Taoism ranks next to Confucianism as China's most influential native philosophy and alongside Buddhism as China's most widespread popular religion. Although the Tao (Way) has been ridiculed by intellectuals in modern times - largely because of the heavy content of mysticism - it has undeniably provided the leavening for the sometimes weighty bread of Confucianism. If Confucianism offers no Trinity, Taoism more than makes up for it.
The beginnings of Taoism are supposed to have come from the teachings of the Yellow Emperor, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. The Yellow Emperor is a figure of legend; two books remain in the name of those called Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. The latter seems to have been an historical figure. Whether Lao Tzu was a real person is debatable-but there are enough 'stories about him to fill a couple of ordinary lifetimes.
For instance, one fable holds that Lao Tzu was born with white hair because his mother conceived him of the Great Star and carried him for 81 years. His birthplace was supposed to have been Ch'u in the present-day province of Hunan and the date was late in the Shang dynasty (1766-1122 B.C.). He was born under a plum tree. Pointing to the tree, he said: This will be my surname." So his family name is Li, meaning plum. He was given the name Erh, meaning ear, and was posthumously called Tan, meaning rimless ear.
As this tale goes, he lived nearly 200 years and saw the downfall of Shang and the beginning of the succeeding Chou dynasty (1122-255 B.C.). He is said to have worked in the secret archives of Chou and then to have decided to go to Tibet. At the frontier, he met an official, Yin Hsi, who begged him to write a book. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao-te Ching in two days and then disappeared into Tibet on the back of a cow. No one knows when or where he died.
Ssu-Ma Ch'ien, the historian, places Lao Tzu in a different time period. The philosopher's birthplace is said to have been Ch'ou (in Hunan) and the time that of Confucius, who was born in 551 B.C. Lao Tzu is depicted correctly enough as one who was impatient both with Confucianist concepts and the chaos of his times. He gave up civilized society and disappeared, presumably to live out his life as a recluse in some remote area. His name was Erh, meaning ear. He was familiarly called Uncle Sun, was posthumously named Tan (rimless ear) and was surnamed Li. He was an historian working in the secret archives of Ch'ou.
Confucius is said to have consulted Lao Tzu about rituals and the ancient sages and to have received this answer: "All the men of whom you speak are bones. Only their words remain. When a capable man's time comes, he rises. If not, he gets nowhere. I have heard it said that good merchants hide their goods as though they had none and that a superior man of perfect character feigns stupidity. Give up your proud airs, your mannerisms and your many ambitions. They won't do you any good. That is all I can tell you."
Ssu-Ma Ch'ien says Lao Tzu followed the Way. He learned to work with self-effacement and in anonymity. From there on, the historian's story is much the same as the myth. Lao Tzu gave up and left the Chou. At the frontier he wrote his book and vanished.
Lao Tzu may be a mythical person but the Tao- te Ching is not. It is a real work and a fascinating one. The Chinese character "tao" means road, path or way of doing things. The character "te" means quality, property, virtue. "Ching" means "classic". So the Tao-te Ching is the Classic of the Way and its Virtue. By "Tao", Lao Tzu means the way of acting according to the way of nature, of permitting events to follow their natural course without human interference. His "Tao" is similar to the Biblical "I am the way, the truth, the life".
The Tao-te Ching is a collection of 81 poems in blank verse that are concise but not necessarily poetic in the usual sense. There are didactic pieces, polemic fragments, proverbs, hymns and admonitions to the king (referred to as the "Wise Man"). Many of the poems are mystical or downright obscure. These are the central ideas of the Tao-te Ching:
As a natural philosopher, Lao Tzu explains the way of nature and its virtue.
As a cosmogonist, he explains that the Tao is the source of creation.
As a mystic philosopher, he preaches spiritual cultivation which enables us to become one with nature.
As a political adviser, he counsels the king to govern according to the way of nature; that is, the king should let nature act through him without personal interference.
As a polemic writer, he attacks the sophisticated philosophers of the period of the Warring States and especially Confucian ideas, and advocates doing away with wisdom and learning.
As a statesman, he advocates that government should be entrusted to disinterested wise men who love the people, who govern in self-denial and self-effacement, in humility by non self-assertion and by non- action.
As a satirist, he reminds us that in public addresses, the king always accounts himself as the orphaned, the needy and the desolate while in reality he is the privileged.
