yet begun to define things and distinguish one from the other. Then, he says, people recognized things and named things, but did not distinguish among them. The next stage was when people distinguished among things but had not brought in the idea of “that’s it” and 136

Authors and Texts “that’s not it,” right and wrong, affirming and denying. When, almost inevitably, we began to shi and fei, say things were true and false, right and wrong, then dao was lessened and preferences and desires ruled.8 This is when we had to start talking about the nature of loyalty and humaneness and arguing about who has the right definition of them. We have seen this kind of devolution before in the Dao De Jing. Once we trapped ourselves in rigid concepts and truths, we had no way out because there is no solid ground for all this affirming and denying.9 Zhuangzi demonstrates this in a particularly convoluted passage in Section Two. He begins by saying that he is going to say something that may or may not be a shi, “this” or “true” statement, but it surely must fit some category. This should be sufficient warning that something very odd is coming. There is a beginning. There is something before that beginning. There is something before the something before that beginning. There is presence (being); there is absence (non-being). There is something that comes before there is absence; there is something before there is something before absence. Then suddenly there is presence and absence. But, when it comes to it, we still do not always know what is presence that is there and absence that is not there. So, I just said something, but I do not know if I have really said something or not.10

We use the word “beginning” with some confidence, but when we start to think about it, it becomes a slippery word. If X was the beginning of something, there must have been something that caused X, a Y, and further back something that caused the something that caused Y and so on. So what is “beginning”? The Dao De Jing tells us that things are made from absence and presence (being and non-being), but what caused them? Where did they come from? And what about things such as air – is it presence or absence? We now know about molecules and atoms, but even so, how much of air is presence or absence? Yet we talk all the time using terms such as “beginning,” “presence,” and “absence” as if we were absolutely 137

Decoding Dao sure we know what we are talking about and that we can put these things in certain categories. Zhuangzi asks us if we are really saying something – conveying truth – or not. All this affirming and denying rests on shaky grounds once we start to think about it.

How to Use Language Zhuangzi says that words convey meaning and we can use them that way. What we need is to know when to stop: “We have rabbit snares to catch rabbits, once you catch a rabbit, you can forget about the snare. Words exist for their meaning, once you’ve got the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find someone who has forgotten words so I can have a word with them?”11 Once meaning is conveyed, leave the words. Words, terms, and language must not trap us into thinking that we know what we are doing or that we have hold of some absolute truth. This does not sound easy, but actually, it is something most of us do much of the time. Zhuangzi says that we can make distinctions that stop at what they point out. These distinctions do not have to become rigid. Zhuangzi uses two technical terms to describe distinctions. The first is wei shi (為是 way, sure), literally, “to make it right/true/this.” This phrase has been translated as “artificial judgment,” or “this which deems,”12 or, heaven help us, “the that’s it which it deems.”13 What Zhuangzi means is the kind of distinction that thinks it is right, that it is based on truth, and that is absolute and rigid. The other kind of distinction is yin shi (因是 yin sure), literally, “because of or based on this.” This phrase is translated as “to judge accordingly,” “this-according-to-what-you-go-by,”14 and “the that’s it that goes by circumstances.”15 Yin shi are the fluid distinctions that we make as we go through the day, based on what we know, our experience, and common sense. These kinds of distinctions make no claim to having the absolute truth. They are changeable if there is new information or if we find a new way to think about them. These fluid distinctions are open to discussion. Most of us do this most of the time. 138

Authors and Texts Zhuangzi rejects disputes, which is strange given he is arguing with everyone. For Zhuangzi, disputes are arguments between true believers who are ready to fight to the death for their truth, their wei shi, their affirmations. This is the business of what Zhuangzi calls “cramped scholars.” Zhuangzi says that, while a sage embraces everything (such as the hinge of dao in Chapter Six), ordinary people make discriminations about everything and show off these discriminations to each other. “People who make discriminations are unable to see.”16 In his time, it was the Confucians and Mohists who argued viciously with each other. Not only were the disputes vicious, but they also led to each side idolizing their leader, wearing clothes signifying their faction, saying any number of nasty things about each other, and, in Zhuangzi’s terms, fei-ing everything and everyone in the opposite group.17 Instead of disputes, Zhuangzi prefers discussions.18 There we respect the person we are talking to and we do not see them as the enemy. We use temperate language and try, through discussion, to find a way to arrive at a yin shi, a fluid distinction, that is better than the one we have now. A fluid distinction is better because it is more thought out, not because it is more true. This kind of tolerant discussion provides us with distinctions that are the best we can do at the moment with what we know, our experiences, and our common sense. Discussions are based on tolerance and give us open-minded distinctions that we can proceed from.

Clarity Throughout Section Two, Zhuangzi repeats the phrase “the best thing to use is clarity.” What does he mean by “clarity?” He says that when dealing with the fight to the death between the Confucian and Mohists wrongs and rights, “. . . if we are going to affirm the things they deny and deny the things they affirm, then the best thing to use is clarity.”19 At the end of the passage we looked at in Chapter Six describing the hinge of dao, he says about the hinge: “It can move endlessly to right and endlessly to wrong. So I say that 139

Decoding Dao the best thing to use is clarity.”20 And he says that a sage “does not use a truth (wei shi), but leaves all things to the constant. This is called using clarity.” Clarity is coming to open-minded distinctions and positions through discussion. It does not mean that we do not know anything; it means that we do not pretend to know an absolute truth. All of this is very theoretical; how does it apply to us now? While the Confucians are still with us, the Mohists have long since gone. Still we live in societies where there are factions, people who absolutely believe in something and are more than willing to force others to follow that belief. The clothes they wear, the way they style their hair, the buttons, bumper stickers, and T-shirts with slogans show an allegiance to a group that believes. They have rigid distinctions based, so they say, on knowing an absolute truth of one sort or another. They are willing to demonstrate that belief in all sorts of ways from peaceful demonstrations to violence. They are completely cemented into their “this.” There are also people in our society who are not cemented into a position: people who are open to new ideas and new information and allow these things to change a position they may have held before. The real conflict in our cultures these days is not between two factions, as it was in Zhuangzi’s time, but between the true believers and the rest of us. Another way to see what Zhuangzi is talking about is to look at Karl Popper’s theories on open and closed systems.21 Popper was writing primarily about political systems, democratic versus totalitarian societies, but his approach works with systems of thought generally. A closed system is self-regulating, generally based on a belief in some supernatural power, some fundamental truth or operating system. It can explain everything in terms of its own system. Examples of closed systems include religions. Religions are straightforward about being closed systems because they are based on faith. How does a closed system work? No matter what happens in the world, a closed system can explain it without having to change the system. For example, if a child is very ill, the closed 140

Authors and Texts system followers will pray for the child. If the child gets better, the closed system explains that by saying the God or Guan Yin intervened to save the child. If, tragically, the child dies, the closed system can explain that, too. It was the will of God or the workings of karma. No matter what happens in the external world, a closed system can explain it. Closed systems are not limited to religions. Psychology is also a closed system. If you go to a therapist and tell him or her that you did not dream, that will have significance in the system the therapist is using. If you had a dream, but cannot remember it, that means something, too. If you had a dream, that will mean something depending on what strand of therapy your therapist follows. So, no matter what happens, the system can explain it. Political theories, such as communism, are also closed systems. Look around and you will find all sorts of closed systems and true believers. Open systems do not work this way. Science, in theory, is an open system. If you experiment and discover something, you develop a theory about it, then you publish those results. If someone in Australia does the same experiment, but does not get the same results, then the original theory must change or be discarded because the results cannot be verified. What happens in the outside world changes the theories and approaches in an open system. Theories or assumptions in an open system must change when things happen in the external world, be that a new discovery of Higgs boson, an early human skull in Romania, or geological strata in the ocean. Zhuangzi sees the theories of the Confucians and Mohists as closed systems, based on a truth or truths and able to explain anything that happens in the world. Zhuangzi says that, while there may be an absolute truth somewhere, we have no way to either know it or to talk about it. We cannot know it because our view of the universe is a limited view. We cannot talk about it because language comes from society and is already slanted and because language, like knowledge, is limited. Making definitions and distinctions, developing them into systems, and then disputing them with others is just ridiculous. It is just one closed system arguing with another. Instead, we should use clarity, an open system, that 141

Decoding Dao allows us to know things, but always provisionally. We can discuss and learn, but we cannot cling to a Truth that we have sworn an oath or made a solemn pact about.

Death We expect that those who set themselves up as wise men will have some ideas about death and what happens after it. Zhuangzi does have theories, lots and lots of them: in some places, he argues that death is transformation; he also seems to say that there is a self or consciousness that survives; that there is an afterlife; and that people can become immortal. Basic to all these diverse theories is Zhuangzi’s usual approach that everything is based on point of view, How do I know that we are not deluded in loving life? How do I know that the fear of death is not like being an orphan who does not know the way home? When Lady Li (lee), daughter of the border warden of Ai (aye), first went to the state of Jin, she wept so much that her dress was wet with tears. But after she arrived at the king’s palace, shared the king’s couch, and ate his fine foods, she regretted that she had cried. How do I know that the dead do not regret that they ever had a hunger for life? Someone who enjoys a banquet in a dream at dawn, wakes to crying; someone who cries in a dream at dawn, may wake to happily go out hunting. When we dream, we do not know that we are dreaming. We may even be in the middle of a dream and interpret a dream we are dreaming. When we wake up then we know that we were dreaming. Only when we are fundamentally awake will we know that this is fundamentally a dream. Yet idiots think they are awake, so confident that they know what they are, be it a prince or a shepherd. Hopeless!22

Zhuangzi says that it could be that we are just abandoned orphans who cannot find the way home. Maybe death is better than this life. Perhaps both life and death are dreams. How would we know? Zhuangzi says, “Dao dumps a body on me, has me working 142

Authors and Texts throughout life, makes me take it easy in old age, and rests me in death. So, if I think life is good, for the same reason I think death is good.”23

Transformation Death may simply be transformation. We are born because it happens to be our time; we die because it happens to be our time.24 Zhuangzi talks about this in Section Six in a story where Master Yu has fallen ill. Referring to the illness that has bent his body he says, “The thing that creates things is making me all twisted like this!”25 Master Yu goes on to say that whatever it is that creates things will continue the process so that perhaps his left arm will become a rooster, then he will keep watch for the dawn. Maybe his right arm will become a crossbow to be used to get a bird to roast. Maybe his backside will end up being a wheel for a cart. If his spirit becomes a horse, then he will never need another way of getting around. Master Yu concludes by saying, I was given life because it was my time; I will give up this life because things move along in their course. If I am content with the time and settled on the course, then sadness and joy cannot enter. In the old days, this was called “being loosed from the chains.” Whoever cannot loosen themselves from those chains will be tied up even tighter by other things. It is not news that creatures do not win out against heaven.26

In a similar story following this one, Master Lai is on his deathbed. His friend, Master Li, says to him, “Wonderful how what makes things fashions and transforms us! What is it going to turn you into, where will you be sent next? Will it make you into a rat’s liver or a bug’s leg?”27 Master Lai repeats that passage we saw earlier, saying that if we think well of our life, we must think well of our death. He then says that he cannot very well insist on being human, having had a chance at human life already. 143

Decoding Dao This is the transformation of the body into its constituent parts that then go on to be parts of a rooster or of a rat’s liver. When we die, the bacteria in our bodies continue their work. There are about 10 times as many bacterial cells in our bodies than there are human cells, most of them in the gut and on the skin. They break down the body in the process of putrefaction, recycling the nutrients into soil, plants, and animals. In an imaginary discussion between Zhuangzi and his followers about Zhuangzi’s funeral, Zhuangzi says to his followers that if they bury his body, the insects will eat it; if they leave the body above ground, the birds and animals will eat it. Why should his followers be partial to one group or the other?28 The process of life and death cycles on and this is how Master Lai may become part of a rat’s liver or a bug’s leg. Life and death are transformations.

Survival of Consciousness and an Afterlife In the process of these transformations, is there a self that survives into the next transformation and is conscious? Master Lai ended his speech by saying, “. . . I imagine heaven and earth as a great forge and that which makes and transforms things as a skillful blacksmith. I’m fine with going wherever they send me. I’ll fall into a sound sleep and wake suddenly.”29 This passage hints at a consciousness that continues beyond death, as do others in this section. In the Outer Chapters, there is a story about Zhuangzi explaining why he is not mourning his wife’s death. He says that she came to this life through a series of transformations, now she “sleeps peacefully in a vast room.”30 As we have seen, Zhuangzi says, “How do I know that the dead do not regret that they ever had a hunger for life?”31 Throughout the text, we find hints that indicate a belief in a consciousness that continues on, no matter what transformations the body undergoes. This would mean that a self, with all its memories, continues on after death. Whether this was a belief or a just a way of talking, no one knows.32 144

Authors and Texts Some stories in the Zhuangzi point to an afterlife. In one story, Zhuangzi sees a skull by the side of the road. He runs through reasons why the person might have died: possibly the person was a rich and greedy man who was murdered; maybe the person was a traitor and executed; maybe the person betrayed his family; maybe he just starved and froze to death at the side of the road; maybe it was just that his time was up. Zhuangzi uses the skull as a pillow and the skull appears to him in a dream. The skull says that all the possible reasons Zhuangzi has given for his death have to do with the burdens of life. The afterlife, says the skull, is not like that. There are no rulers or subjects; there is no work to do; things are leisurely and pleasant. Zhuangzi does not believe him and asks if he is sure that he would not want life back again. The skull says he most certainly would not. Why he would want the labors of life back again?33 So there is certainly a great deal of material in the Zhuangzi that points to an afterlife beyond this one.

Immortality Immortality means that one never dies but continues to live, in some form, eternally, or at least for a very long time. Certainly in Zhuangzi’s time, there were stories about people who attained immortality, and there were people who taught and practiced certain techniques meant to make one immortal. Immortality is a subject scholars study and debate, as we will see in Chapter Ten. There are passages throughout the Zhuangzi that criticize the search for immortality. In Section One, Zhuangzi describes a man who lived for 700 years and says, “Isn’t it a shame that people try to be like him?”34 Zhuangzi describes great teachers in Section Six who are successful because they were able to live out a natural lifespan and not get themselves killed in midlife.35 Further on in this section, it says, “The true person of old did not know how to celebrate life and did not know how to hate death. They were neither pleased to be born nor reluctant to die. They were as happy to leave 145

Decoding Dao just as briskly as they had come.”36 Life and death come naturally, and it would be going against dao to try to live forever. There is another anti-immortality story in Section Nineteen of the Outer Chapters: “In the state of Lu, there was a man named Chan Bao who lived in the cliffs, drank only water, and did not contend with people for profit. He reached the age of 70, yet his complexion was like a child’s. Unfortunately he ran into a hungry tiger that killed him and ate him.”37 In Section Nineteen of the Outer Chapters, immortality techniques are criticized. “When life comes, there is no way to turn it down; when life goes, there is no way to stop it. It’s too bad that there are people in the world who try to nourish the body in order to hold on to life.”38 Despite this, there are many figures in the Zhuangzi who are described as having wonderful powers. In a description of one of these ultimate people, Zhuangzi says that even if it was so hot that marshes were burning, he would not even feel the heat. If all the rivers iced over, he would not feel cold. Lightening would not injure him. “He yokes the vapor of the clouds to ride, mounts the sun and moon, wanders outside the four seas. Life and death cannot change him, so benefit and harm can hardly touch him.”39 Zhuangzi calls these people “true man,” or “perfect man,” or a number of other things, but many of them seem to have the ability to not go through the transformations of life and death. We will look at the different kinds of perfected people in the Zhuangzi in Chapter Eight, but many of them are described in extravagant ways. They lean on the sun and moon, wander beyond the universe, or tuck the universe under their arm. They are companions of that which creates things and live in the qi that joins heaven and earth.40 How much of this did Zhuangzi believe was possible? In Section Six, Zhuangzi describes the true man of old who, as we saw above, was neither fond of life nor worried about death and who was born and died with ease. In part of that description, Zhuangzi says that the true man of old was not part of the rat race and did not try to risk his life being brave. As a result, Zhuangzi says, the true man of old could climb to high places without being scared, enter water 146

Authors and Texts without getting wet, and walk through fire without feeling hot. He says, “Only someone who has the knowledge to climb the heights of dao can be like this.”41 In his description of people who are companions of dao, he says that these people look at death “. . . as the bursting of a boil, draining of an abscess of its pus. Why would they know life from death or before from after?”42 So, does Zhuangzi think that immortality is real? It is very difficult to answer that question. We could probably say, with safety, that he thought it was a possibility. The problem is that he also saw the possibility that human beings die and transform naturally. It is also possible that there is some survival of the self or consciousness after death. It is also possible that there is a world in which the dead continue to exist. All these things are possible.

Dao Zhuangzi does not describe dao as dao, he tends to use phrases with dao in it: “.  .  . extreme dao, mysterious dao, heavenly dao, ancient king’s dao, its, his, or their dao, emperor’s dao, sage’s dao, government dao, moral dao, long life dao, and the master’s dao.”43 This usage is more like the way dao is used in other texts of the Warring States era than like the Dao De Jing. Zhuangzi is using “dao” in the same way as most people in his time to mean discourse or doctrine. He also uses dao when he talks about language, naming, and affirming and denying.44 Zhuangzi also seems to reject the idea that dao is one. In an argument with the Logician Hui Shi (see Chapter One), we can see how Zhuangzi defeats Hui Shi’s monism. Monism is the position that all of the different things in the universe are really a single thing or reality. An example is the Hindu belief in Brahman. Brahman does not change and is eternal; it is the reality that is the ground of all material and mental things, time and space, and all things in the universe. (Christianity is not monist – there is a difference between God and God’s creation.) The single entity, such as Brahman, manifests itself in different things. 147

Decoding Dao We do not know a lot about Hui Shi, but some of his thought is in the Miscellaneous Chapters of the Zhuangzi. He is described as proposing a series of paradoxical statements such as “once the sun is at its height at noon, it declines; as soon as something is born, it is dying.” Depending on our point of view, even a newborn baby is in the process of dying. Some of Hui Shi’s paradoxes depend on point of view (there is no longer life than that of a child who dies as a baby); others depend on how we can define things; others on showing there is no place to make distinctions that can be logically upheld. For example, “south is a limitless concept, but it can be limited.” If we go south on the globe long enough, we begin to go north, but how can we logically limit the word “south”?45 You can see why Hui Shi and Zhuangzi were friends. Hui Shi always loses his arguments with Zhuangzi in the Zhuangzi; perhaps if Hui Shi had written his own book, he would have won more of them. Hui Shi ends his paradoxical statements with a conclusion, “Heaven, earth, and I were born at the same time and everything in the universe is one with me.”46 For Hui Shi, there is a single something that underlies all the things of the universe. It is this last statement that Zhuangzi challenges. If all things are already One, what is there I can say? Since we called things “One,” is that without words? One and the saying of it makes two. Two [the One, and the saying it] and one [saying that I am saying it] make three. Proceeding from here, even the smartest accountant could not manage, let alone an ordinary person. If we go from absence (non-being) to presence (being) we get to three [absence, presence, and saying it], and how much worse will it get if we take the step from something to something? We do not need to do this at all if we understand the yin shi, judging accordingly, going by circumstances, provisional truth.47

If indeed all things are “One,” then saying so defeats the statement. To hold on to the idea that all things are one locks us into a position. It is better if we provisionally know things because, as we can see here, trying to use language to argue for an absolute position 148

Authors and Texts does not work at all. If we cannot say all things are one, is there anything we can say or think? Even when an absolute discrimination [a wei shi] picks out a blade of grass and distinguishes it from a pillar or distinguishes a hag from a great beauty, or defines things as peculiar or incongruous, dao interchanges them and makes them one. However divided, they become complete. Whether forming or dissolving, all things return to one. Only people who can see right through things know how things interact and are one. They do not use an absolute discrimination [wei shi] but find things all together. Provisional knowledge [yin shi] comes to an end and when it is at an end and we do not know that it is, we call it dao.48

Zhuangzi argues that no matter how we have named things as opposites, beautiful and ugly, it is dao that makes them all one. Things may be divided or put together with other things, but in the end, dao makes them one. Anyone who understands how this/that and discriminations work can see this. To see how dao brings everything into one, but not to define it, is true knowing. This is what we call dao. Again, a little more clarity would be nice. Zhuangzi does clear this up a bit by telling a story right after this passage. The monkey keeper said to the monkeys that he would give them three nuts in the morning and four nuts in the evening. The monkeys were furious. “All right,” said the keeper, “I will give you four nuts in the morning and three nuts in the evening.” The monkeys were delighted. As Zhuangzi points out at the end of this story, the total number of nuts did not change; only the monkeys’ attitudes changed. The discriminations and solid opinions differed, but the reality remained the same. So the sage, Zhuangzi says, harmonizes right and wrong, this and that, in the hinge of dao. “This is called working both sides of the street.”49 Things may indeed be one: dao makes everything into one. But to say it, indeed apparently even to think it, is to contradict the 149

Decoding Dao statement and to not see clearly. This is why I was uncomfortable about using the form, “the Dao,” in this text. It is a form that assumes a single, central, and really important entity. According to the Zhuangzi, this may be an incorrect way to think about dao. There is only one place in the Inner Chapters where Zhuangzi describes dao. In Section Six, he begins by saying that there are signs of dao’s existence, but dao does not ego act and has no form or shape. We may “get it” – that is, understand it – but it cannot be held on to. It has its own root and was before heaven and earth. Dao is what gives power to ghosts and spirits and what gave birth to heaven and earth. Dao is beyond the highest thing but cannot be called high; it is beneath the lowest thing and cannot be called low. It was before heaven and earth but cannot be called ancient; dao has been around forever but cannot be called old.50 This is a description very much like the sort of thing we read in the Dao De Jing. The structure of the sentences is to say “dao is X, but not X” and that is the same sort of paradoxical language we saw earlier. Like the Dao De Jing statements, it needs to be decoded. Zhuangzi continues this passage by doing something we never see in the Dao De Jing. He lists 13 things or people who “got dao.” The sun and moon have dao and so have never rested; the North Star or Pole Star has dao and so it has never moved in the sky. The people who attained dao are entirely mythical. Fuxi (foo, she), for example, was thought to be the first ancestor. He is a mythical sageking from very ancient times who was said to have set up the trigrams for the Yi Jing, the Book of Changes. The Yellow Emperor, who we will see again in Chapter Nine, was one of the sage-kings who was able to become immortal and ascend into heaven, as the Zhuangzi says (see Chapter One). The Queen Mother of the West (Xi Wang Mu 西王母 she wahng moo) is a very ancient mythological figure, possibly a version of the mother goddess. She has snakes in her hair and is surrounded by birds and tigers. Her figure will become important in the search for immortality later (see Chapter Ten). Many of the others we do not know.51 Surely this is a strange thing for Zhuangzi to do and no one is sure why he wanted to list people and things with dao. We can note 150

