Imagining the Dao
A few examples of the images associated with the Dao will illustrate how the Daodejing performs its work as a text. The principal function of the Daodejing is to bring the reader into accord with the Dao, and to do this, the work appeals to imagination rather than reason. Being in accord with the Dao means being both clear and confused.
Water
One of the frequent images for the Dao is water. In chapter 78, we read:
In all the world, nothing is more supple or weak than water;
Yet nothing can surpass it for attacking what is stiff and strong
And nothing can take its place.
That the weak overcomes the strong
and the supple overcomes the hard,
These are things everyone in the world knows
but none can practice.[5]
This passage suggests that the Dao, or the sage who abides in it, is yielding, flexible, and compliant, the qualities of yin. She, he, or it avoids strife and conflict and thus appears weak to others; yet what is apparently weak is in reality a powerful force, able to overcome resistance with patience. Imagine a stone in a mountain streambed. The water in the stream does not contend with the stone; water yields to its presence and flows around it. Over time, the water erodes the stone particle by particle, until it has dissolved into nothing. Thus, the weak and flexible conquers the stiff and strong.
Emptiness
Another common metaphor for the Dao is emptiness. Representing emptiness is a tricky thing, yet that is part of the point. Chapter 11 develops this image in several ways:
Thirty spokes are joined in the hub of a wheel.
But only by relying on what is not there,
do we have use of the carriage.
By adding and removing clay we form a vessel.
But only by relying on what is not there,
do we have use of the vessel.
By carving out doors and windows we make a room.
But only by relying on what is not there,
do we have use of the room.
And so what is there is the basis for profit;
What is not there is the basis for use.[6]
Three ordinary items: the hub of a wheel, a clay vessel, and a room. All three would be considered yin things because of their receptivity and emptiness. Usually, we define and think about such things in terms of what they are made of. A room is four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. This chapter invites us to think about such things in a different way, not in terms of what is there, but what is not there. Four walls, a ceiling, and a floor form the boundaries of the room. The room is actually the empty space within the boundaries. The true usefulness of the room is its emptiness. The same is true for the clay vessel. It is made out of something, but what is of use is what is not there: the space inside the clay. Likewise with the hub of a wheel. The spokes meet at the place of emptiness. Without the empty place, the wheel is useless; it cannot be connected to the carriage, and the wheel cannot turn.
These images encourage us to reorient our perceptions and to recognize the value of what appears to be valueless. This is one sense in which it is meaningful to say the Daodejing “performs.” It does not just express an idea to be absorbed by the mind; it prompts us to think in an altogether different way and encourages us to be like water, to be empty.
Following the Dao
The Daodejing is clearly more than a book of insightful poems or evocative descriptions of nature and simple objects. Its images and tropes are metaphors for living life with the very grain of the universe. As a didactic text, it provides both implicit criticisms of other philosophies and ideals for living in accord with life’s ultimate reality.
Contra Confucianism
Like the Confucians, the Daoists who composed the Daodejing understood the Dao as the appropriate way for humans to order and live their lives. The Daoists, however, thought of following the way as participating in the Dao of nature, the changes and rhythms of the universe and the natural world. The Dao of humanity was the Dao of nature; humans are part of the natural world. The Confucians, in contrast, connected the Way not with nature but with culture: the proper observances of tradition, ritual, and rites. For the Daoists, the very neglect of the Way of nature was at the root of society’s misery. Early Daoism saw Confucianism not as the solution to the problem but as its very manifestation. Confucianism served to further alienate human beings from the Dao of nature by its anthropocentrism and close regulation of human relationships. To Daoists, Confucianism ruined the very spontaneity of life with its carefully thought-out rules and well-rehearsed rituals. Spontaneity, not calculation, was nature’s way.
The Daoists used a Confucian strategy to criticize their opponents. They accused Confucianism of advocating the very things that led to the corruption of an earlier golden age. In the following passage from chapter 38, the Confucians are not mentioned by name, but the four major Confucian ideals are singled out, so there is no mistaking the reference:
When the Way was lost there was Virtue [de];
When Virtue was lost there was benevolence [ren];
When benevolence was lost there was righteousness [yi];
When righteousness was lost there were the rites [li].
The rites are the wearing thin of loyalty and trust,
and the beginning of chaos.[7]
In better times there were no virtues, no talk of benevolence or compassion, no need to discriminate right from wrong, and no ritual to cultivate moral goodness. People naturally followed the Way and lived happily; they had no need for ethics or religion. The appearance of rites and moral discourse, the Daoists claimed, had only revealed the extent to which people had departed from the Way.
