Series on the History of Chinese Philosophy, Pt. 12
Inhabiting the Ineffable Dao
or, Feeling at Home Right Where You Are
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Welcome to Part 12 in this series! If you’ve missed the earlier entries of the series you can check them out here:
Here we’ll get an overview of what is now called “Daoist” philosophy and make our first forays into the classical text known as the Dàodéjīng. We’ll pay special attention to how “Daoists” generally, and the Dàodéjīng in particular, characterize the concept known as dào [道] — which might be translated as the Way, or Path.
Hopefully, this will help us feel more at home in the metaphysics presented by these texts as this series moves forward.
So, let’s get started!
The Way of the Common Folk
If Confucianism could be characterized as the philosophy of the literati class, then “Daoism” could be seen as its counterpart among the common folk. You may have noticed that I’ve been using quibble marks around the words Daoism and Daoist in this entry. That’s because it’s difficult to define it as a coherent “school” of philosophy, at all. Really, “Daoism” is more of a catchall term referring to a variety of Warring States philosophies and folk-beliefs… especially the longevity and immortality practices that gradually became associated with external alchemy [wàidān] and internal alchemy [nèidān] practices during later centuries.
For ease of reference, I’ll continue to use Daoism and Daoist to differentiate these ideas from their counterparts in Confucian, Mohist, and other schools of thought, but we should try to keep in mind that such categories were just conventions created by later scholars.
To further complicate things, the classical texts usually associated with Daoist traditions sometimes have a pretty questionable provenance.
One illustration of this would be the text known as Tàishàng Gǎnyìng Piān [太上感 应 篇], often called the Tai-Shang Tractate in English. The tàishàng part of the title indicates it was written by a “supreme ancestor” (claimed to be Laozi) and its oldest passages allegedly date back to the 6th c. BCE.
At least… that’s the claim of Li Ying-Chang, who’s credited with compiling the extant version during the Song dynasty.
There may be some truth in the age of the text, but it almost certainly was not the creation of a sage known as Laozi, since most scholars today agree that such a man did not exist, but was actually a symbolic figurehead created by later Daoist practitioners.
In response to these kinds of uncertainties, scholars who wished to study the intellectual side of Daoism without any attending “superstitions” began distinguishing between “philosophical Daoism,” or daojia, and “religious Daoism,” or daojiao. Although this distinction may be useful in some ways, we should keep in mind that it is a completely artificial one, created by scholars for the sake of convenience. As Fabrizio Pregadio puts it:
Daoist texts do not speak of “philosophy” or “religion”, two words that do not even exist in the premodern Chinese language. They speak, instead, of what they call the “house”, “family” or “lineage of the Dao” (daojia; also translatable in the plural), and of what they call the “teachings of the Dao” or “teachings on the Dao” (daojiao). Daoists, who obviously have understood these terms in their literal senses, have seen them as defining the same entity: there cannot be “teaching” without “lineage”, and vice versa.
Furthermore, we should keep in mind that none of these thinkers were actually walking around identifying themselves as “Daoists” at all! Instead, what they share in common is an interest in explicating a metaphysical principle that they referred to as dào [道].
Traditionally, the Dàodéjīng and the text known as the Zhuangzi (a.k.a. the Nánhuá zhēnjīng) are held to be the best examples of Daoist philosophical views. The books of Liezi and Huainanzi — Chinese texts often take the name of their purported founder, even if that founder had little to no hand in its creation — are considered the next clearest examples of Daoist philosophy.
There are even a number of other figures, like Guiguzi (the Sage of Ghost Valley) and Yang Zhu (who we saw during our discussion of Mencius in Part 11), sometimes associated with Daoism.