Authors and Texts though that all the people lived long ago and that in each case attaining dao gave them their de, their power or virtue. Zhuangzi does some strange things with the idea of dao. For example, he refers to dao as the “great lump” or “great clod.”52 In that passage we saw earlier, Zhuangzi literally says, “The great lump dumps a body on me, has me working throughout life, makes me take it easy in old age, and rests me in death. So, if I think life is good, for the same reason I think death is good.”53 We have already seen one of the best Zhuangzi stories about dao. It was probably not written by Zhuangzi, but can be found in the Outer Chapters, Section Twenty-Two. Here, a not very bright Master Dongguo asks Zhuangzi, “This dao thing, where is it?” and Zhuangzi replies, “There is no place where dao is not.” Master Dongguo asks for an example. Zhuangzi tells him dao is in the ants and Master Dongguo is shocked. “In a stupid little thing like an ant!?” Zhuangzi responds, “Yes, dao is in grass too.” Master Dongguo cannot believe it. “That’s even less important!” “Dao is in the dirt and stones,” says Zhuangzi. “Impossible!” says Master Dongguo. “Dao is in the shit and piss,” said Zhuangzi. Master Dongguo made no reply.54 Master Dongguo is looking for dao that is some bright, shining Something out there and that is not what he gets. There is another story that is related to dao. It is a story about Chaos, Hundun (混沌 h-wun d-wun). Chaos has a bad reputation – it is disorder, mess, something we fight against. For Zhuangzi, chaos is far more sympathetic. The story begins by saying that the Emperor of the South was named Shu (shoe) meaning “brief, short” and the Emperor of the North was named Hu (who), “sudden, quick.” Victor Mair brilliantly translates their names as “Lickety” and “Split.” Lickety and Split often met in the central region of Hundun, Chaos. Hundun always treated them very well, and so Lickety and Split wanted to repay Hundun for being so kind. They said, “Everyone has seven holes so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe [two eyes, two ears, one mouth, two nostrils], only Hundun has none. Let us bore holes in him.” So they did. They bored one hole every day, and on the seventh day, Hundun died.55 The two emperors want to repay kindness with kindness. But, with the 151

Decoding Dao violence human beings so often show, they decide what Hundun needs and, natural to him or not, they drill their expectations into him. Like many human attempts to “make things better,” it ends in disaster. Hundun, like dao, freely offers us many of the things we need, but we insist on manipulating and regulating it and so kill it. This story is taken up by J. J. Clarke, who argues that modern chaos theory is close to what the texts describe dao as being. Chaos theory moves us away from seeing the world as a series of principles of order to the idea that things develop spontaneously. Things come out of chaos, interact in temporary structures, and then dissolve back to chaos again. Our texts describe dao where the movements of qi create things spontaneously, and then all things return to dao. This has led some to also compare what we find in our texts with process thinking or modern evolutionary theories.56

Summary Zhuangzi argues that too often we use words to make distinctions and definitions that are artificial, but which we take as absolutely true. Then, we argue with each other, each of us convinced we are holding on to the truth. Zhuangzi does not reject the use of language: language is fine up to a point. Once we have used words to convey meaning, we should not then hold on to those words and make them into truths. Doing so is what he calls “wei shi,” making things right or true. Simply using words to convey meaning, knowing that the words and the truth they represent is provisional, is “yin shi,” going by circumstances, making fluid distinctions. That is what he means by “using clarity.” In other words, Zhuangzi is rejecting closed systems in favor of open systems. When it comes to talking about death and what may happen to us after death, Zhuangzi has many views. He says that for all we know, death is better than life: fearing death may simply be a reflection of an incorrect point of view. Death may be a transformation where the atoms and molecules in our bodies move to become other things, such as a rat’s liver or a bug’s leg. There may be some 152

Authors and Texts survival of consciousness after death, some way in which we and our memories survive intact. It may also be possible to be immortal, to live forever, and be able to ride the clouds. Curiously, for someone who is supposed to be a Daoist, Zhuangzi says very, very little about dao. He does some mental gymnastics to show that we cannot say all is one, but then goes on to argue that dao makes all things into one. Zhuangzi, unlike the authors of the Dao De Jing, is happy to give us a long list of people and things who “got dao.”

Notes   1  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 31.   2  I have updated the example used by Chad Hansen in “A Tao [Dao] of Tao [Dao] in Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi],” in Victor Mair, ed. Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983), 34.   3  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15.   4  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15.   5  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15.   6  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 23. For a good discussion of this, see Steve Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 154–58.   7  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 14–15.   8  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 17.   9  See Hansen, “A Tao [Dao] of Tao [Dao] in Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi],” 36–38. 10  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 18. 11  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 277. 12  Graham, Disputers of the Tao [Dao], 189–90. 13  Angus C. Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Inner Chapters (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2001) (reprint; 1981), 9f. 14  Graham, Disputers of the Tao [Dao], 189–90. 15  Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi], 288. 16  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 19. 17  See Dan Lusthaus,“Aporetic Ethics in the Zhuangzi,” 200. 18  Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi], 12. See Dan Lusthaus, “Aporetic Ethics in the Zhuangzi,” 200.

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Decoding Dao 19  See Mair, Wandering on the Way,15. 20  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15–16. 21  Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge, 1945), 2 vols. See especially volume 1. An open society, he says, is one that is democratic, inclusive, and encourages freedom of thought. A closed society is tribalist and based on a belief in a central doctrine, like Nazi Germany or communist Russia, it allows for only one version of reality. 22  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 22–23. “The test that one holds fast to the Beginning [dao] is the fact of not being afraid.” See also Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi], 77. 23  Not translated in Mair’s Section 6, although this passage is repeated in Mair, Wandering on the Way, 59. Compare Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi], 80, and Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: the Inner Chapters, 86. 24  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 28. 25  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 58. Watson translates zao wu zhe as “the Creator” and Mair as “the Creator of Things,” but the construction does not have to refer to a person or, in this case, some supernatural power. It can just be “the thing that creates things” as I have translated it here. The phrase is unique to Zhuangzi. 26  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 58. 27  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 59. 28  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 332. 29  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 59. 30  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 169. 31  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 22. 32  For a good discussion of this, see Paul Rakita Goldin, “A Mind-Body Problem in the Zhuangzi,” in Scott Cook, ed. Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 226–47. 33  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 170. 34  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 4. 35  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 51. 36  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 52. 37  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 179. 38  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 174. See also, “The body of a sage peacefully passes on and that is all there is to it.” Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 196.

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Authors and Texts 39  40  41  42  43  44 

45 

46  47  48  49  50 

51  52  53 

54  55  56 

Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 21. See also Mair, 7 and 43. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 60. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 52. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 60. Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 268. This led Chad Hansen to argue that, particularly in the crucial Section Two, Zhuangzi is not talking about a single, mysterious “Dao.” Instead, Hansen argues that dao was originally a word for doctrine or discourse. For example, the Confucian dao was both spoken in teaching and written in texts said to be from the ancient sage-kings. This dao was meant to show model patterns of behavior for individuals and for society. Hansen argues that we completely misunderstand the use of the word “dao” when we start thinking of it as a single, mysterious entity. Hansen’s theories are controversial, but it is true that we find very little in the Inner Chapters specifically on dao. This is Hansen’s argument throughout A Daoist Theory, see especially 269–71. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 344. Hui Shi’s statement here is rendered as, “If there is widespread love of all the things in the universe, then heaven and earth are one.” This last chapter, definitely not written by the Zhuangzi of the Inner Chapters, gives summaries of many contemporary thinkers. For Hui Shi, see Mair, Wandering on the Way, 343–47. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 18. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 18–19. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 16–17. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 16–17. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 55. Section Sixteen in the Outer Chapters repeats the history of the loss of dao as we see it described in the Dao De Jing; see Mair, Wandering on the Way, 149. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 56. “Great Clod” is the way Watson translates this. Not translated in Mair, although this passage is repeated in Mair, Wandering on the Way, 59. Compare Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi], 80, and Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: the Inner Chapters, 86. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 217. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 1. See Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 63–68.

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Chapter Eight

Chapter Contents Public Life—The Golden Age—What Should We Do?— Mirror—Forgetting—Mind/Heart Fasting—Perfected People—The Relationship of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi—Summary

Public Life The Zhuangzi is the only text from the Warring States era that is not written as advice for rulers. Zhuangzi was not interested in setting out rules for reforming rulers and their governments, and he wrote directly to the individual. The Zhuangzi’s jaundiced view of politics is reflected in a saying in the text that has become a common Chinese proverb: steal a belt buckle and be executed; steal a state and become a king.1 Zhuangzi’s rejection of politics and political office is reflected in a story in the Outer Chapters, Section Seven-

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Authors and Texts teen. The king of the state of Chu offered Zhuangzi a government job. Zhuangzi asked about a sacred tortoise now reverently kept in the ruler’s ancestral shrine. “Do you think that this tortoise would rather be a dead tortoise and honored like this or would it rather still be alive, dragging its tail through the mud? . . . Go away, I’d rather be dragging my tail in the mud too.”2 In the Inner Chapters, Section Seven, we see two stories that reject the usual ways of talking about government. In the first, the idea that a ruler governs through laws and regulations is rejected. Instead, the ruler should allow all things to act according to their nature. In the second, when asked for advice about how to rule the world, a character named “Anonymous” calls the questioner a “low class lout” and tells him to go away. When pressed, Anonymous finally says, “Let your mind/heart roam in the unadorned, blend your qi with the everyday, follow the spontaneous naturalness of things and do not be selfish. Then the world will be well-governed.”3 All of this has led scholars to say that Zhuangzi had no interest at all in government or reforming society. This is generally true, but there are three conversations in Section Four where Zhuangzi is not discussing government reform, but is giving advice to scholar/bureaucrats who have to deal with difficult and dangerous rulers. In the first imaginary conversation, Yan Hui, Confucius’s favorite student, asks Confucius for advice in dealing with a dangerous and corrupt ruler. Confucius, speaking as a Daoist, points out that, unless one is centered in oneself, one can hardly offer advice to others. Most people take these government positions because they are looking for fame. They pretend to be wise, but this knowledge is only created by arguing with others. Both fame and false knowledge are “instruments of evil.”4 Forcing Confucian virtues on a ruler who only likes yes-men will get Yan Hui killed. The best Yan Hui’s Confucian approach will get him is that he will not be blamed. It is better not to be seduced by fame and to not force things.5 In a second, equally imaginary conversation, a noble is being sent on a diplomatic mission and he confesses to Confucius that he is sick to his stomach with worry. Confucius, again speaking as a 157

Decoding Dao Daoist, says that duty to one’s lord and to one’s parents are things that are fated, what we have to do. The best thing to do is to keep oneself whole, that is, alive and to not become entangled with joy and sorrow.6 The third story is simply advice to go along with whatever the ruler wants. Trying to stop a corrupt ruler is like a praying mantis waving its arms to stop a racing chariot. The mantis has an exaggerated estimate of its own powers. Similarly, a bureaucrat must avoid danger and be careful.7 The themes in these stories are clear. Anyone trying to reform the corrupt rulers of the time by teaching them Confucian virtues will likely be executed. The search for fame, reputation, and power entangles us with the ups and downs of public life. When we buy into the values of society, then we become a hostage to our successes and failures in life.

The Golden Age Like the Dao De Jing, the Zhuangzi contains sections describing a golden age. Like the Dao De Jing, the Zhuangzi tells us that in ancient times, people did not travel much, that they had enough to eat, had no writing system, did not make distinctions, and had no war. But, then along came the Confucian sages, marching along after humanity, stretching on tiptoe after rightness. So for the first time the world began to have doubts. Music became a flood; rituals picked things apart. So the first time the world was divided. Unless the uncarved wood had been carved, how would we have sacrificial cups? Unless the intact jade was split, how could we have scepters? Unless dao and de are smashed, how could we have humanity and rightness? .  .  . Destroying the uncarved wood to make cups is the fault of the carpenters; wrecking dao and de to make humanity and rightness is the fault of the Confucian sage.8

The author of this passage in the Outer Chapters goes even further than the authors of the Dao De Jing in blaming our fall from the golden age directly on the Confucians. This golden age theory 158

Authors and Texts must have been a common idea discussed by the authors of both of our texts.

What Should We Do? If we are not to enter public life, or at least to exercise extreme caution if we are in government, what should we do and how should we live? In one passage, Zhuangzi actually tells us what not to do in a relatively clear way. He says, “Do not die for fame.” We should not be so brave that we risk our lives, no matter how famous we may become after our death. “Do not be a storekeeper of schemes.” We should not plot and plan, looking only to our self-interest. “Do not take on projects.” Projects require ego–action and forcing our will on the world. “Do not consider yourself to be the master of knowledge.” We should not think we are in control, that we know everything. “Completely embody what has no end.” The only thing we know that is unending is dao. “Wander where there is no way.” A play on dao as dao and dao as road or way. “Completely hold on to what the universe has given you, but do not see that as having.” The universe gives us our lives and all sorts of things, but we should not hold on to them as “ours” and the act of holding on will get us into trouble. “Just be empty, that’s all.” Our question would be, empty of what? Of definitions and discriminations? Of ego? Of everything – how would that be possible? “A perfected person uses the mind/heart as a mirror. A mirror does not go after things and does not welcome things. It reflects things but does not store them up. That is how we can win out over things and not be hurt.”9

Mirror The mind as mirror image has struck almost all the readers of the Zhuangzi as one of the most important things Zhuangzi says. Many read it as meaning that we are to have no involvement at all with things and people in the world. We are as neutral as a mirror, just 159

Decoding Dao reflecting back what is presented to us. The mind/heart as mirror image may not be saying this. Remember that in Zhuangzi’s long rant in Section Two about what we are doing wrong (see Chapter Six), one of the major problems he says that we have is that we get entangled in things, we drown in what we do. It may be that the mind as mirror image is meant to show how not to get entangled in things, rather than not interacting with things at all. We will look at how people have debated this more in Chapter Ten. The mind/heart as mirror image may refer to the way we hold on to distinctions and definitions. We are sure we are right as if we had sworn an oath or made a solemn pact. We take extremist positions and lock ourselves into them, despising all of those who do not follow the certainty we have found. We find peace in our certainties. Once we lock ourselves into a position, once we accept society’s values, we do damage to ourselves and to everyone and everything around us. We are trying to force our will on the world. So, we have to be clear about what it is we think and the way we think about things. The mind/heart as mirror image may also be saying that we need to get rid of our emotions. In two consecutive passages in Section Five, Zhuangzi discusses emotions. In the first, he says that a sage has no need for false knowledge, convention, virtue as it was sold by Confucians, or making big profits in business. A sage “has a human form, but not human emotions . . . because he has no human emotions, right and wrong [shi and fei, that’s it and that’s not it] have no effect on him.”10 In the following passage, Zhuangzi has an argument with Hui Shi. Hui Shi objects to the idea that one could even be a human being and not have emotions. By definition, Hui Shi says, if you are going to call a person a human being, then they have emotions. Zhuangzi replies that this is not what he means. When he says a person should have no emotions, it means that we should not allow right and wrong (shi and fei) to harm our inner selves.11 These two passages have led scholars to reconsider the translation of the word qing (情 (rhymes with cling) as “emotion.” Qing can also mean the essence of a person and this may be what Zhuangzi 160

Authors and Texts is getting at here. It may be that what he sees as basic to human nature is the tendency to make distinctions and to close ourselves into boxes, closed systems. This is when shi and fei, “right/wrong,” “this/that,” do us harm. We can then reread these two passages. The first says, “The sage has the form of a person without what is essential to a person. With the form of a person, he can be among people. But, being without what is essential to a person, right and wrong, shi and fei, are not found in his self.” And in the second passage, the argument with Hui Shi, Zhuangzi says, “Defining things as right and wrong, shi and fei, is what I call ‘essentials.’ What I mean by a ‘person being without the essentials’ is that he does not let likes and dislikes inside to harm his self, that he constantly uses spontaneity and does not add anything to life.” If we can get rid of the chains that bind us into our closed system boxes, we will be happier, live longer, and be able to use clarity.

Forgetting That is all very well, but how do we do that? Zhuangzi tells us we should forget. This is odd, because in our world, forgetting is seen as a problem. As we get older and forget things, we worry that we are developing Alzheimer’s. Zhuangzi, in his usual perverse fashion, tells us that forgetting is a good thing. He talks about this in another impossible conversation between Confucius and his student Yan Hui: Yan Hui said, “I’m making progress!” Confucius asked, “What are you talking about?” Yen Hui said, “I’ve forgotten ritual and music.” Confucius said, “Not bad, but you’re not there yet.” The next time they met, Yan Hui said, “I’m getting better!” Confucius asked, “What do you mean?” Yan Hui said, “I’ve forgotten humanity and rightness.” Confucius said, “OK, but you still haven’t got it.” The next time Yan Hui said, “I’ve got it.” Confucius asked, “What do you mean?” Yan Hui answered, “I can sit down and forget everything!” Confucius was very surprised and asked, “What do you mean you can sit down and forget everything?” Yan Hui said, “I can drop

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Decoding Dao off organs and limbs, get rid of seeing and hearing, part from my body, get rid of knowledge, and become one with the great highway. That’s what I mean by sitting and forgetting.”Confucius said, “If you go along with the great highway, you have no more favorites, if you are part of the transformation, then you have no constants. Are you really this sage-like? I’d like to request to be your follower.”12

This story is another comical criticism of Confucius, who would never have approved of anyone forgetting the basic Confucian virtues such as ritual, humanity, and rightness. Contrary to his claim, Yan Hui is clearly not forgetting everything, he can still speak and he knows who he is and who Confucius is. What he has forgotten is the definitions of virtues that make for a system. He has gotten rid of the artificial knowledge and the intellect that produced it. This is what makes it possible for him to become one with the “great highway.” In a final dig at Confucians, Confucius is described as asking to become Yan Hui’s disciple – a loss of face of tremendous proportions. Forgetting artificial knowledge, losing our certainties, reacting like a mirror to things, but not becoming entangled with them, this is the hinge of dao. What Zhuangzi wants us to reach is an intelligent balancing of all points of view where we may decide that one is better than another, but only provisionally, and where we do not fight with things because we are not entangled with them. 13 In another passage, Zhuangzi lists all the things that change: life, death, having, losing, failure, success, wealth, poverty, fame, disgrace, hunger, thirst, cold, and heat. He says that these things change constantly and all of our knowledge is not able to find the source of these transformations. “So we must not let them disturb our peace and we should not let them into the magical storeroom. If we keep our storeroom in peace, not affected by the senses, making sure that day and night there are no cracks, this is to make it springtime with everything, and to create one’s own seasons. This is what I call being whole in one’s gifts.”14 162

Authors and Texts There are many things beyond our control or even our understanding. Zhuangzi tells us to keep our minds, the magical storeroom, calm and unaffected by what happens outside. To do that, we must be spontaneous. Many have read Zhuangzi as ordering us to “be spontaneous!” That would be, of course, self-contradictory and is not what Zhuangzi is saying. The word ziran, as we have seen, literally means “so of itself.” Spontaneity is not subjective, it is not a whim, and it is not based on emotion (see Chapter Four).

Mind/Heart Fasting Very well, but how do we lose distinctions, forget things, and become spontaneous? Zhuangzi talks about “mind fasting” as part of the imaginary conversation between Yan Hui and Confucius about how to handle corrupt rulers that we have discussed earlier. Confucius objects to Yan Hui’s plans because Yan Hui is using his mind/heart as the model to follow. Yan Hui is trying to calculate pros and cons and work out a plan. Confucius asks him, “Do you think it is easy to do things calculated with the mind/heart?” 15 The calculating, ego-driven mind/heart runs through all the possibilities it can see again and again and takes us round and round in circles. Confucius continues by explaining that mind/heart fasting begins with unifying the attention: “Do not listen with your ears, listen with your mind/heart. Do not listen with your mind/heart, listen with your qi. The ears only hear, the mind/heart only calculates, however, qi is empty and waits for things. It is only dao that brings together emptiness. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind/ heart.” In response, Yan Hui offers a guess, “Before mind/heart fasting, I am certain there is a Yan Hui, but after mind/fasting there is no more Yan Hui. Is this what is called ‘emptiness?’ ” Confucius answers, “Absolutely.” To work our way through this, we need to remember that we started with a criticism of depending on the mind/heart. When we do, says Zhuangzi, we end up calculating how things will come out 163

Decoding Dao and if we will benefit from those outcomes. We are looking for our self-interest. We are running around trying to get what we want, full of schemes, plans, and projects. Zhuangzi is telling us to go on a strict diet, no more calculating mind/heart for us, or at least not this calculating egocentric mind/heart. If we do not depend on our mind/ hearts, what is left to us is our basic qi, the qi that makes up our bodies, blood, breath, and animation. This qi is empty. It is empty of ego, egotistical selfishness, and the calculations of the mind/heart. The calculating mind/heart is ego and identity; without it Yan Hui no longer has the ego identity “Yan Hui.” Emptiness is to be without ego, to non-ego-act, to be spontaneous. The passage continues: To leave no footprints because you do not walk is easy, not to walk on the ground is hard. If people do things, it is easy to fake it; when heaven does things, nothing is fake. We know about flying with wings, but not about flying without wings. We know about knowledge that knows things, but not about knowledge that does not know things. Look at the void, an empty place that gives birth to light. The best fortune comes when we know when to stop. If we do not stop, this is called “running around while sitting still.” Let your ears and eyes be clear inside and put your mind/heart and knowledge on the outside.16

To do nothing at all is easy enough, but to do things through non-ego-acting is much more difficult. We know about knowing things that our culture and language have told us are true, but do we know anything outside of that? To know in that way, we need to find a space that is not based on ego, or conventionally defined, and that space, Zhuangzi says, is inside of us and at the core of the emptiness of dao. That is what mind/heart fasting is. While we may be quiet, we are not doing nothing. If our center is empty, it is not at the mercy of all the outside agitations that daily life brings nor the emotional responses they evoke. We are not subject to worries or great fears. We are at the hinge of dao and that is an equilibrium, not being immobilized.17 There is still a question as to what kind of person this makes us.18 If we are not doing discriminations and not holding on to some 164

Authors and Texts truth, how do we figure out how to do things and what to do? Zhuangzi seems to take two approaches to this. The first is to say that knack knowing is the proper way to know and do things and this is how we make moral decisions. He does have a point. If you think about it, most of the time when we make a moral choice, we do not sit down and check to see what The Bible or Immanuel Kant recommend. Often moral choices are made in a hurry because the situation is sudden and decisions have to be made right away. Our moral decisions tend to come more from knack knowledge than artificial knowledge. Discussions of morality, on the other hand, are built on artificial knowledge. Zhuangzi’s second approach is that there is a true morality among human beings that has been covered over by the rules and commands of artificial morality. A common ethical tradition was lost when we became “civilized” and at the mercy of rule-based or godbased morality. This is what we have seen the Dao De Jing say, too. Section Twenty-Three in the Zhuangzi makes this point by saying: In the market, if you step on someone’s foot, you apologize profusely for being careless. If you step on your older brother’s foot, you pat him affectionately. When you step on your parent’s foot, you do nothing because you are already forgiven. So it is said, “Perfect ritual does not distinguish between self and others; perfect rightness does not distinguish between the self and things; perfect knowledge does not plot and scheme; perfect humanity is unbiased; perfect trust is not built on gold.”19

With those we are close to we do not need to apologize as we do with strangers. For Zhuangzi, that means that what is natural to us is to be kind and polite and we can see that in our closest relations. The artificial definitions of ritual, rightness, knowledge, humanity, and trust that the Confucians and the culture offer are artificial. We would do those things naturally, if left entirely to our own devices. Section Twelve in the Outer Chapters makes this explicit by saying that in very ancient times, people were upright, humane, honest, loyal, and reliable without considering themselves to be any 165

Decoding Dao of those things or using any of those names for their behavior. “They went about spontaneously and helped each other without calling that generosity.”20 Left to our knack knowledge, spontaneity, and non-ego-action, we would behave perfectly well. Whether or not this is true is something that we will see debated in Chapter Ten.

