The Tao te ching is the oldest “scripture” in the Chinese religious tradition known as “Taoism”. It stems from the early formative period of Chinese thought (c. 500-200 b.c.), and is one among a small number of books from this period which have a place in Chinese tradition roughly similar to that of the Greek classics, the Bible, and the Koran in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, and to the Upanishads and the Pali Canon in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In this century, the Tao te ching has also become immensely popular in Western countries, reputedly having been translated more than any other book in the world except the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita.
Social and Historical Setting.
Most critical scholars now place the Tao te ching’ s origins sometime late in the “Warring States” period (463-222 b.c.) of Chinese history. Contemporary Chinese believed strongly in a hierarchical, “pyramid” theory of social organization. There was a Chinese Empire, presided over at the very top by a single Emperor, “The One Man”, representing in his person the symbolic Norm of the World. Next came a larger class of nobility who presided in feudal fashion over the smaller territories or “states” into which the Empire was divided. The base of the pyramid was made up largely of peasant farmers.
In previous times, social rank was relatively fixed by birth, but during the Warring States period there was much more mobility both up and down the social scale. Social status and power came increasingly to depend not on birth but on personal ambition and competitive struggle. The Emperor had lost effective control, and the heads of the various states engaged in large- scale warfare with each other, each wanting to reunite the now fragmented Empire under his own leadership. Noble families engaged in what Hsu terms “class suicide” by constant internecine struggles.
Out of this disorder arose a relatively new class of men called shih, drawn from downwardly mobile, dispossessed nobility, and upwardly mobile, ambitious peasantry. Traditionally, shih had served in relatively minor roles as soldiers and as scribes, bookkeepers, minor administrators and foremen for state governments and feudal manors. As states grew larger and more complex in this period, and as rulers were less and less able to rely on fellow-nobility for support, those in power came increasingly to rely on shih as a cadre of men with the specialized expertise necessary to foster and maintain the good socio-economic order that was each ruler’s power-base.
Within this class of shih, there was a smaller group perhaps best called “shih-idealists”. I believe a small group of shih- idealists is responsible for the Tao te ching. The Mencius, a book roughly contemporary with the Tao te ching, gives us a fairly detailed picture of such men’s conception of themselves and the leadership role to which they aspired. My picture of the group underlying the Tao te ching is largely drawn from what I think are parallels between the Mencius and the Tao te ching on this score. What the two groups have in common can be described roughly as follows:
They were alienated idealists . By “alienated”, I mean that they did not look upon traditional social life, or the existing political order, as a source of authoritative norms. Nor did they look on participation in ordinary socio-political life as something sufficient by itself to give meaning to one’s life. They were idealists, in that the quest for norms and sources of meaning superior to those of conventional society, was a very central part of their lives. New norms they developed served as a basis for their claim to be instructors of those in authority, deserving (in the Laoist case at least) the leadership status of new “Emperor”, spiritual “Norm of the World”.
They had a very strong sense of social responsibility . The Chuang Tzu puts the following words into the mouth of a shih- idealist asking permission from his teacher to go “correct” the ways of a feudal lord:
I have heard that the ruler of [the state of] Wei is very young. He…thinks little of how he rules his state, and fails to see his faults. It is nothing to him to lead his people into peril… His people have nowhere to turn. I have heard you say, Master, ‘Leave the state that is well-ordered and go to the state in chaos!’ I want to use these words as my standard, in hopes that I can restore his state to health.
Even though shih-idealists like this often have no official position, and are often of lower-class origin, they feel that the burden of ensuring the health of the entire Empire rests on their shoulders alone. In their eyes, those in official positions of authority (many of them usurpers) are for the most part completely inadequate to this task. Shih-idealists often travel from state to state, wherever they feel their services are needed, and wherever they have some hopes that they can influence local government — either as advisers or as administrators in government service. In this they are partly relying on an important part of Chou-dynasty (1122-222 b.c.) ideology: The Emperor must have wise counselor/”teachers” who constantly remind him of his moral responsibilities and correct him when they see him abusing his office or setting a bad tone for the people. Formerly, however, such counselors were the highest ranking officials, drawn from the Emperor’s noble kinsmen.
They accepted fully the present socio-political structure and their officially assigned place in it. Unlike idealist political reformers elsewhere, shih-idealists did not advocate a change in the hierarchical structure of society. And, despite the fact that they regarded themselves as the true leaders of China, they did not aspire to topple those in power and personally take their place. Politically, their aspiration was to “rule from the middle”, in their capacity as advisers and administrators at all levels of government — from the lowest level of inspector of wells and fields, to the highest level of “prime minister” just below the top feudal lord who was supreme head of state.
They offered a new foundation for Chinese culture and politics, but this foundation enters public life primarily in the person of the ideal shih . Here a contrast with John Locke (1632- 1704) is helpful. Locke was an English philosopher who perhaps more than any other laid the foundations for modern secular democracies. The foundation Locke offered for this new kind of society consisted primarily of philosophical theories– theories about the natural freedom of human nature, theories about the basis for social organization and government, etc. These theories were in turn based on more fundamental theories about the nature of reality and how we come to know reality. The new foundation Locke has to offer enters public life primarily as theory — as theory to be taught to and accepted by both government officials and the people they rule, as theory to be embodied in a constitution, as theory to be followed by judges in interpreting laws, etc. If we ask ourselves, How did Locke’s thoughts and words insert themselves into concrete life?, the answer is (A) his thoughts are the result of his conscious attempts to construct a rationally based philosophical system, and (B) he wants his entire society to understand and accept these thoughts as a normative basis for social and political life.
Shih-idealists also aspired to provide a new foundation for the crumbling socio-political order they saw around them. But the foundation they had to offer inserted itself into concrete life in a way fundamentally different from the way that Locke’s philosophy did so. They relied primarily on two ideas central to traditional Chou-dynasty thought: (A) Good social organization depends on the ruler gaining the voluntary respect and cooperation of the people. He does this by his personal good qualities and charisma (te in Chinese), and by showing genuine care, concern, and competence in looking out for their needs. (B) The good ruler “sets the tone” for his society. The manner in which he conducts himself both privately and publicly establishes a certain atmosphere which subtly but powerfully influences the way the people conduct themselves. It is primarily this tone the ruler sets, rather than laws, teachings, or beliefs which authorities teach to people, that is expected to produce a good peasant-citizenry and an orderly society. The shih-idealists reflected in the Mencius and the Tao te ching regard themselves as the chief tone-setters for society. The new “foundation” they have to offer inserts itself into public life primarily in their own person then. In whatever office they hold, they strive to set the proper tone for the social group in their charge, and in this they serve also as exemplars for the rulers whom they serve. And when these rulers ask for their advice about particular political problems they are experiencing, they advise them to address these problems in a way that will also set the proper tone for the larger society.
Because the personal character of ruler-administrators was so pivotal, shih-idealists placed an extraordinary emphasis on character-formation, “self-cultivation”. Personal character- formation, which Mencius calls “self-cultivation”, is to the shih what philosophical theorizing is to John Locke. It is the source of his autonomy, his right to follow norms derived from within himself rather than be bound by norms externally given. And it is the source of his critical leverage over against conventional society and its rulers, the basis on which he criticizes current practice and poses new norms to guide public policy. Good public policy in the Mencius and the Tao te ching is defined as that policy expressive of good character, or of the right state of mind, existing in the ruler. Self-cultivation differs somewhat from the Western development of “virtuous character”, in its strong emphasis on complete internalization, so that the personal qualities cultivated become part of one’s instinctive impulses (not “convictions” one must hold oneself to). This is expressed in a famous saying attributed to Confucius: “At fifteen I set my heart on learning, at thirty I attained a firm position…at seventy I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the line.”
