Taoism as a Way of Being or a Way of Becoming - Essay Example

Taoism - a way of being or a way of becoming The school of thought with religious grounds founded by Lao Tzu is known as Taoism, which is not only a religion, highlighting the general features and description of Tao, but is also a true meaning, for the highest authority it upholds for a common man. According to the highest intellectual point reached by the doctrines of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, these religions began early to borrow from one other. In the words of the philosopher Chu Hsi, of the eleventh century, "Buddhism stole the best features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism. It is as though one took a jewel from the other, and the loser recouped the loss with a stone." It is from Buddhism that the Taoists borrowed their whole scheme of temples, priests, nuns, and ritual. They drew up liturgies to resemble the Buddhist sutras; and also prayers for the dead. They adopted the idea of a Trinity, consisting of Lao Tzu, considered as the mythological Adam of China. (Isabelle, 1997) Tsui Shu argues that Mencius who is known to be the orthodox representative of the Confucian school, fought vehemently against the influences of Yang Chu and Mo Ti in his own time. Yang Chu's thought has traditionally been connected with Taoism and considered a development of the thought contained in the Tao Te Ching. Yet Mencius, who attacked the teachings of Yang Chu, never mentioned Lao Tzu in his works. Lao Tan, a wise old man who epitomized the ancient Tao, was aware of all the ancient rites held by Confucians to be the culmination of order and civilization. As it turned out, this man taught the virtues of softness and yielding, of ignorance and non-exertion, which did not quite harmonize with the Confucian enthusiasm for knowledge and form, for rites and fame. It also explained as to why Ssu-ma Ch'ien, a professed Confucian, fully aware that in his own time Taoism and Confucianism had developed into different, rival, schools, included the meeting of Lao Tzu and Confucius in both biographies. (Isabellee, 1997) The tradition that Confucius learned rites from Lao Tzu could have been perpetrated by the Confucians. Being historically minded, they had to show that their emphasis on ritual had deep roots in a venerated figure like Lao Tzu, the old master. In recent years a surge of academic interest in religious Taoism is witnessed towards its contribution to the development of Chinese science, and its rituals and practices like Girardot, Kaltenmark, Lagerwey and Welsh, etc. Though both are rooted in archaic Chinese religion, religious Taoism is a very different phenomenon from philosophical Taoism. Philosophical Taoism raised the ancient Chinese worldview to the level of thought. As a way of thinking it is clearly distinguishable from Confucianism, Mohism, Legalism, and other schools of thought in ancient China. Religious Taoism, on the other hand, is amorphous throughout its career. Tracing its roots to the practices of ancient shamans and diviners, as an organized religion it came into existence in the 2nd century A.D. The only indigenous religion of China which, incorporates in its development whatever enters the Chinese religious orbit. (Isabelle, 1997) It appropriated all the philosophical Taoist texts, including the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu, which become its sacred scriptures. But what are poetical musings and metaphysical reflections in these texts now become theory and dogma. Its most fervent search and promise are long life and immortality. While it reveres the author of the Tao Te Ching as its spiritual founder, it adopts the Yin-Yang and five-phase theory from the Yin Yang school, believes with Mo Tzu that heaven possesses conscious will, adopts Confucian ethics, and includes many Buddhist teachings and rituals. As a result the religious Taoist canon grew to thousands of volumes, for the study of all aspects of Chinese culture. Relationship between Taoism and Lao Tzu's Central Teaching The direct relationship between the founders of Taoism and Confucianism was a cordial one. In Lao Tan's advice to Confucius, however, one can already detect the different orientations towards thinking and living between these two masters. Since then the two schools have had their parting of the ways, and as a result the relationship between their followers deteriorated to one of rivalry and harsh criticisms. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao attributes the different ideals in Taoism and Confucianism to different regional spirits. Confucius represented the spirit of the north, action and reform, while Lao Tzu represented the spirit of the south, which sought to transcend politics and morals to metaphysical and mystical insights. The difference between the spirit of the north and the spirit of the south was stated by Confucius himself in the Doctrine of the Mean, a Confucian text with a strong metaphysical leaning: When Tzu-lu asked about strength. Confucius said, "Do you mean the strength of the south, the strength of the north, or the strength you should cultivate yourself To be genial and gentle in teaching others and not to revenge unreasonable conduct, this is the strength of the people of the south. The superior man lives by it. To lie under arms and meet death without regret, this is the strength of the people of