Some thoughts about the Dao

Chineseperson · Joined: 19 Sep 2006 Posts: 19

In Eastern (Indian and Chinese) logic, unlike in Greek logic, there are four possible truth states, not two:

True
False
Both True and False
Neither True nor False

The Dao transcends all, this implies that the Dao is in a state of ABSOLUTE FREEDOM and ABSOLUTE SECURITY, it is un-attached to any constructs, free from the limitation of all paradigms, yet it touches and includes all of them.

To say that "Dao is Non-being" attaches Dao to the concept of Non-being and limit it within its paradigm. Therefore the Dao is also Being. Does this mean the Dao is both Being and Non-being? But to state this attaches Dao to the concept of both Being and Non-being, so the Dao is also neither Being nor Non-being. But to state this attaches Dao to the concept of both "both Being and Non-being" and "neither Being nor Non-being", therefore the Dao is neither "both Being and Non-being" nor "neither Being nor Non-being", and the layers continue ad infinitum.

But to say the layers of the Dao continues ad infinitum limits the Dao within the paradigm of "layers continuing ad infinitum", therefore the Dao does not continue ad infinitum. But to say the layers of the Dao does not continue ad infinitum attaches the Dao to the concept of layers not continuing ad infinitum, therefore the layers of the Dao both continues ad infinitum and does not continue ad infinitum, but this is also an attachment, so the layers of the Dao neither continues ad infinitum nor not continue ad infinitum, and so on, and so on...

When a disciple asked a Zen Master what is the Dao, the Zen Master simply kicked him strongly and he fell to the ground. Through this the disciple achieved sudden enlightenment. However, I think the path of enlightenment is very different for different people and different situations.

In the sophisticated theology of Eastern Christianity, it is said that any serious attempt to "describe" and "think about" God/Logos will only lead the thinker into utter slience.

But then again to associate the Dao/Logos with utter slience can also become an attachment...

elle · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 334 Location: Nottingham, UK

I have attempted to find information of pre-LaoTzu with no success. Of course there was no way to trace records because it was probably before writing was invented. So the furthest back I could find literature on is Lao Tzu.

"Taoism sees Lao Tzu, who lived c600 BCE, as its founder. He may not have been the sole author of the Tao Te Ching. The same point is made about Chuang Tzu and the Book of Chuang Tzu. Taoism developed in the context Confucianism and folk religion. Chuang-Tzu (399 - 295 BC), writes of the Immortals. They are perfect beings who dwell in a far away place, celebrated in poetry and painting as the Isles of the Immortals (also known as the Mystic Isles or the Isles of the Blessed). The location of the Isles (Penglai, Yingzhou, and Fanghu) was in the Eastern Sea, off the Jiangsu (Kiangsu) coast of China. They became a favourite subject of Chinese and Japanese landscape painting. [See note below]

Taoism emphasizes the search for longevity and immortality, a quest which can be assisted through diet, exercise, breathing, alchemy, ethical behaviour and travel to the Isles of the Immortals. The Tao is a principle that embraces nature, a force which flows through everything in the universe. Taoism encourages working with natural forces. This is represented graphically by the Yin-Yang diagram, a polarity which pre-dates Taoism. The "Yang" is active, masculine, and light. The "Yin" is is passive, feminine and dark. Heaven is active; the Earth is passive. The diagram shows the balance of opposites in the world of nature.

Quotations from the Tao Te Ching

1. 1. The Tao that can be spoken is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.

8. 1. The highest excellence is like water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving, the low place which all men dislike. Hence (its way) is near to (that of) the Tao.

76. 1. Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.

2. Thus it is that firmness and strength are the concomitants of death; softness and weakness, the concomitants of life.

3. Hence he who (relies on) the strength of his forces does not conquer; and a tree which is strong will fill the out-stretched arms, (and thereby invites the feller.)

