Reference: Taoism
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
In the context of the wholeness of Tao, the opposites identified by the yin/yang symbol appear as no more than phases in an endless cycling process. Life does not move onward and upward toward a fixed pinnacle or pole. It bends back upon itself to come, full circle, to the realization that all is one and all is well.
Still following the analogy of water, the Taoists rejected all forms of self-assertiveness and competition. The world is full of people who are determined to be somebody or give trouble. They want to get ahead, to stand out. Taoism has little use for such ambitions. “The ax falls first on the tallest tree.”
He who stands on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn’t go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light. (ch. 24)
Still following the analogy of water, the Taoists rejected all forms of self-assertiveness and competition.
Their almost reverential attitude toward humility led the Taoists to honor hunchbacks and cripples because of the way they typified meekness and self-effacement. They were fond of pointing out that the value of cups, windows, and doorways lies in the parts of them that are not there. “Selfless as melting ice” is one of their descriptive figures. The Taoists’ refusal to clamber for position sprang from a profound disinterest in the things the world prizes. The point comes out in the story of Chuang Tzu’s visit to the minister of a neighboring state. Someone told the minister that Chuang Tzu was coming in the hope of replacing him. The minister was alarmed. But when Chuang Tzu heard of the rumor he said to the minister:
In the South there is a bird. It is called yuan-ch’u. Have you heard of it? This yuan ch’u starts from the southern ocean and flies to the northern ocean. During its whole journey it perches on no tree save the sacred Wo-tung, eats no fruit save that of the Persian Lilac, drinks only at the Magic Well. It happened that an owl that had got hold of the rotting carcass of a rat looked up as this bird flew by, and terrified lest the yuan ch’u should stop and snatch at the succulent morsel, it screamed, “Shoo! Shoo!” And now I am told that you are trying to “shoo” me off from this precious Ministry of yours.
The Taoists’ refusal to clamber for position sprang from a profound disinterest in the things the world prizes.
So it is with most of the world’s prides. They are not the true values they are thought to be. What is the point of competition or assertiveness? The Tao seems to get along very well without them.
Nature does not have to insist,
Can blow for only half a morning,
Rain for only half a day. (ch. 23)
What is the point of competition or assertiveness? The Tao seems to get along very well without them.
People should avoid being strident and aggressive not only toward other people but also toward nature. On the whole, the modern Western attitude has been to regard nature as an antagonist, an object to be squared off against, dominated, controlled, conquered. Taoism’s attitude is the opposite of this. There is a profound naturalism in Taoist thought, but it is the naturalism of a Rousseau, a Wordsworth, a Thoreau, not that of a Galileo or Bacon.
Those who would take over the earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed.
The earth is like a vessel so sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out their fingers it is gone. (ch. 29)
People should avoid being strident and aggressive not only toward other people but also toward nature.
Nature is to be befriended. When the British scaled earth’s highest peak, the exploit was widely hailed as “the conquest of Everest.” D. T. Suzuki remarked: “We orientals would have spoken of befriending Everest.” The Japanese team that scaled Anapurna, the second highest peak, climbed to within fifty feet of the summit and deliberately stopped, provoking a Western mountaineer to exclaim in disbelief, “That’s class!” Taoism seeks attunement with nature, not dominance. Its approach is ecological, a characteristic that led Joseph Needham to point out that despite China’s backwardness in scientific theory she early developed “an organic philosophy of nature closely resembling that which modern science has been forced to adopt after three centuries of mechanical materialism.” The ecological approach of Taoism has inspired many Western architects, most notably Frank Lloyd Wright. Taoist temples do not stand out from their surroundings. They nestle against the hills, back under the trees, blending in with the environment. At best, human beings do likewise. Their highest achievement is to identify themselves with the Tao and let it work its magic through them.
Taoism seeks attunement with nature, not dominance. Its approach is ecological that has inspired many Western architects. At best, human beings do likewise. Their highest achievement is to identify themselves with the Tao and let it work its magic through them.
This Taoist approach to nature deeply affected Chinese art. It is no accident that the greatest periods of Chinese art have coincided with upsurges of Taoist influence. Before assuming brush and silk, painters would go out to nature and lose themselves in it, to become, say, the bamboo that they would paint. They would sit for half a day or fourteen years before making a stroke. The Chinese word for landscape painting is composed of the radicals for mountain and water, one of which suggests vastness and solitude, the other pliability, endurance, and continuous movement. The human part in the vastness is small, so we have to look closely for human beings in the paintings if we find them at all. Usually, they are climbing with their bundles, riding a buffalo, or poling a boat—the self with its journey to make, its burden to carry, its hill to climb, but surrounded by beauty on every side. People are not as formidable as mountains; they do not live as long as the pines. Yet they too belong in the scheme of things as surely as do the birds and the clouds. And through them, as through the rest of the world, flows the everlasting Tao.