The Eclectic Dao
Now that we’ve got those generalities out of the way, let’s pick apart some of the details of Daoism’s eclecticism. As we saw in Part 6 (when we talked about the “origin of the schools”), the term Daojia didn’t come about until the Han dynasty. Han librarians actually used Daojia to unite four traditions:
- The medical arts associated with Huangdi (the “Yellow Emperor”)
- The shamanism of Daoshu (“Dao-methods”)
- The naturalism and perspectivalism of Zhuangzi (“Master Zhuang”)
- The mysticism and political philosophy of Laozi (“Old Master”)
There are definitely common themes that link these traditions, but contemporary comparativists usually try to be more specific when talking about those themes. So, you’re more likely to find references in contemporary literature to “Huang-Lao syncretism,” “Lao-Zhuang philosophy” or perhaps even “Zhuangzian Daoshu” than you are to find references of the more general sort we’ve just been discussing.
A common strand running through all of these is how they treat dào as both a moral and a METAPHYSICAL principle.
But, this metaphysical emphasis has led to a common misinterpretation of dào as either “energy” [which we now know is just the measurable ability to do work] or as “force” [which is just energy as an attribute of a motion]… which, according to most Daoists, would really just be manifestations of dào.
In other words, dào doesn’t have a charge… and it can’t be manipulated. After all, if such simple explanations were adequate, the Dàodéjīng would’ve never been written.
Laozi — The Old Master
Okay, so let’s talk about that elephant in the room! You might’ve raised an eyebrow a moment ago when I mentioned how Laozi — the purported author of the Dàodéjīng — didn’t actually exist.
Well, that’s not a *universally* held opinion, but most of the evidence we have points to such a conclusion.
It’s likely that Laozi, whose name means “Old Master,” was an amalgam of several hermit-sages who were interested in the metaphysical aspects of dào. By the time Sima Qian finished his Records of the Grand Historian under Han rule, Laozi was thought to have been an older contemporary of Confucius, one who flourished in the 6th century BCE.
There are a few references to Laozi scattered here and there in various texts, like the Liji and especially the Zhuangzi. Most of those claim his real name was either Li Er (which means “Plum Ears”) or Lao Dan (which means “Old Long Ears”). This is why he’s often depicted with exceptionally large ears — a symbol of longevity and wisdom.
Of the 17 passages in the Zhuangzi that reference Laozi, Confucius features as an interlocutor in 9 of them. This suggests that Laozi had become a sort of philosophical mascot for the Daoist critique of Confucian philosophy. In fact, in several of those passages Laozi calls Confucius by his childhood name, Qiu, which as we saw in Part 6 is tantamount to calling him “Junior” or “Sonny” in a way that’s similar to how an adult might scold a hubristic child!
Here are just a few of the legends associated with him:
- He was conceived when his mother gazed upon a falling star and stayed in the womb for sixty-two years, emerging with a full-grown gray beard.
- He was a former court official who had grown weary of politics and rode off into the countryside on the back of a water buffalo.
- He ended up traveling far to the west and the ideas he shared there came back to China in the form of Buddhism.
- As he was leaving, a border guard asked him to write down his wisdom before he vanished from public life, so he sat down and wrote the Dàodéjīng.
It’s probably safe to say that each of these is just as unlikely as the others, which is another way of saying that the Dàodéjīng was almost certainly NOT written by someone named Laozi.
Describing Dao — Ineffability & Metaphor
Now let’s talk about dào!
But… of course… we can’t REALLY talk about it, since the Dàodéjīng makes it clear that this is a concept that can’t actually be put into words.
Even the word dào [道] is borrowed from other philosophies. Confucius used it to reference the correct moral path for the superior person, and that fits the etymology of the character pretty well. The hanzi is an associative compound combining the word for ‘walking’ [辶] with the word for ‘head, leader, or chief’ [首]. Even its original bronze script version, which goes back at least to 1000 BCE, shows a head surrounded by a crossroads, as if it’s implying there’s a decision to be made when choosing one’s path.
So, it’s a little weird that such a word was adopted to signify an unfolding, cosmic process of interconnectedness and mutual dependence… if that’s even an adequate definiens for what the Daoists had in mind!