As a military adviser, he is against violence, advocates conquest by gentleness and stresses the power of non-resistance.
As a socialist, he contrasts the richness of the nobles and the poor conditions of the farmers.
As an expert in international relations, he preaches the humility of a great land.
As a sophist, he stresses the contrast between appearance and reality, the contrasting qualities that beget one another.
As a promoter of the way of nature, he encourages the ignorance of the people so that the Way can prevail more easily in the empire.
As an utopian, he conceives the ideal land as a primitive rural society where people live happily in ignorance and abundance, where no war or dispute occurs and where people live in absolute isolation.
The Tao-te Ching expresses a way of life which is at once a mystic religion preaching the overflowing of one self into nature, a political philosophy advocating government by benevolence, humility and non-action, and a principle of personal conduct advocating simplicity, frugality and courage.
Although obsolete from a religious point of view, Taoism can still be prized in a world where the chaotic and distressing perplexities of life are not essentially different from those in Lao Tzu's China. There is also the message of universal value; the Taoists would be quite at home in one world.
These are extracts from Tao-te Ching after R. B. Blakney and classified under different headings:
The Way and its Virtue
The way that can be charted is not the eternal way,
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
What is nameless is the origin of the sky and the earth,
What has a name is the mother of myriad things. The secret awaits the insight of eyes unclouded by longing;
Those who are bound by desire see only the outward container.
What is nameless and what has a name is analogous but distinct by their names.
Of all things profound,
This analogy is the most profound. What is most profound
Is the gate to all secrets.
The Way begot one,
And the one two;
The two begot three,
And three, all else.
All things bear the shade on their backs
And the sun in their arms.
By the blending of breath from the sun and shade,
Equilibrium comes to the world.
The Way is a void
Used yet never filled.
An abyss it is,
Like an ancestor
From which all things come. It blunts sharpness,
Resolves tangles,
Tempers light,
Subdues turmoil.
A deep pool it is,
Never running dry.
Whose Offspring it may be I know not,
It is like a preface to Nature.
The operation of the Way is a return.
In weakness lies its major usefulness.
From being all the world of things was born.
But being sprang in turn from non-being.
The Way produces all, feeds them,
It produces them but never claims as its own.
It does all and yet boasts of it not.
It presides over all yet does not control them.
This is what is called the mystic virtue.
The masters of old skilled in the Tao and their invulnerability
Men come forth and live; they enter again and die.
Of every ten, three are ministers of life
And three are ministers of death.
There are also three in every ten
Whose aim is to live but whose movements tend to the land of death.
Why so? Because of their excessive endeavors to perpetuate life.
But I heard that he who is skillful in managing the life allotted to him
Will never have to shun a rhinoceros or a tiger while traveling on land,
Will not have to wear armor or carry weapons while entering a host.
The rhinoceros will find no place in him whereto thrust its horns,
Nor the tiger a place where to fix its claws,
Nor the weapon a place to admit its point.
Why so? Because there is no Achilles' heels in him.
Self-cultivation and immortality
Attain in ultimate emptiness,
Hold real stillness.
All things work together:
I have watched them reverting.
They flourish and then return each to its root.
This, I say, is the stillness:
A retreat to one's root,
Or better yet, to the will of nature,
Which is eternity.
The knowledge of eternity is enlightenment.
Not knowing enlightenment is blindness that works evil.
The knowledge of eternity begets forbearance,
Forbearance leads to righteousness,
Righteousness is kingly,
Kingliness is divine.
Divinity is the Way that is final.
Then, though you die,
You shall not perish.
The Wise Man should govern according to the way of nature or through non action and in quietude
Since all in the world knows the beauty of the beautiful,
There is ugliness too.
If goodness is taken as goodness,
There is also evil.
Therefore being begets non-being,
Difficulty and easiness are complementary,
Long and short are relative,
High and low are comparative,
Pitch and sound make harmony,
Before and after are a sequence.
Therefore the Wise Man manages affairs by non-acting,
Teaches without the use of speech.
He does for everything, neglecting none,
Their life he gives to all but possessing none.
What he does depends on no one else,
Yet as he succeeds, he takes no credit.
Just because he takes no credit,
Credit never leaves him.
A state may be ruled by measures of correction,
Weapons may be used by dexterity,
But an empire is obtained by freedom from action.