Perfected People If we knack know, are spontaneous, act with non-ego-action, and naturally behave perfectly well, what kind of people would we be? If we do all of these things, we will become perfected people. Zhuangzi has long lists of all sorts of people who have reached perfection. Just as he has all sorts of ideas about what happens to us when we die, his pictures of perfected people and what they can do vary wildly. Some of the perfected people in the Zhuangzi are described as having enormous charisma, attracting people to them. A criminal who had been punished by having his foot cut off still attracted more followers than Confucius. We are told that this was because he was able to avoid the transformations of life and death, remain unmoved by any change like the earth overturning, and saw the loss of his foot as wiping off a clump of dirt. The source of his charisma was his stillness. He “makes heaven and earth his palace in which are stored all things. He makes his body as his housing, uses his eyes and ears to perceive, and treats as one the knowledge that knows and a mind/heart that never dies. He would simply pick a day to rise to the heights.”21 In another story, another ordinary man is described as hideously ugly, yet he attracted men and women all wanted to marry him. Even though he had no money, advocated nothing, and followed everyone else, the ruler of the state of Lu wanted to hand the state over to him. The source of his charisma was said to be the capacity to keep his abilities whole, that is, nothing external upset him.22 Other perfected people are described as blank and empty. Zhuangzi says that the ultimate person has no self, a spiritual 166

Authors and Texts person does not do anything, and a sage is not famous.23 Zi Qi (ds, chee) of Southwall is described as having lost himself, making the body like dried up wood and his mind/heart like dead ashes.24 Some perfected people know nothing at all,25 and we have already met Wang Ni who cannot answer any questions about what he knows or does not (see Chapter Six).26 In another story, Liezi realizes that he does not know anything and goes home to take over the cooking from his wife and to feed the pigs: “He cooked dinner for his wife, fed the pigs as if he were feeding people. He had nothing to do with outside affairs. He cut himself back from a carved jade to uncarved wood. Like a clod of earth, he stood in his own body. Staying away from complications, he was like that to the end.”27 Like Liezi, Zhuangzi says that people in ancient times made no distinctions among things, harmonized right and wrong at the center of all things, knew when to stop, and so gained the ultimate.28 There is nothing very surprising in these descriptions. These are people who are not acting through ego. They are not drawing distinctions and taking sides. They do not know anything because they do not make the distinctions that lead to artificial knowledge. However, this, by no means, exhausts Zhuangzi’s descriptions of perfected people. Some perfected people have fabulous powers. Zhuangzi says that nothing can harm a spirit man who does not feel hot from fire or cold from ice. He cannot be frightened or injured. In addition to this, the spirit man rides the sun and moon, wanders beyond the world, and is not affected by life and death.29 The character Anonymous, who we have discussed earlier, refusing to discuss government, says he is going off to become a companion to that which creates all things and ride a magical bird beyond the limits of the universe.30 In a long description of the true man of ancient times, we see a fusing of what we might expect from a non-ego-acting person and the fabulous abilities of other perfected people. We are told that the true man of ancient times breathed from his heels while ordinary people breathed from their throats.31 Zhuangzi says that the true 167

Decoding Dao man of old did not contend with others, was not brave, did not scheme, did not regret making a mistake or feel smug when he got it right. As a result, he was able to climb heights without fear, go into water without getting wet, enter fire and not get burned. The true man of old slept without dreams. He was not pleased to be alive nor worried about death; he came and went in and out of life casually. He received things happily and returned them forgetfully. His face looked calm; his joy and anger were as appropriate as the seasons. Zhuangzi says, “All of his likes were one and all of his dislikes were one. His ‘one’ and his ‘not-one’ were one. With this one-ness he followed the universe, with this ‘not-one-ness’ he followed human beings. A person for whom neither the universe nor human beings win over each other is called a true man.”32 These are just descriptions of perfected people in the Inner Chapters. The rest of the text follows suit, with descriptions of perfected people who can do any number of amazing things. What are we to do with stories of people tucking the sun and moon under their arm, riding clouds, and wandering outside the universe? Did Zhuangzi really believe these things were possible? Interpretations of the stories of these perfected people vary widely. Interpretations of what Zhuangzi believed about the super abilities of these perfected people depend on how one reads the text as a whole. We will see the various readings in Chapter Ten. Some readers understand these passages as describing people who were involved in meditative techniques, controlling posture and breathing, and, as we saw in the conversation between Yan Hui and Confucius, refining their qi. In the story of Zi Qi of Southwall that we have discussed earlier, Zi Qi is described as having lost himself and made his mind like dead ashes and his body like dried up wood, possibly through some sort of meditative technique. Losing or destroying the self can also be seen in the conversation we looked at between Yan Hui and Confucius, where Yan Hui goes through levels of forgetting and finally announces he has forgotten everything.33 This destruction of the self, or the forced expulsion of what is artificial in the self, can be seen here and in descriptions of those 168

Authors and Texts with skill or knack who fast the mind/heart. All of these examples have led many to describe Zhuangzi’s views as “no-self Daoism.”34 However, when we look at all the figures Zhuangzi describes as having skill or knack, we find that there is a self working away and discussing the mental events that allow the butcher to practice his knack. So, some argue, Zhuangzi is not advocating an annihilation of the self, but a clearing out of the things that get in our way, like being full of ourselves, stuck in our values, and so on. What Zhuangzi is proposing is a self that is effortless and unselfconscious.35 Perhaps Zhuangzi is echoing other texts of his time. When we look at the perfected people in the Zhuangzi, there are those who argue that these powers of roaming, traveling, and flying are traces of shamanic spirit travels also found in another text, the Chuci, “The Songs of the South,” where the poet Qu Yuan travels in this world and in other worlds. Other texts have these shamanic journeys as well, such as in the “Ten Questions” of the Mawangdui finds. These powers are signs of cosmic abilities that liberate the spirit from the body. This makes some read the Zhuangzi as a part of the selfcultivation literature that developed in the Later Warring States era and the early Han dynasty.36 Perhaps what Zhuangzi is pointing to is some sort of spiritual experience that is part of the search for immortality. Some argue that Zhuangzi and the authors of the Dao De Jing were heavily influenced by traditions that surrounded them. These traditions practiced techniques to “nourish life” and reach immortality or at least a long life. These techniques, including meditation, physical exercises, concentrating qi, and diet, were meant to bring a person to some altered state of consciousness. The stories of perfected people are not just stories, but describe early masters who could change their appearance and enter altered states of consciousness. Many of them would have been hermits and healers.37 Or perhaps these are just stories, stories like the one Zhuangzi tells about having a long conversation with a skull. It may be that perfected person passages suggest that a person like this is either irrelevant or unintelligible to us. The stories are meant to show us 169

Decoding Dao that perfection may be the opposite of what we would usually take it to be. Being rich, famous, and successful is not the highest state. Riding on the clouds and so on are images meant to tell us that there may be better ways to live and we should stay doubtful about what we imagine the best life to be.38 The reason that interpretations are so very different is that people understand the text and its meaning in widely different ways.

The Relationship of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi Now that we have looked at both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, we can look at some wider questions. First, did their contemporaries see them as part of the same tradition? Second, do the texts have any similarities and, if so, what are they? Third, having looked at these texts, what questions remain? The Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi were not linked as texts representing a tradition in the times they were written or shortly after. The Confucian Xunzi does not criticize Laozi and Zhuangzi together.39 The Zhuangzi itself, in its last section, enumerates various traditions but also does not link the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi. The decision to put both texts into a single tradition came later in the Han dynasty. Before then, they were seen as separate texts with separate points of view. Much is made of the fact that Zhuangzi in the Inner Chapters does not quote the Dao De Jing at all. The Outer Chapters, written by other hands, do quote the Dao De Jing, but there are no direct quotes in the Inner Chapters. Some argue then that this means, first, that the Zhuangzi was written before the Dao De Jing and, second, that the Zhuangzi should be read as separate from the Dao De Jing with no overlap between them.40 While it is true that there are no direct quotes from the Dao De Jing in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi, there are a number of references to the Dao De Jing in the Inner Chapters. For example, Zhuangzi writes that the ultimate man has no self, spiritual man 170

Authors and Texts takes no credit for what he does, and the sage, no name.41 We also see passages such as “Great dao is not named, great disputation has no words, great humanity is not humane, great honesty is not straightforward, great courage is not aggressive.”42 Both passages echo material we have seen in the Dao De Jing in terms of meaning and even style. There are other echoes: the idea of devolution, that the world is going downhill from the golden age; that we should cut ourselves back to the simplicity of uncarved wood;43 that we need to maintain life and live out our natural lifespan.44 Reading the Zhuangzi without first having read the Dao De Jing would, I think, be very difficult. What made later people put the two texts together and see them as a pair? There are some significant similarities. First, both texts argue that human beings are not the height of creation. We are not the best, smartest, and greatest thing to ever come along in the universe and we do not know anywhere near as much as we think we do. It is human beings and human beings alone who are out of joint with the world around us and we make a mess of things, all the while thinking we are being very smart and very powerful. Second, both are radical texts. They both attack the very foundations of culture, what cultures value, and the way we normally think about things. For this reason, they attack Mohists and Confucians particularly as representative of that culture and its assumptions.45 They both talk about how cultures and languages work by establishing distinctions and divisions and what shaky ground both of them are on. They both talk about ziran, spontaneity. Curiously, that both texts talk about dao is not something that links them: almost all the texts of the Warring States era talk about dao. Both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi do talk about living out our natural lifespans as the height of success in life and may, depending on how we read them, talk about immortality. Both texts have been misread as calling for a nonthinking “return to nature,” where we are driven by whatever whim comes to us.46 We can see why people later on put the two texts together and we have been reading them that way ever since. We should, however, be careful. The Zhuangzi is not just part two of the Dao De Jing and the Dao De Jing is not 171

Decoding Dao just the prologue to the Zhuangzi. Each text can, and does, stand independently.

Summary Of all the texts written during the Warring States era, the Zhuangzi is the only one that is not addressed to the ruler. Zhuangzi seems to have thought that change was not going to come by reforming government. He does have advice for scholar-bureaucrats who have to work in corrupt government: stay alive by not forcing your views on dangerous rulers. Zhuangzi restates this theme when he tells us what we should do. We should stay away from trying to be famous; we should not plot; we should be empty and use our mind/heart like a mirror, not entangling ourselves with things. We should get rid of the natural human tendency toward making distinctions, deciding on true and false, and holding on to this Truth no matter what. We can do that best by forgetting what cultures have taught us and all the artificial knowledge our heads are full of. We should mind fast, emptying our minds of all the things that upset and entangle us. Just as he did with his multiple views of death, Zhuangzi gives us all sorts of pictures of what a perfected person may look like. Some perfected people have great charisma, attracting others to them; others are described as blank and empty. Some perfected people can go through fire and not get burned or through water and not get wet. Some use non-ego-action and so do not dream, do not contend with others, and who can deal equally well with the universe and with human beings. We cannot tell which of these descriptions Zhuangzi thought more probable or, indeed, if he thought any of them likely. This wide array of characterizations will lead to very different interpretations of the text. The Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi share many ideas. Both criticize human beings for being the only creatures who lose dao. Both see human history as one of decline, both refer to a golden age, criticize 172

Authors and Texts artificial things, and so on. They are different texts, however, and each can stand on its own.

Notes   1  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 86.   2  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 164. See two other stories in the same vein, Mair, Wandering on the Way, 331–32.   3  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 67–68.   4  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 30.   5  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 32–33.   6  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 34–35.   7  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 36–37.   8  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 81–2. See also 84–85, 88–89.   9  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 70–71. 10  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 49. 11  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 49. 12  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 63–44. 13  See Dan Lusthaus, “Aporetic Ethics in the Zhuangzi,” 184. 14  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 47–48. 15  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 32. For this exchange, see Mair, 32–33. 16  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 33. 17  It is “an ongoing, dynamic achievement of equilibrium that requires constant monitoring and adjustment,” Ames and Hall, Dao De Jing, 40. 18  As Lusthaus says, “If there is no rule or formula to tell me how to do something, how am I supposed to do it and what am I supposed to do?” Lusthaus, “Aporetic Ethics in the Zhuangzi,” 175. 19  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 234. Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Inner Chapters puts this passage in Section 5, see 81. 20  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 115. 21  Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 43–44. 22  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 46–48. This point is repeated in the next story, 48–49. See also the story about Master Sung who is described as someone who was not moved by compliments or blame and he could tell the difference between what was essential and

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23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37 

38 

39 

40  41  42 

43  44 

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what was not, although he was still not perfect. Mair, Wandering on the Way, 5. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 5–6. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 10. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 20. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 66. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 70. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 17, 19. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 21. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 67. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 52. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 52–53. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 63–64. See Slingerland, Effortless Action, 198. See Slingerland, Effortless Action, 185–98. Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature, 245. And so the authors of our texts were “not just discursive philosophers.” See Ronnie L. Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction, particularly 27–61. Chad Hansen, “Guru or Skeptic? Relativistic Skepticism in the Zhuangzi,” in Scott Cook, ed., Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 148. Xunzi mentions Laozi’s theories in “Teachings of the Ru,” 8.10, John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Study and Translation of the Complete Works, 79. He also writes the Laozi had insight into bending down, but no insight into straightening up. “Discourse on Nature,” 17.22, Knoblock vol. 3, 22. He says that Zhuangzi was entranced by nature and ignored human beings and that when dao is grounded only on nature, everything becomes just a matter of looking at natural things. “Dispelling Blindness,” 21.4, Knoblock vol. 2, 102. See, for example, Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 36. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 5–6. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 19. See also, “the treasury of heaven, pour into it, it never fills; dip into it, it never empties.” See Mair, 20. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 17. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 25. Graham says, “At the root of the thinking, pervading this book [the Dao De Jing] of evasions and retreats

Authors and Texts disguised by a pseudonym, is one dominant emotion, fear. In Lao-tzu [Laozi] we are breathing an air very different from the perfect fearlessness of Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi].” Disputers, 218. Carefulness and selfpreservation are found in the Dao De Jing, but “fear” seems a little too much. 45  Though it is possible that the Dao De Jing did not contain these criticisms of Confucians in its earliest form. 46  See Parkes, “Natural Man in Nietzsche and Taoism [Daoism],” 92–94.

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Section Three

DEVELOPING DAO

Chapter Nine

Chapter Contents The School of Zhuangzi and Followers of the Dao De Jing— The Han Feizi—The Guanzi—Huang-Lao—The Huainanzi— The Liezi—The Han Dynasty and Beyond—Summary

The School of Zhuangzi and Followers of the Dao De Jing We have looked at the basics of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. It would be fantasy to think that once the texts were written and circulated, they would be the final word. People recited them, read them, talked about them, and began to develop ideas from them. These ideas and how the texts were used went in all sorts of directions and we can trace many of them in this chapter. It is thought that the followers of Zhuangzi wrote all, or parts of, Sections Seventeen to Twenty-Seven and Section Thirty-Two. In

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Decoding Dao these sections, we see most of the topics covered in the Inner Chapters discussed again and some of the stories from the Inner Chapters repeated, but often with different characters and settings. For example, Section Seventeen, “Autumn Floods,” describes the Yellow River, personified as a duke, feeling very mighty because of his great size after the floods. He reaches the ocean and is astonished to see its vastness. The Lord of the North Sea compares the Duke of the Yellow River to a frog at the bottom of a well. The frog’s view of the world is limited by the little it can see at the top of the well. The Yellow River and the North Sea have a long conver­ sation covering topics such as point of view and the limits of knowledge.1 Section Eighteen begins with a rant very much like Zhuangzi’s long rant in Section Two. It has the story of the death of Zhuangzi’s wife and of a willow branch suddenly growing out of the elbow of a character reminiscent of the story of the dying man talking about becoming a rat’s liver or bug’s leg (see Chapter Seven).2 Section Nineteen gives us more examples of skilled craftsmen using knack knowledge. This is countered later by another story about a man who spent his family fortune and three years of his life learning the knack of butchering dragons. Although his technique was perfect, he had nowhere to practice his skill.3 Section Twenty has more stories about being useless and so being allowed to live out one’s natural lifespan. There are even more stories making fun of Confucius. Section Twenty-Two begins with a story Zhuangzi would have been proud of. Knowledge wanders north and bumps into Silent Nonaction. Knowledge asks him, “What kind of thought and contemplation will bring us to know dao? Where should we live and what should we do to rest in dao? Where do we leave from and where do we go to get dao?” Silent Nonaction did not answer and did not know how to answer. Knowledge then met Mad Qu (chew) and asked the same questions. Mad Qu started to answer, but forgot what he wanted to say. Knowledge went to ask the Yellow Emperor, who answered the three questions: “It is without thought and without contemplation that you can begin to know 180

Developing Dao dao. Do not live anywhere and do not do anything, to begin to be safe in dao. Do not leave from anywhere and do not go anywhere, then you can begin to get dao.” The Yellow Emperor goes on to say that Silent Nonaction is really right and Mad Qu is close, but both Knowledge and the Yellow Emperor do not know anything because, “Those who know do not speak and those who speak do not know.”4 This is a quote from the Dao De Jing (56) and shows the way later writers in the style and mode of Zhuangzi sometimes wove together ideas from both texts while using Zhuangzi’s literary methods. We know that these sections were written after Zhuangzi’s Inner Chapters for a number of reasons. First, they repeat, in one form or another, stories we have already seen. Second, they cover many of the themes from the Inner Chapters. Third, they have a number of stories about Zhuangzi. We see Zhuangzi refusing political office.5 There is a story about Zhuangzi being so poor that he had to tie his shoes up with string.6 There are stories about the death of Zhuangzi’s wife, his arguments with Hui Shi, and Zhuangzi discussing his funeral.7 Finally, internal evidence shows us that the authors of these sections were defending Zhuangzi against critics. A passage says, “Those of you trying to see through the words of Zhuangzi, even though you do not understand the limits of right and wrong, that’s like asking a mosquito to carry a mountain on its back . . . Zhuangzi tramps through the depths of the Yellow Springs [the underworld] and then flies up to the wild blue yonder in the next moment.”8 Zhuangzi’s followers seem to have been repeating his stories and making up their own to illustrate Zhuangzi’s arguments. They were also contending with others who were attacking Zhuangzi, and these attacks, naturally enough, seem to have been based on Zhuangzi not being intelligible. After Zhuangzi and after the formation of the Dao De Jing, a number of people had taken up their thought and were defending and expanding it. Other parts of the Zhuangzi were written, if you remember from Chapter Two, by those more closely associated with the Dao De Jing. They tend to be even more critical of Mohists and Confucians and 181

Decoding Dao emphasize living out one’s natural lifespan. In places in the Miscellaneous Chapters, we also find the writings of Yang Zhu (see Chapter One). Others were going in somewhat different directions. We have a newly discovered text from the Guodian discoveries, the Tai Yi Sheng Shui (太一生水, tie yee sh-ung sh-way), The Ultimate Gives Birth to the Waters. This text was discovered attached to the Dao De Jing.9 It might be a commentary on the Dao De Jing or it might be an independent text. It talks about the “great one” (太一, tai yi) moving everywhere in the world. The great one is not described as a creator, but the text uses the images of mother and giving birth; for example, “Thus it is that the Great One is hidden away in the waters and travels with the seasons. It completes a cycle only to begin again, making itself the mother of everything that happens.”10 However, not everyone was content to expand on the texts as these people were. Many others were going in quite different directions.