the north. The strong man lives by it . . .." (Cf. Chan, 1963a: 99-100) The identity of Taoism and Confucianism with the south and the north is called the local cult theory in the works of Marcel Granet (1957) and Wolfram Eberhard (1968). Liu I-cheng, however, pointed out that the birthplaces of Confucius and Lao Tzu were not so far apart as to account for the wide differences in their thinking. The main difficulty with the local cult theory is that it could not very well accommodate the mobile factors in cultures, such as migrations, conquests, retreats, changes of capitals, and forced evacuations. Proponents of local cults try to determine differences in thought patterns geographically. This is a static approach to cultures with built-in limitation of ethnography. To give one example: What had been regarded as the southern culture of Ch'u originated in the north. The Ch'u people were forced to move south under the pressure of the newly powerful Chou tribe. Thus, the Ch'u Tz'u preserved not merely the ancient southern lore in China, but also the culture of the Shang originally from the north (Ho Ping-ti: 316). If consider the development of Taoism and Confucianism merely as local phenomena, one would come to know that attending more to the temporal, dynamic, and self-evaluative process in culture, the major criterion is the sequence, order, and inner necessity of the development of consciousness itself. It can be viewed as the rise of Taoism and Confucianism as the self-bifurcation of the cultural complex, which at a very early time was already a loosely unified whole called Sinism. Coming from the same roots Taoism identifies with the spirit of the south and represents the conservative branch, while Confucianism identifies with the northern spirit and is the progressive branch of the Sinitic complex. If the Tao Te Ching appears to be a polemic against the Confucian emphasis on rites and learning, Confucius himself and later Mencius were not opposed to its teaching. The Analects shows a Confucius also looking back to the golden age when sage kings ruled and nature was perfect. The aim of education, as well as the mission with which Confucius felt himself entrusted, was to restore this perfect state of nature through education and correct conduct. Taoism and Confucianism were closely allied in their veneration for nature. Since in high religions, humans set their goal in heaven with earth only as a testing ground, religion's main function is not in assisting humans to satisfy their biological needs. The needs of the body, which belong to this world, are now spurned as obstacles to salvation. The war to win a foothold in nature in archaic religions becomes the war against nature and the body. In one way or another high religions prescribe asceticism as the way to salvation. Formerly religion was an ally assisting believers in life, rendering their land and bodies fertile; now religion liberates believers from life altogether. Religion as a spiritual discipline marks its spirituality through nihilism and world renunciation, so much so that earth and life affirming religions, like Taoism, have difficulty being classified as religions because Chinese religions never turned against life on earth, even Hu Shih conceded that the Chinese were not very religious. Confucianism and Taoism never renounced the earth; they did not join the mainstream of world-negating religions in the axial period. Since the process of desacralization of the earth did not occur in China, science and technology as the uninhibited human exploration of nature did not develop. The Chinese regard the natural world or the earth as a sacred vessel not to be lightly tampered with. This is not to say that in China science and technology did not develop; the work of Needham and Sivin shows that Chinese science was in advance of the West up until the dawn of the modern period. The aim of science in China is not to conquer the natural world but rather to accommodate and facilitate nature's own processes. Taoism has been hailed as the main influence on the development of science in China. The tribute goes to religious, not philosophical Taoism. In the Baconian dictum that nature is to be conquered by obedience, philosophical Taoism supplies only the second ingredient that nature is to be obeyed. Only in religious Taoism is the first ingredient, the conquest of nature, also present. There is really no intention to conquer nature in religious Taoism; there is only the intention to conquer or at least to delay death, and that is to be done by stealing from nature its own secrets. Today the modern societies, with their accelerating momentum, are approaching the point of explosion unless they slow down, so as to last longer. The problem is how to change a dynamic, self-destructing civilization, one built on Nietzsche's motto "transcend and perish," to one that is cyclical, continuous, and unending. Most religions pursue eternity through the destruction of time. Taoism offers an alternative vision of the everlasting life as a non-transcending, cyclical, perpetually self-regenerating temporal process that would be the despair of Sartre. The Tao Te Ching regards the cultural and moral values treasured in Confucian humanism as so many useless appendages. It is exactly this dedication to such moral ideals supposedly lifting humans above the rest of nature that leads to wars. Either Confucianism is