How do I know it is so? By these:
As prohibition laws increase, people grow poorer.
When sharp weapons abound, the state grows chaotic;
Where skills multiply, novelties abound;
As laws increase, there will be more thieves and robbers.
Therefore the Wise Man says:
As I do nothing, the people will be transformed of themselves;
Since I am fond of being still, the people will of themselves be correct;
As I refrain from acting, the people will become rich of themselves;
As I desire nothing, the people will attain to the primitive simplicity.
The softest of stuff in the world
Penetrates quickly the hardest. Insubstantial,
It enters where no room is. By this I know the benefit
Of something done by quiet being.
In all the world, but few know accomplishment apart from work
And instruction without speech.
Lao Tzu as a pacifist
To those who would help the ruler of men by means of the Way:
Let him not with his militant might try to conquer the world.
This tactic is like to recoil.
For where armies have marched, there do briars spring up;
Where great hosts are impressed. Years of hunger and evil ensue.
The good man's purpose once attained,
He stops at that,
He will not press for victory.
His point once made, he does not boast
Or celebrate the goal he gained,
Or proudly indicates the spoils.
He wins because he must
But not by force or violence.
Weapons at best are tools of bad omen,
Loathed and avoided by those of the Way.
Weapons are tools of bad omen
By gentlemen not to be used.
When it cannot be avoided,
They use them with calm and restraint.
Even in victory's hour
These tools are unlovely to see,
For those who admire them truly
Are men who in murder delight.
As for those who delight in murder,
It is certain that they can never get
From the world what they seek
When ambition urges them to power and rule.
A multitude slain!
Their death is a matter for grief and tears;
The victory after a conflict
Is a theme for a funeral rite.
When the Way rules the world,
Coach horses fertilize the fields;
When the Way does not rule,
War horses breed in the parks.
Lao Tzu as a socialist
The royal court is dignified, sedate,
While farmers' fields are overgrown with weeds.
The granaries are empty
And yet the courtiers are clad in rich-embroidered silk gowns;
They have sharp swords suspended at their sides,
With glutted wealth, they gorge with food and drink.
It is, people say,
The boastfulness of brigandage,
But surely not the Way.
Lao Tzu as a polemic writer
The mighty Way declined among the people and then came benevolence and justice.
When wisdom and intelligence appeared, they brought with them a great hypocrisy.
The six relations were then no more at peace,
So codes were made to regulate our homes.
The fatherland grew dark, confused by strife,
Official loyalty became the style.
Get rid of the sophisticated men!
Put out the professors!
Then people will profit a hundredfold over.
A way with the kind and the righteous ones too!
People will return to paternal kindliness and filial piety.
Root out the artisans! Banish the profiteers!
And bandits and robbers will not plunder.
If these three prove insufficient for good government,
Then let there be a visible simplicity of life.
Simplicity of life begets honesty, disinterestedness and abstinence.
Lao Tzu as a satirist
Orphaned, or needy, or desolate,
These are conditions much feared and disliked;
Yet in public addresses,
The king and the nobles account themselves thus.
So a loss sometimes benefits one
Or a benefit proves to be a loss.
Lao Tzu as a teacher of personal conduct
a. The golden mean
To take all you want is never so good As to stop when you could.
Scheme and be sharp
And you will not keep it long.
One never can guard his house
When it's full of jade and fine gold.
Wealth, power and pride beget their own doom.
When fame and success come to you, then retire.
This is the Way ordained by nature.
b. No showing off
On tiptoe, your stance is unsteady,
Long strides make your progress unsure;
Show off and you get no attention;
Your boasting means your failure. Asserting yourself brings no credit,
Be proud and you will never lead.
To persons of the Way, these traits can bring only distrust.
They seem like extra food for parasites.
So those who choose the Way will never give them place.
c. Self-contentedness
Which is dearer, fame or self?
Which is worth more, man or pelf?
Which hurts more, gain or loss?
The mean man pays the highest price,'
The hoarder takes the greatest loss;
A man content is never shamed,
And self-restrained, is not in danger.
He will live forever
The three treasures of the Way
They say our Way is great but inferior .
It is just its greatness that makes it appear inferior.
If it were like any other system, its smallness would long have been evident.
I have three treasures that I hold fast:
Compassion, frugality and shrinking from taking precedence of others.