The Han Feizi Han Feizi (circa 280–233 bce) wrote his text, predictably called the Han Feizi (hahn fey ds), to argue for a totalitarian government. He was the main spokesman for a group that came to be called Legalists. Han Feizi uses a number of Daoist terms and ideas,11 and he has two sections in his book that interpret the Dao De Jing as a purely political text.12 Han Feizi believed that people could be controlled through rewards and brutal laws. Government and law should be impersonal, like dao. Punishments for disobedience must be harsh so that people would obey the ruler instantly and without question. Everyone must fear the ruler and the law.13 When the state of Qin put this into practice, people could have their hands cut off for dumping ashes in the street. Government power was centralized in the hands of the ruler and the ruler alone. The ruler chose government bureaucrats on merit. 182

Developing Dao If they did their jobs, they were rewarded; if they failed, they were punished severely.14 What does Han Feizi’s totalitarianism have to do with the Dao De Jing? Han Feizi’s reading of the text led him to see the Dao De Jing as advocating ignorance for the people. Han Feizi believed that all of the scholars and texts of his time simply confused everyone with their different opinions. Scholars should be put to work at real jobs and their books should be burned. Han Feizi says, “In a state with a wise ruler there are no books – only the laws provide teachings.”15 Books are not useful and just confuse people by proposing different ideas. That is how he understood the Dao De Jing when it talks about ignorance. Passages where the sageruler is described as making the people ignorant were read as keeping people ignorant while only the sage-ruler knows what is really going on. Han Feizi argued that power and authority must be centered in the hands of the ruler. Not only should the ruler run everything, but he also should do so, ideally, in an automatic, unfeeling way so that not even the ruler’s personality should be involved. Here, Han Feizi is interpreting the lines from the Dao De Jing that the ruler treats the people as straw dogs quite literally.16 Han Feizi also borrowed the idea that the ruler should be hidden and mysterious. For Han Feizi, that means that people should not know the ruler’s likes or dislikes so that they will obey his orders exactly and not try to do other things to curry favor. Han Feizi says, “So it is said, ‘The ruler must not show any likes or dislikes because if he does, his ministers will pretend in order to please him.’ ”17 The ruler gives bureaucrats jobs and they are busy, while the ruler works through nonaction, and so “. . . he dwells in nonbeing and stands in emptiness – no one can find him.”18 Because the ruler does not act, he can observe and judge his subordinates. The ruler is to use emptiness, stillness, nonaction, and be unknown to his subordinates. His government is based on reward and punishment that act automatically and spontaneously, like dao, while the ruler stands above all.19 This is how Han Feizi understood chapter 57 of the Dao De Jing that says the ruler would govern by nonaction and chapter 183

Decoding Dao 17 that says, “The best ruler is unnoticed; the next best is loved and honored; the next best is feared; the worst is insulted”(see Chapter Five). Han Feizi picked up on the patronizing tone some of the Dao De Jing passages have when it comes to talking about the people. He also interpreted the charismatic power of the sage-ruler in his own way. For Han Feizi, the best ruler controls all things and sits atop an extremely orderly society. Clearly, this is totalitarian, or fascist, thinking and would have fitted in to the rule of people such as Hitler or Stalin perfectly well. While Han Feizi adapted ideas from the Dao De Jing, his training was in Confucianism. Han Feizi was a student of the Confucian Xunzi (see Chapter One). Li Si, who would go on to become the First Minister of the totalitarian state of Qin, was also a student of Xunzi. Confucians have always seen the development of Han Feizi’s Legalism as aberrant, given that his teacher was such a famous Confucian. Zhuangzi and the authors of the Dao De Jing, however, predicted that the violence and repression hidden under Confucian morality would develop in exactly this way.

The Guanzi The Guanzi (g-wahn ds) is a text that can be dated to 300 bce, so it was likely written around, or a little after, the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. The section of the Guanzi that we are interested in is the “Nei Ye” (nay yeh), “Inner Cultivation,” chapter. It contains the “Nei Ye” section and two other sections, the “Xin Shu” (shin shoe),“Arts of the Mind/Heart,” in two parts.20 The “Nei Ye” is thought to be part of a kind of literature that developed in the Warring States era based in medical theory, macrobiotic hygiene, and occult practices.21 The “Nei Ye” talks about jing, 精 (rhymes with “cling”), as a shared essence in all things from human beings to the gods. By breathing exercises, one can control qi and, by doing that, through one’s spirit, achieve a unity with all things. Once the breathing and posture are controlled, the mind/ 184

Developing Dao heart becomes peaceful. Staying alive requires achieving this unity with dao or with a single Unity. Through quieting the mind, getting rid of emotions, eating certain foods and avoiding others, and through controlling breathing, one can reach this Unity, come to know the gods, spirits, and universe, and be in harmony with all things. The “Xin Shu” sections repeat material from the “Nei Ye.” It also describes the arts of controlling the senses (eyes, ears, mouth, and nose), the anus, and the sexual organs through nonaction. This is how one controls the mind/heart. The three texts see a correlation among the individual, the state, and the universe. So the ruler needs to practice these arts in order to reach stillness, emptiness, and not being biased. The “Xin Shu” compares the mind/heart to the ruler, the openings in the body to the bureaucrats. While each opening and bureaucrat has a separate job to do, the ruler or the mind/heart must remain in nonaction. To reach the state of nonaction and unity with all things, whether ruler or commoner, we need to cultivate the self through breathing exercises, meditation, and diet. This is a combination of physical and mental practices.22 What, if any, relation do these chapters have with the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi? That depends. Some argue that the focus on meditation and inner cultivation in the “Nei Ye” is like the focus on dao as inner power in the Dao De Jing. In both texts, it is thought follow the same mystical techniques.23 The concept of dao is the same in both texts, but in the “Nei Ye,” it can be cultivated in the self through breathing exercises and meditation as one becomes aware of dao within.24 If we read these and other texts as following similar instructions for levels of breathing exercises and meditation showing similar, although not identical, stages, then, it is argued, this means that there were people who were following a common practice rather than a common text.25 There was likely an oral tradition, recited in rhymed verse and later written down and elaborated by sets of students over a couple of centuries. This common practice and oral tradition are what generated our texts. This lore of inner cultivation is likely the basis of early Daoist tradition and the Nei Ye is the oldest text describing this practice.26 185

Decoding Dao Others expand on this view to say that one of the cornerstones of classical Daoism is the “Nei Ye,” not the Zhuangzi.27 Many of these ideas, cultivating qi, expanding the spirit, and self-cultivation can be found in a number of texts during the Warring States era and on into the Han dynasty, including medical texts. These ideas developed into more elaborate self-cultivation techniques as time went on, as we shall see later. These later ideas of self-cultivation were then read back into Warring States texts, such as the Dao De Jing.28 In this case, it was not the ideas and practice that generated our texts, but the ideas and practice were read into earlier texts. In many ways, however, these texts are very different. The “Nei Ye” has no discussion of dao and how it works. It does not talk about artificial and real knowledge; it does not focus on politics in the same way the Dao De Jing does. There is nothing like the Zhuangzi’s discussions of language and discriminations. Unlike the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, the “Nei Ye” advocates a very purposive effort where one works hard on certain practices to finally attain something.29 The Dao De Jing has nothing about the workings of the body so central to the “Nei Ye.” The “Nei Ye” does not talk about spontaneity, criticize Confucians and Mohists, talk about a social golden age or about rethinking the very foundations of culture. So it is not yet clear what relationship the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi had to texts such as the “Nei Ye.” Were the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi produced by the same people who were also in the tradition of the “Nei Ye?” Did our texts grow up beside this tradition and borrow from it? Are our texts, at their core, profoundly different from the tradition that generated the “Nei Ye?” Some say yes, others say no.

Huang-Lao While the Guanzi’s “Nei Ye” has similarities and differences with the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, the Guanzi may have been part of a tradition that brought all these texts together in a different way. This is called the Huang-Lao tradition. This name comes by joining the 186

Developing Dao names of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, and Laozi. The phrase was first used by the Han dynasty scholar Sima Qian (circa 145 or 135–86 bce) in his history. It was when the texts at Mawangdui were discovered that the Huang-Lao tradition became clearer. One text that was discovered, the Huangdi Si Jing (黃帝四經), the Four Classics of the Yellow Emperor, is a commentary on the Dao De Jing. It has allowed scholars to better see what the Huang-Lao tradition was and to trace it to other texts, such as the Heshang Gong (huh sh-ahng gung) (Master of the River) and possibly the Huainanzi that we will look at next. Huang-Lao texts are syncretic, that is, they bring together different ideas. Huang-Lao texts include some of the thought of the Dao De Jing, particularly its political ideas, along with yin–yang and five phases theories (see below), said to be the teachings of the Yellow Emperor, and some Confucian government ideas.30 Underlying Huang-Lao thought is the idea that the body, society, and the universe are all closely related. Huang-Lao theories are based on “impulse and response.” All the things in the world are interconnected, and so what we do influences the universe just as what the universe affects us. All actions, impulse, bring about a reaction, a response. The action of one thing, an earthquake, affects not just the people living in the area, but all people, all government, and the planets. This is because, according to the theory, all things share in qi so the movement of qi in one thing affects the qi in all things.31 The ways in which qi works are through yin and yang forces and the five phases. Yin, female, and yang, male, define all the things of the world in pairs of opposites: yin is cold, moon, passive; yang is hot, sun, active. Summer reaches the highest yang and then yang decreases while yin increases in autumn; yin reaches its highest point in winter and then yin decreases while yang increases in the spring. The five phases or elements move from one phase to another. These are wood, fire, metal, water, and earth. Each presides over a season, changing, as yin and yang do, from growth to decay in the cycle of a year. They fit with the movements of yin and yang. Wood overcomes earth, metal overcomes wood, fire overcomes metal, 187

Decoding Dao water overcomes fire. These theories became more elaborate during the Han dynasty. The individual, society, government, and universe are all linked together through the actions of qi as it works through the yin–yang and five phases cycles. A ruler needs to align himself and his government to this cosmic pattern. He should not interfere in the workings of the cycles or disaster will follow. In Huang-Lao thought, the ruler is advised to set up government jobs with strict job descriptions for bureaucrats (just as we saw in the Han Feizi), while the ruler does not act but should reflect the universe. Action from the ruler that works with the universe will be successful. Actions that run counter to the way things work will affect not just his country, but the universe as well. Law must be set up so that it automatically enforces punishments. It is not the ruler who acts. The Huangdi Si Jing begins by saying “Dao gives birth to law.”32 This, of course, has all come from the Legalism of Han Feizi. Huang-Lao thought, its meaning, and its place in history, are still under debate. Some argue that it has virtually nothing to do with the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi but is based on texts that deal with how to set up efficient government and make bureaucrats do their duty.33 When Legalists added the idea of rewards and punishments, Huang-Lao thought took this in as well. Critics argue that HuangLao has become a catch-all term for any Han dynasty text with Daoist overtones and has been applied too broadly.34

The Huainanzi In 139 bce, Prince Liu An (lee-oh ahn), prince of Huainan (h-why nahn), presented an encyclopedic work to his nephew, the Han dynasty Emperor Wu. Prince Liu An had assembled scholars from different schools of thought to write down their teachings or include earlier writings, and this text was the encyclopedic work that they produced. The Huainanzi is a survey of politics and how a ruler should govern, and includes all sorts of ideas from Confucianism, Legalism, Huang-Lao thought, and from the Dao De Jing and 188

Developing Dao Zhuangzi.35 Emperor Wu was not wildly impressed with either the text or his uncle so Prince Liu An did not gain the importance at court that he thought he would. He was later charged with treason and committed suicide. His property, including his library, was confiscated by the throne and his kingdom dissolved. We are left with the text, and in it, we can find many of the same Huang-Lao ideas we just looked at. Everything in the universe is interconnected through action and response. We also find that rulers are told to rule through nonaction and to follow the cycle of nature. But, in other essays, the ruler is told that ritual is the first thing a ruler should see to – a very Confucian notion. It is the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi that get pride of place in the Huainanzi. The first essay of the Huainanzi, “Yuan Dao” (原道, you-anne dao), “Origin of Dao,” frequently quotes the Dao De Jing and uses many of the same images we saw in it. The Yuan Dao often uses the image of water, extending the image of water as both weak and strong, pliant and nourishing. Water is unbiased in nourishing all things and works through non-ego-action. Water, the Yuan Dao says, changes things and, like a ruler, gets the most out of any situation.36 The chapter reads at first glance like a commentary on the Dao De Jing. On closer reading, however, we can see that while passages from the Dao De Jing are being quoted and images of dao, such as water, are praised, there are other things going on in this chapter. There is a fundamental notion that all things, everyday and cosmic, individual and societal, private and government, secular and sacred, work through the same patterns. These patterns are said to be part of the workings of dao. We may follow these patterns and have success or run counter to them and fail. Rulers are especially important in this process: it is the ruler who needs to understand the underlying pattern of things. Inner cultivation is needed to rid the self of emotions and desires. This is part of what the chapter calls “the arts of the mind/heart” (as we have seen in the “Nei Ye” section of the Guanzi). The mind/heart is in control of all the parts of the self, the senses, the body, the desires, and attachments.37 The chapter tells us to protect our essential spirit by being rid of emotions, desires, attachments, finally reaching a spiritual illumination.38 189

Decoding Dao Inner cultivation balances the body, qi, spirit, and will. This makes us spontaneous and part of the “heavenly machine” so that we will naturally act in accordance with dao. Individuals and rulers act at the right time and in the right measure.39 Chapter 2 of the Huainanzi, “Chu Zhen” (俶真, chew, jen) (Beginning the Real/Genuine), reads as if it were a commentary on the Zhuangzi. Just as the first chapter based itself on the Dao De Jing, in the second chapter, the Zhuangzi is extensively quoted and themes from the Zhuangzi, like the golden age, the decline of human history, the loss of dao, and so on, are repeated. The Huainanzi author begins by quoting Zhuangzi’s satiric passage from Section Two: “There is a beginning. There is something before that beginning. There is something before the something before that beginning” (see Chapter Seven). Instead of seeing how Zhuangzi used the passage to satirize any attempt at constructing a cosmology – a history of how all things in the universe began – the author in the Huainanzi attempts to painstakingly set out just what this means and how it describes the history of the universe.40 The chapter carries on explaining other passages from the Zhuangzi according to the author’s understanding. He discusses things such as the variations in point of view and the changing of perspective. In the sections on the perfected person, we are told that these perfected people have no interest in what is considered valuable by society and practice selfcultivation. Perfected people hide their spirits deep within an inner spirit storehouse. Like the inner cultivation described in the Yuan Dao, perfected people can mirror the world without becoming attached to it. The perfected person “wears the great circle of heaven while roaming the great square of earth, mirrors broad purity and sees great brightness, stands in enormous peace in a great hall, travels in dark obscurity and has the same brightness as the sun and moon.”41 Certainly, there are passages like this in the Zhuangzi, but many argue this interpretation stretches the original meaning. Others say this kind of interpretation is just what Zhuangzi had in mind. The chapter ends with criticisms of Mohists and especially of Confucians. Confucians hold on to things that are external, such as 190

Developing Dao humanity and ritual, and look for fame in this world. They do not practice what they preach and are nowhere near the perfected person of the Zhuangzi. What these chapters that are centered on our texts tell us is that by at least 139 bce, both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi were seen as important texts. However, they were being read through what may be the eyes of a Huang-Lao interpretation to mean a close interconnection of self, society, and the universe. The movements of qi in dao are responsible for this close connection. Inner cultivation allows us to control or eliminate our emotions and be able to naturally act according to the movements of qi and dao.

The Liezi Parts of the Liezi could have been written about the end of the third century bce, about the same time as the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. Other material in the text is much later. The text itself was not compiled until the fourth century ce, so sections in the text were written over a very wide period of time. It is a mixed text with some parts that could have come straight out of Zhuangzi’s Inner Chapters and others that contain the thought of people such as Yang Zhu. Liezi, Master Lie, is described a couple of times in the Zhuangzi, but we have no way of knowing if he was a real person or someone Zhuangzi made up. It is likely that Liezi’s appearances in the Zhuangzi are the reason his name became attached to this text. There are a number of passages that are very much like the Zhuangzi’s Inner Chapters. Zhuangzi would have approved of the story of Mr. Yin, a rich landowner who drove his servants hard. One old servant was so tired that when he slept, he dreamt he was a prince every night. Every night, Mr. Yin dreamt he was a servant, yelled at and beaten all day long. A friend told Mr. Yin that this was only balance: to be rich and powerful during the day, beaten and powerless at night. How could Mr. Yin hope to have both waking and dreaming the way he wanted? As a result, Mr. Yin went easier on his servants, worried less, and his health improved.42 191

Decoding Dao There is an anti-Confucian, Zhuangzi-like story in the Liezi about Huazi (h-wah ds) of Yangli (yahng lee) in the state of Song (sung). When he became middle aged, Huazi lost his memory. He got to the point where he could not remember where he lived or even how to sit down in a chair. His worried family consulted a diviner to tell his fortune but that did not work, then they hired a shaman to exorcize him and that too did not work, so they brought in a doctor and had no luck there. Then they met a Confucian from the state of Lu (where Confucius was born and taught). They offered him half the family fortune if he could cure Huazi. The Confucian proposed to “straighten and change Huazi’s mind by transforming his thinking.”43 The Confucian began by starving him so Huazi would look for food and then confining him in darkness so Huazi would look for light. He spent seven days alone with Huazi and was successful in getting rid of Huazi’s illness. When Huazi recovered he was furious: he sent his wife away, beat his sons, and chased after the Confucian with a spear. Huazi was arrested and questioned. He said that in his earlier state he was without bounds, knowing neither heaven nor earth. Now that he could remember all the disasters, all the gains and losses of his life. The loves and hates of 30 years had come rushing back to burden his heart. Huazi asked, “Will I never be able to get forgetfulness again?”44 This is a nice illustration of Zhuangzi’s dictum to forget, especially to forget artificial knowledge. Two stories from the Liezi explore a theme that Zhuangzi hints at. We paint the world with our feelings and sentimentalize things. This often means that we feel upset or unhappy when the things change, especially the things that we have sentimentally valued. The first story is about a farmer who lost his ax. The farmer immediately suspected the neighbor’s son. He watched the boy and could see that the kid was a real punk by the way he talked and strutted around. All of the boy’s behavior proclaimed the kid to be a thief. The next day, the farmer dug in his garden and found his ax. When he went home that night, the neighbor’s boy looked perfectly honest.45 The second story is about a man originally from the state of Yan but who had grown up in the state of Chu (jew), and in his old age 192

Developing Dao wanted to return to see his native Yan. His traveling companions decided to play a joke on the trip, and at the next city, they told him it was the capital city of Yan, so the man made himself look solemn. Inside the city, they pointed out a shrine and told him that this was the very shrine of his ancestral neighborhood and the man sighed deeply. Then they pointed to a mound of earth and told him it was his father’s tomb and the man burst into tears. His traveling companions laughed and finally told him that they had not reached the state of Yan yet but were still in the state of Jin. When they did reach the state of Yan and the man saw the capital city, the shrine, and his father’s home and tomb, it affected him only a little.46 Suspecting the neighbor’s son of being a thief made the farmer paint everything the boy did as signs of being a criminal. The traveler painted a sentimental value onto a city, shrine, house, and tomb and so was deeply moved when he saw them. The places turned out to be ones to which he had no sentimental attachment, just an ordinary city and shrine. The value he placed on them came from inside himself and were not really part of the shrine or the house. With stories like these, you can see why some scholars say that Daoist texts of the Warring States era ought to include the Dao De Jing, the Zhuangzi, and the Liezi. Others argue that the Liezi contains such a mix of views and authors that we cannot really include it with the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi.

The Han Dynasty and Beyond How to define groups of texts and their authors was a question that people in the Han dynasty were very interested in.47 Sima Qian (circa 145 or 135–86 bce), the great historian, followed a practice that had been established earlier and divided and grouped texts and people according to their views on government. This gave him a list of Confucians, Mohists, Logicians, Legalists, “Daode” (Daoist), and yin–yang. All of these groups were labeled as “jia” (家, gee-ah), literally meaning “family” but used in this case as “schools.”48 Other ways to categorize people and texts included looking at the 193

Decoding Dao teacher–student lineage, the content of the texts, the basic philosophical positions, and so on.49 The labels themselves have caused all sorts of controversy through the ages and still do today. The sorting of one text or thinker into a particular group is just as controversial. What we mean by “Daoism” and “Daoist” and what that category includes – or does not include – are, as we shall see in the next chapter, debates that go on today. Not only were people in the Han dynasty busy sorting and categorizing earlier thinkers and texts, they were developing new ideas about what the texts meant and taking them in new directions. The Huang-Lao tradition continued and expanded and we have seen the ways in which the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi were understood in the Huainanzi. There were those who went in other, odder, directions. A group of unemployed upper class men called themselves the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. They were disenchanted with Han dynasty society and so they wrote poetry and essays expressing their unhappiness and their pursuit of experiences outside of society. They believed that drinking an enormous amount of alcohol and taking hallucinogenic drugs would allow them to abandon the everyday world and become natural and spontaneous. Their visions of the flights they took to other worlds were written using the vocabulary of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. Livia Kohn calls them, and others like them, “literati Daoists.”50 During, and after, the Han dynasty, other writers wrote commentaries on the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. These men were called the “School of Pure Conversation” (Qing Tan, ching tan) and the School of Dark or Profound Learning (Xuan Xue, shoe-ahn shoeeh). One of these commentaries, written by Heshang Gong (the Riverside Master) is very much influenced by Huang-Lao thought. It connects the Dao De Jing with inner cultivation, cultivation of qi, and techniques of nourishing life. Wang Bi (226–249), whose version of the Dao De Jing we use today, reacted against this in his commentary (see Chapter Two).51 There were others who worked on our texts for totally different reasons. They were searching for ways to become immortal. They 194

Developing Dao believed that immortality could be attained through exercises, diet, eating or drinking certain chemicals. Some believed they could control the physical things of the world by spells. One of these people was Ge Hong (guh hung) (287–347). He was an upper-class gentleman who had studied Confucianism and then moved on to Daoist texts. His family had long been involved in searching for immortality and Ge Hong continued that search. His fascination with immortality can be seen in his book Shenxian Zhuan, Biographies of Spiritual Immortals, describing 90 immortals, including Laozi. He describes different kinds of immortals, those who live in the heavens, those who live on earth, those who continue with their bodies, and those who leave a body behind when they die and become immortals. His most famous work is the Baopuzi, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, a text describing many immortality techniques and the powers they give such as the ability to fly, bilocate, become invisible, and so on.52 What did this have to do with our texts? Many of those seekers after immortality believed that the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi contained references to immortals and instructions, often hidden in the texts, for reaching immortality. We will see more of this in the next chapter. Ideas in both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi were also developed by people in the arts. Chinese landscape painting, particularly as it developed in the Northern Song dynasty (96–1126), focuses on towering mountains, often with dense forests, and water in the form of rivers or waterfalls. Human beings are in these paintings, but often are so tiny that we have to strain to make them out. This style is often said to be a reflection of the naturalness and simplicity talked about in our texts.53 Of course, this reading of our texts emphasizes dao as nature. Other arts, such as architecture and garden design, followed this attempt at artificially mimicking the natural. Like painters, calligraphists try to reach the natural spontaneity described in our texts. Taking figures such as Cook Ding in the Zhuangzi as examples, calligraphers and painters study by copying 195

Decoding Dao the masters over and over again until they can pick up the brush and write or paint spontaneously with what Zhuangzi would have called knack knowledge. This is the case, too, in the martial arts. There is an enormous amount of art produced by organized Daoism that we will look at in the next chapter. Paintings and statues of Daoist gods and immortals began as early as the Han dynasty and continue today. Utensils and dress used in ritual, paintings in temples, monasteries, and convents are all part of an ongoing Daoist artistic tradition. Daoist temples are often situated on mountains or by rivers to work together with the natural environment. The Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi are also connected to the development of Chan (Japanese, Zen) Buddhism talks about desires entangling us in things and the way in which ego gets in the way of enlightenment. Like Zhuangzi, Chan rejected artificial knowledge in favor of knack knowing, especially when it came to enlightenment. Like Zhuangzi, Chan teachers taught using stories and riddles, and, like Zhuangzi, Chan is distrustful of what language can actually say. Of course, the connections between our texts and the development of Chan Buddhism are complex and far more than can be covered in this brief description.54

Summary Ideas from the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi were developed in all sorts of directions. Some people, such as the followers of the authors of the Dao De Jing and of Zhuangzi, expanded on our texts. Others, such as Han Feizi, read the Dao De Jing as advocating a totalitarian government where the people are kept ignorant under the control of the ruler. Only the hidden and mysterious ruler controlled the state through law and power. There are those who think that the authors of the Guanzi’s “Nei Ye” chapters may have influenced the authors of our texts or may have used many of the same ideas. We see them teaching how to control qi and achieve a unity with all things. The Huang-Lao’s theory of “impulse–response” means human beings, and rulers particularly, need to align 196

Developing Dao themselves with the workings of the universe. While the HuangLao tradition was elaborated after our texts were written, there is debate about when the Huang-Lao tradition began and what effect, if any, it had on our texts. In the Huainanzi, we can see how our texts were understood in the Han dynasty, after the Warring States era ended, and about 200–300 years after we think our texts were written. It, too, reflects Huang-Lao thinking about the interconnectedness of human beings, society, and the cosmos. The Liezi is a Daoist text of such mixed authorship that it is hard to date. While many of the stories in the Liezi could have come straight out of the Zhuangzi, there is such a mix of views that it is difficult to say and scholars still debate the status of the Liezi. During the Han dynasty, some people were busy categorizing and sorting the thinkers and texts of the earlier Warring States era into “schools.” These categories have always been controversial and remain so to this day. Others read the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi as manuals leading to immortality. Stories of perfected people who did not die and had supernatural powers were understood to be descriptions of immortals. Our texts provided instructions, often hidden, to reach the state of immortality and the possession of these fabulous powers. Throughout Chinese history, the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi continued to be read and enjoyed. Interpretations of our texts influenced everything from the arts to Chan (Zen) Buddhism. The advantage of our texts is that many people, coming from very different times and with radically different questions, can find something in them. The difficulty is that people then argue over which of these interpretations and understandings is the correct one. We will see that in the next chapter.