Perhaps because the shih-idealists as a class actually were the group with the best claim to moral respectability in Warring States China, they apparently gained considerable prestige (though probably their actual influence on politics fell very far short of their ambitions). Since the use of force and political manipulation came increasingly to replace hereditary title as a source of political power, rulers were in need of new sources of legitimation. Some may have looked to shih-idealists as a source of this legitimation, wanting to appear at least to be associated with them and to be listening to their advice, or at least supporting them. (Mencius speaks of a ruler who, while he rejects the advice of a particular shih, gives him material support anyhow, “Because I am ashamed to see him die of want in my territory”.)
The very high respect with which some individual shih were regarded, led other shih to gather around them, to learn their ideas about good government and practice self-cultivation under their guidance, and by association with them to gain credentials that would get for them the government appointments they desired. This led to the formation of many small and informal shih- schools, groups of men gathered around one or more teachers, living with or near him, and often travelling with him as he went from state to state trying to influence rulers with his advice. This is the kind of group that gathered around the Confucian shih-teacher Mencius, and this is the kind of group I believe also responsible for the Tao te ching. This latter was one among several groups sharing a common worldview opposed to Confucianism, groups which came later to be called by the general name “Taoist”. Other roughly contemporary Taoist groups are known to us from an anthology of writings that goes under the name Chuang Tzu. A.C. Graham recently suggested a new term “Laoist” (after Lao Tzu, the legendary author of the Tao te ching) to refer to the specific thought of the Tao te ching, in contrast to the somewhat different (“Chuangist”) Taoism represented in the Chuang Tzu. I use “Laoist” as a term of convenience throughout the present work, to make it clear that I am here dealing only with this brand of Taoism.
Cosmic Sayings.
Some of the most interesting, but also puzzling, sayings in the Tao Te Ching are those that picture the origins of the world. These are sayings like:
The world has an origin, the Mother of the world. (29[52]:1)
Tao gave birth to One
One gave birth to Two
Two gave birth to Three
Three gave birth to the 10,000 things. (36[42]:1)
The Tao that can be told is not the invariant Tao…
Unnamed, it is the Mother of Heaven and Earth. (43[1]:1-2)
Some treat these sayings as literal “doctrines” about world-origins, doctrines that they developed through philosophical speculation, or perhaps learned through revelatory “mystical” experience. I think a more careful inquiry into their likely background and life-setting reveals something different. The following summarizes my main thesis. Arguments for this will be presented later in this essay.
These sayings have as their background not doctrinal speculation but the concrete practice of self-cultivation. In general these sayings are those that use a special set of recurrent terms: Stillness, Emptiness, Femininity, Softness/Weakness, Harmony, Clarity, The Merging, the Oneness, the Uncarved Block, The Mother, Tao, Te, and Excellence. These terms are descriptions or hypostatizations of a state of mind that Laoists cultivated. Laoist self-cultivation involved meditation exercises that probably led to some extraordinary experiences that could be called “mystical.” But the mysticism involved was not unitive mysticism, aiming at union with some supreme reality, undertaken for its own sake. Nor was it speculative mysticism, regarding extraordinary experiences as a source of direct insight into the ultimate structure of reality. Laoists cultivated an extraordinary state of mind ultimately for practical purposes: This state of mind made them internally self-sustaining, not having to rely on worldly success; and it expressed itself in a certain style of personal conduct and of political leadership that they valued for its own sake. Sayings about Tao as world-origin are not doctrinal teaching, but celebrate the cosmic importance of the state of mind Laoists cultivated, and the fact that it is something that transcends the conventional world. To simplify, using a contemporary analogy, “Love makes the world go ’round,” does not answer the question “What makes the earth spin?” but rather the question “How great is love?” In the same way, “Tao…is the origin of the thousands of things” does not answer the question “How did the world begin?” but rather the question, “How great is the Tao we cultivate?”
This thesis involves a related thesis about the use of language in the relevant sayings. This thesis requires noting the difference between the way language is used when one is invoking a set of established theories, as opposed to the way language is used in ordinary conversation where no theories are at stake. As an example of a statement invoking a theory, consider the statement a doctor might make to a heart patient, “The pain you feel in your chest is caused by insufficient blood flow to the outside of the heart, due to cholesterol buildup in one of your coronary arteries.” I will call such a statement “analytically explanatory.” The doctor is analyzing a felt pain into its constituent elements and causes, invoking established and systematized medical theories about these elements and causes (e.g. that the heart is a muscle, that insufficient blood flow to a muscle causes pain). The validity of the statement depends on the truth of these theories.
Contrast this with a statement one might make in ordinary conversation, “An idea just came to me.” This statement is not analytically explanatory. It does not mean to explain to others the elements or causes of an experience. We could call it rather “experientially evocative.” The words are trying to convey a particular common experience to others, using words that evoke similar experiences they have had. Pragmatically speaking, the statement does its work in this conversation if others have had similar experiences and recognize the words as a reference to this kind of experience. People could perfectly well and validly go on talking this way even if someone proved that all psychological theories positing the objective existence of entities called ideas are false. The term idea names something phenomenologically concrete, a phainomena , part of the “appearances” of the world, rather than a set of entities whose existence we have established by critical reflection on that experience.
We make many statements like this in ordinary conversation, statements like: “She is full of energy today”; “He has a big ego”; “She has a bad case of nerves”; “Part of me wants to go, and part of me wants to stay”; “Use your will power”; “I’m smiling on the outside, but sad on the inside”; “These feelings are very deep”; “I felt touched at the center of my being”; and so on. A foreigner who did not recognize the experiential referents of the phrases involved here might easily take them as analytically explanatory, and think that these statements reflect some doctrines that are all part of a psychological theory: Doctrines about “energy,” “ego’s,” “nerves,” and “will power”; doctrines about internal divisions of people into various “parts,” or into an “inside” and an “outside,” or into a “center” and a “periphery”; doctrines about different layers of feelings, and so on. But all we have here is a collection of familiar concepts and images that people use to describe to others some aspects of reality as they perceive it. The concepts and images involved do not get their meaning by being part of some overall system of doctrines in which each has a fixed place. They get their meaning by being inserted piecemeal into conversations about concrete circumstances. This is especially true of terms people use to speak of “internal” experiences, perceptions of their own mental state that have no obvious external behavioral correlates. These are terms like feelings , ideas , self , mind, will , attitudes and so on. Sometimes these are spoken of as elements of “folk psychology,” but this is misleading if it implies that they are elements in some attempt at systematic psychological theory . In ordinary conversation, they are simply terms we find helpful in speaking to others about elements of our perception of ouselves that are not externally observable.
To give another example, somewhat closer to our subject matter, T’ai Chi instructors frequently use the word ch’i in instructions they give. An instructor might say, for example, “Do not move your arms with your arm muscles, but with the ch’iwhich comes from your stomach.” This language needs to be understood in the experiential and pragmatic context of T’ai Chi practice. The T’ai Chi teacher may or may not be invoking some particular theory about an entity or force called ch’i . What he is primarily doing is giving concrete directives concerning a physical exercise. His language is primarily experientially evocative. People practicing T’ai Chi need to develop a highly acute and differentiated sensitivity to certain internal sensations that occur while moving slowly in a certain way, and these sensations are the phenomenologically concrete reference of the term ch’i . The teacher’s directives do their work and are valid if the term ch’i has some intelligible relation to internal sensations that the pupils actually have, and if moving one’s arms as if they were being moved by this ch’iachieves some of the aims which T’ai Chi sets out to achieve. From a pragmatist point of view (p. 000) it does not essentially matter whether ch’i has any objective reference that goes beyond what is merely phenomenologically concrete. If someone shows conclusively that ch’i is simply not a reality of the kind one finds described in modern scientific essays on physiology, this would not in the least affect the meaning of talk about ch’i in the context of T’ai Chi practice.
My thesis about the use of language in the Laoist sayings treated in these chapters will be that references to Tao, Te, the Mother, and so on, are not analytically explanatory, but experientially evocative. These terms represent a collection of familiar concepts that Laoists used to talk about experiences connected with self-cultivation. Laoists did not use these experiences as a basis for constructing any set of doctrines either about psychology or about the structure of the cosmos.