Given compassion, I am courageous,
Given frugality, I can abound,
Shrinking from taking precedence of others,
I can become a vessel of the highest honor.
Nowadays they are bold without being compassionate,
Rich without being frugal,
And they seek to take precedence of others.
With compassion, one can be victorious while attacking
And hold one's ground while defending.
The possessor of the three treasures will be saved by
Nature who protects him by compassion.
Anti-discrimination
If those who are high find no preferment,
The people will cease to contend for promotion.
If goods that are hard to obtain are not favored,
The people will cease to turn robbers or bandits.
If things much desired are kept under cover,
Disturbances will cease in the minds of the people.
The Wise Man's policy, accordingly,
Will be to empty people's hearts and minds,
To fill their bellies, weaken their ambition,
Give them sturdy frames and always so,
To keep them uninformed, without desire,
And prevent the intelligent from acting.
If you act by being still,
Universal good order will prevail.
Only silence is great
Sparing indeed is Nature of its talk:
The whirlwind will not last the morning out;
The cloudburst ends before the day is done.
What is it that behaves itself like this?
The earth and sky.
If they cut short their speech, how much more yet should men?
If you work by the Way, You will be of the Way.
If you work through its virtue,
You will be given its virtue. Abandon either one
And both will abandon you.
Gladly then the Way receives
Those who choose to walk in it.
Gladly too its power upholds
Those who choose to use it well.
Little faith is put in them
Whose faith is small.
In opposition to etiquette
Truly, once the Way is lost,
There comes then virtue;
Virtue lost, comes then compassion;
After that, morality;
And when that is lost, there it etiquette,
The husk of all good faith,
The rising point of anarchy.
In opposition to capital punishment
The people do not fear at all to die;
What's gained then by threatening them with death?
If you could make them fear decease
As if it were a strange and rare event,
Who then would dare to take and slaughter them?
The executioner is always set to slay
But those who substitute for him
Are like the would-be master carpenters
Who try to chop as that skilled craftsman does
And nearly always mangle their own hands.
The usefulness of the Way
a. As a way to attain peace of mind
Once grasp the great form without form
And you roam where you will with no evil to fear,
Calm, peaceful, at ease.
At music and viands, the wayfarer stops.
But the Way, when declared,
Seems thin and so flavorless.
It is nothing to look at and nothing to hear.
But used, it will prove inexhaustible.
b. As a mender of inequities
The partial shall be made complete;
The crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain;
The pools shall be filled and the worn renewed;
The needy shall receive and the rich shall be perplexed.
So the Wise Man cherishes the one as a standard to the world:
Not displaying himself, he is famous;
Not asserting himself, he is distinguished;
Not boasting his powers, he is effective;
Taking no pride in himself, he is chief;
Being not a competitor, none in the world can compete with him.
The saying of the men of old is not in vain:
"The partial shall be made complete," For in it lies real perfection.
International relationships
The great land is a place to which the streams descend.
It is the concourse and the female of the world:
Quiescent, underneath, it overcomes the male.
By quietness and humility, the great land puts down the small
And gets for its own.
But small lands too absorb the great by their subservience.
Thus some lie low, designing conquest's ends
While others lowly are
By nature bent to conquer all the rest.
The great land's foremost need is to increase the number of its folk;
The small land needs above all to find for its folk more room to work.
That both be served and each attain its goal,
The great land should attempt humility.
Lao Tzu's ideal republic
The ideal land is small,
Its people very few,
A small land where tools abound,
Ten or a hundred times beyond their use;
Where people die and die again
But never emigrate;
Have boats and carts that none ride.
Weapons have they and armors too
But none displayed.
The people return to use again the knotted cords.
Their meat is sweet,
Their clothes adorned,
Their homes at peace,
Their customs charm.
Neighboring lands are juxtaposed
So each may hear the barking dogs and the crowing cocks across the way.
Folks grow old and die
But never will once exchange a visit.
Lao Tzu the incomprehensible
My words are easy to understand,
To live by them is very easy, too.
Yet it seems that none in all the world
Can understand and endow them with life.
My words have ancestors and my works a prince.
Since none knows this, unknown too I remain.
But honors come to me when least I'm unknown.
The Wise Man, with a jewel in his breast,
Goes clad in garments made of shoddy stuff.