Notes   1  See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 152–59. The discussion also takes a swipe at those trying to become immortal.

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Decoding Dao   2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9 

10  11  12 

13  14 

15 

16  17  18  19 

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See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 58. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 327. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 210–11. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 164–5. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 194. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 168–69; 165; 332, respectively. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 163. The Ultimate Gives Birth to the Waters has the same calligraphy and is made from the same bamboo material as the Dao De Jing it accompanies. This may mean that they were copied together by the same person, but what relationship the two texts had is still undecided. See Ames and Hall, Daodejing, where the text is translated as an appendix, 229–31. Hall and Ames, Daodejing, 230. See especially sections 5 and 8 of the Han Feizi. Section 20, “Jie Lao,” explaining Laozi, and section 21, Yu Lao, illustrating Laozi. These are the first historical reference to the Dao De Jing. Han Feizi’s comments, such as the Guodian bamboo strips, have no reference to sections 68–81 of the Dao De Jing we now use. See Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 27. There is a complete translation of the Han Feizi, see W. K. Liao, trans., The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu [Han Feizi]: A Classic of Chinese Political Science (London: Probsthain, 1959). See the “Han Feizi,” chapter 50, “Eminence in Learning.” Han Feizi was sent as an envoy from state of Han to the state of Qin, where he met his fellow student Li Si, by then Prime Minister of the state of Qin. Li Si thought in the same way as Han Feizi and so had Han Feizi imprisoned. Fittingly enough, Han Feizi died in prison, likely on the orders of Li Si, in 233 bce. Han Feizi “Wu Du” compare Burton Watson, translation, Han Fei Tzu [Han Feizi]: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 111. Dao De Jing, chapter 5. Han Feizi, Dao of Rulership, section 5; compare Watson, Han Fei Tzu [Han Feizi]: Basic Writings, 16. Han Feizi, Dao of Rulership, compare Watson Han Fei Tzu [Han Feizi]: Basic Writings, 17. Han Feizi, see section 8.

Developing Dao 20  Guanzi, 管子 Nei Ye, 內業, Xin Shu Shang 心術上 Xin Shu Xia 心術下. See W. Allyn Rickett, Kuan-tzu [Guanzi]: A Repository of Early Chinese Thought (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965). 21  See Harold D. Roth, Original Tao[Dao]: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist[Daoist] Mysticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), who argues that the Nei Ye was written by Daoists at the Jixia Academy, 25. It is possible that naturalistic and occult terminology and practices mixed with think tanks, such as Jixia academy in Qi, the court of Lu Buwei in Qin, and court of Liu An at Huainan, and they included healers and practitioners of various sorts. 22  For further descriptions and discussions, see Roth, Original Tao [Dao]; Moeller, Daoism Explained, 74–77; Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 41–51. 23  Roth, Original Tao [Dao], 101. 24  Roth, Original Tao [Dao], 103. 25  Roth, Original Tao [Dao], 168. 26  Roth, Original Tao [Dao], 168. 27  Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 51. 28  Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 45. “Nonetheless they [these texts] do manage to introduce to Warring States thought a new ‘technology of self’ perhaps derived from medical and other ‘natural’ philosophies, but from this point on available to philosophers as well: the idea of qi, the quintessential, and the spirit as active forces within the physical body that can be accessed and activated through physical and cognitive means,” Slingerland, Effortless Action, 127. 29  Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 43–48. 30  Both the Mawangdui and Guodian finds included Wuxing Pian (essays on five phases) thought to reflect the Zi Si/Mencius strain of Confucianism (listed in the Xunzi) and have led scholars to think that Huang-Lao and Confucianism were not seen as exclusive traditions at the time. See Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Readings in Han Chinese Thought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006), 81. 31  See Carine Defoort, The Pheasant Cap Master (He Guanzi): A Rhetorical Reading (Albany: State University Press, 1997) and A.C. Graham, “The Way and the One in Ho-kuan-tzu [He Guanzi],” in Hans Lenk and Gregor Paul, eds, Epistemological Issues in Classical Chinese Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 31–43. 32  Moeller, Daoism Explained, 69.

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Decoding Dao 33  Moeller, Daoism Explained, 14. 34  Lau and Ames, Yuan Dao, 12. 35  For a complete translation along with extensive and helpful notes, see John S. Major, Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, Harold Roth, Michael Puett, and Judson Murray, trans. and eds, The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). 36  Lau and Ames, Yuan Dao, 18. 37  See Major et al., The Huainanzi, 71. 38  See Major et al., The Huainanzi, 66–67. 39  See Major et al., The Huainanzi, 61. 40  See Major et al., The Huainanzi, 84–85. 41  See Major et al., The Huainanzi, 89. 42  Liezi, section 3, see Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi], 68–69. 43  Liezi, section 3, compare Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi], 71. 44  Liezi, section 3, see Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi], 70–71. 45  Liezi, section 8, see Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi], 180. The Liezi also contains the story of the old man who said he could dig up a mountain because the mountain never gets bigger while the old man and his children would keep digging day after day. It was one of Mao Zedong’s favorite stories and used to encourage mass mobilization to build bridges, dams, and roads. See Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi], 99–101. 46  Liezi, section 3, see Graham, The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi], 73. 47  The Former or Early Han dynasty, 206 bce–23 ce; the Later Han dynasty, 25–220 ce. 48  Csikszentmihalyi, Readings in Han Chinese Thought, 88. 49  For an extensive list, see Csikszentmihalyi, Readings in Han Chinese Thought, 83. 50  Livia Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture (Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2001), 83. Csikszentmihalyi recounts a story from the Shi Ji about Cao Shen, a chancellor who was described as being drunk all the time. When dealing with any other government officials, he would offer them alcohol until they were drunk, too. This was said to be a technique that ensured that there would be no government interference and that this was a technique of Huang-Lao. See Readings in Han Chinese Thought, 50. 51  See Alan Chan, “A Tale of Two Commentaries: Ho-shang-kung [Heshang Gong] and Wang Pi [Bi] on the Lao-tzu [Laozi],” in Liva Kohn

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Developing Dao and Michael LaFargue, eds, Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing]. Albany: SUNY Press, 1998, 89–118. 52  See Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 84. There were methods for attaining these supernatural skills. Good deeds were first needed to prove one’s worth. One also needed to refine one’s qi, do breathing and posture exercises, eat and drink certain foods and not others, and have access to the proper texts and materials to make an elixir. An elixir is a drink usually, although it can be in pill or powder form, that is made from special and often rare ingredients. The ingredients must be gathered at the proper time and in the proper way. Anyone making an elixir has to construct a safe place away from evil spirits and pray to certain gods for assistance and care. As the person reverently makes the elixir, they must do so in certain proscribed ways and in the proper order. They cannot ingest the elixir if the time is not proper. Gold was often used in elixirs because it was seen as imperishable. Another frequently used ingredient was cinnabar. When roasted, cinnabar becomes mercury and was known in very early times as the source of mercury. This, as we know now, is not at all good for your health and certainly not an aid to immortality. For a description of elixirs, see Ronnie L. Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction, 115. 53  One of the most famous painters of the time, Guo Xi (circa 1020–1090), wrote a book about painting, High Messages from Forest and Streams (Linquan Gaozhi 林泉高致). In it, he talks about how painting must balance yin and yang and develop a flow of qi so as to come together in a harmony of dao. The landscape painting’s celebration of nature – and shrinking of the influence of human beings – has been seen as a direct influence from the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi. Art is meant to reflect a close and joyful relation to nature. 54  For further information, see K. S. Chen, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); Morten Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song Dynasty China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008); Heinrich Dumoulin Zen Buddhism: A History; Volume, India and China (New York: Macmillan, 1988, 1990).

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Chapter Ten

Chapter Contents Organized Daoism—The Search for Immortality—Organized Groups—The Cult of Laozi—Modern Organized Daoism— The Mystical Reading—The Philosophical Reading—Modern Daoism—Dao Lite—A Lao-Zhuang Daoist—What Is Daoism and Other Problems

Organized Daoism No matter what you read on the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, it will fall into one of three broad categories: the view from or­­ ganized Daoism, the mystical interpretation, or the philosophical interpretation. Traditionally, Daoism was divided into “philosophical Daoism” and “religious Daoism.” This began with the Chinese “Dao jia” (道家, gee-ah), meaning “the school of Daoism,” based on the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, translated as “philosophical” Daoism. The

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Developing Dao second part of the division is Dao jiao (道教, gee-ow) Daoist teachings, translated as “religious” Daoism. Western scholars followed this division from the first moment that Westerners began to learn about Daoism.1 Westerners of the past believed that the ignorant and superstitious natives had misunderstood the real teachings of these texts and developed degenerate practices based on them. Only Westerners, with superior scholarship and intellect, understood the texts properly. Anyone with any melanin in their skin was incapable of really understanding the message of their own texts.2 This has come to be seen as part of “Orientalism.” This word is based on Edward Said’s (1935–2003) important book, Orientalism.3 In it, Said argues that Western views of the Orient, whether the Middle East or Asia, are based on seeing the Orient as “other.” If the West is to be understood as rational, practical, and successful, the Orient is mystical, irrational, and poor. “West” and “Orient” become two mutually exclusive categories, and all that Westerners imagine about the Orient is based on this “us” “not us” thinking. This definition of Orient allows Westerners to have the power when it comes to defining what the Orient is and what Orientals are doing.4 In terms of our interests, the Chinese who follow organized Daoism are ignorant and nonsensical while the Western scholars who read the original texts are the ones who really understand the message of the texts.5 Nowadays, scholars have rejected these positions and some are rethinking the connection between our texts and later organized Daoism. For example, some say that the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi show clear connections to the practices of shamans and shamanic flights. The ideal person is on a spiritual quest, not a philosophical one.6 So there is indeed a close continuity from the texts to later Daoist practice. Those who study later organized Daoism argue that the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi have elements of, or are based on, the views of people who were not trying to establish a philosophy. These people were drawing on ideas and practices from the surrounding culture. Shamanic practices, the search for longevity or immortality, a “Laoist” community focused on self203

Decoding Dao cultivation, and the developing Huang-Lao tradition were all sources for these texts. To see the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi as philosophical texts that are separate from their contemporaries and from later movements is a gross misunderstanding of the texts and comes from an Orientalist view. Others, as we shall see, understand the texts as mystical. Still others argue that the texts are indeed philosophical texts with little, or no, relationship to later organized Daoism.

The Search for Immortality An immortal, a xian (仙, she-anne), is someone who does not die or who can live forever.7 There are passages in the Dao De Jing, such as the one in chapter 50, that describe people who are not hurt by rhinoceros horns, tigers, or weapons “Because for them there is no death place” (see Chapter Five). There are passages in the Zhuangzi that describe the perfected person as one who cannot be drowned or burned, who rides the sun and moon, wanders around the world, and is not affected by life and death.8 Other passages seem to describe what may be self-cultivation or meditational techniques. Zi Qi of Southwall lost himself and made his mind like dead ashes and his body like dried up wood. Losing or destroying the self can also be seen in the conversation between Yan Hui and Confucius where Yan Hui goes through levels of forgetting and finally announces he has forgotten everything. These passages were either part of movements toward immortality or interpreted by people later looking for immortality as proof that it was possible. However one understands this, our texts became involved in the search for immortality.9

Organized Groups This search for immortality went on throughout Chinese history and from time to time became part of a number of more 204

Developing Dao organized groups that formed, dissolved, and reformed over time. What was new about most of these groups is that instead of discussions of dao being only for the elite, ordinary people began to be exposed to texts like the Dao De Jing. As with the section on immortality earlier, these developments are complex and what follows is the most basic of an overview. The reader should look to the “Suggested Reading” section for more detailed and thorough accounts.10 There were a number of organized groups starting from the Han dynasty and running throughout the history of imperial China. The Celestial Masters began in about 142 ce and founded an independent theocratic government. They offered healing and preached that the end of the world was coming soon. Lord Lao, Laozi, gave a covenant to the leaders to allow them to deal with the gods, especially those in charge of death, the underworld, and punishment.11 With a priestly ability to intercede with the supernatural beings who run the underworld, Celestial Masters could negotiate with these powers on behalf of the believer to ensure that the believer entered a paradise of immortals.12 Celestial Masters be­­ lieved that Lord Lao represents dao and this dao is the center of all things. Lord Lao has, in the past, appeared in this world when he is needed and will continue to do so in the future. The community began to recite the Dao De Jing.13 Although the organization fell apart at the end of the Han dynasty, the local groups and priests continued on. The Celestial Master followers continued to spread their message across China. The movement continued with a priestly hierarchy, group meetings and feasts, and the payment of dues to the organization. This would continued to grow and, by the Song dynasty (960–1279), developed into what we would recognize today as organized groups with a leader, the Celestial Master, a hierarchy of priests, monks and nuns, temples, gods, texts, and massive community support.14 As well, possibly in imitation of the large number of Buddhist sutras, Daoist texts were brought together in the Daoist canon, the Daozang (Tao Tsang, 道藏) that now consists of over 1400 texts. There were a number of versions of the Daoist canon over the 205

Decoding Dao centuries and the final one was published in the Ming dynasty in 1444. The Daoist canon includes everything from the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi to meditation texts, to self-cultivation texts, and biographies of immortals. This organized Daoism with its leaders, monasteries, temples, and wide public support was, as you might guess, involved in political intrigue and jockeying with Buddhists and Confucians for influence in government. On the local level, Daoist temples continued to offer ordinary people rituals for exorcism, divination, and especially healing. They included local gods and customs. This is the reason the Daoism is often described as eclectic, bringing in ideas and gods from many places, and syncretic, weaving together many different ideas.

The Cult of Laozi We have already seen a reference to Lord Lao as a title for Laozi. Understandings of who Laozi was, his power, and his status, he had changed over time.15 The Celestial Master group described Laozi as Lord Lao and as the “Old Master,” and honored him as a god. They recited the Dao De Jing as a way to improve health.16 So it was during the Han dynasty that Laozi was transformed from the possible author of a text to a god, representing dao, who appears to assist all people.17 Stories began to circulate about Laozi’s birth. In the first one, Laozi was born from dao and the Jade Maiden of Mystery and Wonder. He was born from her armpit and, as a baby, already had white hair. For this reason, he was called Laozi, the old child. The “zi” in Laozi has a number of meanings and one of them is “child” as well “master.” In the second story, Laozi was born to Lady Li, who Laozi had created from various energies, in the 600s ce (thought then to predate the birth of the Buddha). She was pregnant for 81 years and, while in her womb, Laozi recited scriptures. Laozi was again born with white hair and from Lady Li’s armpit. Laozi, the “old child,” grew younger as the centuries passed. In a third 206

Developing Dao story, Laozi enters Maya’s mouth and she became pregnant for over a year. He was then born from her armpit on the same day and month as the Buddha.18 The reader may be getting somewhat suspicious of at least one of the themes in all three stories, Laozi’s birth from his mother’s armpit. This is modeled on the mythology surrounding the birth of the Buddha from his mother Maya’s right side. Buddhism had come to China in the Han dynasty and, by the 500s, had become a major religious movement across the country. Buddhist teachings, mythology, art, temples, monasteries, and convents set the standard for other traditions, such as organized Daoism, to follow. While Daoism was influenced by Buddhism, Buddhism and Daoism were rivals, especially at the emperor’s court, for political power, status, and wealth.19 Livia Kohn sets out the functions and roles that Laozi had. First, for those trying to become immortal, Laozi was the model and they saw him, and his text, as following the same self-cultivation techniques that they did.20 Second, imperial rulers saw Laozi as the personification of dao and a model of a perfect ruler. The Huang-Lao teachings that were so popular in the Han dynasty taught that all things were interconnected and dao is the central energy. Huang-di, the Yellow Emperor, was thought to be the last perfect ruler, a god, and an immortal. Laozi was said to be his teacher and the representative of dao at the center of all things. The tradition that Laozi appears in this world in times of trouble to help human beings began in the Han dynasty, too, and was connected to the idea of the best kind of ruler. Kohn argues that central to these views of Laozi is seeing him as the representative of dao, a way of personalizing the concept of dao.21 Third, millennial groups, those expecting the end of this world and a new age, used Laozi as well. If the world is about to end, Laozi will appear to save people in the end times.22 If this is what was happening to the figure of Laozi, what is happening with the text people attributed to him, the Dao De Jing? In the Han dynasty, the text was seen by some as a manual for long life that could be attained by concentrating qi, self-cultivation, and 207

Decoding Dao suppressing desires. By the second century bce, the Dao De Jing was being referred to as a “classic” (jing). Throughout history, the Dao De Jing was being read according to whatever the dominant terms of the culture might be at the time. Buddhists read it for its discussion of absence, non-being; Confucians read it for instruction in self-cultivation and when they retired from their government positions. So what relation did the Dao De Jing have to Daoist movements throughout history? It was, and is, a text used in prayers and rituals. Chanting the text brings benefits to those who believe. The Dao De Jing can be used as a way to communicate with immortals and was, and is, a text given at the ordination ceremonies of monks, nuns, and priests.23 In general, the Dao De Jing was seen as a spiritual teaching of longevity and immortality. The Dao De Jing is not, however, one of the central revelations that we have seen described earlier. While honored, it does not have the same status that the Bible has for some Christians.24

Modern Organized Daoism In the early twentieth century, Daoism, like Buddhism, began to lose status in China, and when the Communists took over in 1949, they declared Daoism a superstition, closing religious buildings, and ordering monks, nuns, and priests to stop their religious practices. Persecution of Daoism, like all religions, was ferocious during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In 1980, the government’s Religious Affairs Bureau recognized Daoism as a religion and allowed Daoist practice, but under strict government control. While Daoist monasteries and temples have reopened, they are often seen as tourist sites or museums and a fee is charged for entry. The government bans things such as fortune-telling and exorcism, often seen as part of Daoist practice, as superstitious. So, while Daoism in China is making a comeback, Daoists have lost generations of transmission of teachings and independence. Outside of China, in places such as Taiwan, Daoism has thrived. 208

Developing Dao What are we to make of all of this? We seem to be a long way from the texts we began with. Some argue that we should not see the texts as the beginning of Daoism. There are said to be three interconnected strands to Daoism. The first is the literati, the scholarly, tradition that focused on texts and understanding them. The second is the community, the ordinary people who look for help in problems in life, particularly with health issues and who support the temples and hierarchy. The third strand focuses on selfcultivation looking for self-improvement or immortality. Later Daoists, from whatever strand of Daoism, were able to find things in the texts that they could use.25

The Mystical Reading The word “mysticism” is often thrown around to mean something like “mysterious,” “vague,” or “irrational.” While it is true that mysticism has a number of aspects, it does not mean any of those things. The word itself comes from the Greek and means “an initiate” – someone who knows the hidden or secret. It is related to the word “mysterious.” Much of the discussion of mysticism talks about four markers for a mystical experience. The first is “ineffability.” This means that the person who has the mystical experience says that the experience cannot be adequately recounted because language is inadequate to describe the experience. The second marker of a mystical experience is its “noetic quality.” This means that the experience brings the person knowledge, an insight into truth that would have been inaccessible through everyday reasoning. It is this noetic quality that gives mystics their authority of having experienced a truth beyond the ordinary. The third marker of a mystical experience is that it is transient. The experience does not last for long. The final maker is that the experience is passive. While the person may have done things before the experience, such as fasting, meditating, or preparing in other ways, the mystical experience is something that happens to them. They feel gripped by a power and they are not in control.26 209

