Vinaire's Blog

Reference: Taoism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

To live wisely is to live in a way that conserves life’s vitality by not expending it in useless, draining ways. “Wu wei” is a phrase that translates literally as inaction but in Taoism means pure effectiveness. 

Unlike Religious Taoism, which became a full-fledged church, Philosophical Taoism and the “vitalizing Taoisms,” as we shall clumsily refer to the second group, remain relatively unorganized. Philosophical Taoism is reflective and the vitalizing programs active, but no more than the Transcendentalist movement in New England or contemporary physical fitness programs are they formally institutionalized. They share a second similarity in that both are self-help programs. Teachers are involved, but they are better thought of as coaches who train their students—guiding them in what they should understand, in the case of Philosophical Taoism, and in what they should do in the vitalizing regimens. In decided contrast to Religious Taoists, those in these first two camps work primarily on themselves. 

Philosophical Taoism is reflective and relatively unorganized. Its nature is self-help and people work primarily on themselves. Coaches are involved who guide their students.

The differences between them have to do with their respective stances toward the power of the Tao on which life feeds. To put the difference pointedly, Philosophical Taoists try to conserve their te by expending it efficiently, whereas “vitality” Taoists work to increase its available supply. 

Life feeds on the power of the Tao. Philosophical Taoists try to conserve their te (power) by expending it efficiently.

Because Philosophical Taoism is essentially an attitude toward life, it is the most “exportable” Taoism of the three, the one that has the most to say to the world at large, and as such will receive the longest treatment—not until the second half of this chapter, however. Here we shall only identify it to place it in its logical position before proceeding with its two sister Taoisms. 

Because Philosophical Taoism is essentially an attitude toward life, it is the most “exportable” Taoism of the three, the one that has the most to say to the world at large.

Called School Taoism in China, Philosophical Taoism is associated with the names of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and the Tao Te Ching. We can connect it with power by remembering that philosophy seeks knowledge and, as Bacon told the world pointedly, “knowledge is power”; to know how to repair a car is to have power over it. Obviously, the Taoists’ eyes were not on machines; it was life that they wanted to repair. Knowledge that empowers life we call wisdom; and to live wisely, the Taoist philosophers argued, is to live in a way that conserves life’s vitality by not expending it in useless, draining ways, the chief of which are friction and conflict. We shall examine Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu’s prescriptions for avoiding such dissipations in the second half of this chapter, but we can anticipate a single point here. Their recommendations revolve around the concept of wu wei, a phrase that translates literally as inaction but in Taoism means pure effectiveness. Action in the mode of wu wei is action in which friction—in interpersonal relationships, in intrapsychic conflict, and in relation to nature—is reduced to the minimum. 

To live wisely is to live in a way that conserves life’s vitality by not expending it in useless, draining ways. “Wu wei” is a phrase that translates literally as inaction but in Taoism means pure effectiveness. 

We turn now to the vitality cults as our second species of Taoism.

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Reference: Taoism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

This ineffable and transcendent Tao is the ground of all that follows. It pervades everything, yet itself it cannot be described. It is the way to human life, the universe, and ultimate reality.

On opening Taoism’s bible, the Tao Te Ching, we sense at once that everything revolves around the pivotal concept of Tao itself. Literally, this word means path, or way. There are three senses, however, in which this “way” can be understood. 

The pivotal concept is Tao, which means path, or way.

First, Tao is the way of ultimate reality. This Tao cannot be perceived or even clearly conceived, for it is too vast for human rationality to fathom. The Tao Te Ching announces in its opening line that words are not equal to it: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.” Nevertheless, this ineffable and transcendent Tao is the ground of all that follows. Above all, behind all, beneath all is the Womb from which all life springs and to which it returns. Awed by the thought of it, the author/editor of the Tao Te Ching bursts recurrently into praise, for this primal Tao confronts him with life’s basic mystery, the mystery of all mysteries. “How clear it is! How quiet it is! It must be something eternally existing!” “Of all great things, surely Tao is the greatest.” But its ineffability cannot be denied, so we are taunted, time and again, by Taoism’s teasing epigram: “Those who know don’t say. Those who say don’t know.”

First, Tao is the way of ultimate reality. This Tao cannot be perceived or even clearly conceived, for it is too vast for human rationality to fathom. 

Though Tao is ultimately transcendent, it is also immanent. In this secondary sense it is the way of the universe, the norm, the rhythm, the driving power in all nature, the ordering principle behind all life. Behind, but also in the midst of all life, for when Tao enters this second mode it “assumes flesh” and informs all things. It “adapts its vivid essence, clarifies its manifold fullness, subdues its resplendent luster, and assumes the likeness of dust.” Basically spirit rather than matter, it cannot be exhausted; the more it is drawn upon, the more it flows, for it is “that fountain ever on,” as Plotinus said of his counterpart to the Tao, his One. There are about it marks of inevitability, for when autumn comes “no leaf is spared because of its beauty, no flower because of its fragrance.” Yet, ultimately, it is benign. Graceful instead of abrupt, flowing rather than hesitant, it is infinitely generous. Giving life to all things, it may be called “the Mother of the World.” As nature’s agent Tao in this second form resembles Bergson’s elan vital; as nature’s orderer, it resembles the lex aeterna of the Classical West, the eternal law that structures the world. Charles Darwin’s colleague, George Romanes, could have been speaking of it when he referred to “the integrating principle of the whole—the Spirit, as it were, of the universe—instinct without contrivance, which flows with purpose.” 

In this secondary sense it is the way of the universe, the norm, the rhythm, the driving power in all nature, the ordering principle behind all life.

In its third sense Tao refers to the way of human life when it meshes with the Tao of the universe as just described. Most of what follows in this chapter will detail what the Taoists propose that this way of life should be. First, however, it is necessary to point out that there have been in China not one but three Taoisms.

In its third sense Tao refers to the way of human life when it meshes with the Tao of the universe as just described. 

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