This Taoist approach to nature deeply affected Chinese art. Before assuming brush and silk, painters would go out to nature and lose themselves in it, to become, say, the bamboo that they would paint.
Taoist naturalism combined with a propensity for naturalness as well. Pomp and extravagance were regarded as silly. When Chuang Tzu’s followers asked permission to give him a grand funeral, he replied: “Heaven and earth are my inner and outer coffins. The sun, moon, and stars are my drapery, and the whole creation my funeral procession. What more do I want?” Civilization was ridiculed and the primitive idealized. “Let us have a small country with few inhabitants,” Lao Tzu proposed. “Let the people return to the use of knotted cords [for keeping records]. Let them obtain their food sweet, their clothing beautiful, their homes comfortable, their rustic tasks pleasurable.” Travel was discouraged as pointless and conducive to idle curiosity. “The neighboring state might be so near at hand that one could hear the cocks crowing in it and dogs barking. But the people would grow old and die without ever having been there.”
Taoist naturalism combined with a propensity for naturalness as well. Pomp and extravagance were regarded as silly. Civilization was ridiculed and the primitive idealized. Travel was discouraged as pointless and conducive to idle curiosity.
It was this preference for naturalness and simplicity that most separated the Taoist from the Confucian. The basic objectives of the two schools did not differ widely, but the Taoists had small patience with the Confucian approach to them. All formalism, show, and ceremony left them cold. What could be hoped for from punctiliousness or the meticulous observance of propriety? The whole approach was artificial, a lacquered surface that was bound to prove brittle and repressive. Confucianism here was but one instance of the human tendency to approach life in regulated mode. All calculated systems, the very attempt to arrange life in shipshape order, is pointless. As different ways of slicing the same reality, none of them amounts to more than Three in the Morning. And what is Three in the Morning? Once, in the state of Sung, hard times forced a keeper of monkeys to reduce their rations. “From now on,” he announced, “it will be three in the morning and four in the evening.” Faced with howls of rebellion, the keeper agreed to negotiate, and eventually accepted his monkeys’ demand that it be four in the morning and three in the evening. The monkeys gloried in their triumph.
It was this preference for naturalness and simplicity that most separated the Taoist from the Confucian. All formalism, show, and ceremony left them cold. Confucianism here was but one instance of the human tendency to approach life in regulated mode.
Another feature of Taoism is its notion of the relativity of all values and, as its correlative, the identity of opposites. Here Taoism tied in with the traditional Chinese yin/yang symbol, which is pictured thus: [see above] This polarity sums up all of life’s basic oppositions: good/evil, active/passive, positive/negative, light/dark, summer/winter, male/female. But though the halves are in tension, they are not flatly opposed; they complement and balance each other. Each invades the other’s hemisphere and takes up its abode in the deepest recess of its partner’s domain. And in the end both find themselves resolved by the circle that surrounds them, the Tao in its eternal wholeness. In the context of that wholeness, the opposites appear as no more than phases in an endless cycling process, for each turns incessantly into its opposite, exchanging places with it. Life does not move onward and upward toward a fixed pinnacle or pole. It bends back upon itself to come, full circle, to the realization that all is one and all is well.
In the context of that wholeness, the opposites identified by the yin/yang symbol appear as no more than phases in an endless cycling process. Life does not move onward and upward toward a fixed pinnacle or pole. It bends back upon itself to come, full circle, to the realization that all is one and all is well.
Those who meditate on this profound symbol, Taoists maintain, will find that it affords better access to the world’s secrets than any length of words and discussion. Faithful to its import, Taoism eschews all sharp dichotomies. No perspective in this relative world can be considered as absolute. Who knows when the longest way ’round might not prove to be the shortest way home? Or consider the relativity of dream and wakefulness. Chuang Tzu dreamed that he was a butterfly, and during the dream had no notion that he had ever been anything else. When he awoke, however, he was astonished to find that he was Chuang Tzu. But this left him with a question. Was he really Chuang Tzu who had dreamed that he was a butterfly, or was he a butterfly that was now dreaming that it was Chuang Tzu?
Taoism eschews all sharp dichotomies. No perspective in this relative world can be considered as absolute.
All values and concepts, then, are ultimately relative to the mind that entertains them. When it was suggested to the wren and the cicada that there are birds that fly hundreds of miles without alighting, both quickly agreed that such a thing was impossible. “You and I know very well,” they nodded, “that the furthest one can ever get, even by the most tremendous effort, is to that elm tree over there, and even this one cannot be sure of reaching every time. Often one finds oneself dragged back to earth long before one gets there. All these stories about flying hundreds of miles at a stretch are sheer nonsense.”
