Spiritual Alternative # 1: Philosophical Daoism

(NOTES: This post may cover some of the same ground as my earlier post about Philosophical Daoism.  Also, when I italicize Zhuangzi or Liezi, it refers to the book known by this name, while when I do not italicize Zhuangzi, it refers to the historical person who wrote at least the first seven chapters of the book that bears his name, and when I do not italicize Liezi it refers to the historical author of the book of the same name.)

The central practice (or non-practice) of Philosophical Daoism is wuwei, a term which literally means doing nothing.  In practice, wuwei, as best as I can describe it, consists of not thinking, not trying, and not being.  It is spontaneity in all situations.  It is not mere laziness, however.  One who lives a life of wuwei still acts in the world, but "does not by his likings and dislikings do any inward harm to his body - he always pursues his course without effort, and does not try to increase his store of life" (Zhuangzi Chapter 5, Section 6).  However, it is not possible to engage in the practice (more correctly, the non-practice) of wuwei (at least consistently) without first training the mind to be calm, collected, and detached from all mental objects.  This is where meditation comes into play.  

Philosophical Daoist meditation, at least from what the Zhuangzi indicates, incorporates practices known from South Asian traditions like breath control (in Chapter 6, Zhuangzi writes "[the] breathing [of the sages or true men/true people of old] came deep and silently. The breathing of the true man [true person] comes even from his heels, while men [people] generally breathe only from their throats"); concentration of the mind, withdrawal from attachment to the world, overcoming one's exclusive identity with one's sense of separate self-identity or ego, and transcending the opposing dualities of past and present and life and death (described in Chapter 6, Section 4); and mindfulness or awareness, or simply allowing the mind to reflect whatever arises (described as follows in Chapter 7, Section 6: "When the perfect man [perfect person - men and women can both do this] employs his mind, it is a mirror.  It conducts nothing and anticipates nothing; it responds to what is before it, but does not retain it").  This concept of using the mind as a mirror or understanding the mind as a mirror can also be found in certain Buddhist traditions, particularly in the Chan/Zen tradition (it appears in verses from the sixth patriarch Huineng, which are some of the most famous in the history of Zen Buddhism).

Philosophical Daoist meditation, at least the type described in the Zhuangzi, also features the practice of trying to snap the mind out of its ordinary modes of cognition through paradox (see this passage from Chapter 2 of the Zhuangzi, for example), turning logic against itself (much of Chapter 2 is dedicated to this), wondrous anecdotes (such as the opening passage of Chapter 1 and the very famous "Butterfly Dream" at the end of Chapter 2), and profound but unconventional ideas (which are almost, but not quite, antinomian).  In these respects Philosophical Daoism is similar to Chan or Zen Buddhism and the koans or paradoxical statements and stories of the latter.  This is no accident, as Philosophical Daoism exerted a major influence on the Chan tradition when it was developing in China.   

Besides these meditation practices and wuwei, Philosophical Daoism encourages people not to seek fame or merit, to not get involved with politics (Zhuangzi taught this during a turbulent time of political turmoil, while Laozi was expressly concerned with politics - one of the main purposes of the latter in the Daodejing was to provide counsel on the best way to rule a country), and to not worry about the conventional moral notions taught by the likes of Confucius and Mozi.    

The Zhuangzi excels at presenting evocative stories and ideas that question conventional wisdom and jolt the mind into a state of greater awareness and lucidity.  Daoism takes non-duality to the limit (meaning it is fully, rather than only partially non-dual), as its non-duality applies to all facets of existence, and does not even accept conventional or antinomian ideas as valid in a qualified way.  It is thus the most profound of all traditions, and its sages, particularly Zhuangzi, are, in my opinion, the wisest people in human history. 

There is one area in which the Philosophical Daoism is not quite as strong as other traditions.  Overall, the three major texts of the tradition lack a systematic methodology for realizing the Dao, or the unknown and unknowable (through conventional means, anyway) source of all things.  The texts (especially the Zhuangzi) have some passages that describe various helpful practices, like those mentioned above, but they do not present them systematically.  Nonetheless, I think that it is possible to construct a basic methodology based on what the Zhuangzi teaches.