My argument for this thesis depends partly on a comparison with another document roughly contemporary with the Tao Te Ching , and reflecting a similar backgrounds, the Nei Yeh
2.The Nei Yeh .
The Nei Yeh , “Inward Training” is a writing that dates from sometime in the 4th century, preserved for us in an ancient miscellany entitled the Kuan Tzu . A. C. Graham thinks that it is the earliest reflection of mysticism in China. Harold Roth has recently shown its importance for the earliest stage of Taoism, and as background for understanding the Tao Te Ching, probably a somewhat later text.
I want first to present a translation of the opening passage of this work, with some comments. Afterward I will present more analysis of the kind of practice and thinking out of which this text seems to have arisen.
Text
Comment
Always: {1}
The ching of things is what gave them birth
below, it gave birth to the five grains
above, it gave birth to the many stars.
Flowing in the space between Heaven and Earth, we call it spirit
[the one who has it] stored in [his] breast we call the Wise Person.
The text opens by speaking of the cosmic importance of ching /”vital energy,” expressing this by saying that ching gave birth to the grain and the stars. But the phrase “Store [ ching ] in the breast” is also one among many ways of describing the goal of self cultivation in the Nei Yeh . Those who cultivate this ching feel it as a ghostlike presence, a shen /spirit, pervading the space around them (like Mencius’ ch’i ). As we shall see below, the Nei Yeh and the Chuang Tzuappropriate shen /ghost:spirit, a term from popular religion, to speak also of the internal “spirit” one cultivates.
And so people’s ch’i : {2}
A bright sun! like something rising high in the heavens.
Dark! like something descending into an abyss.
Vast! like something residing in the ocean.
Fully complete! like something residing in itself [alone].
A saying about ch’i follows, with only a formalized transition ( shih ku /”and so”). No further transition is needed, because in the Nei Yeh , ching and ch’i /breath:energy are two names referring to the same hypostatized mental state. Stylistically, this saying is similar to sayings {9}, {11}, and {12}. These seem to represent a sayings-form connected with self cultivation, remarking on the elusive yet wonderful quality of mind one is trying to cultivate internally. This is obviously a special ch’i , not just the “breath” which everything possesses.
And so: {3}
This ch’i cannot be made to stay by force
but it can be made peaceful by Te,
cannot be summoned by calling,
but can be welcomed by the mind.
The object of this self cultivation can partly be described as trying to get a special kind of ch’i (described in {2}) to “stay” in oneself. It can equivalently be described as producing a peaceful ch’i by using some gentle internal force called Te here, which is the opposite of the forceful approach (criticized also in the Tao Te Ching 33[55]:4.)
Watch over It {4}
with care and respect,
and do not lose It.
This is called “Complete Te.”
Te complete, wisdom emerges,
the thousands of things reach fruition.
Because this saying uses Te also, but in a different sense (as the result of self-cultivation), I suspect it was originally independent of {3}. Here we see the term shou /”watch over,” used also in the Tao Te Ching to refer to self-cultivation. If this is an oral saying, it would have been used in contexts where it would have been clear what the “It” that one watches over refers to.
Always: {5}
The mind’s Form
is self-sufficient, reaching fullness by itself
self-producing, self-perfecting.
Now we have a saying about hsing /Form, again introduced with no transition, except for the introductory fan /always.
What we lose It by: {6}
It is always sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, desire for profit.
If we are able to get rid of
sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, desire for profit
then the mind turns back to completeness.
This saying again refers to the object of self cultivation as “It,” which the juxtaposition of sayings here identifies as the hsing/Form, another term referring to an ideal state of mind. One loses it by emotional excitement or disturbance, suggesting that Form here means something like “the mind’s true form,” the mind in its prime condition. Note the use of the further descriptive term “completeness” to refer to the quality of mind one is cultivating.
What profits the mind’s feelings: {7}
peacefulness brought on by rest.
No trouble, no confusion, {8}
then Harmony will perfect itself
Here an hypostatized ho /Harmony is pictured as a quasi independent force that autonomously “perfects itself” when one gets rid of mental disturbances.
So lowly! like something {9}
residing in a place disdained.
So minute! like something
one could never te /get.
So vast! like something
that exhausts the limitless.
This is found close at hand──
use its Te everyday.
This saying belongs to the same genre as {2}, {11}, and {12}. The juxtaposition here suggests that Harmony is its subject; but as we have seen Harmony is just one more term referring to an hypostatized mental quality one is trying to mentally te /get through self-cultivation. The descriptions are experiential: One feels this quality as something barely perceptible which others might disdain, and yet to the one cultivating it, it fills infinite space. It has a Te/power one can yung /use everyday; that is, this mental quality will express itself in one’s everyday conduct.
Tao is what perfects the Form {10}
but men cannot make it stand fast:
[sometimes] it goes and does not return
[sometimes] it comes and does not stay.
Finally, we have some sayings speaking of Tao. The juxtaposition, and the line about Tao “staying” or “not staying” makes it clear that Tao is here one more term referring to the elusive quality of mind one is trying to cultivate. (A later passage uses almost identical language about shen /spirit.) Note that although Tao, the elusive presence internally cultivated, is pictured as being beyond our direct control, this does not lead to the conclusion that we just have to leave things alone and hope it will come. The text later urges strenuous efforts to “keep clean its abode,” and promises that if this is done Tao will indeed come and stay.
Silent! no one hears its sound {11}
fully complete! it resides in the mind
so obscure! we cannot see its form
so vast! born together with me.
We cannot see its form, {12}
we cannot hear its sound
but we sense its completeness.
[This is] called Tao.
Always: {13}
Tao has no [fixed] place
it will peacefully settle in a good mind.
The mind still, the ch’i right, {14}
then Tao can stay.
In {2} and {3} above, the term ch’i served as a name for the ideal mental quality one is cultivating. Here the term is used to describe a mental state one should try to bring about (make the ch’i cheng /right) in order to get an hypostatized mental quality Tao to come and stay.
First, sayings in the Nei Yeh have their concrete life setting in the self-cultivation practices of a particular group. The self-cultivation this group engaged in engendered a kind of mental calmness that was different in its intensity from normal mental calmness. And, as is usual in groups engaged in prolonged introspective exercises, these exercises engendered an awareness of internal states, sensations, and movements that was more acute and differentiated than ordinary internal self-awareness. As is also often the case with such groups, this group developed a special vocabulary to speak of these sensations and states. Among the main terms they used were those encountered above: Harmony, Completeness, Tao, ch’i/breath:energy, and hsing /Form. They also use other terms we will meet below: te /virtue:power, ching /”vital energy,” and shen /ghost:spirit. These terms had a phenomenologically concrete reference. They referred to what appeared to be concretely perceived realities in the world (the Lebenswelt ) of those engaged in self-cultivation. Sayings using these terms are not analytically explanatory but experientially evocative.
Secondly, using Frege’s Sinn / Bedeutung distinction in modified form, we could say that each of these special terms has a different meaning-content, or Sinn , deriving from the different meanings of the terms. But they all have the same Bedeutung , taking Bedeutung here to mean not their reference to discrete objects, but their phenomenologically concrete reference to felt shifts in one’s state of mind. For example, the term Tao does not have the same Sinn as the term Harmony. But the statement, “The mind still, the ch’i right, then Tao can stay” is experientially equivalent to, “No trouble, no confusion, then harmony will perfect itself.” Both statements refer to the same felt shift in one’s mental state. Tao and Harmony have the same phenomenologically concrete Bedeutung .