Just as in other texts explored in this series, the Dàodéjīng opens with something of an interpretive primer:
道可道非常道 | Dào kě dào fēi cháng dào.
A one-to-one translation might look something like this: “Path called path, not always path,” which leaves A LOT of room for interpretation! Various translators have tried rendering the meaning of the opening line in various ways. Here are a few:
“The Tao that can be told is not the Absolute Tao.” [Lin Yutang]
“The Way that can be told is not an Unvarying Way.” [Arthur Waley]
“The way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way.” [D.C. Lau]
“The Tao that can be tao-ed is not the invariable Tao.” [C.W. Fu]
One thing is clear, these translators all agreed that dào is an ineffable concept… which is just another way of saying it can’t really be put into words. The rest of the first chapter bears this out, as well, since it talks about how unhelpful naming things is whenever we’re trying to talk about something so elusive.
So, if the dào can’t be put into words, then why are there 81 chapters in this book, with just over 5000 words? (The Dàodéjīng is also sometimes called the “5000 Character Classic.”)
The answer is that the Dàodéjīng tries to explain to us what dào is by saying what it’s NOT.
This method of description is known to scholars as apophasis (rhymes with hypothesis), and the kind of apophasis the Dàodéjīng employs is metaphorical But, is there really ANY metaphor that can adequately describe Dao?
Probably not.
Nonetheless, one of MY favorite metaphors (following Robert G. Henricks) for explicating dào involves an open field. For one thing, this image links up nicely with the way two noted comparativists, Roger Ames and David Hall, translated dào and dé in the title of the Dàodéjīng as “the field and its focus.”
Although, they appear to have had in mind something more like the field-theories of classical and quantum physics — i.e. where a field is defined as a physical entity/quantity that gains its quality/value through the mutual co-adjustment of various points within space and time.
That sort of vector-field DOES perform a lot of descriptive work for understanding dào, but I prefer to acknowledge the agricultural roots of Chinese thinking by just sticking with the image of an open field of untilled earth. Of course, there are MANY ways in which THAT sort of field (the kind farmers plow) could be understood in terms of the other sort of field (the kind physicists calculate) but that’s a story for another time.
For now, let’s just start by considering that empty field. If you’ve ever been hiking right as the winter snow is giving way to the spring thaw you’ve seen just what I have in mind — a bunch of thick, oozy mud in all directions… with the only signs of vegetation being dried, withered husks trampled into the sloppy, sloshy mess. Although that field lies fallow now, we know in just a few short months it’s going to EXPLODE with life, as first the grasses… then the dandelions… and finally the wildflowers all take their turn emerging from their winter dormancy.
So, a question arises: is that fallow field REALLY empty?
Well… yes and no… at least in the sense of emptiness — xū [虛] — that Daoists like to talk about. As Dàodéjīng chapter 5 states:
It’s empty, but not depleted,
it’s used, but ever replete.
Adding words detracts from it,
since they fall wide of the mark. [Ch. 5]
Just as yin contains the seeds of yang in the taijitu (a.k.a. yinyang) symbol we saw in Part 5, the fecundity of this field is always already on the scene. Although there’s no APPARENT polarity in the emptiness of this field, since it just looks like mushy dead soil, it is precisely at this moment, when death is about to return to life, that it’s at its MOST polarized… it’s empty, yet full, or, as a Daoist might say, “Wuji er Taiji!” [Non-polarity, yet supreme-polarity!]
So, the question we might ask is… if this kind of fecundity can be used and yet remain “ever replete” how should we approach such use? What’s the best way for human beings to truly BELONG to such a place? How can we feel truly AT HOME in such a world?
One way of going about it might be to tend to the field the way a loving gardener might, nurturing the most beautiful flowers and pulling up the weeds. BUT, if we take that practice too far, for too long, we’d end up with an incredibly well-maintained, yet unbearably boring, MONOCULTURE.