In addition to the teachings mentioned above, Zhuangzi taught that "if a man [or woman] follows the mind given him [or her] and makes it his [or her] teacher, then who can be without a teacher? . . . .  [T]o fail to abide by this mind and still insist upon your rights and wrongs . . . is to claim that what doesn't exist exists."  (Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, tr. Burton Watson, Chapter 2, pp. 38-39).  I interpret this passage as encouraging people to discover wisdom and enlightenment on their own, since it is immediately available in the mind of every person.  One can realize the Dao without relying on an external guru or teacher, and in fact, an external guru or teacher is wholly unnecessary.  This teaching is at odds with the teachings of Chan/Zen Buddhism, which emphasizes the importance of having a master; Advaita Vedanta, which (apart from Ramana Maharshi, at least, who was technically never initiated into any traditional lineage) emphasizes the importance of having a living guru; the tantric traditions teach that it is dangerous to practice tantric rituals and meditation without the aid of a qualified guru (although the tantric traditions, as well as most other traditions that teach the necessity of having a guru or master, never seem to recognize the dangers of giving individuals as much power over others as gurus and masters ordinarily have over their disciples); and many other traditions as well, including Sufism and the Western esoteric traditions (such as Hermeticism and Freemasonry), as well as the two major organized forms of Daoism, Quanzhen and Tianshi Dao (these are not the only two organized forms of Daoism historically, but they have had the most influence in Chinese history), teach that it is necessary to have a guru or master in order to advance spiritually.  

I want to clear something up before moving on.  I am a Philosophical Daoist.  I consider myself a student of Philosophical Daoism above all other traditions.  I am a student of the Zhuangzi above all, but I greatly respect the Daodejing and Liehzi as well.  Sometimes, I prefer not to identify myself as a Daoist at all, because in my opinion the organized traditions of Daoism such as Quanzhen and Tianshi Dao have virtually nothing in common with the teachings of these three great texts, and I do not wish to be associated with those organized traditions in any way.  I am a student of the Lao-Zhuang (or, as I would call it, the Zhuang-Lao) school of philosophy, whatever one may wish to call it.  The distinction between Philosophical Daoism and Organized or Religious Daoism is not the creation of modern Western scholars.  The distinction was originally drawn by Han Chinese historians about 2,000 years ago, as Daojia and Daojiao.  The former refers to the school of philosophy associated with Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi, while the latter refers to organized traditions like Tianshi Dao.  I identify myself with the former, not the latter, and I believe that they should be regarded as separate traditions altogether.  Chinese popular religion or "folk religion" is, in turn, different than both Philosophical Daoism and Organized Daoism, as it incorporates at least as many elements from Confucianism, Buddhism, and the indigenous pre-literate traditions of what is now China as it does from Philosophical Daoism and Organized Daoism.

The Quanzhen, or Complete Reality/Truth school of Daoism, has useful meditative and internal-alchemical techniques, but unfortunately (from a Philosophical Daoist perspective) this school has embraced much of Buddhist and Confucian morality (including a large part of the vinaya or monastic code of the former and most of the social morality of the latter, both of which Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi would have rejected), and so is far less compatible with Philosophical Daoism than many of the schools of other traditions (such as Chan/Zen Buddhism) (see Livia Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture, pp. 160-162, available at the link provided, for details on the Quanzhen school's moral code).  This is so because Philosophical Daoism explicitly rejects moralism like that which Confucianism and Buddhism (with the exception of Chan/Zen, at least in some cases, and some forms of Vajrayana Buddhism) proffer as wisdom and truth.   