4. Therefore the place of what is firm and strong is below, and that of what is soft and weak is above.

Quotation from the Book of Chuang Tzu

Now let me ask you some questions. If a man sleeps in a damp place, his back aches and he ends up half paralyzed, but is this true of a loach? If he lives in a tree, he is terrified and shakes with fright, but is this true of a monkey? Of these three creatures, then, which one knows the proper place to live? Men eat the flesh of grass-fed and grain-fed animals, deer eat grass, centipedes find snakes tasty, and hawks and falcons relish mice. Of these four, which knows how food ought to taste? Monkeys pair with monkeys, deer go out with deer, and fish play around with fish. Men claim that Mao-chi'iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, which knows how to fix the standard of beauty for the world? The way I see it, the rules of benevolence and righteousness and the paths of right and wrong are all hopelessly snarled and jumbled. How could I know anything about such discriminations?"

Note on the Isles of the Immortals (Isles of the Blessed or Mystic Isles)
The Isles of the Blessed are connected to the Taoist search for longevity and immortality. Their names were P'eng-La, Tai Yu, Yuan Chaio, Fang Hu and Ying Chou. The islands had high mountains, lush vegetation, misty valleys, blue rivers and the most delightful flora and fauna imaginable. Pleasure pavilions lined their shores. According to the traditional Chinese story, the islands drifted on the ocean until secured by 15 great turtles. But a giant captured six of them and the islands drifted away. The other three isles (P'eng-Lai, Fang Hu and Ying Chou) remained in the Eastern sea. The islands contained plants which could restore youth, mushrooms of immortality, waters of life and life-prolonging trees. In later Taoism they became allegories for a spiritual quest. It is possible that the legend relates to historic attempts to colonise Japan. The legend was taken up in Japan and Japanese gardens have turtle islands.

elle · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 334 Location: Nottingham, UK

In my quest to trace some of the origins of Chinese philosophies and its connections to the philosophies of early Chinese people, I seem to find a dead end when I reach Lao Tzu. So in order to get some perspective to time and space I have the following to present,

(1) LAO TSU lived c. 600 BCE

(2) Kung Fu Tse c. 551-479 BCE

(3) Mencius c. 385-303 BCE

(4) Chuang Tzu 399-295 BCE ("Immortals")

(5) Tang dynasty 618-907

(6) Song dynasty 960-1126

Now with these dates in mind, and noting that Taoism has been attributed to Lao Tsu, let us try to find what influenced LaoTsu. I believe that Yinyang philosophy has a lot to do with ancient Chinese philosophy of the pesantry.

"Yinyang (yin-yang) is one of the dominant concepts shared by different schools throughout the history of Chinese philosophy. Just as with many other Chinese philosophical notions, the influences of yinyang are easy to observe, but its conceptual meanings are hard to define.

Despite the differences in the interpretation, application, and appropriation of yinyang, three basic themes underlie nearly all deployments of the concept in Chinese philosophy: (1) yinyang as the coherent fabric of nature and mind, exhibited in all existence, (2) yinyang as jiao (interaction) between the waxing and waning of the cosmic and human realms, and (3) yinyang as a process of harmonization ensuring a constant, dynamic balance of all things. As the Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) claims, “Yin in its highest form is freezing while yang in its highest form is boiling. The chilliness comes from heaven while the warmness comes from the earth. The interaction of these two establishes he (harmony), so it gives birth to things. Perhaps this is the law of everything yet there is no form being seen.”(Zhuangzi, Chapter 21).

In none of these conceptions of yinyang is there a valuational hierarchy, as if yin could be abstracted from yang (or vice versa), regarded as superior or considered metaphysically separated and distinct. Instead, yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos. As such, it has served as a heuristic mechanism for formulating a coherent view of the world throughout Chinese intellectual and religious history.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

1. Origins of the Terms Yin and Yang

The earliest Chinese characters for yin and yang are found in inscriptions made on “oracle bones” (skeletal remains of various animals used in ancient Chinese divination practices at least as early as the 14th century BCE). In these inscriptions, yin and yang simply are descriptions of natural phenomena such as weather conditions, especially the movement of the sun. There is sunlight during the day (yang) and a lack of sunlight at night (yin).