Thirdly, phrases like “Tao stays” and “Harmony perfects itself” imply a linguistic and imaginal, but not a doctrinal and ontological hypostatization of Tao and harmony . Hypostatization refers to cases where we conceive and speak of something as though it were an independent entity or energy. “Let nature take its course” hypostatizes “nature.” “The weather is acting strange today” hypostatizes “the weather.” “Let the music flow through your fingers” hypostatizes “music.” Such hypostatizations treat “nature,” “music” and so on linguistically and imaginally as separate entities or energies. Sometimes linguistic and imaginal hypostatization has a phenomenologically concrete basis. “Let the music flow through your fingers” for example reflects an experience frequently reported by musicians (“I am not playing the music, the music is playing me.”) But in experiential contexts like this, such hypostatization is seldom theoretical and ontological. Speaking as though “music” were an independent force does not necessarily imply a doctrinal belief in such a force. Similarly, if the present hypothesis is correct, phrases in the Nei Yeh like “Harmony perfects itself,” “store ching in the breast,” “watch over ch’i ,” and “Tao stays” represent linguistic and imaginal, but not doctrinal, hypostatizations of Harmony, ching , ch’i , and Tao. These hypostatizations very likely have some experiential basis. That is, the people which the text envisages cultivating an extraordinary mental calm probably have fleeting internal sensations which they refer to by the special names, ching , Tao, and so on, and these seem to come and go after the manner of quasi-autonomous forces over which one has no direct control.
Finally, the hypostatization of these mental states makes possible a particular kind of statement which describes the immense, “cosmic” importance of the mental states, by making “cosmic” statements about Tao, ch’i , and so on. We already saw something similar in Mencius’ ideas concerning ch’i (p. 000): Ch’i can refer both to a relatively ordinary internal “feeling,” and also to a cosmic presence that “fills up the space between Heaven and Earth.” It becomes a cosmic force when it is properly cultivated: It fills up the space between Heaven and Earth “when it is nourished by Rightness and when no harm is done to it.” This statement suggests the origin of Mencius’ cosmic image of ch’i pervading the space all around us: Mencius experiences Rightness-imbued ch’i as something of supreme importance, and this makes it feel like ch’i is some kind of pervasive force in the cosmos.
A good comparison here is the eulogy of li /ceremony:etiquette as a “cosmic” force found in the Hsün Tzu :
By this Heaven and Earth join
By this sun and moon shine,
By this the four seasons proceed,
By this the stars take their course,
By this the Yangtse and the Yellow River flow,
By this the myriad things flourish.
No serious scholar would suggest that this passage is the result of Hsün Tzu’s attempts to satisfy people’s curiosity about what makes the sun shine and the seasons proceed. They are clearly celebrations of the cosmic importance of li .
The Nei Yeh opens with a similar cosmic statement about ching /”vital energy.”
The ching of things is what gave them birth
below, it gave birth to the five grains
above, it gave birth to the many stars.
Floating in the space between Heaven and Earth, we call it shen /spirit.
[The one who has it] stored in [his] breast we call the Wise
Person.
This text presents ching as something that is the origin of everything, but also something that only some special people have: Having it makes one a sheng jen /”Wise Person.” On the present interpretation, the last line presents the experiential basis of the “cosmic” lines that precede it. Ching is a very special internal “energy” one develops in self-cultivation. The supreme importance of this extraordinary energy makes it feel like something “cosmic.” Again, the lack of doctrinal belief about ching as world origin shows in the unsystematic character of cosmogonic descriptions in the Nei Yeh . In addition to the above cosmogony centered on ching , we have sayings like, “Heaven develops [man’s] ching , Earth develops his hsing/Form,” and “What gives birth [ sheng ] to all things, what completes all things, this is called Tao.” People seriously holding doctrinal beliefs are usually more careful about the consistency of the various beliefs they hold. For people celebrating the cosmic importance of something, the power of the various images they use to express this is more important than consistency among the images.
3. Some parallels between the Tao Te Ching and the Nei Yeh .
There is evidence in Tao Te Ching that the practice of self-cultivation is the concrete life setting for many of its sayings also. I will show below that it too has a special vocabulary to speak about what it is that one cultivates, although its vocabulary is somewhat different from that of the Nei Yeh . Folk-psychological terms like ching and ch’i play only a minor role. Their place is partly taken by a group of adjectival terms descriptive of the state of mind cultivated──Stillness, Emptiness, Steadiness, Clarity, Harmony──and partly by terms hypostatizing this state of mind as The Mother, The Oneness, Tao, and Te. Because these are all special terms I always capitalize them when they occur in Tao Te Ching passages.
As evidence of self-cultivation in the Tao Te Ching we can cite first some sayings that appear to be direct instructions in self-cultivation, like:
Push Emptiness to the limit,
watch over Stillness very firmly…(28[16]:1)
Close your eyes
shut your doors
dampen the passion
untie the tangles (30[56]:2-3)
Pay attention to the Raw, Embrace the Uncarved
discount your personal interests, make your desires few. (78[19]:2)
In addition there are two passages that seem fairly clearly to be meditation instruction. One is a brief saying in 6[15]:3:
Who is able, as muddy water,
by Stilling to slowly become clear?
Who is able, at rest,
by long drawn-out movement to slowly come to life?
What is described here does not seem to be something that would happen in the course of everyday life. It seems to picture someone whose mind is at first “muddy,” stirred up and confused. A period of time is spent gradually stilling the mind until it becomes very still and clear. And then another period is pictured in which the mind slowly becomes active again, probably in a more harmonious way for having gone through this period of stillness. Note the use of rhetorical question (“Who is able…?”) to give instructions, a stylistic feature we will meet again below.
The second passage is a longer meditation instruction given in 27[10], also using rhetorical questions. Because this passage is parallel to an illuminating passage in the Nei Yeh , let me cite and comment on the latter first:
Text
Comment
Concentrate ch’i , spirit-like
the thousands of things lie there all in order.
Can you concentrate?
Can [you be] One?
Chuan ch’i /”concentrate ch’i ” occurs in the Tao Te Ching also (see immediately below). In the light of the unsystematic use of ch’i in the Nei Yeh , it seems unlikely that this phrase reflects a doctrinal belief about ch’i (that one first believes something about ch’i and then devises techniques to manipulate this ch’i ). The Nei Yeh also speaks of chuan hsin /”concentrating mind,” a phrase that Mencius uses of a chess player. This is a concrete directive, assuming no more than that one know how to perform the internal activity referred to, which can also be described simply (in line 3 here) as “concentrate.” Concentrating eliminates distraction and makes one’s mind more unified, “One.”
Can you know good and bad fortune without divination?
Foretelling the future without divination (the usual means in ancient China) is said to be the result of attaining perfect sincerity in the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean (24), and of practicing Tao in 11[38]:6 of the Tao Te Ching . Such a claim is often associated with religious traditions having developed meditation techniques.
Can you halt, can you stop?
Can you stop seeking It from other men and get It in yourself?
“Stop” here is explained as stopping the tendency to seek for what one desires outside oneself. The fulfillment of one’s desires lies in something one can te /get within oneself, through the concentrative meditation exercise spoken of here.
Set your mind to it!
Set your mind to it!
Seriously set your mind to it again!
If you set your mind to it and cannot penetrate It,
the spirit penetrates It.
[It is] not [penetrated] by the strength of the spirit [ kuei-shen ],
[but by] the utmost perfection of ching [and] ch’i .
In another context, one might interpret these lines in reference to attempts to gain an intellectual grasp of some truth. In the context of the Nei Yeh , however, “It” is the hypostatized quality of mind that one is trying to mentally te /get in oneself. Only one with a highly perfected consciousness and way of being is capable of this.
Compare now the beginning of 27[10] in the Tao Te Ching , the clearest case of meditation instruction in this book:
Text
When ‘carrying your soul’,
embracing the Oneness,
can you be undivided?
When ‘concentrating ch’i ‘,
bringing about Softness,
can you be like an infant?
When ‘cleansing and purifying
the mysterious mirror,’
can you be without blemish?…
When ‘the Doors of Heaven
open and shut,’
can you remain Feminine?
When ‘Clarity and bareness
penetrate everywhere,’
can you remain not doing?