The same could be said about human society — too much conformity and you’ll wind up living in a colorless, homogenous “Pleasantville” of a place, where nothing ever truly HAPPENS!
But, another downside to monocultures (whether ecological or anthropological) is that they aren’t terribly resilient. They’re fragile. And they tend to collapse under their own weight. This is the basic critique the Dàodéjīng levels against Confucian benevolence, righteousness, and ritual:
After Dào was lost, dé was needed.
After dé was lost, benevolence was needed.
After benevolence was lost, righteousness was needed.
After righteousness was lost, ritual was needed.
Ritual is the mere lip-service of loyalty and honesty
and is thus the beginning of chaos. [Ch. 38]
It turns out the more biodiversity you pack into that field, the more resilient it becomes. This is the kind of hardy beauty the early Daoists valued… A RESPLENDENT BIO-DIVERSITY OF THE 10,000 THINGS [wànwù, 萬物]! As Dàodéjīng chapter 4 states: “Bottomless! And yet the progenitor of the ten thousand things”
And, another cool thing about that wild field… it was doing just fine LONG before any of us showed up on the scene! Trying to enhance it by over-tending just leaves the field dependent on our constant intervention.
Monoculture farmers have to rotate their crops, let their fields “rest,” and even fortify their soil if they hope to continue using those fields in such shortsighted ways.
Likewise, a monocultural society — one that doesn’t promote a diversity of opinions and an open cross-pollination of ideas — depends on the constant micromanaging of bureaucracy to keep it from falling into tyranny or collapsing into chaos. As the Dàodéjīng reminds us:
Dào gives them life, dé nourishes them.
So, things appear and circumstances complete them…
Dào gives birth to them but doesn’t try to own them.
It acts on their behalf but doesn’t make them dependent. [Ch. 51]
So, if a gardener follows the example of dào and makes herself truly “at-home” in this world; if she permits things to grow together and awaits circumstances to unfold as they will, according to their season… then the yield can be even GREATER and the fecundity of the field will actually be INCREASED!
Its yin will contain even MORE potential yang the next time the cycle comes round. (Just imagine what THAT might look like in a society!)
Daoists called this the eternal return to the “mysterious female,” or xuán pìn [玄牝]. The Dàodéjīng describes it so:
The spirit of the valley never dies.
This is called the mysterious female.
The gateway of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there,
Yet use will never drain it. [Ch. 6]
When people encounter these allusions to roots and motherhood they’re often tempted to think of dào as an originator or creator, that is… as something that existed PRIOR to the world. But roots come from seeds and seeds come from fruits… so, the cycle just repeats itself.
Attuning to these cycles and rhythms of the dào doesn’t require one to climb the highest peak or wander off into the woods in solitude. As a famous poem called “Drinking Wine,” by the Jin dynasty poet Tao Yuanming, reads:
結廬在人境, | I settled in a place where others dwell.
而無車馬喧. | But I hear no clamor from cart or horse.
問君何能爾?| Sir, you ask me how this is so?
心遠地自偏. | The distant heart is a remote place.
採菊東籬下, | I pluck blossoms below the eastern hedge.
悠然見南山. | I gaze lazily at the southern peaks.
山氣日夕佳, | The mountain air is lovely at sunset.
飛鳥相與還. | Flying birds return home together.
此中有真意, | There is a deeper meaning in all of these-
欲辯已忘言. | I want to express it, but I cannot find the words.
Whenever someone is attuned to the dào they feel right at home precisely where they are… no matter WHERE they are.
Tao Yuanming describes 360° of natural, yin-yang harmony surrounding him (from eastern lows-to southern peaks-to western depths-to northern heights)… even though he finds himself smack dab in the middle of the hustle and bustle of village-life.
Although he understands there’s a deeper meaning in all of this, he’s left unable to describe it.
He’s right at home, inhabiting the ineffable dào!
We’ll pick it up there in Part 13 when we consider how these metaphors might help reveal some of the most important features of Daoist metaphysics.
See you there!