According to the earliest comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters (ca. 100 CE), Xu Shen’s Shuowen jiezi (Explaining Single-component Graphs and Analyzing Compound Characters), yin refers to “a closed door, darkness and the south bank of a river and the north side of a mountain.” Yang refers to “height, brightness and the south side of a mountain.” These meanings of yin and yang originated in the daily life experience of the early Chinese. Peasants depended on sunlight for lighting and their daily life routines. When the sun came out, they would go to the field to work; when the sun went down, they would return home to rest. This sun-based daily pattern evidently led to a conceptual claim: yang is movement (dong) and yin is rest (jing). In their earliest usages, yin and yang existed independently and were not connected.

The first written record of using these two characters together appears in a verse from the Shijing (Book of Songs): “Viewing the scenery at a hill, looking for yinyang.” This indicates that yang is the sunny side and yin is the shady side of hill. This effect of the sun exists at the same time over the hill.

2. The Yinyang School

According to Sima Tan (Ssu-ma Tan, ca. 110 BCE), there existed a school of teaching during the “Spring and Autumn” (770-481 BCE) and “Warring States” (403-221 BCE) periods that bore the name of yinyang. He lists this yinyang school alongside five others (Confucian, Mohist, Legalist, Fatalist, and Daoist) and defines its theory as “the investigation of the shu [art] of yin and yang.” According to him, this school focused on omens of luck and explored the patterns of the four seasons. In other words, the yinyang school was concerned with methods of divination or astronomy (disciplines that were not distinct from one another in early China, as elsewhere in the ancient world) and the calendrical arts (which entailed study of the four seasons, eight locations, twelve du [measures] and twenty-four shijie [time periods]).

Just as the Confucians (rujia) arose from the ranks of rushi (“scholar-gentlemen”) who excelled at ritual and music, those of the yingyang school came from the fangshi (“recipe-gentlemen”) who specialized in various numerological disciplines known as shushu (“number-arts”). These shushu included tianwen (astronomy), lipu (calendar-keeping), wuxing (“five phases” correlative theory), zhuguai (tortoise-shell divination), zazha (fortune-telling) and xingfa (face-reading).

The Han dynasty chronicle Shiji (Records of the Historian) lists Zou Yan (305-240 BCE) as a representative of the yinyang school who possessed a profound knowledge of the theory of yinyang and wrote about a hundred thousand words on it. However, none of his works have survived.

By the Han dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE), yinyang was associated with wuxing (“five phases”) correlative cosmology. According to the “Great Plan” chapter of the Shujing (Classic of Documents), wuxing refers to material substances that have certain functional attributes: water is said to soak and descend; fire is said to blaze and ascend; wood is said to curve or be straight; metal is said to obey and change; earth is said to take seeds and give crops. Wuxing is used as a set of numerological classifiers and explains the configuration of change on various scales.

The so-called yinyang wuxing teaching – an “early Chinese attempt in the direction of working out metaphysics and a cosmology” (Chan 1963: 245) – was a fusion of these two conceptual schemes applied to astronomy and the mantic arts."

elle · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 334 Location: Nottingham, UK

Chineseperson referred to the basis of the Chinese religion to the Shang Dynasty in another post. Strangely this Shang dynasty religion bears many of the features of the Tao religious philosophies, like having greater and lesser gods and having multiple gods. Could this early primitive religion have had a great influence in the philosophies of Lao Tzu some 1,000 years later? Records must have been lost, but as there was a form of writing, perhaps something may still come to light in the future?