Decoding Dao There are said to be two distinct kinds of mystics, the extrovert and introvert, who use different means to reach their mystical experience. An extrovert mystic uses the physical senses to see a unity in the world; the introvert mystic looks within and finds the unity at the deepest part of the self. The extrovert mystic sees and hears the same world we all do, but sees a unity in all things. The introvert mystic loses touch with the senses, the intellect, and everyday consciousness to reach a new level of consciousness.27 Mystical experience generally is an experience of the unity of all things that does not involve the senses or reason. To what extent and in what ways do the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi exhibit these categories of mysticism? The first marker is “ineffability,” the inadequacy of language to describe the mystical experience. The Dao De Jing is quite clear that language is inadequate for describing dao from its first lines that tell us that the word, the name, we use for dao is not its constant name. As well, we have seen the way in which the Dao De Jing uses paradoxical and contradictory language to express its meaning (see Chapter Four). This kind of approach is common to mystical writings and to mystical experience.28 Mystical writings use paradox to point toward something that everyday language cannot talk about. Finally, when it comes to language, the Dao De Jing prefers the “non” words. Nonego-acting is better than ego acting. Not knowing is better than being filled with artificial knowledge. Not desiring means breaking the chain of desires, ego, acting, and trying to control the world. This is like many other mystical texts, and there is a special term for it. This is apophatic language, language that negates, the via negativa (literally, the negative road). Many mystics use negative language, “non” words to describe their experiences and the truth they find. They often do this to show what the ultimate or God is not and to assert, or at least imply, that human language is not able to adequately describe the ultimate or God. Apophatic language or the via negativa can be found in many traditions from Christian to Buddhist.29 The second marker is the noetic nature of mystical experiences. Here, a mystical experience brings the mystic a kind of knowledge, 210

Developing Dao an insight into truth. This knowledge is not available through everyday experience or through normal reasoning. This profound knowledge, arising from a mystical experience, gives the mystic an authority. In the Dao De Jing, we find that knowledge, true knowledge, cannot be put into words. Followers of the mystical inter­ pretation say that the authors of the Dao De Jing claim an authority for what they are saying and that this comes from a mystical experience of dao. For many scholars following the mystical interpretation, the entire Chinese mystical tradition is unique. It can be compared with some parts of Christian mysticism, for example, but Chinese mysticism is distinct from other forms because it is concerned with transforming mind and body, not about the mystical experience itself. The issue is not whether or not we have a mystical experience, but how much of a sage we have become. It is a worldly mysticism focusing not on the experience but on self-cultivation of body and mind. The second way in which Daoist mysticism is said to be unique is that the Daoist mystic is trying for unity with dao and dao is not wholly other, separate from the everyday world or from ourselves.30 Daoist mysticism is not like Western mysticism in that it does not have the idea of a transcendent Other, a God that creates and rules the world and a corresponding “piece” of that within us like a soul. Daoism is not like Western mysticism and does not require belief in a metaphysical Absolute – God or some kind of ultimate thing or being. Nor does Daoist mysticism have the life changing single experience of much of Western mysticism. However, Daoism, like other mysticisms, does have the idea of an immanent ground that is in everything and yet cannot be grasped by the senses. 31 The distinctive form of mysticism in the Zhuangzi is one that sees the world in a new way and affirms the world, but does not withdraw from it. The ideal state is, “an intraworldly mysticism where you focus intently on the perception that is directly present before you but pass on to another perception when a new perception comes or the old one fades.”32 Most Western mysticism is one of 211

Decoding Dao union where the everyday world and everyday person meets the eternal source; other forms are based in monism where there is only one unity and we meet that like a drop of water meeting the ocean. “Intraworldly mysticism” differs from both forms because it is not looking for a union with something beyond the everyday nor looking for a single reality at the core of all things. Instead, Daoist mysticism brings a new perception of the everyday where we see everything in a different way. If that is what makes the mysticism of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi unique, how do we get to that goal? What techniques and processes do the texts set out? There are a number of steps. First, we have to get away from the everyday world, stilling our emotions and developing an inner tranquility. Second, we reduce sensory input and begin to try to empty the mind. It is then that is possible to see the movements of dao. After that, ego and desires disappear. When the ego is gone, we have merged with dao. We are then able to practice non-ego-action.33 The body is part of this process and the body is not seen as the prison or temptation that it is in other traditions. In the Dao De Jing as well, there are said to be a number of mystical techniques. Chapter 52 talks about blocking the openings and this is echoed in chapter 56 that talks about blocking the openings and shutting the doors. Chapter 10 of the Dao De Jing can be read as instructions in breathing practices when it says “By concentrating your breath can you become as supple as a baby? Can you polish your mysterious mirror so that there are no spots?”34 Chapter 16 says that emptiness is the ultimate limit and being tranquil is a central practice. “To reach the ultimate emptiness, hold on tight to stillness. All the things of the world work together and I watch where they return. There are billions of things in the universe but they all return to their root – stillness.” Emptiness is the second last step in meditation in many Daoist sources, coming after achieving tranquility. So far, we have seen the position that mysticism and mystical practice can be found in both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi or at least in parts of them. Others have an even more profound view, 212

Developing Dao arguing that “mystical praxis is at the very heart of the Laozi [Dao De Jing].”35 “The use of mystical techniques and the mystical experiences that result from them is “mystical praxis.”36 In this view, the authors of our texts later added political and social ideas that sprang from their mystical experiences to give us the texts we have today. But to focus on the philosophical and political teachings of our texts is wrong: “. . . the texts we have come to regard as the foundations of Daoist philosophy are not filled with abstract metaphysical speculation that has no basis in nondiscursive experience but are, rather, works written to elucidate the insight attained from inner cultivation practices and to discuss their practical benefits.”37 Similar mystical praxis can be found in other texts, the Guanzi’s “Nei Ye” chapters and the Huainanzi, that share in this early Daoist mystical techniques and experiences. The Dao De Jing can best be understood in its historical context as the product of a community and that community was based in self-cultivation practices.38 We have seen that followers of the mystical interpretation say that Daoist texts can fulfill some of the traditional categories for mysticism. Mystical experience is ineffable, not adequately expressed in language. The Dao De Jing tells us that language is inadequate in giving us any solid description of, or even name for, dao. Our texts use paradoxical and contradictory language, common to other mystical writings and to mystical experience. The Dao De Jing, in particular, uses negative language and prefers negative terms, such as non-ego-action, not knowing and not desiring. This, too, is common to other mystical texts from other traditions. The noetic nature of mystical experience brings the mystic an insight, a truth, not available to ordinary reasoning. In the Dao De Jing, we find that knowledge, true knowledge, cannot be put into words. Many argue that Daoist mysticism is unique.

The Philosophical Reading We have looked the understandings of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi from organized Daoism and the mystical interpretation, 213

Decoding Dao the next broad approach to our texts is the “philosophical.” Here we see scholars and translators who come to the texts looking for philosophical thought and issues. This means they will look at any theories of how we know things (epistemology), discussions of language and how it works, and issues in moral philosophy and political philosophy. So, for example, they look at whether or not the authors of our texts were relativists. A relativist position is that there is no absolute truth or set of moral values that is always true, but only truth and values as individuals and groups set them up. Truth and moral behavior differ in different cultures, historical eras, and among individuals. So truth is “related” to the point of view of a group or individual. The opposite would be an “absolute.” Absolutes are often based on the idea of God, an Ultimate, the Form of the Good, or some kind of ultimate being or thing from which we can derive our moral positions. Absolutes are completely true with no exceptions. The truth is absolute because it is based on this ultimate authority. Relativism, much to the joy of its opponents, has its own internal paradox. If we say “all truth is relative,” we are making an absolute truth statement – that this statement I just made is not relative but absolutely true and has no exceptions. This cannot be the case because I am arguing that all truths are relative. This is fun, but the question we want to look at is whether or not the authors of our texts, particularly Zhuangzi, were relativists. Did they think there was no absolute truth and that truth depends solely on our point of view? Zhuangzi, in particular, seems to be saying that all things are relative, everything we know is based on our point of view, and everything we say is said in language that is not firmly grounded. We have seen Zhuangzi in Section Two talk about how some creatures can sleep in marshes and others in trees, while human beings would have trouble doing either. We do not think fish are sexy, but other fish do. Who knows the right place to sleep, the right thing to eat, and the right partner for sex? Different standards depend on different points of view.39 There is no absolute judgment that works 214

Developing Dao for all creatures. Does this mean that nothing can be said to have any value?40 Not necessarily. Zhuangzi’s relativism applies to making distinctions. If you remember Chapter Six, Zhuangzi was talking about “this” and “that.” He was using the “this/that” model to show that when we say something is right or wrong, we are, at the same time, saying the opposite is wrong or right. There is no real problem doing that. The problem comes when we make distinctions, and their negations, based on our point of view and then insist that our conclusion is absolutely true. As we have seen, Zhuangzi says, What can cover up dao so that there can be true and false (shi and fei)? How is that words can be so murky that we have right and wrong (shi and fei)? Is it possible that dao has disappeared? Dao is hidden by the establishment of lesser things, words are covered over with jargon and eloquence. That is why we have the “that’s it, the true” and the “that’s not it, the false” of the Confucians and Mohists where what is true for one is false for the other.41

When the distinctions and definitions we make become so embedded in concrete that we see them as absolutely true while our opponent is absolutely false, we have hidden dao. For Zhuangzi, it is not that nothing is absolutely true, it is that we have no place to stand so that we are sure we know what it is. This does not necessarily mean there is no Absolute Truth somewhere, it just means we cannot know what it is. It also does not mean we cannot take positions and have views on things. It just means that we must never take those views as written in stone and based on an absolute truth, as if we had “sworn an oath, made a solemn pact.” As for values, both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi have them everywhere. They value dao, non-ego-action, having few or no desires, rejecting conventional values, being very careful with language, not making distinctions and sticking to them, and skill or knack knowing for a start. It is clear in both texts that these things 215

Decoding Dao are better than what we normally do or what we have been taught to do. You cannot be a proper relativist and insist that your values are better than anyone else’s. So, while the authors of our texts, particularly Zhuangzi, warn us away from boxing in our minds, they do value some things. If the authors of our texts are not relativists, can they be said to have any kind of ethical system? This is a bit of a problem because when the texts talk about ethical systems and values, they do so in the context of decline and loss (see Chapter Four). Is behaving well something Daoist sages do? Would they be naturally humane and kind? Not according to the author of chapter 5 of Dao De Jing, “Heaven and earth have no humanity, they treat everything in the universe as straw dogs. The sage-ruler has no humanity but treats the people like straw dogs.” A Daoist sageruler would not be kind, any more than dao would. This could mean that a mass murderer could justify his actions saying that he kills just as dao does and just as indiscriminately. Daoist sages would be moral monsters. But this does not seem to be the only opinion in the Dao De Jing. In chapter 67, it says, “I have three treasures that I hold tight and treasure: the first is compassion, the second is simplicity, the third is not daring to be the first in the world.”42 Here compassion is one of the treasures of the Daoist sage. What is going on here? It looks like many of the authors of the Dao De Jing are arguing that, in our natural state, before dao was lost, we naturally behaved well. In chapter 19, it says, “Exterminate humanity and get rid of rightness and the people will return to filial piety.” The word “return” is key. It is saying that, if we get rid of unnatural systems of morality (the humanity of the Confucians), we would return to being naturally moral. That surely cannot be right. Everyone knows that before civilization and its rules, people did not behave morally: they stole, they killed each other at every opportunity, practiced cannibalism and incest. This was “nature red in tooth and claw,” kill or be killed, where only the strong survived and the weak perished. Everyone may “know” this, but it is not true. 216

Developing Dao Even if only for self-interested reasons, modern hunter gathers act generously to other groups because the people you are kind to now may be the people you have to depend on next year during a drought.43 Studies of modern hunter gatherers show that if people try to act on their own, they risk starvation 27% of the time, but when resources are shared with other groups, this drops to 3%. Hunter gather groups want to intermarry to bind groups together and cast a wider net of kinship – this is also why they often count descent from mother and father not just father.44 The majority of the authors of our texts seem to have believed that there was a common ethical tradition before civilization began. We can see some of that in their stories of a golden age. It may be clearest in a passage we saw from the Zhuangzi, Section Twenty-Three. In the market, if you step on someone’s foot, you apologize profusely for being careless. If you step on your older brother’s foot, you pat him affectionately. When you step on your parent’s foot, you do nothing because you are already forgiven. So it is said, “Perfect ritual does not distinguish between self and others; perfect rightness does not distinguish between the self and things; perfect knowledge does not plot and scheme; perfect humanity is unbiased; perfect trust is not built on gold.”45 We are most artificially polite to strangers but do not need words of apology to those we love and who love us. Practicing perfect ritual, rightness, humanity, and trust does not need rules to be set out or anyone pointing out that these are moral actions. We do not need a culture to teach us how to behave and to twist us into warped and distorted forms. Both the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi say that without artificial desires pulling us, without an ego attempting to force itself on the world, without a culture that teaches us to be aggressive and a good consumer, without all these things, we would be perfectly fine. Building on this discussion of relativism and ethics, we find some scholars arguing that there is no right or wrong in Daoism, all moral claims are relative and equally true.46 In this argument, there is no morality in Daoism and, indeed, moral behavior runs counter to 217

Decoding Dao what the texts say. This argument is often based on seeing dao as amoral. “Amoral” means not moral or immoral, just not involved with ethics or morality at all. This is the dao that treats all things as straw dogs. A tsunami that destroys homes and kills people is a catastrophe in human terms, not for dao. So whether on the ecological level or the personal level, a good Daoist would not interfere and would not make judgments or hold on to things. Just as Zhuangzi was reported to have not cried when his wife died, so too a good Daoist would have no emotions and see the world like a mirror does. This would mean that if a dam is being built that will cause ecological damage, a Daoist would not intervene to stop it; if the last elephant in the world is about to be shot by poachers, a Daoist would not stop them; if a baby is drowning in a flood, a Daoist would do nothing to save the child; if my neighbor is attacked, I should do nothing to intervene. Rejecting interference, masterful control, and judgments would mean Daoists would not be involved in society, politics, or environmental movements. This may be somewhat shocking for any reader who has developed any sympathy for what our texts say. Let us look at the examples that are frequently given to test a Daoist response. If there are poachers about to kill the last elephant in the world and a Daoist is standing there, the scene does indeed have a moral monster and it is not the Daoist. A Daoist in that situation would simply stand between the poachers and the elephant. What he or she would not do is to say something like “Oh, those terrible poachers from X, they are all awful people, we should make war on them and kill them all.” That is a sentence full of moral righteousness, distinctions, and definitions. As for the baby drowning in the flood, the problem is that, if anyone saves the child, that child may grow up to be Hitler. Given that there is no way for anyone to know that at the time, the natural and spontaneous action would be to grab the child. The arguments that accuse Daoists of being moral monsters have two errors. The first is to misunderstand wu-wei as meaning “not acting at all.” Wu-wei means not acting with ego, with desires, to act naturally and spontaneously, to act effortlessly. Daoists would 218

Developing Dao indeed act in all these situations. We can save the child from drowning not in order to be famous or feel morally good, but because it is the natural and spontaneous way we would act if we were acting with wu-wei. Second, there is a confusion of “interference” with “involvement.” If my neighbor is being attacked, I am already involved – this is my neighbor. A perfected person in our texts would act, acting naturally and spontaneously. A perfected person in our texts would act because he or she is already involved with family, friends, neighbors, society, and the planet. Dao, as we have noted before, is not “the Dao” out there doing its thing, it is dao in here with you and me and so we are intimately involved in all things. These are just some examples of how philosophical ideas can be applied to our texts and how some scholars see the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi as primarily philosophical texts.

Modern Daoism Are there Daoists today? If we look at the number of people who belong to Daoist communities, go to Daoist temples, practice Daoist rituals, or who are Daoist monks, nuns, or priests, there are millions and millions of Daoists. Daoist temples and buildings can be found all over China and Taiwan. Daoist temples and ideas can be found in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.47 The census in Singapore shows that 13% of the population identify themselves as Daoist; the Hong Kong Taoist [Daoist] Association includes 70 Daoist communities. Daoism is not just in Asia: there are Daoist temples in North America and Europe and there are now Daoist priests of European and African descent.48 If you google “Taoism” [Daoism], you will get over 800,000 results and the vast majority of these sites will be connected to organized Daoism. 49 Most of us in the West do not meet Daoism through Daoist temples and ritual. For many of us, our early exposure to Daoism comes through related things, such as fengshui, the martial arts, and the exercises of Taiji (太極, T’ai Chi) or qigong (chee-gung, 氣功, 219

Decoding Dao ch’i-kung). It is not Daoist texts or Daoist institutions that most of us first meet, it is the practices of Daoism that we are most likely to first be exposed to.50 Well, there is nothing wrong with all this, is there? Some say that the popularity of everything from fengshui to Taiji and the use of our texts to critique our modern world has made Daoism a worldwide phenomenon.51 Others say that this is Daoism so completely repackaged that it is not Daoism at all. How we can define “true” or “proper” or “authentic” Daoism leads us to the knotty problem of what constitutes a real reading of our texts and what does not. Or, in other words, what is Dao Lite and was is not.

Dao Lite52 A surprising number of my students are attracted to courses on Daoism because they read Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao [Dao] of Pooh. In this book, Hoff draws parallels between A. A. Milne’s Winnie-thePooh and the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi. There are indeed some startling parallels. Take this example from Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh: “ ‘I think it’s more to the right,’ said Piglet nervously. ‘What do you think, Pooh?’ Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right, then the other one was the left, but he never could remember how to begin.”53 Certainly, this is a piece that Zhuangzi would have been proud to have written. Hoff, however, does not stop at these sorts of parallels but presents ideas from our texts in a romantic way where the point seems to be that everyone should just be happy and eat honey. This is not, most would agree, the main message of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. We find this “go with the flow” thinking in movies such as Star Wars that tell us to “use the Force.” The Force is some sort of energy field that is found in all things. Luke Skywalker finds it by emptying his conscious mind and becoming one with the Force. Presumably, this is based on some understanding of dao and the mystical reading of our texts. 220

Developing Dao The reasons these sort of things come in for the fierce criticism they do is that they assume that the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi are just about going with the flow and having no understanding of anything. The Dao Lite attitude assumes that the texts are easy and can say anything at all. The Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi require no real understanding, because, after all, do they not teach that there is no understanding? Going with the flow is just as one happens to feel at the moment and certainly requires no commitment to studying a text, self-discipline, reining in desires, or carrying out any practice at all. This attitude to our texts can be seen in a whole series of Dao Lite books, TV shows, and movies: The Tao [Dao] of Steve teaches the dao of picking up women; the parody of the Dao De Jing in “The Simpsons”;54 two books connecting Daoism and being a stock broker, Bennett Goodspeed’s The Tao [Dao] Jones Average and David Payne’s Confessions of a Taoist [Daoist] on Wall Street; the figure of Forrest Gump, supposedly a Daoist, and the movie’s famous phrase “shit happens,” apparently summing up Daoist thought. These are just some of the many other “The Dao of” . . . sex, Elvis, Jesus, yoga, child care, Mohammad Ali, flower arranging, and so on. What characterizes Dao Lite is, first, that it takes some part of our texts and assumes that is the whole. Second, it assumes that anyone can read our texts and instantly understand what they are saying – after all, are we not modern Westerners and more than capable of understanding some old Chinese guys? Third, Dao Lite tends to fasten on the “go with the flow,” “shit happens” interpretation of the text as meaning one can do anything at all from mass murder to flower arranging. Finally, having become one with dao and “understood” the texts, we do not need to do anything, in particular, or change the way we live. As Girardot says, . . . there is also the implicit addendum that it is possible to accomplish all of this while driving a Saab, Lexus SUV, or aging Volvo station wagon. .  .  . All of this is rather surprising since traditional Chinese civilization had no conception at all of Enlightenment-style ideals of personal authenticity, American commercialized individual-

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Decoding Dao ism, Thoreauian “back to nature” mysticism, Emersonian pragmatism, bourgeois feminism, or the trendy principles of vegan or Gaian ecology. But never mind, say some self-styled Telluride Daoists and BMW Buddhists, that’s what Daoism is really all about.55

Dao Lite Daoism has “encouraged Westerners to believe that Daoism offers a way of undemanding insouciance, going with the flow, and dwelling childlike in an eternally present oblivion.”56 Daoism is a sort of anarchism that is based on “go with the flow” and where the individual has no personal or social responsibilities. The problem remains: what is the line between a “real” understanding of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi and Dao Lite? Who gets to decide what this line is? That is a problem and one not easy to solve. When it comes to any of these Dao Lite products, I have no real problem with them and find some of them very funny. The problem with them comes when people hold on to them as the “real Daoism” of our texts and refuse to move any further. My advice for diagnosing Dao Lite is the same as it was when we talked about translations in Chapter Two. Check out the person who is writing the book, directing the movie, or who put together the “Daoist–Yi Jing–Tarot” card set. As for what constitutes Dao Lite and what does not, Isabelle Robinet, discussing the Dao De Jing, says it best, “while the text is open to many interpretations, it is not open to any interpretation.”57

A Lao-Zhuang Daoist If we want to define “a modern Daoist” simply as someone who follows what they find in the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, would it even be possible to be a modern Daoist? Would perfected people vote? have a job? what would they do all day? would they be plugged in to anything? what would they look and act like? where would they live? Would it be possible to follow what our texts teach in modern society? Many people I have discussed this with say it would not 222

Developing Dao be possible. For a Daoist sage to live in this society without any support system would be “about on par with a monastic living in a bustling city without the monastic training.”58 Our culture is built on engaging and fulfilling desires – that is what a consumer culture does. This flies in the face of anyone who tries to dampen down or suppress desires. Without support from people around them and a wider culture, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to hold on to dao. We have been raised not just in a consumer culture, but in a culture that works as an “other-directed” culture. Sociologists describe people who are “inner directed.”59 These are people who depend on their own judgment to make decisions and live a life that reflects the guidance of their own inner compass. The development of “outer-directed” people and an outer-directed society that reflects their approach began in the twentieth century. Outer-directed people define themselves in relation to others. Over time, how we decorate our homes, shop, work, and relax became more and more measured by what everyone else was doing. We look to others for approval and validation. This other-directed approach has continued so that today many of us tend to live in the bubbles of family and friends who talk on Facebook, text and tweet each other, who like the same kinds of things, and who do the same kinds of things. Daoist sages would be “governed” by dao, not by their desires and not by the society and people surrounding them. Getting to what Zhuangzi called “the hinge of dao” is exceedingly difficult and, especially today, may not even be possible. But then, our texts think that becoming a Daoist sage is not easy either. There is nothing in either text that says, or assumes, that once we have read the texts, we will become sages.60 Perfected people are quite rare. We may be more like those for whom dao is “there one moment and gone the next.”(41) What the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi do tell us is that the world we live in is dominated by cultural constructs that do not match the real world. Once we figure that out, we can take those artificial constructs for what they are, become more useless in social and consumer terms, and find a way to a happier life.61 223

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What Is Daoism and Other Problems How we define Daoism has often been based on the relationship we see between our texts and the later developments and interpretations of those texts. Some see the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi as part of the intellectual life of the Warring States era, along with Confucians and Mohists. Others see our texts as influenced by ideas of self-cultivation and meditation in other texts such as the Guanzi’s Nei Ye, for example. Others see our texts as part of, but not essential to, the development of later organized groups and revelations. It is certainly the depth and richness of both of our texts that allows for so many to find so much in them. Even though I have been reading both books for over 30 years, I cannot say that I have gotten to the bottom of them. Our texts have been read by people all around the world for over 2000 years, and in every era and for each person, the texts have had something important to say. We also ran across a major difficulty with understanding dao and its relation to us. If following dao is what we are supposed to be doing, how is it that human beings, and human beings alone, get so far away from dao? Is there something like a human dao that tends to run counter to dao? Even further, if dao is natural and deals with all activity, how did we even manage to “get off” dao? Maybe it is that animals, in general, and primates, in particular, have a bad case of the “bright and shiny.” This means that we see one bright and shiny thing and rush to it, then we see another bright and shiny thing and rush to that, and so on. We get distracted and human beings seem to get distracted easily. We end up putting artificial values on the things of the world, such as diamonds, and take this distraction as reality – a reality we are willing to fight and kill over. A second factor for us is that we value social groups. It is more important, and interesting, to us to watch others and participate in a group than it is to really see what is going on in the world. In the end, it may not matter how we got “off” dao. For our texts, the important thing is to return to dao and we can do that by following Zhuangzi’s constant instruction: “in all things use clarity.” 224

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Notes   1  For further discussions of this, see Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 2f, and Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 38–39.   2  And equally incapable of any kind of civilization. The ruins of a major civilization in Great Zimbabwe were considered to be the work of any number of European or biblical people up until the 1970s when it was proven beyond doubt that these enormous buildings were built by the Africans who lived in the area.   3  Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).   4  See particularly Said’s “Introduction,” 1–12. The West created, and creates, a dreamworld, not just a distortion of what the traditions are, but as part of extending Western power over Asian people, a way to control and define what Asia is thinking and saying. And, Orientalism is “a structure erected in the thick of the imperial contest whose dominant wing is represented and elaborated not only as a scholarship but as partisan ideology . . . [underneath which] hid the contest between scholarly and esthetic idioms,” 211.   5  This Orientalist attitude can certainly be found in Chinese studies, one would like to think mostly in the past. In the past, though, many Sinologists also acted as advocates for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Chinese culture. Some, such as the “China Hands” of the McCarthy era, had their careers destroyed because of it.   6  James Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003), 7–8. He says that, along with the Guanzi’s “Nei Ye,” the three texts share themes: “social harmony, mystical realization, and biospiritual cultivation [and] are all present to some extent in the formal Daoist religious movements that emerged in the second century (ce) towards the end of the Han dynasty.”   7  For many, this is the goal of Daoism. Some scholars are not happy with the translation as “immortal” and prefer something like “celestial being” or “transcendent,” but “immortal” is the one most commonly used. Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, argues that a xian is someone who achieves purity and tranquility by matching xing, human nature, with ming, outer reality, so xian is a spiritual achievement in one’s lifetime that does not have to do with death, and that is the Daoist goal, 182; 185; see also Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 71.   8  See Chapter Seven; see Mair, Wandering on the Way, 21.