The solution to human suffering, the Daoists believed, was a return to the Way of the universe, to the Way of an older age. Initially, this advice was intended for the rulers and the ruling class, for like the Confucians, the Daoists believed that the welfare of society depended greatly on the character of its rulers. Consequently, much of the Daodejing expounds a social and political philosophy, particularly in the second half of the book. Many interpreters of the Daodejing have given scant attention to the political dimension of the text and instead emphasize its mystical component. As a result, the book is often read primarily as a manual for individual spiritual development. To understand the Daodejing thoroughly, however, we must attend to both its political and spiritual elements. We will start by outlining the Daoist ideal of the sage, the material that most explicitly pertains to personal spirituality. Then, in our next chapter, we will turn to the key aspects of its social and political philosophy.
The Daoist Sage
It is easy to understand why many read the Daodejing primarily as text on spiritual development. The master who embodied the Dao was a mystic, one who sought to lose the perception of being an isolated, individual self by participation in a much greater reality, especially the natural world. This kind of mystical experience was encouraged by the Daodejing through specific practices and ways of being in the world.
Blending into the World
The first and perhaps most important of these practices involves diminishing the ego, relinquishing that part of who we are that craves attention, recognition, and control. In a statement reminiscent of Confucius, the Daodejing says, “sages know themselves but do not make a display of themselves; they care for themselves but do not revere themselves.”[8] True sages, and hence truly good rulers, were not self-promoters. They were not interested in career advancement or receiving credit for their accomplishments. Their principal concern was the welfare of others. The Daoists believed that such self-effacement accorded with the Way of nature, and they pointed to Heaven and Earth as examples:
Heaven is long lasting:
Earth endures.
Heaven is able to be long lasting
and Earth is able to endure,
because they do not live for themselves.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
This is why sages put themselves last and yet come first;
Treat themselves as unimportant and yet are preserved.
Is it not because they have no thought of themselves,
that they are able to perfect themselves?[9]
Chinese philosophers often spoke of the triad of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity and of the ideal of maintaining balance among the three domains. In the Daoist view, human beings had caused a great imbalance in the triad by becoming too consumed with themselves as individuals and neglecting their place in the great nexus of the universe. “Sages” in contrast, “blend into the world,” says the Daodejing.[10]
Blending into the world included living a simple existence, close to nature. Chinese literature contains countless stories about individuals who forsook the life of the city to wander the mountains and valleys of China or to settle in ramshackle huts on the side of a mountain, doing little else but enjoying the delights of nature. These individuals were the counterparts to India’s shramanas, who also wandered or lived simply with little or no possessions. The Indian shramanas were more ascetic and inwardly focused than the Daoist sage, who was more likely to contemplate the moon and the stars on a warm summer night while sipping a cup of wine. The Daoists were not seeking to escape the vicious cycle of rebirth, nor did they consider the world covered by a veil of illusion. The world was real and, for those on the Way, was a source of genuine pleasure and insight.
Nevertheless, the shramanas of India and the sages of Daoism shared certain ideals. Both groups sought to minimize and eventually give up all self-centered desires and attachments. The shramanas did this to eliminate the karmas that kept them in bondage to samsara; the Daoists wanted to restore harmony between themselves and the world. The Daodejing characterizes the sages’ decentering of self in language similar to the Bhagavad Gita: “They produce without possessing. They act with no expectation of reward.”[11] To be without goal or objectives characterized the best sort of life. Toward the end of his life, Charles M. Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts,” reflected, “My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?”[12] The Daoists would have understood.
Equanimity
The Daoist sage also practiced a Buddhist-like equanimity based on the way of nature. Just as the Dao embraces and supports all things, so does the sage. He or she seeks to avoid the dualisms of good and bad, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, praise and blame by welcoming everything, even those aspects of life that are conventionally shunned, ostracized, and rejected. The sage affirms, “I am good to those who are good; I am also good to those who are not good.”[13]
The ideal of overcoming the dualisms created by human judgments had far-reaching consequences for Daoist thought and practice. In later Daoist art, for example, new aesthetic ideals revered the warped, twisted, imperfect, indistinct, impermanent, and asymmetrical. Such artistic values helped provide a balance to conventional forms of beauty. Like the metaphor of emptiness, the Daoist aesthetic was intended to challenge ordinary perceptions and modes of thinking. The strategy was subtly subversive because it served to draw attention to the fact that values were human constructions and not necessarily absolute, and perhaps not necessarily the best we are capable of.