The Shang Dynasty, 1766-1050 BC

In history according to the Chinese, the Shang dynasty began when T'ang, a man of great virtue and wisdom, overthrew the decadent emperor Chieh, the last of the Hsia dynasty. Like the previous dynasty, the Shang eventually declined and ended with the ignominious rule of the last Shang king, Chou; he was overthrown by King Wen and his son Wu who began the third dynasty of China, the Chou.

Unlike the early accounts of history by the Chinese, there is archaeological evidence of the Shang, who built their cities in northern China around the eastern parts of the Yellow River. For this reason they are called the Yellow River civilization. They were a bronze age people; bronze-working seems to have entered China around 2000 BC (about one thousand years after its invention in Mesopotamia). They also left us a large number of written records. Most of these records are "oracle bones," which were used to divine the future. The question to the oracle would be written on the bone, and then its answer, and then the real outcomes. So a typical oracle bone would read, "Will the king have a son?" (Question) "Yes" (Answer) "This came to pass" (Outcome). These bones, however, contain the names of the kings of the dynasties and prove that the Chinese accounts of Shang history, which were once believed to be myth by Western historians, are incredibly precise.

The Shang ruled in city-states which were, in turn, ruled over by a capital city. This capital was never fixed; as power shifted, individual city-states would become the capital. The king seems to have served many of the same functions that kings served in other cultures: he was a kind of head priest, the leader of the military aristocracy, and in charge of the economy. Warfare was very common among the Shang cities. At times the cities would battle one another, but on the whole warfare was directed at the non-urbanized populations in northern China.

Writing
The singular aspect of Shang civilization is their invention of writing. Almost all the written records of the Shang have disappeared, for the court records were kept on strips of bamboo. However, inscriptions on bronze and on the oracle bones still survive so we have specimens of the very first Chinese writings. The writing system was originally pictographic, that is, words were represented by pictures that fairly closely resembled the meaning of the word. The picture for "sun," for instance, looked much like the sun. This pictographic writing eventually developed into the more complex ideographic writing that we are more familiar with. Chinese writing is one of the only contemporary writing systems that still prominently bears traces of its pictographic origins.

Religion
The Shang worshipped a figure they called "Shang Ti," or "Lord on High." This supreme god ruled over lesser gods of the sun, the moon, the wind, the rain, and other natural forces and places. Shang-Ti also regulated human affairs as well as ruling over the material universe. This dual function would, in the Chou dynasty, be attributed to a more abstract figure, "t'ien," or "Heaven." The Shang also believed that their ancestors dwelled in heaven after their death and continued to show an interest in their family and descendants. The obligations within the family included, therefore, the ancestors. Failing in one's duties to the ancestors could bring all sorts of disaster on a family. All of these divine and semi-divine figures, from Shang-Ti to a family's ancestors, were sacrificed to. However, we know little of the nature or the frequency of these sacrifices. We do know, however, that in the Chou dynasty only the king could sacrifice to Shang-Ti; it is highly likely that Shang-Ti was the "local god" of the Shang kings who was subsequently elevated in order to elevate the Shang themselves. The one disturbing fact of Shang sacrifice is that it certainly involved humans; slaves and prisoners of war were often sacrificed by the hundreds when a king died. Lesser numbers were sacrificed at the founding of a palace or temple. "

elle · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 334 Location: Nottingham, UK

I invite you to travel on my "Time-Machine" back 3,700 years back into the past into the Shang Dynasty and beyond. This way you may appreciate what life might have been like then and the roots from which you have come. Just imagine, the time is 1,700 years before Jesus was born, you are practically in the Neolithic age, were farming tools, and implements of war were at its most primitive. Yet when T'ang overthrew the Chieh emperor, his people were making bronze objects, and they had a primitive religious beliefs. The Shang Dynasty people knew how to make bronze weapons, a step beyond the "Stone Age". Life was hard in those days. And people wondered about the influence of nature upon their lives.