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Decoding Dao   9  In the time our texts were written, there was certainly some who were thinking about how to extend life. The Mawangdui finds (see Chapter Two) include 15 medical texts dated to period between 300 and 160 bce. They talk about nourishing life, diet, balancing qi, and the connection between good health and long life. One of these texts, the Daoyin Tu, is a chart with 44 gymnastic poses that may show exercises for transforming the body. From medicine and healing, methods to promote longevity grew. It is likely that it was from these methods and ideas that techniques to achieve immortality were developed. See Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction, 66, and Miller, Daoism, 71. 10  For example, Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction; Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture; Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction; and Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition. 11  Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 9. 12  Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 25. 13  See Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 72–79. 14  Probably through the influence of Buddhism, Daoist groups began a monastic form, Quanzhen (Complete Perfection, chew-an zhun). This is the form of monastic Daoism that still exists today. See Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 154–63. 15  The first reference we have to Lord Lao, Laojun, is from the end of the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) in an inscription from 165 ce referring to Laozi as Laojun, the Highest Venerable Lord. The inscription is called the Taishang Laojun. The Laozi Ming, 166 ce, says that Laozi transformed himself a number of times. See Anna Seidel, La divinisation de Lao-tseu dans le taoisme des Han [The Divinization of Laozi in Han Dynasty Daoism] (Paris: Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient, 1969), 92–102. 16  See Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 81. 17  The new royal family of the Tang dynasty (618–906) took Tang as the name for their dynasty, but their family name was Li. They turned to a tradition that Laozi’s original name was Li Er. So they believed that Laozi was their ancestor. Laozi was given a new title, “Sovereign Emperor of the Mysterious Origin” (Xuanyuan Huangdi), and Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–755) ordered that statues of Laozi be placed in all state temples. 18  See Livia Kohn, “The Lao-tzu [Laozi] Myth” in Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds., Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing] (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 52–53.

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Developing Dao 19  This is why Daoists produced an unkind text, the Hua Hu Jing (the classic on converting the barbarians). It says that, when Laozi left China, he was met by the barrier keeper Yin Xi (尹喜) and made to write the Dao De Jing, then he kept going west. He arrived in India and tried to teach the people there, either teaching or becoming the Buddha. The Indians, the text says, were so corrupt and filthy that Laozi had to set up rules such as shaving the monks’ heads and being vegetarian to bring them up to some sort of civilized standard. He taught them the “lesser way” that came to be called Buddhism. As these rules did not work, Laozi ordered them to become celibate so as to put an end to these degenerate people. 20  Laozi’s supernatural abilities to control demons, know the future, and so on had been described in the Han biographies of immortals, such as Liu Xiang’s description of Laozi as one who kept his qi intact. Ge Hong describes Laozi as having perfected oneness with dao and as a model for immortality techniques. As well, Laozi is able to keep people alive or to cause their death through magic. Kohn, “The Lao-tzu [Laozi] Myth, 43. 21  Kohn, “The Lao-tzu [Laozi] Myth,” 47. 22  The Laozi Bianhua Jing, Classic of the Transformations of Laozi, was a text used by one millennial cult in the Han. It describes Laozi as the representative of dao, looking for balance and harmony in the universe and in this world. Laozi is able to move from one sphere to another and thus enter this world. He appears to worthy people with revelations to help them survive the coming end of the world. At the same time, Laozi bestows magical powers and immortality on those who follow him. Kohn, “The Lao-tzu [Laozi] Myth,” 49. 23  Kohn, “The Lao-tzu [Laozi] Myth,” 53. 24  Throughout history, some have argued that the Dao De Jing was a forgery and in no way related to Lord Lao or the revelations he gave. The literati were suspicious about the text, noting that if it was written around the time of the Confucian, Mencius (see Chapter One), why did no Confucian mention it? They were happy enough to separate the text from its legendary author. As for Zhuangzi, he stands way back in the background. The Zhuangzi is included in the Daoist canon and Zhuangzi himself is referred to as an immortal, but his text was not used much by organized Daoism except as a reference for stories of immortals and their powers. Reverence for the Dao De Jing can be found outside of the organized Daoist movements, too. Throughout

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25  26  27  28  29 

30 

31  32 

33 

34 

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Chinese history, the literati, the scholar-bureaucrats of later dynasties, read and honored the text. This thread of intellectual interest continues throughout the centuries, and this, Kohn argues, shows that philosophical and religious Daoism cannot be divided nor can one make a positive or negative evaluation of either: “Instead we have to think of the veneration of the ancient texts as one, if rather intellectual, expression of the essentially practical Daoist quest for the transformation of self and society that has been parallel to, and coexistent with, Daoism as religious organization, self-cultivation, and ritual,” Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 41. Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 77. William James (1842–1910), Varieties of Religious Experience, originally published in 1902 and reprinted frequently since then. Walter T. Stace, The Teachings of the Mystics (New York: The New American Library, 1960). Benjamin Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 197–98. See Michael A. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Harold Roth, “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,” in Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds, Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), says, “I use the term ‘apophatic’ in its more general and original sense of ‘(knowledge of God) obtained by negation,’ ” 90. Livia Kohn, Early Chinese Mysticism: Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist [Daoist] Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 10–12. Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 39. Lee Yearley, “The Perfected Person in the Radical Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi],” in Victor Mair, ed., Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983), 130. Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, “In both cases, Western and Daoist, the process involves leaving the ordinary world of perception behind and learning a completely new, spiritually focused way of being in the world by undergoing a permanent transformation,” 40. See Roth, “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,” where he concludes with a line by line exegesis of the chapter. It is, he says, the best example of guided breathing meditation and there are parallels between this chapter and the “Nei Ye.”

Developing Dao 35  36  37  38  39  40 

41  42  43  44  45 

46 

47  48 

49 

Roth, “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,” 60. Roth, “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,” 67. Roth, “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,” 62. Roth, “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,” 62. See Mair, Wandering on the Way, 20–21. See Countinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy, 62, for a good discussion. Relativism is the position of many in North America and can be seen in phrases such as “different strokes for different folks,” “whatever floats your boat,” and “whatever gets you through the night.” Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way, 15. See Chapter Four. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009), 6. Hrdy, Mothers and Others, 14–16. Compare Mair, Wandering on the Way 234. Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Inner Chapters put this passage in section 5, see 81. “Daoism is understood to offer no absolute set of objective ideals nor any morally transcendent grounding upon which eternal moral principles, rights, and duties could be established, but rather to recommend a way of self-transformation and self-actualization,” Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 95. Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 187. Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 21. There is a Daoist journal, The Empty Vessel, and websites at http://www.tao.org and questions@tao .org. For a description of Daoism in North America, both Celestial Master and Complete Perfection Daoism, see Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, 198f. A sampling of them includes The Daoism Depot at http://www .edepot.com/taoism.html that includes a wide number of links including pages on Daoist humor, art, and a virtual temple. The Taoist [Daoist] Circle Organization (http://www.oocities.org/ athens/aegean/7201/index.html) is an online community site for anyone interested in Daoism and includes chat rooms. The Western Reform Taoist [Daoist] Congregation at wrt.org uses the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi as the basis for spiritual growth. For a history of the development of Daoism and the major sects and

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50  51  52 

53  54  55 

56 

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history, see http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/ religious-tao.html. Alchemical Daoism, focusing on the “Healing Tao [Dao]” system of qigong is at http://www.alchemicaltaoism .com. For a sacred texts timeline and a description of texts in an historical context, see http://www.sacred-texts.com/time/ timeline.htm. Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 14. Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, 34. This marvelous phrase, and much of what follows, comes from the funniest and most perceptive rant in Daoist studies: Norman Giradot, “My Way: Teaching the Daodejing [Dao De Jing] and Daoism at the End of the Millennium,” in Gary DeAngelis and Warren Frisina, eds, Teaching the Daodejing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 105–29. Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 11–12. “Dead Putting Society,” 2008, 7F. Giradot, “My Way: Teaching the Daodejing [Dao De Jing],108. He also says, “Along with the feng shui kits at Wal-Mart, the I Ching (Yi Jing) on CD-ROM . . . should we not ask why, in the apocalyptically frightened post-9/11 world, there were not more Enron executives who studied the Zhuangzi along with their tattered copies of Sunzi’s Art of War? .  .  . Doesn’t the holy Book of the Way and Its Power, [the Dao De Jing], the ‘gate of all mysteries’ assure us that knowing derives not from the eyes and brain, but from the instinctual rumblings of the belly? .  .  . Finally, is it not the saving grace of Daoism to be one of the very few world religions to cling firmly to a sense of humor about the profane and the sacred, the pissy-prissy and the pure, the ridiculous and the sublime, the historical tradition of Daoism and the ineffable Dao itself? .  .  . Zhuangzi, in his Chinese Frank Zappa persona as an Andy Kaufmann ‘Foreign Man’ or seedy Elvis impersonator, put it best, ‘Now I have just said something, but I’m not sure if I’ve really said something or nothing at all.’ Tank you berry much. Laozi has left the building,” 106. Clarke, The Tao [Dao] of the West, 90. He also says that Daoism, in general, is seen as “a vague, if harmless, nature-loving mysticism, a form of quietism, characterized by the search for inner peace at the expense of serviceable social and political precept or practical moral guidance,” 2.

Developing Dao 57  Isabelle Robinet, “Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations,” 121. 58  Eric Fowler, personal communication. 59  David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961) (reprint 1950) was the first to study this phenomenon and this text has remained a landmark approach in sociology. 60  Liam Bennett, personal communication, February 18, 2013. 61  Russell Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition, 37.

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GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS

Being (有, you “yo”) and non-being (無, wu, “woo”). Being are things that are present; non-being, absence, emptiness. See Chapter Three. Dao (道, Tao) is used in Chinese to mean road, path, way, method, teachings, or doctrines. In English, it often translated as the Way. See Chapter Three. As there are no articles in Chinese (“a” or “the”) and no capital letters, I have used dao. The Dao De Jing says that the word “dao” is only a makeshift name and, just because we have a word for it, we should not think we have defined it. In the Dao De Jing, we are told that dao claims no credit, is not looking for fame, and does not act like it rules everything. Everything depends on dao for existence, but dao does not claim any authority over anything. Everything is fed by dao, everything returns to dao, but dao does not claim to be master (2, 34). The text emphasizes the point that dao has no bias but deals with all things in the same way. Anyone who wants to follow dao will have to do the same. Dao follows ziran, self-so, spontaneity (25, see Chapter Four). The name dao, the word we use for it, is not its name. de (德, duh or dey). The virtue or power, particular to that thing. De has been translated as “ethical nature,” “spiritual power,” “power,” “potency,” and “virtue.” The usual translations are “virtue” Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Glossary of Technical Terms and “power.” Like qi, de is one of those concepts that is specific to the Chinese language and does not translate to a single word in English. It can be used to mean virtue in the sense of moral virtue, an ethical person. This is often the Confucian sense of the word where a person with de controls others because he is morally superior and attracts others to him. De may also be used to talk about virtue as power. The de, virtue, of the plant foxglove is that it produces digitalis for heart problems. Foxglove does this naturally and the power to do this is inherent to the plant. This led to the idea of virtue as power, potency, the energy, the charisma, of a special kind of person. This de attracts and influences others. It is this sense of de that is most often, though not exclusively, used in the Daoist texts. qi (氣, chee). Originally, it was used to talk about emotions or character or as the atmosphere of a place. Later, more complex theories of qi were created. In these theories, qi makes up all things and can be heavy or light, making a solid, a liquid, or a gas. Qi in human beings is heavy, like bones, liquid like blood, gaseous like breath, and is also the animating energy that makes us alive. Qi transforms from one form to another constantly in all the things and events of the universe. See Chapter One. shi and fei: shi, (是, sure) “is this,” “correct,” right; fei, (非, fay) “is not this,” “incorrect,” “wrong.” See Chapter Seven. The ten thousand or myriad things (wan wu, 萬物 wan woo). The biggest problem with the phrase “ten thousand things” is the word “things.” While the phrase is meant to include all the objects of the universe, it also includes all events of the universe from supernovas to the white blood cell your body just made. So it is not just things that are referred to, but processes and actions as well. See Chapter One. Tian (天, tee-yen), Heaven. This is not heaven as a place where one goes after death, this Heaven was seen as the chief god, a moral judge of human actions that rewarded the good and punished the bad in this life, not in the next. As time went on, this notion of Tian, Heaven, changed to seeing Heaven as the workings of nature, an impersonal force. We begin to see the use of the phrase tian-di 233

Glossary of Technical Terms (tee-yen, dee), heaven-earth, to mean the world or the universe. It too was seen as impersonal, not a creator of the world, and is often translated as “nature.” wei shi (為是, way sure) literally “to make right/true/this.” A distinction or definition that is certain it is right and based on an overarching truth, not open to change. See Chapter Eight. wuwei (無為, woo-way), See Chapter Four. Literally wu means “not” (as in the non-being we have seen above) and wei means “to act,” so this is usually translated as “nonaction.” It does not mean doing nothing, it means doing without the ego, selfishness, and desires involved. We do many things this way: typing, driving, and riding a bicycle. Zhuangzi talks about wuwei as “knack” knowing (see Chapter Six), where the skill has become natural to us. This is why Slingerland translates wuwei as “effortless action.” ziran (自然, ds-ran), spontaneous, natural. Not the “spontaneous” of self-indulgence, but the spontaneous of natural and conflict free action. That is why it is often paired with wuwei. See Chapter Four. xin, (心, shin), the mind/heart. For some thinkers, it was a rational faculty; for others, it contained both thought and emotions. The character is a stylized picture of a heart, and as a radical, the basis of character, you can find xin in characters expressing thought and rationality and also emotions. Translating xin as “mind/heart” is an attempt to convey both parts of this term; see Chapter One. yin shi, (因是, yin sure), literally “because of, or based on, this.” A distinction or definition based on our experience, what we know, and common sense. Yinshi definitions are open to change. See Chapter Eight.

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GLOSSARY OF PRONUNCIATION

Chu (jew) Dao jia,” (gee-ah) Dao jiao, (gee-ow) Dao rhymes with “how” de (德, duh or dey) fei (fay) Gongsun Long (gung, s-wun, lung) Guanzi (g-wahn ds) Guodian (g-woe, dee-an) Han Feizi (hahn fey ds) Henan (huh-nan) Huainan (h-why nahn) Huang Di (h-wahng, dee) Hubei (who-bay) Hui Shi (h-way, sure) Hundun (h-wun d-wun) jing (rhymes with “cling”) Jixia (gee-she-ah) Ku (coo) Lao Laizi (lie-ds) Laozi (“lao,” rhymes with “how,” ds) Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Glossary of Pronunciation Li Er (lee, are) Liezi (lee-eh ds) Mawangdui (ma, w-ahng, d-way) Mohism (Moe-ism) Mozi (Moe-ds) Nei Ye (nay yeh) Qi (chee) qi (chee) Qin (chin) qing (rhymes with “cling”) Quren (chew-ren) shi (sure) Sima Qian (suh-ma, chee-en) Song (sung) Taishi Dan (tie-sure) Tian (天, tee-yen) tian-di (tee-yen, dee) wan wu 萬物 (wan woo) Wang Bi (w-ahng, bee) wei shi (way, sure) wu zhi (woo jur) wu yu (woo you) wuwei (woo-way) Xia (She-aw) xian (仙, she-anne) xin, (心, shin) Yan Hui (yan h-way) Yang Zhu (Ya-ahng, jew) Yao (rhymes with “how”) yin shi (yin sure) Zhou (Joe) Zhuang Zhou (joe) Zhuangzi (Juh-wahng, ds) zi is the end of the word “ads” without the “a” Zi Qi (ds, chee) Ziran (ds, ran) 236

FURTHER READING

Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003. Steve Coutinho, Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy: Vagueness, Transformation, and Paradox. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006. Wiebke Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center/Harvard University Press, 2010. Angus C. Graham, Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Inner Chapters. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2001. (reprint; 1981). Angus C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao [Dao]: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. LaSalle: Open Court, 1989. Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Robert G. Henricks, Lao-tzu Te Tao Ching [Laozi Dao De Jing]: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui [Mawangdui] Texts New York. Ballantine Books, 1989. Robert G. Henricks, LaoTzu’s [Laozi] Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Russell Kirkland, Daoism: The Enduring Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2004.