All values and concepts, then, are ultimately relative to the mind that entertains them.
In the Taoist perspective even good and evil are not head-on opposites. The West has tended to dichotomize the two, but Taoists are less categorical. They buttress their reserve with the story of a farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbor commiserated, only to be told, “Who knows what’s good or bad?” It was true, for the next day the horse returned, bringing with it a drove of wild horses it had befriended. The neighbor reappeared, this time with congratulations for the windfall. He received the same response: “Who knows what is good or bad?” Again this proved true, for the next day the farmer’s son tried to mount one of the wild horses and fell, breaking his leg. More commiserations from the neighbor, which elicited the question: “Who knows what is good or bad?” And for a fourth time the farmer’s point prevailed, for the following day soldiers came by commandeering for the army, and the son was exempted because of his injury. If this all sounds very much like Zen, it should; for Buddhism processed through Taoism became Zen.
In the Taoist perspective even good and evil are not head-on opposites. Buddhism processed through Taoism became Zen.
Taoism follows its principle of relativity to its logical limit by positioning life and death as complementing cycles in the Tao’s rhythm. When Chuang Tzu’s wife died, his friend Hui-tzu visited him to express his condolences, only to find Chuang Tzu sitting on the ground with his legs spread wide apart, singing away and whacking out a tune on the back of a wooden bowl.
“After all,” said his friend, “she lived with you devotedly all these years, watched your eldest son grow to manhood, and grew old along with you. For you not to have shed a tear over her remains would have been bad enough, but singing and drumming away on a bowl—this is just too much!”
“You misjudge,” said Chuang Tzu. “When she died I was in despair, as any man well might be. But then I realized that before she was born she had no body, and it became clear to me that the same process of change that brought her to birth eventually brought her to death. If someone is tired and has gone to lie down, we do not pursue her with hooting and bawling. She whom I have lost has lain down to sleep for a while in the chamber between heaven and earth. To wail and groan while my wife is sleeping would be to deny nature’s sovereign law. So I refrain.”
Taoism follows its principle of relativity to its logical limit by positioning life and death as complementing cycles in the Tao’s rhythm.
Elsewhere Chuang Tzu expressed his confidence in the face of death directly:
There is the globe,
The foundation of my bodily existence.
It wears me out with work and duties,
It gives me rest in old age,
It gives me peace in death.
For the one who supplied me with what I needed in life
Will also give me what I need in death.
Death brings about peace. One will get what one needs in death.
It is no surprise to find an outlook as averse to violence as Taoism verging on pacifism. There are passages in the Tao Te Ching that read almost like the Sermon on the Mount.
One who would guide a leader of men in the uses of life
Will warn him against the use of arms for conquest.
Even the finest arms are an instrument of evil:
An army’s harvest is a waste of thorns. (ch. 30)
Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.
Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is the highest value….
He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral. (ch. 31)
It is no surprise to find an outlook as averse to violence as Taoism verging on pacifism.
That in China the scholar ranked at the top of the social scale may have been Confucius’ doing, but Taoism is fully as responsible for placing the soldier at the bottom. “The way for a vital person to go is not the way of a soldier.” Only one “who recognizes all people as members of his or her own body is qualified to guard them…. Heaven arms with compassion those whom she would not see destroyed.”
Taoism is fully as responsible for placing the soldier at the bottom of the social scale.
War is a somber matter, and Taoism spoke to life’s solemn, somber issues. Yet it always retained a quality of lightness verging on gaiety. There is a sophistication, an urbanity, a charm about the perspective that is infectious. “He who feels punctured,” notes the Tao Te Ching, “must once have been a bubble.” The economy, directness, and good humor in such a statement is typical of its entire outlook. In its freedom from a heavy-booted approach to life, Taoism is at one with the rest of China; but it is also, as we have seen, free of the Confucian tendency toward rigidity and formalism. Taoist literature is full of dialogues with Confucianists in which the latter come off as stuffy and pompous. An instance is the story of the Taoist Chuang Tzu and the Confucian Hui Tzu, who on an afternoon’s stroll came to a bridge over the Hao River. “Look how the minnows dart hither and thither at will. Such is the pleasure fish enjoy,” Chuang Tzu remarked.
“You are not a fish,” responded Hui Tzu. “How do you know what gives pleasure to fish?”
“You are not I,” said Chuang Tzu. “How do you know I don’t know what gives pleasure to fish?”
Taoism has always retained a quality of lightness verging on gaiety. There is a sophistication, an urbanity, a charm about the perspective that is infectious.
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