The Shang King was the leader of a military aristocracy, and in charge of the economy of his kingdom. Warfare and conquest of smaller non-urbanized population was common. He was respected for his military skills and his ability to keep enemies at bay. He led his people in their "primitive Religious activities". It was these primitive religious beliefs and ritual that bound the people together, and was the foundations of Chinese religious beliefs. As we study a little of then Shang religious beliefs, we will observe that the basic tenets were followed by Lao Tzu and Kung Fu Tze. So Taoist beliefs were built on the ancient and primitive beliefs of peoples 1,000 or more years before Lao Tzu and Confucius. (This is a conclusion that I have arrived at after looking at the evidence.)

The Shang worshiped "Shang Ti", the Supreme Lord of the Heavens. This Supreme God, ruled over the lesser gods of the sun, the moon, the wind, the rain, and other natural forces and places. He was the God of "t'ien" or "Heavens".

The Shang also believed that when our ancestors died, that their spirits went to "Heaven". They also believed that these spirits continued to watch after their descendents living on earth. Hence it was our duty to respect the souls of the departed and to pay obesience to their memory.

Has the evolution of such beliefs and philosophies any different from the beliefs of Taoists and Buddhists of todaY? No! Was the evolution of such perception and cognition much different from the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)? No! The thought processes and conclusions were very similar!

The only aspect of the Shang religion highlighting the earth and primitive aspects of that culture was "Human Sacrifices" within their religious rituals. (Strangely this aspect was also common with the Aztecs of South America.) Slavery too was common but that was the collateral of warfare!

It is also quite apparent that even in the days of the Shangs, that they were obsessed with longevity of life and the ability to predict or forsee the future. With regard to longevity, they already had the insight of the Yinyang of food and other aspects of life. And in order to peer into the future and predict what the gods had ordained, the art of "oracle bones" and fortune telling has been part of the Chinese culture since man existed there. This has been refined into "geomancy" today, and "Fengshui". The arts have been refined and handed down through the ages even from before the time of the Shang Dynasty.

I believe that the religious beliefs of a community forms the culture and the psyche of the people of that community. That is why I place so much emphasis on the study of religion in order to understand a peoples. What the above analysis has shown is that a fairly advanced culture had already developed in early China when the rest of the world was still in the Stone Age. But how it continued to develop, and in which direction depended upon the philosophers of their time and their influence upon the Kings and rulers of that era.

elle · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 334 Location: Nottingham, UK

The Shang Dynasty survived 700 years, a long period for early peoples. The kings were the powerful supreme leaders, leaders of the "military aristocracy", in charge of the wealth of his kingdom, and the symbolic head of their religious beliefs. The Shangs were a waring state, so military prowess was essential. The spoils of war belonged to the king, grain and animal stocks, and slaves to be used as concubines, labour and for the army, and for human sacrifices, an essential part of the religious rituals of the Shang religion. Sacrifices to "Shang Ti" the Supreme god of the Heavens. Human sacrifices to appease the gods was a part of the Shang rituals, and this primitive and cruel trait was probably the undoing of the Shang Dynasty. Every temple built had to have human sacrifices, every palace built also had to have human sacrifices, every king buried had his slaves buried alive with him. Slaves began to think twice about belonging to such a regime.

As with any unchallenged rule of powerful dictatorial monarch, a lavish and decadent life style soon ensues. With all the concubines, enough to satisfy all his passions, all the best food available, all the wines that relaxes and numbs his aching muscles, leads to a degenerate lifestyle. Gradually, he relaxes to enjoy his passions, and allows others to rule his empire while he indulges himself. Corruption creeps in, nepotism is endemic, and the king loses the respect of his people. They hate him for his brutality, and his cruelty for his demands for more and more human sacrifices, and the peasants are ready for revolt or to follow another leader. This decay is insidious, but inevitable for any regime that is not held accountable.

So as the Shang Dynasty decays, the Zhou people sieze an opportune time and take over the dynasty. (See the Zhou Dynasty.)

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