Comment
“Embracing the Oneness” occurs also in 4[22]:4; but ying p’o /”carry [your] soul” occurs only here. This observation is true also of the next three stanzas. The first phrases in these stanzas (placed in quotes) probably refer to some internal meditation techniques which the original audience knew how to perform, or experiences with which they were familiar. The technique involves purifying one’s mind of distractions: Chuan ch’i /”concentrating ch’i ,” becoming “undivided,” “cleansing and purifying” one’s consciousness so that a clarity also seems to pervade the external world. Following these phrases referring to meditation techniques in each stanza, other phrases are used that mention certain qualities or states of mind──Softness, infancy, Femininity, not doing, Clarity──which are mentioned frequently elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching as qualities or states one ought to foster in oneself.
The reference to “Heaven’s doors opening and shutting” in the fourth stanza here has no parallel in the Nei Yeh , and requires some further comment. The closest contemporary analogy seems to be the tradition of the “spirit journey,” probably a survival of Chinese shamanism, in which a person in a trance state feels himself to be journeying in spirit to other worlds. A Heavenly Gate is mentioned in one description of a spirit journey that occurs later Taoist poem included in the Ch’u Tzu anthology.
I ask the Lord’s Gateman to open up for me; He leans against the Ch’ang-ho gate and looks at me. I ask the Gateman of Heaven to open the gate; He pushes open the Ch’ang-ho portals and looks out at me… [The poem ends:] …I transcend Non-action and come to Purity…I draw near the Great Beginning.”
Another passage in the Chuang Tzu involving a spirit journey also mentions passing through a “Dark and Mysterious Gate.” If these parallels are relevant to our context, they suggest that the Laoist meditation instruction quoted above envisioned the possibility that the meditator might go into a trance and experience a spirit journey. What is important in our present context is that the instruction makes no mention of any revelatory insights gained in such a trance. The primary goal of the meditation practice seems to be the cultivation of a particular state of mind. As will be pointed out later, the composer of the chapter where this saying now occurs has added material to the saying which suggests that Laoist meditation is primarily preparation for ruling well, not a means of learning esoteric truths.
One can scarcely doubt that 27[10]:1 does represent meditation instruction, and further indications suggest that it is an oral saying. The main indication is that it uses phrases like “carrying the soul” which would probably have been almost as difficult for ancient Chinese to understand as they are for us, and no explanation is given either here or elsewhere in the Tao Te Ching . This is not what one would expect of a single author addressing himself to the general public. The most likely explanation is that this passage assumes an audience who already understood these phrases, or who heard them in some concrete context where their meaning would be made clear: students learning meditation from Laoist teachers, as part of the self-cultivation practice of the Laoist school.
This passage and the others quoted above serve as indirect evidence of their own original life-setting, Laoist self cultivation practices. And this life-setting in turn indicates something about how the sayings are to be understood. For example, if we know that “concentrating ch’i ” and “carrying [the] soul” are meditation instruction, we know that their most important reference is to some internal movement which Laoist meditators would know, or would have to learn, how to perform. They may or may not have had any reference to doctrines concerning ch’i or the p’o /soul. In the absence of any indication of doctrinal speculation in the Tao Te Ching , either in general or specifically about these terms, I think our assumption should be that there are no further doctrines involved. Like ch’i /breath and ching /”vital energy” in the Nei Yeh , p’o /soul here is probably just a term of folk psychology appropriated to speak about sensations experienced at meditation. We can see something also about the Laoist use of language. When we see that pao i /”embrace [the] Oneness” occurs in parallel with a phrase with an obviously experiential reference like “bring about Softness,” this suggests that “embrace the Oneness” also had a concrete reference to something one does internally at meditation.
In addition to the above parallels, there is another genre of saying that occurs both in the Nei Yeh and in the Tao Te Ching . Here, for example, are three samples of this genre that occur in the opening passage of the Nei Yehquoted above.
People’s ch’i :
A bright sun! like something rising high in the heavens
dark! like something descending into an abyss
vast! like something residing in the ocean
fully complete! like something residing in itself [alone].
So lowly! like something residing in a place disdained.
So minute! like something one could never get.
So vast! like something that exhausts the limitless.
Silent! no one hears its sound
fully complete! it resides in the mind
so obscure! we cannot see its form
so vast! born together with me.
Observations about the Nei Yeh above indicate that these sayings have as their background concrete attempts to foster in oneself a certain state of mind, hypostatized as a certain internally felt but elusive presence. The descriptions in the above passages are therefore phenomenologically concrete. “Bright,” “dark,” “vast,” “minute,” and “silent” are attempts to describe what this elusive presence feels like to one trying to cultivate it.
Chapters 37[14] and 38[21] of the Tao Te Ching contain several passages exhibiting similar features.
Look for It, you won’t see It: It is called ‘fleeting’
Listen for It, you won’t hear It: It is called ‘thin’.
Grasp at It, you can’t get It: It is called ‘subtle’.
Its top is not bright
Its underside is not dim.
Always unnameable, It turns back to nothingness.
This is the shape of something shapeless
the form of a nothing
this is elusive and evasive.
Encountering It, you won’t see the front,
following It, you won’t see Its back. (37[14]:1,3,4)
Evasive! elusive!
in it lies the hsiang /Pattern.
Elusive! evasive!
in it lies something substantial [ wu ].
Shadowy! dim!
in it lies vital energy [ ching ].
This energy is very strong
in it lies true genuineness. (38[21]:2)
Taken by themselves, these sayings could be understood in the context of a speculative mysticism. They represent frustrated attempts to achieve an intellectual understanding of some revelatory truth or some “ultimate reality” which eludes such understanding. But indications of self cultivation meditation instruction quoted earlier, and other arguments below, suggest a different life setting, similar to that suggested by similar sayings in the Nei Yeh : People are engaged in introspective meditation, aimed at cultivating a certain state of mind. Experientially, they sometimes feel as though they are trying to get hold of an elusive hypostatized presence, and this kind of experience is what the sayings reflect. Sometimes this elusive presence might be named──the final saying quoted calls it Tao (as in the Nei Yeh )──but other times it is referred to simply as “It” (again as in the Nei Yeh ). The final saying also reflects the experience of the wonderful character of this elusive presence: It is something of substantive worth, giving to its possessor a personal genuineness, strength, and ching /”vital energy,” and putting him in touch with the true norm (the hsiang /Pattern) for the world.
These parallels between the Nei Yeh and the Tao Te Ching serve as preliminary support for the thesis that self-cultivation practice provides the concrete background for many sayings in the Tao Te Ching . With this background in mind, let me now translate and comment on the main “cosmic” passages in the Tao Te Ching.
Text
32[6]
The Abode {2}
of mysterious Femininity
is the Root of Heaven and Earth…
One who uses it never wears out. {4}
(32[6]:2,4)
Comment
“Abode” translates men /door:house. It refers to an internal “abode,” a mental “space” in which Femininity resides. Femininity is an ideal spirit more fundamental than the forces “Heaven and Earth” that rule the world in conventional belief. ” Yung /use It” in {4} indicates that this cosmic reality is an hypostatized state of mind that one can internalize and practice in everyday life.
31[4]
Tao being Empty, {1}
it seems one who uses it will lack solidity.
An abyss, {2}
it seems something like the ancestor
of the thousands of things.
It dampens the passion {3}
it unties the tangles
it makes the flashing things harmonious
it makes the dust merge together.
Deep, {4}
it is perhaps like an enduring something.
I don’t know of anything
whose offspring it might be── {5}
it appears to precede God.
Sections {1} and {4} make it clear that Tao is something concrete, an hypostatized state of mind. Because it is “Empty,” the person who yung /uses Tao (lets it inform his way of being) will appear to others to lack solidity {1}. Tao as an internal presence also has the effect of transforming, calming down, the world-as-experienced {3}. For one who “uses” this Tao, it is experienced both as an internal presence and as a “deeper” dimension of reality. What is expressed by the spatial images deep and abyss can be equivalently expressed in chronological imagery as “ancestor.” This Tao is the most pure and perfect, axiologically ultimate, reality, more ultimate than even the high God ti .
43[1]
The Tao that can be told
is not the invariant Tao…
The names that can be named
are not the invariant names.
Nameless,
It is the source of the thousands of things
(named,
it is ‘Mother’ of the thousands of things.)