* * *
Tao Te Ching, ch. 1, trans. D.C. Lau, (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin Classics, 1963), 57. ↵
William Butler Yeats, in a letter to Lady Elizabeth Pelham (4 January 1939) quoted in David A. Ross, A Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work(New York: Facts on File, 2009), 29. ↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 56, trans. Philip J. Ivanhoe (New York: Seven Bridges, 2002), 59.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 21, trans. Ivanhoe, 21.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 78, trans. Ivanhoe, 81.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 11, trans. Ivanhoe, 11.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 38, trans. Ivanhoe, 41. Chinese transliterations of Confucian terms have been added.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 72, trans. Ivanhoe, 75.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 7, trans. Ivanhoe, 7.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 49, trans. Ivanhoe, 52.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 2, trans. Ivanhoe, 2.↵
Charles M. Schulz quoted in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations, 3rd ed. (Ware, Hertfordshire, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1998), 371.↵
The Daodejing of Laozi, ch. 49, trans. Ivanhoe, 52.↵
22
Daoist Politics and Mysticism
The Daodejing was initially intended to provide advice on how to manage government rather than one’s personal life. In this case, however, the paths for governing a state well and living one’s life well coincide. The qualities that make one a sage are the exact qualities that characterize a good ruler. In short, the Daodejing advocates letting the wise rule.
Daoist Political Philosophy
Because the well-lived life according to the Daodejing is marked by a preference for yin qualities, the sagely ruler takes a minimalist approach to politics. In governance as well as the rest of life, the less one interferes the better.
Wu wei
Nowhere is this convergence of political and spiritual excellence seen more clearly than in the Daoist practice of wu wei. Wu wei is often translated as “nonaction”; it might better be rendered as “actionless action” or “acting by not acting.” Wu wei does not mean doing nothing; rather it suggests acting in the easiest, simplest way possible to accomplish what needs to be done. Wu wei has the appearance and feel of not acting at all.
The greatest obstacle to living in accord with the Dao is our compulsive desire to control. We want to regulate the course of our lives, coerce others to do what we want them to do, and rid ourselves of unpleasant situations. The practice of wu wei is the relinquishing of this tendency to control. It recognizes that the world—Heaven, Earth, and Humanity—follows its own path, its own rhythms. Letting the world follow its Dao—which it will do in any event—is the only way we will find harmony and happiness within ourselves and with others.
“The greatest obstacle to living in accord with the Dao is our compulsive desire to control. We want to regulate the course of our lives, coerce others to do what we want them to do, and rid ourselves of unpleasant situations. The practice of wu wei is the relinquishing of this tendency to control.”
Why Government Is Bad
The recommendation of wu wei as a political strategy is connected with the Daoist analysis of suffering in ancient China. The Daodejing regards widespread misery as the result of governments that act contrary to the Dao of nature. Two characteristics of those governments seem to be especially at fault: first, the self-centeredness of the ruling class and its disregard for the well-being of the common people, and second, governments’ tendency to interfere in the lives of individuals. These two traits are connected to one another. Chapter 75 explains the situation in very plain terms:
The people are hungry because
those above eat up too much in taxes;
This is why the people are hungry.
The people are difficult to govern
because those above engage in action;
This is why the people are difficult to govern.
People look upon death lightly
because those above are obsessed with their own lives.
This is why people look upon death lightly.[1]
There is no doubt that the Daodejing regarded the extravagant self-indulgence of China’s rulers as contributing to the problem:
The court is resplendent;
Yet the fields are overgrown.
The granaries are empty;
Yet some wear elegant clothes;
Fine swords dangle at their sides;
They are stuffed with food and drink;
And possess wealth in gross abundance.
This is known as taking prid
e in robbery.
Far is this from the Way![2]
Understanding the contemporary political situation in these terms, the Daodejing recommends that rulers themselves practice the natural way by reducing their desires and living simply. “In bringing order to the people or in serving Heaven,” says chapter 59, “nothing is as good as frugality.”[3] The rulers’ cultivation of the virtues of simplicity and nonaccumulation should become the basis for the policy of the government.
Noninterference
This policy and the whole Daoist political philosophy can probably be summed up in this statement: “Ruling a great state is like cooking a small fish.”[4] Unless you have experience cooking small fish, you might find this simile a bit mystifying. The statement assumes that you know how delicate fish flesh becomes when it is cooked; it flakes off the bone very easily and, without proper attention, disintegrates. The implication for both cook and ruler is to refrain from interfering with the process. If you keep poking and turning the fish with chopsticks, it will break up and lose its savor. Intervene as little possible. Cook one side, turn over, and cook the other. That’s it. That is wu wei.
As a political philosophy, this means that government should stay out of people’s lives as much as possible. An English translation of the Daodejing was probably not available when Henry David Thoreau penned his essay on “Civil Disobedience,” but the first paragraph of that famous essay precisely expresses the early Daoist view of governance: “I heartily accept the motto,—‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.” The Daodejing clearly advocates a minimalist government as envisioned by Thoreau. But Thoreau takes this idea even further: “Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”[5] When he takes this position, Thoreau unwittingly aligns himself with Zhuangzi, whose interpretation of Daoism we will take up shortly. Both Thoreau and Zhuangzi would have thought that until governments are eliminated altogether, the best we can hope is for them to leave us alone.
The Age of the Sages Page 26