The Tianshi Dao, or Heavenly Teachers school of Daoism, has elaborate magical rituals and has historically featured the rigorous observance of moral precepts (see Kohn, pp. 72-73), but has almost nothing in common with Philosophical Daoism other than the term Dao and ritual observances involving Laozi and the Daodejing (as far as I can tell).  In the Tianshi Dao, Laozi is deified, and so has little in common with the purported author of the Daodejing, who was simply a wise old man, not an immortal being.  Furthermore, the use of the term Dao does not automatically create common ground with Laozi, Zhuangzi, or Liezi, as the term Dao is not even exclusive to Daoism.  (For example, Confucius and Confucians have historically used the term Dao to refer to the universal moral law they believe in, and C.S. Lewis used it [and spelled it Tao, based on the then-prevalent Wade-Giles system of transliteration] for his own purposes in this sense in his book The Abolition of Man, but most emphatically not in the Philosophical Daoist sense). 

The Dao known to the Philosophical Daoists, and particularly to the greatest of them, Zhuangzi, is beyond all dualities, including all value judgments.  It is beyond good and evil, which are relative categories made up by human beings based on putting too much stock in arbitrary preferences (which vary from species to species, culture to culture, and person to person – and thus have no universal validity).  One must transcend the duality between good and evil, as well as the dualities between truth and falsehood and life and death, in order to realize the Dao.  (Many people will scoff at the idea of going beyond good and evil, and will question the practicality and wisdom of transcending the distinction between life and death, but only those who do these things can ever experience the infinite freedom of the Dao.)

This does not mean that one should embrace antinomian morality as opposed to conventional morality.  Rather, both types of value systems are based on arbitrary notions of good and evil that must be transcended in order to gain authentic wisdom and sagehood.  Wisdom and sagehood exist in potential form in all people, but can only be realized by knowing the Dao, which is not known by those caught up in duality, whether that duality is moralistic, metaphysical, epistemological, physical, aesthetic, or any other variety.  

Those caught up in duality have, at best, a highly limited form of wisdom that applies only to very limited worldly situations.  Their wisdom, if they can be said to have any, is represented by the quail, cicada, and dove in the opening passage of the first chapter of the Zhuangzi, as opposed to the limitless wisdom of the Perfect Man (i.e., Perfect Person) / Sage / Holy Man (i.e., Holy Person), whose authentic wisdom is represented by the Peng bird, or Roc, in this passage.  That passage can be accessed here.

Sometimes Philosophical Daoism, and especially the Zhuangzi, is considered a foray into relativism or an example of skepticism in Chinese philosophy.  While the three major texts of Philosophical Daoism can all be read this way (the Daodejing can also be read as Rousseauian romanticism or simple nature mysticism, while the Liezi is plainly hedonistic in spots), I believe that all three are attempts to describe the way the world is experienced by those who have become in tune with the Dao, who have recognized the Dao that cannot be told and live in total awareness of the Dao at all times.  The Dao is ultimately indescribable, but the Zhuangzi (along with the other two texts to a lesser degree) successfully describes the way the world is experienced by those who have realized the Dao.  In my opinion, that is the primary purpose of the text (and the other two mentioned), although like everything related to the Zhuangzi and the other two major texts of Philosophical Daoism, that is up for debate.

RECOMMENDED READING:

The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, translated by Burton Watson (the most famous and popular translation of the Zhuangzi into English, and my personal favorite).

A shortened version of the above, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings, has almost all of the best (or most popular) chapters of the text.

One can find an English translation of the Zhuangzi with Chinese characters at http://ctext.org/zhuangzi.  

My favorite English translation of the Daodejing is the translation by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo.  It balances the lyrical nature of the text with a serious scholarly attention to the difficult task of translating ancient Chinese into modern English. 

Another famous English translation of the Daodejing is by D.C. Lau.

Stephen Mitchell also has a translation of the Daodejing that many people like.  It is less literal (in fact it takes great liberties with the original text in spots), but generally captures the brilliance of the original, and flows better than many other translations.

A.C. Graham's translation of the Liezi is the most well-known English translation of that book.   