Tao here is probably Tao as the normative “Way” that individual shih should follow, which is also the norm for the society which they should represent in their capacity as government officials. This norm consists in an internal spirit or attitude that informs their actions. It cannot be put into words because (1) it is a spirit/attitude, not a propositional principle to be conceptually grasped, and (2) because its true nature cannot be described in ordinary words and verbal forms, closely tied as these are to the conventional worldview. But this hidden reality is a norm axiologically more ultimate than the enveloping physical context (“the thousands of things”) in which social life takes place.
34[40]
Turning back is Tao movement.
Being weak is Tao practice.
“The thousands of things in the world
are born of Being”
Being is born of Nothing.
Laoist self-cultivation consists in “turning back” to a more pure and perfect “original” state, which appears in the conventional world as something very “Weak,” an insignificant “Nothing.” But this insubstantial Nothing deserves to (semiotically) dominate our concept of the most ultimate context in which we live. It is axiologically more ultimate than “Being,” which here serves as an hypostatized principle of the apparent solidity of the conventional world.
36[42]
Tao produced The One {1}
The One produced Two
Two produced Three
Three produced the thousands of things.
Yes things: {2}
Turn their back on the still and dark,
embrace the active and bright.
The world of multiplicity (“Two…three… thousands”) has a double relation to the One source of meaning in this world: (1) It is a meaningful multiplicity, semiotically deriving its meaning from the one Tao which is more ultimate even than the enveloping physical world. But (2) one can easily get lost in the multiplicity itself (becoming preoccupied with “The Mother’s children,” 29[52]:2). In this respect multiplicity potentially represents a fall and a decline from a more “original” ideal oneness. People have an unfortunate common tendency to “fall” from this ideal original state, the yin /”still and dark” Tao, and embrace the yang /”active and bright” world of multiplicity. This tendency is what produces the conventional Lebenswelt , which we can now see as a secondary and derivative, rather than “ultimate” context for our lives.
39[25]
There was a chaotic something, {1}
yet lacking nothing
born before Heaven and Earth.
Alone.
Still.
Standing alone, unchanging
Revolving, endlessly.
it can be thought of as Mother of the World.
I do not know its name. {2}
one can call it ‘Tao’.
the name of its powerful presence:
one can call it ‘The Great One’.
Great means going forth {3}
going forth means going far away
going far away means turning back…
Heaven gives the rule for Earth {4}
Tao gives the rule for Heaven
The rule for Tao: Things as they are.
The original kernel of {1} was probably a report of a vision someone had at meditation. The fact that what was seen was “chaotic” yet perfect reflects the character of the state of mind Laoists cultivate, experienced as an undifferentiated and “muddy” Uncarved Block (6[15]:3) which is yet harmonious and superlatively good. The composer’s added comments (italicized) picture this chaotic something as extremely primordial (an “ultimate” normative reality completely transcending the enveloping natural/historical world.) It first existed by itself alone, prior to the cosmic powers Heaven and Earth, and then the entire cosmos arose out of this primordial “Mother.” This Mother is the Great Tao that Laoists cultivate.
“Great means going forth” suggests an emanationist cosmogony, in which the universe represents an “overflowing” of this Great primordial reality. As in 36[42], there is also a suggestion that this development of the universe was a kind of Fall, an alienation (“going far away”) of the world from the source of its meaning. This alienating movement is what is reversed in the “natural” turning back movement of Laoist self cultivation.
There is a reciprocal semiotic relation between Tao and the world in its ideal, “natural” (organically harmonious) state: Tao can be pictured as the “source” of the meaning-structure of this world. But alternatively, as in {4} here, Tao can be defined simply as an hypostatization of this tzu jan /naturalness, which is thus the “norm for Tao.”
5[39]
Those that of old got The Oneness:
the sky got The Oneness,
and by this became clear.
the earth got The Oneness,
and by this became steady.
the spirits got The Oneness,
and by this obtained their powers.
the rivers got The Oneness,
and by this became full.
the thousands of things got The Oneness,
and by this came to life.
the princes and the King got The Oneness,
and by this became the Standard for the World.
this is how things came about.
the sky, without what makes it clear,
is likely to crack.
the earth, without what makes it steady,
is likely to quake.
the spirits, without what gives them powers,
are likely to vanish.
the rivers, without what makes them full
are likely to dry up.
the thousands of things, without what gives them life,
are likely to perish.
the princes and the King,
without what makes them eminent and noble,
are likely to fall.
Yes:
The eminent takes the common and ignored as a root
the noble takes the lowly as a foundation.
And so, the King and the princes call themselves
‘the orphan…’, ‘the poor…’, ‘the unfortunate…’
Is this not using the common and ignored as a root?
Is it not so?
Getting the Oneness” describes the goal of Laoist self-cultivation. This long passage celebrates the cosmic greatness of this project, by picturing it as the foundation of the order of the world. This passage differs from the other cosmogonic sayings above in that it is an order-from-chaos cosmogony: It assumes that all the elements of the cosmos first existed in a disordered state, then, by getting the Oneness, gained the characteristics on which world-order depends. The Oneness is not a previously existing source from which things came. Primordial chaos here has a negative character, as something that would constantly threaten still, were it not for The Oneness that keeps everything stable. The Laoist experience of The Oneness as more ultimate than the world makes the apparently solid world seem fragile, dependent for its solidity and order on something beyond it. The cosmic order pictured here reflects the standard worldview of contemporary Chinese. This shows especially in that the Chou feudal rulers take their place here among the pillars of the cosmic order. (Laoists would hardly have held that contemporary rulers had already achieved the goal of Laoist self cultivation.) The point of the saying is to portray the cosmic greatness of The Oneness by picturing it as the reality on which this whole conventional world depends.
The Oneness is an hypostatized state of mind intrinsically connectedoward the world. Hence “getting The Oneness” and assuming a low and deferential posture in the world refer to different aspects of one and the same goal of Laoist self-cultivation. Again we see the assertion that what would be regarded as “lowly” in the world (by those engaged in power politics) is a more ultimate reality on which the order of the enveloping universe depends
65[51]
Tao produces them {1}
Te rears them
events shape them
talents complete their development.
And so: {2}
Among the thousands of things
there are none that do not honor Tao
and treasure Te.
This honoring Tao and treasuring Te ──
no one commands it, it always happens naturally.
Tao produces them, {3}
Te rears them
makes them grow, nurses them,
settles them, heals them,
sustains them, protects them.
Produces but doesn’t possess {4}
works but doesn’t rely on this
presides but doesn’t rule.
this is mysterious Te.
The Tao and Te that Laoists cultivate are pictured in {1} as the very first in a series of factors in a developmental process that makes things what they are. This seems to be a picture of how individual things continue to come into existence, not how the cosmos began.
Tao and Te are pictured in {2} as cosmic rulers: Things “naturally” honor them, as Laoists and Mencius suppose people will “naturally” (in the ideal case) honor a true human ruler. Although it might seem as though “what rules” in the world-as-evaluative-context is raw power, empty show, and so on, one sees the world truly when one sees it as a place where “Tao rules.” On the assumptions outlined above (that chronological priority equals normative superiority, etc.) the picture of Tao/Te as creator and that of Tao/Te as cosmic ruler express the same basic point.
Section {3} reflects the paternalistic ideal of human government common among ancient Chinese. It pictures Tao/Te as benevolent source of cosmic well being (similar in this respect to 35[39]:1).
Section {4} originated as a saying about how the Te of an ideal Laoist ruler expresses itself in his style of ruling. The point it makes in this context is that the ruler who rules in this way is putting himself in accord with “what rules” in the universe truly understood, as explained above. This is the same point made by Chapter 64[34] as a whole, which consists of a pastiche of themes originally describing the ideal Laoist ruler, but now pictured as describing Tao as cosmic ruler.
Contradictions and non-literal understanding.
One can note several conflicts that would appear if one took all the cosmic images in the above sayings straightforwardly as a literal picture of reality.