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Further Reading Livia Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2001. Michael LaFargue, The Tao[Dao] of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A Translation and Commentary. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Ronnie L. Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction. New York: I. B. Taurus, 2009. Victor Mair, Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist [Daoist] Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998. James Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003. Hans-Georg Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Harold Roth, A Companion to Angus C. Graham’s Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]: the Inner Chapters. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. Harold Roth, Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Kuang-ming Wu, Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]: World Philosopher at Play. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ames, Roger T. and David L. Hall Daodejing: Making This Life Significant, A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003. Baxter, William. “Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu [Laozi]: The Probable Dates of the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing].” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 231–54. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Boltz, William G. “The Composite Nature of Early Chinese Texts.” In Text and Ritual in Early China, ed. Martin Kern, pp. 50–79. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Cahill, Suzanne E. Divine Traces of the Daoist Sisterhood: “Records of the Assembled Transcendents of the Fortified Walled City” by Du Guangting (850–933). Magdalena: Three Pine Press, 2006. Callicot, J. Baird and Roger Ames. “Introduction: The Asian Traditions as a Conceptual Resource for Environmental Philosophy.” In Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays In Environmental Philosophy, eds J. Baird Callicot and Roger Ames, pp. 1–21. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Capra, Fritjof. The Tao [Dao] of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Oxford: Collins, 1976. Chan, Alan. “A Tale of Two Commentaries: Ho-shang-kung [Heshang Gong] and Wang Pi [Bi] on the Lao-tzu [Laozi].” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 89–118. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Bibliography Clarke, J. J. The Tao [Dao] of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist [Daoist] Thought. London: Routledge, 2000. Coutinho, Steve. Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy: Vagueness, Transformation, and Paradox. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. Creel, H. G. What is Taoism [Daoism] and Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. “Mysticism and Apophatic Discourse in the Laozi.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 33–58. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. “Traditional Taxonomies and Revealed Texts in the Han.” In Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual, eds Livia Kohn and Harold D. Roth, pp. 81–101. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002. Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006. Czikszentmihalyi, Mark and Philip J. Ivanhoe. “Introduction.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 1–23. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Danto, Arthur C. Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy. New York: Basic Books, 1972. Defoort, Carine. The Pheasant Cap Master (He Guanzi): A Rhetorical Reading. Albany: State University Press of New York, 1997. Denecke, Wiebke. The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center/Harvard University Press, 2010. Deng, Ming-dao. Everyday Tao [Dao]: Living with Balance and Harmony. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Claims to be a way of applying the Dao De Jing to the modern world. Single-page meditations based on ancient characters offer a romantic view of the people of ancient times heavily influenced by the interpretations of later Daoists. The author is identified as having studied with Daoist Master Kwan Saihung for 13 years and is also the author of 365 Tao [Dao]; Chronicles of Tao [Dao]: The Secret Life of a Taoist [Daoist] Master; ScholarWarrior: An Introduction to the Tao [Dao] in Everyday Life. Not recommended. Eno, Robert. “Cook Ding’s Dao and the Limits of Philosophy.” In Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, eds Paul Kjellberg

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Bibliography and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 127–51. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. von Falkenhausen, Lothar. Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC). Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006. Forstater, Mark. The Tao [Dao]: Finding the Way of Balance and Harmony. New York: Plume/Penguin Books, 2003. (Originally published as The Spiritual Teachings of the Tao. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001.) He says, “Since I don’t read Chinese my aim in making this new version [of the Zhuangzi] is clearly not to be philologically correct .  .  . as a T’ai Chi [Tai Ji] ‘player’ and meditator I bring my own practice and insights to the work” (28). He then offers a remixed version of parts of the Zhuangzi. Pleasant and easy reading, but not a serious translation of the Zhuangzi. Giradot, Norman. “My Way: Teaching the Daode jing and Daoism at the End of the Millennium.” In Teaching the Daodejing, eds Gary DeAngelis and Warren Frisina, pp. 105–29. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Goldin, Paul Rakita. Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi. LaSalle: Open Court, 1999. Goldin, Paul Rakita. “A Mind-Body Problem in the Zhuangzi.” In Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, ed. Scott Cook, pp. 226–47. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Graham, Angus C. Disputers of the Tao [Dao]: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. LaSalle: Open Court, 1989. Graham, Angus C. The Book of Lieh-tzu [Liezi]: A Classic of the Tao [Dao]. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. (reprint; 1960). Graham, Angus C. “The Way and the One in Ho-kuan-tzu [He Guanzi].” In Epistemological Issues in Classical Chinese Philosophy, eds Hans Lenk and Gregor Paul, pp. 31–43. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Graham, Angus C. “The Origins of the Myth of Lao Tan [Dan].” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 23–40. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. (reprint; 1986). Graham, Angus C. Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Inner Chapters. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2001. (reprint; 1981). Hahn, Thomas. “An Introductory Study on Daoist Notions of Wilderness.” In Daoism and Ecology: Ways Within a Cosmic Landscape, eds Norman

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Bibliography Giradot, James Miller, and Xiaogan Liu, pp. 201–18. Cambridge, MA: Centre for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2001. Hall, David L. “On Seeking Change in the Environment.” In Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, eds J. Baird Callicot and Roger Ames, pp. 99–112. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Hall, David L. and Roger Ames. Anticipating China: Thinking Through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Hall, David L. and Roger Ames. Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Hansen, Chad. “A Tao [Dao] of Tao [Dao] in Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi].” In Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi], ed. Victor Mair, pp. 24–55. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983. Hansen, Chad. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Hansen, Chad. “Guru or Skeptic? Relativistic Skepticism in the Zhuangzi.” In Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, ed. Scott Cook, pp. 128–62. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Hardy, Julia. “Influential Western Interpretations of the ‘The Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing].’ ” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 165–88. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Henricks, Robert G. Lao-tzu Te Tao Ching [Laozi Dao De Jing]: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui [Mawangdui] Texts. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. Henricks, Robert G. “Re-exploring the Analogy of the Dao and the Field.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 161–73. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Henricks, Robert G. LaoTzu’s [Laozi] Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. In addition to Henricks’ description of the find and the contexts in which the find can be evaluated, he provides a solid translation that is very helpful: it includes a transcription of the original Guodian version Chinese, the modern Chinese

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Bibliography equivalent characters, a reference to the standard chapter number, and notes and comments on lines in the chapter. These notes deal with grammatical, textual, and comparative issues. The appendices also very helpful and include a translation of Sima Qian’s biography of Laozi; a line by line comparison of the Guodian Laozi, the Mawangdui Laozis, and the traditional version; and, finally a discussion of punctuation in ancient texts. Hinton, David. Chuang Tzu: the Inner Chapters. Washington D.C.: Counterpoint, 1997. As all Hinton’s translations are, this is very pleasant, but not based on scholarship. Hochsmann, Hyun. On Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. Belmont: Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning, 2001. Part of the “Wadsworth Philosopher’s Series. Much of the text is borrowed from popular books and general encyclopedia articles. Hochsmann, Hyun and Guorong Yang. Zhuangzi. New York: Pearson Education, 2006. While the text does not tell us, Hochsmann is a professor at New Jersey City University; Yang is identified as associated with East China Normal University. The text provides an uncritical and traditional overview of Zhuangzi, the text, and schools and issues of the time. The section on themes in the Zhuangzi presents the Dao as a metaphysical principle, with comparisons to preSocratic philosophers and Zhuangzi as an advocate of individual freedom. The text is full of statements like “The ideal of being in harmony with nature permeates all philosophical thought in China” (53). Although the bibliography lists recent scholarly texts on Daoism, much of the text is based on very old fashioned and “Dao Lite” thinking. Hoff, Benjamin. The Tao [Dao] of Pooh. New York: Penguin, 1982. Hoff, Benjamin. The Te of Piglet. New York: Penguin, 1992. A pleasant set of books based in the romantic view of Daoism, using characters and selections from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh to talk about Daoist concepts. The first volume is better at discussing Daoist terms, though both follow a standard, and now somewhat old fashioned, understanding of Daoism. Not bad introductions for a beginner reader, but problematic in getting a good grip on Daoism. Holloway, Kenneth W. Guodian: The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

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Bibliography Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge, MA: Balknap Press, 2009. Ivanhoe, Philip J. “The Concept of de (‘Virtue’) in the Laozi.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 239–57. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Joachim, Chris. “Just Say No to the ‘No Self’ in Zhuangzi.” In Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, ed. Roger Ames, pp. 34–74. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Katz, S. T. ed., Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Kirkland, Russell. “Responsible Non-Action’ in a Natural World: Perspectives from the Neiye, Zhuangzi, and Daodejing.” In Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays In Environmental Philosophy, eds J. Baird Callicot and Roger Ames, pp. 283–304. Albany: State University of New York, 1989. Kirkland, Russell. Daoism: The Enduring Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2004. Knoblock, John. Xunzi: A Study and Translation of the Complete Works. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. 3 vols. Kohn, Livia. Early Chinese Mysticism: Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist [Daoist] Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Kohn, Livia. “The Lao-tzu [Laozi] Myth.” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-teching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 41–62. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Kohn, Livia. Daoism and Chinese Culture. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2001. Kohn, Livia. Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Tao [Dao] of Perfect Happiness: Selections Annotated and Explained. Woodstock: Skylight Paths, 2011. The text is presented in a very good way with commentary on the pages opposite the translated text so as to explain the meaning of each passage. This is very useful, especially to beginning readers. Rather than a translation that begins with the first chapter and carries straight through, Kohn has chosen topics and then found passages from the Zhuangzi that discuss that issue. Curiously, most of the passages are not from the Inner Chapters. The commentary is interested in showing the meditative aspects of the text and also provides links to other, much later texts and practices from imperial China. Fine for

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Bibliography readers who are aware of the major ways in which the text can be read. LaFargue, Michael. “Hermeneutics and Pedagogy: Gimme that Old-Time Historicism.” In Teaching the Daodejing, eds Gary DeAngelis and Warren Frisina, pp. 167–92. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. LaFargue, Michael. The Tao[Dao] of the Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A Translation and Commentary. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. A translation that arranges the chapters according to topic with an accompanying commentary for each chapter and a glossary of terms. The commentary consists of an explanation of the chapter and references to other passages in the text. Best to read his introduction and sections on the end on hermeneutics and to know what interpretative line he is using. LaFargue, Michael. “Nature’ as Part of Human Culture in Daoism.” In Daoism and Ecology: Ways Within a Cosmic Landscape, eds Norman Giradot, James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan, pp. 45–60. Cambridge, MA: Centre for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2001. Lau, D. C. Lao Tzu [Laozi] Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964. Reprinted frequently, this translation has long been the standard one. It has been overtaken by others, but is still the most frequently used. Lau, D. C. and Roger T. Ames. Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to its Source. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. Lewis, Mark Edward. Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Liao, W. K., trans. The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu [Han Feizi]: A Classic of Chinese Political Science. London: Probsthain, 1959. Littlejohn, Ronnie L. Daoism: An Introduction. New York: I. B. Taurus, 2009. Liu, Xiaogan. “An Inquiry into the Core Value of Laozi’s Philosophy.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 211–37. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Liu, Xiaogan. Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters, W. Savage, trans. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1994. Lusthaus, Dan. “Aporetic Ethics in the Zhuangzi.” In Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, ed. Scott Cook, pp. 163–206. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.

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Bibliography Lynn, Richard John. A New Translation of the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing] of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. A translation of the Laozi with Wang Bi’s (226–49 ce) commentary inserted and with extensive notes. Mair, Victor. “Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi] and Erasmus: Kindred Wits.” In Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi], ed. Victor Mair, pp. 85–100. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983. Mair, Victor. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist [Daoist] Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998. An excellent translation of the complete Zhuangzi with notes on the text, authorship, and times. It also includes names and places glossaries, as well as a glossary of terms. Mair has the same ability to play with English as Zhuangzi had to play with Chinese. This results in some surprising translations for those used to the standard Watson version, but always interesting and frequently felicitous. Having read Mair, the serious reader will have to go to Graham’s translation and Roth’s commentary. Major, John S., Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold Roth, trans. and eds, The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Miller, James. Daoism: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003. Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: A New English Version, with Foreword and Notes by Stephen Mitchell. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. While Mitchell admits in his Second Book of Tao [Dao] that he does not read Chinese, his version of the Laozi is based on an old translation with English equivalents and consultation of a number of other translations. He says, “.  .  . the most essential preparation for my work was a fourteen-years-long course of Zen training . . .” (xi). Pocket-sized and heavily interpreted, this is the quintessential “DaoLite” translation. Moeller, Hans-Georg. Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory. Chicago: Open Court, 2004. Moeller, Hans-Georg. The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Moeller, Hans-Georg. Daodejing (Laozi):A Complete Translation and Com­ mentary. Chicago: LaSalle, 2007. A useful translation for beginners

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Bibliography because Moeller supplies a commentary on the face page for each chapter. Mollgard, Eske. An Introduction to Daoist Thought: Action, Language, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi. New York: Routledge, 2007. Ni, Hua-ching. The Complete Works of Lao Tzu [Laozi]: Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing] and Hua Hu Ching[Huahu Jing]. Malibu: Shrine of the Eternal Breath of Dao, 1979. Ni Huajing is a Daoist priest and his translation reflects his rather wide interests. The Huahu Jing is a polemical text developed, it is thought, in the fourth century ce as “proof” that Laozi travelled to India and converted, or became known as, the Buddha. The full title is Taishang Lingbao Laozi Huahu Miaojing, The Supreme Ultimate Classic of Laozi’s Conversion of the Barbarians, and is seen as a text of the Northern Celestial Masters. The text rehearses much of what is found in the Laozi. Osho. When the Shoe Fits: Stories of the Taoist [Daoist] Mystic Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. London: Watkins, 2004. Osho is the founder of an ashram in India for those who “want to experience meditation and transformation.” He teaches Indian yoga and meditation along with Zen. His website also offers Zen Tarot. See http://www.osho.com. Paper, Jordan. The Spirits Are Drunk: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religions. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Parkes, Graham. “Natural Man in Nietzsche and Taoism [Daoism].” In Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays In Environmental Philosophy, eds J. Baird Callicot and Roger Ames, pp. 79–97. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Pas, Julian and Michael LaFargue. “On Translating the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing].” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 277–301. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Popper, Karl. The Open Society and Its Enemies. London: Routledge, 1945. 2 vols. Raphals, Lisa. “Skeptical Strategies in the Zhuangzi and Theaetetus.” In Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, eds Paul Kjellberg and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 26–49. Albany, NY: Albany State University of New York Press, 1996. Raphals, Lisa. “On Hui Shi.” In Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, ed. Roger T. Ames, pp. 143–61. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

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Bibliography Rickett, W. Allyn. Kuan-tzu [Guanzi]: A Repository of Early Chinese Thought. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965. Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism [Daoism]: Growth of a Religion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Translated and adapted by Phyllis Brooks from Robinet’s Histoire du Taoisme des origins au XIVe siècle (1991). Robinet, Isabelle. “Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations.” In Lao-tzu [Laozi] and the Tao-te-ching [Dao De Jing], eds Liva Kohn and Michael LaFargue, pp. 119–42. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Robinet, Isabelle. “The Diverse Interpretations of the Laozi.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 127–59. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Roth, Harold D. “The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 59–96. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Roth, Harold D. Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Roth, Harold D. “Bimodal Mystical Experience in the ‘Qiwulun’ 齊物論 Chapter of the Zhuangzi 莊子.” In Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, ed. Scott Cook, pp. 15–32. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. (Originally appeared in The Journal of Chinese Religions, 28 (2000), 31–50.) Roth, Harold D. A Companion to Angus C. Graham’s Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]: The Inner Chapters. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. Saso, Michael. “The Chuang-tzu nei-p’ien [Zhuangzi Nei Pian]: A Taoist [Daoist] Meditation.” In Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi], ed. Victor Mair, pp. 140–57. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983. Schwartz, B. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. Schwitzgebel, Eric. “Zhuangzi’s Attitude Toward Language and His Skepticism.” In Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, eds Paul Kjellberg and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 69–84. Albany, NY: Albany State University of New York Press, 1996.

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Bibliography Seidel, Anna. La divinisation de Lao-tseu dans le taoisme des Han [the divinization of Laozi in Han dynasty Daoism]. Paris: Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient, 1969. Slingerland, Edward. Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Smullyan, Raymond M. The Tao [Dao] is Silent. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. Reflections on some passages from the Laozi and the Zhuangzi by comparing and explaining them using Zen Buddhism. Smullyan is a professor of mathematics. Not recommended. Star, Jonathan. Tao Te Ching [Dao De Jing]: The Definitive Edition. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. Star is also the author of The Inner Treasure: An Introduction to the World’s Sacred and Mystical Writings and Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved. Not surprisingly, he begins with the assumption that the text is a mystical one. His translation, the first section of the book, is full of additions to the Chinese. Chapter 1 reads, “A mind free of thought merged within itself, beholds the essence of the Tao [Dao]” (14). Almost all of this is not in the text. This is surprising, because he then offers a word-for-word attempt at “translation” in the second section of the book (97f), where he gives the Chinese character, the Wade–Giles, and then the “meanings” of the character. For “dao,” he offers “Tao [Dao]/the Tao [Dao]/path/ paths/‘That’/The Absolute/Nature” (100). “That” comes from the Hindu traditions, and “The Absolute” is not a Chinese term. Interesting, but as an excellent example of how the translator’s preconceived ideas force an interpretation. Not recommended. Tateno, Masami. “A Philosophical Analysis of the Laozi from an Ontological Perspective.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 175–85. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Thompson, Paul. The Shen Tzu [Zi] Fragments. London: Oxford University Press, 1979. Toropov, Brandon and Chad Hansen. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Taoism [Daoism]. Indianapolis: Alpha/Penguin, 2002. The text aims at explaining Daoism at a beginner’s level and to teach the reader how to be less judgmental, more fully present, more spontaneous, rather than understanding the texts or tradition. In a chatty and humorous way, it attempts to harmonize “philosophical” and “religious” Daoism. While it claims to focus on the Laozi and Zhuangzi, they are

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Bibliography only discussed in chapters 3 and 4. It is very much informed by Hansen’s theories, but also uses religious/mystical approaches without notifying the reader of the change so, for example, chapter 14 on death makes no mention of longevity or immortality techniques. There is an entire chapter on Buddhism and Zen and a bizarre chapter comparing Christian and Daoist teachings. On the whole, there is no single guiding hand in the text, and information is not pulled together either as a whole or in each chapter. Van Norden, Bryan W. “Method in the Madness of the Laozi.” In Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, eds Mark Czikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe, pp. 187–210. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Wang, Keping. Reading the Dao: A Thematic Inquiry. London: Continuum, 2011. The bulk of the text is a discussion of terms and themes in the Dao De Jing. Wang presents a passage and then comments on it in light of the term or theme. This main section is followed by a complete translation of the Laozi. While Wang is a modern Chinese scholar, some of things Wang says are old fashioned and some very odd. For example, at the beginning of the section on “Dao,” we are told that Laozi was the first person to coin the special concept of dao – something we know is not accurate. His discussions assume a wide knowledge of Chinese and Western philosophy. Wang’s idiosyncratic approach to the material and the difficulty in reading his arguments mean that this is not a text for the beginner. This is also true for his The Classic of the Dao: A New Investigation (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998). Ward, Peter D. and Donald Brownlee. The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World. New York: Henry Holt, 2003. Watson, Burton. Han Fei Tzu [Han Feizi]: The Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Watson, Burton. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Wong, Eva. The Essential Taoism [Daoism]. Boulder: Shambala Press, 2011. Eva Wong is the nineteenth-generation lineage carrier of Xiantianwujimen Taoism (Pre-celestial Limitless Gate School of Taoism) and third-generation student of Wang Xiangzhai, founder of Yiquan martial arts and Zhangzhuan (standing qigong). She is the author and translator of 12 books on the Taoist arts of health, meditation, and

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Bibliography qigong, including Nourishing the Essence of Life: The Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings of Taoism [Daoism]. She writes extensively for Shambala and teaches meditation and Daoism at their centers. Not recommended. Wu, Chung. The Wisdom of Zhuangzi on Daoism: Translated with Annotations and Commentary by Chung Wu. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008. Chung Wu is a professor of biochemistry who has also written a translation of the Yi Jing. While the author includes helpful commentaries and annotations to his translation of the text, this is not his area of expertise. Wu, John C.H. Lao Tzu [Laozi]: Tao Teh Ching [Dao De Jing]. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1997 (reprint 1961, New York: St. John’s University Press). A scholar and statesman of the 1920s, Wu saw the Laozi as a mystical work and translated it accordingly. The translation does offer the Chinese text, but the translation is very old fashioned. Reprinted presumably for the profit of the publisher. Wu, Kuang-ming. Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]: World Philosopher at Play. New York: Crossroad, 1982. Wu, Kuang-ming. The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi]. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Yearley, Lee. “The Perfected Person in the Radical Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi].” In Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu [Zhuangzi], ed. Victor Mair, pp. 125–39. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983. Zhao, Qiguang. Do Nothing and Do Everything: An Illustrated New Taoism [Daoism]. St. Paul: Paragon House, 2010. Zhao has taught in the United States teaching Chinese, Tai Ji, and Daoism. He has appeared on Chinese television explaining Daoism. This text is based on his course, “The Taoist [Daoist] Way of Health and Longevity.” Zhao’s interpretation is not based on much scholarly research but is aimed toward the average student and introduces a Daoism that would be easy for anyone to understand, that is, Dao Lite. Ziporyn, Brook. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009. Excellent text notes with sometimes an idiosyncratic translation.

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INDEX

anarchism

36, 39, 90, 222

baby, as image for dao 53–4 being and non-being, presence and absence 64–5 Chan (Zen) Buddhism 196 classical Chinese 40 closed system 140 Confucianism 8–13 in the Dao De Jing 61, 73, 85–6 in the Liezi 191 in the Zhuangzi 113–6, 129, 135 Confucius as a Daoist 116 ideas 8–13 in the Zhuangzi 113–6 constant 41, 56, 110 Dao De Jing authors 29–31 chapter One translations

41–2

dates for 32 desires 58–9 government 91–8 human beings as the problem 58–9 illogical statements in 70–1 in organized Daoism 207–8 in the West 35–6 morality 83–6 names 28 opposites 61–2 pronunciation 28 style 34–5 valuing 59–60 versions 30–2 war 91–2 dao as Dao, the Dao 50 as ecology 55–6 as nature 54–5 conflicting 18–9, 50 in Confucianism 11 in the Zhuangzi 147–52

Decoding Dao: Reading the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi, First Edition. Lee Dian Rainey. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Index losing dao 108–9 structure of the character 49 what dao does 50–1 de definition 20–1 definitions/discriminations in Mohism 15–6 in the Dao De Jing 58–61 in the Zhuangzi 136, 138–9 desires 59–60 in the Zhuangzi 113–4 devolution in the Dao De Jing 99–101 in the Zhuangzi 136, 158–9 filial piety in Confucianism 8–9 in the Dao De Jing 85, 86 five phases theory 187 Fuxi 150 Ge Hong 195 gentleman in Confucianism 10, 72, 113–4 golden age in the Dao De Jing 99–101 in the Zhuangzi 158–9 Gongsun Long 17–8 in the Zhuangzi 126–7 Guanzi 184–6 Guodian version 32–3 Han Feizi 182–4 Huainanzi 188–91 Huang Di, Yellow Emperor Huang-Lao 186–8 Hui Shi 18 Hundun 151–2 hunter-gather groups 101

20

ignorance in the Dao De Jing 11 ignorance 98, 183 immortality 204 in the Dao De Jing 106–7 in the Zhuangzi 145–7 knack knowing

122–3

language in the Dao De Jing 81–3 in the Zhuangzi 145–7 Lao Dan another name for Laozi 29 Lao Laizi another name for Laozi 30 Laozi as author of the Dao De Jing 29 early biography 29–30 in organized Daoism 206–208 Li Er another name for Laozi 28 Liezi in the Zhuangzi 112, 167 the text 191–3 Logicians 15–6 Mawangdui version 31–2 Mencius 11–2 Mohism 13–4 in the Dao De Jing 65, 116–8 in the Zhuangzi 116 monism 147–50 Mozi 13 mysticism 209–13

253

Index Nei Ye 184–6 not acting 75–8 not desiring 79 not knowing 79–80 open system 141–2 organized Daoism 202–9 philosophical reading 213–9 Popper, Karl 140 Prince Liu An of Huainan 188 qi in the Zhuangzi 163, 169 concentrating 207 definition 20 in Huang-Lao 173 qing, emotion or essence 160–1

translations problems 40–2 recommendations

42–3

uncarved wood,. as image for dao 54 Wang Bi 31 water, image for dao 51–2 wei shi, to make true or right 138 women, as image for dao 52–3 wuwei 75–8 Xi Wang Mu 150 Xin Shu 184 Xunzi 12

relativism 214–7 return, reversal 64 ritual Daoist criticism 10, 72–3, 216 in Confucianism 9–10 rulers in the Dao De Jing 93–8

Yan Hui 39, 114, 157, 161–2, 204 Yang Zhu 14–5 yin shi, according to what you go by 138 Yin Xi 124 yin yang theory 187–8

scholar-bureaucrats 7–8, 102–3 authors of the Dao De Jing theory 33–4 Shen Dao 15 shi, this, true, correct as this and that 121–2, 133–5 Sima Qian 29–30, 36, 37, 187 spontaneous in the Dao De Jing 79–81

Zhuang Zhou biography 36–7 Zhuangzi, the text being useless 116–8 forgetting 161–2 government 156–8 human beings as the problem 112–3 in the West 39 mind as mirror 159–61 mind fasting 162–4 morality 164–6

this and that 120–1, 133 Tian, Heaven 3, 21

254

Index perfected people 166–9 point of view 118–20 sections of 37–9, 179–81 structure 111–2

style 38–9 theories on death and afterlife 141–6 Zi Qi of Southwall 167, 204

255