humanism or a religion of secularization in which humans eventually replace God or gods. Taoism protests not so much against gods who transcend the world as against humans masquerading as gods. The Tao Te Ching is truly revolutionary in that it insists on carrying out the return process, not only from heaven to earth or God to humans, but also from humanity's preoccupation with its own power back to its roots in nature, prior to the separation and alienation from nature. Other religions command humans to transcend the earth; the Tao Te Ching teaches them to transcend this very urge. With all their transcending humans remain earthbound creatures. Religion ought to be basically a reverence for the inherent dignity in all beings. Every being, with or without life, has its inherent character, deserving our respect and gratitude. Furthermore, respect for people presupposes respect for things. The current human rights stand that people should be respected since they are not objects but subjects is ineffective from the standpoint of Taoism. The religion of the Tao Te Ching is a reversal of the whole religious process of humankind. The Tao Te Ching is a religious text of homecoming to the world, born of the love for Tao as the mother and cradle of all beings. In one set of symbols or another, humans must make peace with the world in which their lot is cast. There is need to make the world sacred again. The divine is not away from the world, but is the very life pulse of the world. Time is not the moving image of eternity, but its very unfolding. Finite beings are not separate from the infinite ground, but its very fulfillment. Religious Taoism has also forgotten its ancient roots. Its interest in personal immortality and revolt against perishing is quite alien to the spirit of the Tao Te Ching, which accepts the necessity of perishing and has no teaching on personal immortality (E. M. Chen, 1973). Taoism solves the problem of the many through a different route. Harmony among the many is attained by dismantling the boundaries separating individuals and by forgetting the self in Tao. Taoism believes that peace resulting from clear territorial demarcations does not lead to long life. The very maintenance of such boundaries and the struggle against violators demand an expenditure of energy, which hurries individuals to their death (Chuang Tzu, Watson). For long life it is better to forget the self. By imitating the selflessness of heaven and earth, the Taoist has no territories to maintain and thus does not conflict with others. In Taoism knowledge of the everlasting has a redemptive effect: To know is at the same time to be. Knowledge of the everlasting draws us close to the everlasting, while lack of this knowledge is the reason we commit wanton deeds. (Chen, 1989) Any form of struggle, including moral warfare, is due to blindness to the complementary nature of opposites in the life of the round. This blindness produces the sharp distinctions between the self and non-self. While knowledge of distinctions leads a person to strife, knowledge of the round, which embraces all beings, expands one's capacity until he becomes as inclusive as heaven and Tao. Tao's life as a four-stage cyclical movement corresponding to the four seasons of the year, again confirming Taoism as a nature mysticism, and the life of the divine in Taoism as the life and death of the divine in nature. This understanding of Tao is the key not only to this text but also to the I-ching, and the general mentality of the ancient Chinese. (L. Kohn, 1991) According to L. Kohn (1991), "Taoism has never been a unified religion, and has constantly consisted of a combination of teachings based on a variety of original revelations." Taoism unlike Confucianism, which has a civil status and can trace its origins to a single historical person, recognized by everyone as a leader and to a precise set of classics that constituted the basis of its teaching throughout its history and evolution; Taoism has neither date nor place of birth. It has never stopped moving, transforming or absorbing. Its history shows us how ceaselessly it has proceeded by "recursive loops," to travel farther toward new horizons and, as it goes; it continues gleaning all sorts of treasures along the way. One can see that this pattern of development has made Taoism the most precious repository of one strain in China's cultural past, a past that remains alive in it, preserved in Taoism even when official doctrines discarded it. References Chang Po-Tuan, 1987. Understanding Reality: A Taoist Alchemical Classic: Thomas Cleary: University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu. Chen M. Ellen, 1989. The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary: Paragon House: St. Paul, MN. Herbert Allen Giles, 1902. China and the Chinese: Columbia University Press: New York. Kohn Livia, 1993. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology: State University of New York Press: Albany, NY. Lao-Tzu: D.C. Lau, 1963. Tao Te Ching: Penguin Books: Baltimore, MD. L. Kohn, 1991. Taoist Mystical Philosophy. The Scripture of Western Ascension Albany: State University of New York Press Robinet Isabelle, 1997. Taoism: Growth of a Religion: Phyllis Brooks: Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA. Watson Burton, 1968. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu: Columbia University Press: New York. Read More