First, two different pictures of the world seem involved, the conventional world “inferior” to Tao, and the transformed world whose meaning structure has Tao as its source.
Secondly, several different cosmogonies are given, whose details do not easily mesh: One might guess from 43[1]:1-2 that there are two phases of Tao, one in which it is an unnamed shih /origin, and another in which it is a named Mother. 1 But this is not easily harmonized with 29[52]:1, which pictures a one-phase creation in which the Mother is the shih /origin. In 36[42]:1 we have a four-phase creation, the details of which are not easy to correlate with the one-phase origin-sayings in 43[1]:2 and 29[52]:1, and the different four phases described in 65[51]. The Oneness in 36[42]:1 is something different from Tao, whereas in 35[39]:1 The Oneness seems to be a name for the ultimate reality. In 65[51] Te, rather than The Oneness, is the other reality that enters the picture to complete the process of creation alongside Tao. This account in 65[51] seems entirely separate from the ones in which The Mother (29[52]:1, 43[1]:2), The Oneness (36[42]:1, 35[39]:1), and Being (34[40]:2) play a part. The order-from-chaos cosmogony in 35[39]:1 seems to involve suppositions entirely different from the creationist or emanationist cosmogonies that prevail elsewhere.
One could also note that “Being was produced by Nothing” in 34[40]:2 contradicts 42[2]:2, which says that Being and Nothing produce each other. Some sayings (28[16]:5, 39[25]:4) picture Tao as more ultimate than Heaven, while other sayings speak of the Laoist Way as “Heaven’s Tao.”
With some ingenuity it might be possible to fit all these elements into a rather complex but consistent picture of cosmogonic origins. But the nature of the material makes one question whether any single cosmogonic doctrine, consistent on a literal level, actually does underlie these sayings in all their diversity. For comparison, I offer a roughly contemporary passage that does apparently reflect a rather consistent cosmogonic picture. The passage is from a newly found document from the Ma-Wang-Tui excavations, entitled Tao Yüan , “Tao the Origin.”
At the beginning of the eternal past,
all were undifferentiated from,
and were identical with,
the great vacuity.
Vacuously identical with the One,
and at rest in the One eternally.
Fluid and undifferentiated,
there was no distinction
of dark and light.
The spirit was subtle and full
all around.
The essences were peaceful
and unexcited.
Therefore, it had no application.
The ten thousand things
did not use it…
It had no form in ancient times.
It was undifferentiated
and nameless.
Heaven could not cover it,
Earth could not bear it up.
The small ones became small
because of it,
The big ones became big
because of it.
It overflows all regions
within the four seas,
It further wraps them
from the outside…
Birds fly when they te /get it,
fishes swim when they get it
Animals walk when they get it,
The ten thousand things are born
when they get it.
Here we see various images arranged in a clear progression: A first section presents images describing a primordial reality existing by itself. A second section then presents images describing how things in the world get their characteristic form by “getting” this reality. All the details fit together very easily into a consistent literal picture of he origin of things. It would be difficult to arrange all the cosmogonic sayings in the Tao Te Ching in such a consistent and orderly progression.
If my analysis of Laoist cosmogonic sayings is correct, then the lack of comparable consistency in these sayings is not a sign of carelessness. Concern for consistency on a literal level normally accompanies doctrinal thinking. If one is trying to develop a system of doctrines that will be a fixed representation of the objective truth about the world, then one will take care that all the individual statements one makes fit together to form one consistent picture. The lack of concern for consistency is evidence that Laoist cosmogonic sayings do not reflect any attempt to formulate a set of cosmogonic or metaphysical doctrines. The Laoist worldview remained centered on the phenomenologically concrete Tao that they cultivated, a Tao that expressed itself in their style of life and leadership. Cosmogonic sayings express an important aspect of this Tao, the fact that, despite its apparent “insignificance” in the conventional world, it is axiologically transcendent to this conventional world. But these sayings present simply an overlapping series of images all pointing to this one aspect of the Tao that was a phenomenologically concrete presence in the lives of committed Laoists. This concretely felt Tao remained the focal center of the Laoist worldview. It is unlikely that this worldview included, as a major element, any fixed picture of the way the world began (as say, the worldview of the modern fundamentalist Christian includes, as a major element, a fixed picture of divine creation.)
All this should not be taken to imply that Laoists consciously thought of the language in these sayings as symbolic language. In the absence of any competing, scientifically established, theories of world origins, it even is quite likely that they took cosmogonic language literally. This even though, on the present view of the ideal semantic structure of the sayings, such a literal understanding was a mistake; they are not well founded under a literal interpretation. What does seem true is that (1) the main Laoist interest in such sayings was not the literal information they offered to persons curious about cosmic origins (the lack of consistency is evidence of this). And (2) the main implications they drew from cosmogonic sayings──the world-transcending importance of Tao──was plausibly substantiated by their direct experience of its superlative goodness in the context of their culture and their concerns.
Analyzing mythical language in the Tao Te Ching.
Finally, I would like to give here a philosophical explanation of mythical language in the Tao Te Ching.
First, I need to introduce the idea of an “evaluative context.” That is, prior to reflective thought, everyone evaluates her experiences and actions in the world in the light of some view of the world-as-context. This takes place on a small scale when one reacts to someone’s behavior in a restaurant as “appropriate” or “inappropriate” in this context. It takes place on a larger scale when one perceives oneself as a “success” or a “failure” in one’s social environment. A “social environment” operates as a large scale evaluative context, which greatly shapes people’s implicit evaluative perceptions of themselves in any given culture.
It is important to note that a social environment does not consist only of the individual people and objects materially surrounding us. It consists of a certain perceptual organization of these people and objects, an organization partly determined by values, ideals, and concerns. Identical material surroundings might form different social environments for people in different cultures or subcultures. In more technical language, the world-as-evaluative-context is a semiotically and perspectivally organized totality.
Consider now a major problem facing a Laoist cultivating Tao. As seen within the conventional social environment, the Lebenswelt organized by ordinary concerns and perspectives, Tao appears to be something insignificant, of no account (63[32]:1). For the Laoist, however, this picture of Tao is false and needs to be reversed. Tao has the highest experienced worth in the world. Tao, or alternatively the one who embodies Tao, has become the new “Norm of the World,” replacing the Chou Emperor, and inheriting his “cosmic” role.
Another one way of imaginally representing this aspect of Laoist experience is by picturing a dimension of reality, dominated by Tao, that is evaluatively, axiologically, “more ultimate” than the conventional social environment. Imaginally, Tao can be presented this way by taking advantage of the common feeling that civilized society occurs in the context of a wider natural world, and picturing Tao as a more ultimate origin of even this enveloping natural world. Tao is “not part of” the normal world, in the sense that its real worth cannot appear when it is seen within the conventional social environment. But this reality that is not part of the world is axiologically “beyond,” superior to, the world (the conventional Lebenswelt ) as a whole. This again is what it means to say that Tao is a “cosmic” reality, or to say that Tao has an existence “prior” to the existence of the physical universe.
In earlier chapters we saw several examples of realities connected with self-cultivation pictured as having a “cosmic” status. Thus Mencius says of the “ocean-like ch’i he cultivates: “If uprightness nourishes it, and no harm is done to it, then it completely fills up the space between heaven and earth.” (see p. 000) The Nei Yeh attributes a cosmic importance to chingand to tao (see p. 000), hypostatized mental qualities whose cultivation is described in that book. Hsün Tzu ‘s eulogy of li/Etiquette (quoted p. 000) pictures it as something that makes the sun and moon shine, and makes the myriad things flourish.
One major problem for us moderns in understanding this cosmic language and imagery is that the imaginal and linguistic habits they reflect──shared by many ancient peoples──are no longer common among us today. Perhaps the closest analogy in our culture, which can help us to empathically enter into the particular relation between experience and language these sayings reflect, are ways of speaking about falling in love. Consider the following stanza from a modern love song by Ewan McColl:
The first time ever I saw your face,
I thought the sun rose in your eyes,
And the moon and stars were the gift you gave,
To the dark and the empty skies.