Finally, Livia Kohn's Daoism and Chinese Culture does a great job situating these texts in the context of Chinese history and Daoist religious, alchemical, magical, divinatory, monastic, and self-cultivation traditions, and provides an informative overview of those traditions.

Philosophical Daoism - Additional Thoughts

(NOTE: I used the Wade-Giles rather than the Pinyin system of transliteration in this entry, which is why many of the terms are spelled differently than in my later entry on Philosophical Daoism.) 

Taoist philosophy strikes a chord within me like no other world philosophy or religion.  I have studied numerous religions and philosophies, but I have found none as profound or life-changing as philosophical Taoism.  Philosophical Taoism (or Tao Chia), which has had little influence for the past 2000 years, should not be confused with the forms of religious Taoism that have arisen after it, which emphasize ceremonial magic, divination, and external and internal alchemy.

The central practice in philosophical Taoism as I understand it is wu-wei.  This word literally translates from Chinese into English as "not acting" or "not doing," but it does not literally mean sitting around and doing nothing.  Rather, it means first recognizing that attempting to change oneself or the external world by acting according to one's conceptual distinctions between right and wrong, true and false, etc. often does not lead to any positive change, and usually does not lead to the desired or intended result.  This way of thinking is foreign to most people in the world, who believe that voluntary intentions have almost a one-to-one relationship with people's actions most of the time.  Philosophical Taoism, on the other hand, holds that actions based on artificial conceptual constructs such as right and wrong, true and false, etc., are not actually based on the way things really are, and thus only lead to endless changes and no lasting happiness or genuine freedom.

Second, wu-wei means taking a somewhat "passive" approach to existence, accepting that one has little control over the endless changes of the external world, and accepting that trying to force oneself to be moral, righteous, or good by some artificial standards of morality is bound to fail.

I will discuss the objections that I anticipate receiving a little bit further down, but right now I will attempt to describe the universe and human nature as they are understood by Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu, and Lieh Tzu, the main three proponents of Philosophical Taoism.  The most important concept in Taoism is, predictably, the Tao.  "Tao" literally means "way" or "route" in Chinese.  In Taoism, it means the "natural" way of the universe, which is both the origin and underlying reality of all things.  However, I believe that such a metaphysical understanding of the Tao can be quite misleading, since all three major Taoist philosophers shun systematic understandings of the universe.  I prefer to think of the Tao as a river (which is one of the favorite analogies used by all three philosophers), something that meanders through the universe, lying beneath the surface experiences of sentient beings, but able to chip away at the artificial conceptual edifices (which are like the rocks and soil, which at first seem stronger and sturdier than water, but which are in the end eroded by water) through which sentient beings interpret their experiences.  My understanding of the Tao may sound either over-flowery or philosophically evasive, but I cannot think of a better way to describe it.

If the Tao is the passive "river" lying behind people's experiences and their interpretation thereof, the Te is the activity of the Tao.  The Te is the actual chipping away of the "rocky surfaces" of peoples' (and even animals') interpretive artifices.  But at the same time, the Te "creates" these interpretive artifices, since, paradoxically, nothing exists which contradicts the Tao.  Even actions that are not wu-wei do not contradict the Tao, even if those who do not live in a manner that constitutes wu-wei are unaware of the natural flow of things which is the Tao.  In other words, the actions of those who live according to artificial conceptual constructs lead neither to lasting happiness nor genuine freedom, even though from a "panoramic" or universal point of view, the Tao is everywhere and in all things as the "river" that effortlessly causes the things of the universe to exist as they do.

According to all three philosophers, but especially Chuang Tzu (who is the greatest philosopher of all time from any culture, in my opinion), it is because people insist on clinging to their narrow artificial views of right and wrong and true and false, among other dualities, that they fail to live according to the principle of wu-wei, and thus fail to achieving lasting happiness or freedom, either individually or collectively.