This song celebrates the “cosmic” significance that the loved one takes on for the lover. Our understanding of the underlying experience allows us to be more precise about what “cosmic” means here. One thing that makes falling in love different from ordinary experiences is that ordinary experiences take place within a “world” that is the stable backdrop for our lives. Falling in love is an experience strongly affecting the backdrop itself, making it seem as though the world itself is radically changed (“I felt the earth shake under my feet, and the sky come tumbling down.”) It is now a fundamentallydifferent place, a place in which love and the loved person have a central place on the “largest” possible scale. Love seems to be “more ultimate” than the encompassing sky itself, and this is expressed by saying that it is “the source” of this encompassing reality. The spatial image of the “large encompassing” sky serves to represent the way that the context in which one leads one’s life is changed in a very fundamental way.
Drawing on all these observations, the ideal semantic structure of most sayings about Tao as cosmic norm or origin can be described in the following way. The main point of these sayings is to counteract what would happen if a Laoist shih allowed the conventional Lebenswelt to serve as an evaluative context, and allowed this context to determine the image he had of the Tao that he cultivated and practiced. In this context, Tao appears something “lowly” (35[39]:2) and hsiao /”of no account” (36[32]:1). Images of Tao as a “cosmic” norm or origin correct this “false” picture of the evaluative context in which human life takes place, and the false picture of Tao that results from it. In the new picture of the world they present, the phenomenologically concrete Tao one feels within oneself is a concrete manifestation of a reality that also dominates the more ultimate evaluative context in which human life takes place, a context normatively more ultimate than the conventional Chinese cultural world.
But this picture of Tao dominating our evaluative context on a cosmic level is not an epistemological and logical basis in Laoist thought. Laoists had no independent basis for knowing that the world objectively has an axiological structure dominated by Tao at the ultimate level. And there is no evidence that they regarded cosmic images of Tao as a logical foundation from which to draw conclusions about the world. Rather, images of a normative and cosmic Tao represent the “true” picture of the world as it appears to a person “converted” to Tao, a person who lets Tao become the dominant focus of his concernful engagement with the world and his perspective on it. (This can be compared to falling in love as a “conversion” experience, reflected in the love song quoted above.) What needs an epistemological basis is this conversion experience itself. The discussions above suggest that the ultimate basis is the extraordinary and superlative goodness of Tao directly (“subjectively”) perceived in Laoist self-cultivation.
(C) Image :
(Tao is the origin of the world.)
(B) Background Assumption :
(The world’s “origins” determine the most basic
character of the world-as-evaluative context.)
(A) Perception : (D) Implication :
(The “world-transcending” (The Laoist cultivating Tao is connecting
goodness of the “lowly” Tao, himself with what dominates the world-as-
perceived by the Laoist evaluative-context at the most ultimate level.
in self-cultivation.)
The perception (A), not the image (C), is the ultimate epistemological basis for the implication (D). (C) represents the character of the world as seen by someone who is “converted” by letting the experienced goodness of Tao dominate his concernful engagement with the world.
In the above remarks, “the world” that cosmic realities are beyond is more or less identical with the Lebenswelt of ordinary perception. The point of the cosmic language is to assert that some highly meaningful reality is axiologically beyond this world that everyone sees.
But Laoists have also a second and somewhat different view of “the world” that also figures in some cosmic sayings. This is a world different from the world perceived by all; it is the “true” world, the world as seen from the perspective of the ideal Laoist. That is, cultivating Tao brings about an inner personal transformation that also brings about a transformation of the Lebenswelt ; the world now becomes a world reorganized semiotically in many of its details by Tao as an organizing center, and perspectivally by Tao as a central focus of concern.
One passage in the Chuang Tzu , paralleled by one in the Tao Te Ching , and one in the Nei Yeh gives a particularly helpful illustration of this point:
You have only to rest in wu wei /not-doing, and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things. [This is] the Great Merging [ ta t’ung ] with the deep and boundless. Undo the mind, slough off the spirit, and the thousands of things one by one will turn back to the root. 1
Many phrases in this Chuang Tzu passage refer to attempts to cultivate a state of mind (see p. 000). This transformation of one’s state of mind causes a transformation of the world-as-perceived. This transformation of the Lebenswelt is described by saying that “the thousands of things turn back to the Root.” That is, to a still mind the world itself appears a more “quiet” place. It has been semiotically reorganized in perception, and this new semiotic organization can be pictured by saying that the world has a new single semiotic organizing center, a single “root.” This “root” is not a reality permanently existing in an unseen world that one believes in intellectually. This root comes into being in the experience itself. It is an hypostatized feeling one perceives as the “source” of the felt character of the newly quieted world. The passage is implicitly celebratory, implying that a world in which “things have returned to the root” is a more richly meaningful world, and “the root” is (semiotically) the source of this meaning.
Next a parallel passage in the Tao Te Ching :
Push Emptiness to the limit,
watch over Stillness very firmly.
The thousands of things all around are active──
I give my attention to Turning Back.
Things growing wild as weeds
all turn back to the Root.
To turn back to The Root is called Stillness. (28[16]:1-3)
This passage begins with instruction in cultivating a mental Stillness and Emptiness. Stilling one’s own mind can be described as “turning back to the root.” But, as in the Chuang Tzu passage, “turning back to the Root” also describes the perceptual stilling of the external world that happens with the stilling of the mind. The old Lebenswelt was a world of confusing multiplicity (the point of the “weeds” image). The new Lebenswelt has a more peaceful and unified feeling, that seems to stem from a single source, identical with the Stillness one cultivates internally.
Finally, some brief lines from the Nei Yeh :
Concentrate ch’i , spirit-like,
the thousands of things lie there all in order.
Can you concentrate? Can [you be] One?
These lines from the meditation instruction in the Nei Yeh quoted earlier (p. 000), probably reflect a similar experience: An internal transformation from mental distraction to mental “oneness” also causes a transformation of the Lebenswelt from confusion to orderliness.
Note that the “Root” spoken of in the first two quotations is not something separate from the transformed world. It has no content which could be set off over against the world itself, no content that could serve as a first principle from which one could draw logical conclusions about the world. It is an hypostatized feeling or spirit that pervades a world perceptuallyrestructured by the transformative “conversion” experience gradually engendered by Taoist self-cultivation and meditation exercises. This pervading spirit is directly experienced as semiotically determining the character of world it pervades, the semiotic “source” of the character and meaning-structure of the world. Thus (unlike Schwartz’ metaphysical Tao p. 000), this non-conceptual reality is not a metaphysical principle undermining all determinate characteristics and values. The transformed world has a definite character and meaning, stemming semiotically from a reality which also has a definite character, however inexpressible in words it might be.
Besides being a more “Still,” peaceful and harmonious world pictured in the above saying, this transformed world is also one in which situations and events are interpreted in a certain way. This is what it means to say that “The world has an origin…the Mother of the World. Once you get the Mother, then you know the children” (29[52]:1-2). The “children” are situations and events in the world as perceived when their meaning-structure has its source (“Mother”) in the state of mind one te /gets in Laoist self-cultivation. This is the way one comes to understand the “true” meaning of the events. In the absence of any other likely candidates for the content of such knowledge, we ought to assume that such a perception is identical with the perception one has of various situations and events when one lets one’s perspective on them be dominated by the images offered in the polemic aphorisms (see p. 000). Again, there is no independently verifiable, unique and objectively true, meaning to these events, “getting the Mother” serving merely as an instrumental means of gaining this understanding. Far less is there some objective truth about the Mother one learns, that then serves as a logical first principle from which one deduces true interpretations of situations. The “true” meaning of events is implicitly defined as the meaning one sees who has achieved a certain state of mind (“gotten the Mother”),
1:
. This is the MWT text. In WP, “unnamed” Tao created Heaven and Earth, while the “named” Tao/Mother created the 10,000 things.
1:
. Watson 1968: 122 (slightly altered); HYC 28/11/53-55.
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