Contrary to claims I have read all over the internet, Taoism does not teach that people or the universe are inherently good or benevolent.  The Chinese philosophy that teaches those things is Taoism's greatest rival in the Warring States and Han periods, Confucianism.  Confucianism holds that T'ien, or Heaven (not in the Christian sense, but in the sense of the universe's "rule maker"), out of benevolence, dictates universal moral norms that will lead to harmony within people, between people, and in the universe in general if they are properly followed, and that all people are born with the intrinsic ability and desire to live according to those moral norms.  Children should respect and obey their parents, older siblings, and other older relatives; political subjects should respect and obey their rulers as long as they are ruling morally, according to the mandate or will of heaven; at the same time parents should provide for the needs of and ensure the overall well-being of children, while rulers should do the same for their subjects, and if all of them do these things, Heaven will continue to provide for the needs of all.  Confucianism (especially through Confucius and Mencius, the most important early advocates of it, but also Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan, who founded the rival traditions of Neo-Confucianism) holds that benevolence is an inherent principle and the natural way of the universe, and that benevolence runs through all of these relationships: child to parent, subject to ruler, ruler to Heaven, and Heaven to ruler, ruler to subject, parent to child.

Taoism, while it also idealizes harmony within oneself and between oneself and the external world, including other people to a degree, holds that nature is not in fact benevolent.  As Lao Tzu puts it in the Tao Te Ching, "Heaven and Earth are not kind: the ten thousand things are straw dogs to them," and furthermore, "Sages are not kind: people are straw dogs to them."

Before we go off accusing Lao Tzu of advocating fascism or something similar, we should try to understand what he is really trying to say with these passages. He is saying first, that Heaven (which should be understood as that which dictates the conditions present on earth) and Earth show no partiality to living organisms, and in fact function almost like ruthless slave-masters.  Because of them, people are not free to choose when they die; they are not free from disease, natural disasters, and the like; and they must work and toil in order to remain alive for any length of time.  Heaven and Earth treat living organisms like they are petty objects that can swept aside at will, at least in a metaphorical sense.

Second, Lao Tzu is saying that a sage is one who has no illusions about the indifferent nature of the universe towards living beings, and thus ultimately gives up the distinction between life and death. Only if death is seen as no different than life, and not just intellectually, can a person truly be free of the anxiety that comes from realizing that nature is completely indifferent to the plight of sentient beings and will not hesitate to bring suffering and death upon them.  One even overcomes the anxiety of realizing that many other people will not hesitate to cause one harm or abandon one if it is in their perceived self-interest to do so.  This is what it means to treat people as "straw dogs," in my opinion.

Wu-wei, then, involves accepting nature as it is, and giving up all of one's ordinary conceptual distinctions, including ultimately even that between life and death.  This is understandably a frightening prospect for many people, and even sounds like a recipe for nihilism and sociopathic behavior to many people.  Yet I would ask these questions of the people who object to Philosophical Taoism for these reasons: have moralistic systems that praise some and condemn others for their actions ever actually improved human behavior on a large (or even a small) scale?  Even if they have, have these moralistic systems been any less cruel or barbaric in practice than those condemned or punished by the advocates and representatives of these systems?  Have these moralistic systems caused more or less self-laceration, self-hatred, guilt, and overall unhappiness in those who embrace and have embraced (whether by choice or force, but almost always the latter) them?  I am not saying that Taoism will bring world peace or universal social harmony.  It most certainly will not, although it does tend to support a laissez-faire, hands-off approach to human social relations, an approach which underlies the great systems that have created all of the modetrnity's unprecedented prosperity, liberty (though still greatly limited, it is far greater than it was in the vast majority of pre-modern societies), equality, and access to information (these systems being capitalism and liberalism in the broad sense of "pro-liberty").  What Philosophical Taoism can bring is a way of life that frees individual people from all of the assumptions and artificial dualistic thoughts that cause so much guilt, unhappiness, and feelings of inadequacy.  This may only work for some people, and it may only be necessary for some people, but in my experience, Philosophical Taoism has a greater power to do this than any other world religion or philosophy.