Early religious Taoism was rooted in the ideas of the Taoist thinkers, to which were added local religious rituals and beliefs, both to provide examples of Taoist philosophy, and integrate Taoism into the existing world views of all levels of the Chinese people.
Taoism was first recognised as a religious system during the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. The publication of the Tao Te Ching and other works provided a focus for Taoist thinking. Taoism became a semi-official Chinese religion during the Tang dynasty and continued during the Song dynasty.
As Confucianism gained popularity Taoism gradually fell from favour, and changed from an official religion to a popular religious tradition. In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. Self-cultivation is important, but the ultimate goal extends beyond personal fulfillment Lau , LaFargue , Moeller The Laozi criticizes the Confucian school not only for being ineffectual in restoring order but more damagingly as a culprit in worsening the ills of society at that time.
This list is far from exhaustive; there are other views of the Laozi. Different combinations are also possible. Graham, for example, emphasizes both the mystical and political elements, arguing that the Laozi was probably targeted at the ruler of a small state , The Laozi could be seen as encompassing all of the above—such categories as the metaphysical, ethical, political, mystical, and religious form a unified whole in Daoist thinking and are deemed separate and distinct only in modern Western thought.
This concerns not only the difficulty of the Laozi but also the interplay between reader and text in any act of interpretation.
But, it is important to emphasize, it does not follow that context is unimportant, that parameters do not exist, or that there are no checks against particular interpretations. While hermeneutic reconstruction remains an open process, it cannot disregard the rules of evidence. Questions of provenance, textual variants, as well as the entire tradition of commentaries and modern scholarship are important for this reason.
And it is for this same reason that the present article leaves the discussion of the Laozi itself till the end. The following presents some of the main concepts and symbols in the Laozi based on the current text, focusing on the key conceptual cluster of Dao, de virtue , ziran naturalness , and wuwei nonaction.
I propose that the two readings represented by the Heshanggong and Wang Bi commentaries both bring out important insight from the Laozi.
To begin with Dao, the etymology of the Chinese graph or character suggests a pathway, or heading in a certain direction along a path. This is also how most commentators in traditional China have understood it: the many normative discourses that clamor to represent the right way are seen to be fickle, partial and misleading.
The concept of dao is not unique to the Laozi. A key term in the philosophical vocabulary, it informs early Chinese philosophy as a whole.
It is interpreted differently, signifying a means to a higher end in some writings and as an end in itself in others. The Laozi underscores both the ineffability and creative power of Dao. This is distinctive and if one accepts the early provenance of the text, charts a new course in the development of Chinese philosophy. This suggests a sense of radical transcendence, which explains why the Laozi has been approached so often as a mystical text.
Names serve to delimit, to set boundaries; in contrast, Dao is without limits and therefore cannot be captured fully by language. What does this mean? This is essentially the reading of the Heshanggong commentary. That which gave rise to the original qi -energy, however, is indescribable. Alternatively, one could argue that Dao signifies a conceptually necessary ontological ground; it does not refer to any indescribable original substance or energy.
As the source of being, Dao cannot be itself a being, no matter how powerful or perfect; otherwise, the problem of infinite regress cannot be overcome. For the latter, Dao is entirely conceptual, whereas the former envisages the Dao as referring to a mysterious substance or energy that brings about the cosmos and continues to sustain and regulate it. The latter may be awkward, but it serves to alert the reader that the nothingness or emptiness of Dao may not be understood referentially or reduced simply to the fullness of qi.
In light of the interest in cosmology during the Warring States period, the cosmological reading may be privileged, but the Laozi is also open to an ontological interpretation. Both are philosophically potent.
At one level, the ontological reading may accommodate the qi -based yin-yang cosmology, although there is significant divergence in the interpretation of the ethics of the Laozi , as we shall see in the next section. It also suggests a direction to be followed, which brings out the ethical interest of the Laozi.
The Daodejing is concerned with both Dao and de. Like Dao, de is a general concept open to diverse interpretation. The Confucian understanding of de is by no means uniform A. Confucius may have emphasized the latter, but there is ample evidence in the Analects and other Confucian works testifying to the importance of the former as well.
The different translations mentioned above aim at bringing out the perceived uniquely Daoist understanding of de. From this perspective, both Laozi and Confucius are interpreters of de -virtue. The marriage of Dao and de effectively bridges the gap between transcendence and immanence. In this sense, the Laozi speaks of de as that which nourishes all beings e.
Within these parameters, interpretations of de follow from the understanding of Dao and wu. In either case, the concept of de emerges as a Daoist response to the question of human nature, which was one of the most contested issues in early Chinese philosophy.
The two readings of the Laozi , despite their differences, agree that it is an inherent de that enables a person to conform to the way in which Dao operates.
In a cosmological reading, this suggests an understanding of nature as governed by the operation of qi energies in an ideal yin-yang system characterized by harmony and fecundity. Nature in the Daoist sense, it is important to note, need not exclude the spiritual and the social. The existence of gods and spirits, which can be understood also as being constituted by qi energies, was hardly questioned in early China. The Laozi makes clear that they, too, stem from Dao and form a part of the order of ziran e.
Further, nature encompasses not only natural phenomena but also sociopolitical institutions. The king clearly occupies a central place in the realm of Dao chs.
As an ethical concept, ziran thus extends beyond the personal to the sociopolitical level. Wuwei does not mean total inaction. In the Laozi , while meditation and other forms of spiritual practice may be envisaged, the concept of wuwei seems to be used more broadly as a contrast against any form of action characterized by self-serving desire e. It is useful to recall the late Zhou context, where disorder marched on every front. The Laozi , one assumes, is not indifferent to the forces of disintegration tearing the country asunder, although the remedy it proposes is subject to interpretation.
The problems of political decline are traced to excessive desire, a violation of ziran. Naturalness encompasses basic human needs, of course, but these are to be distinguished from desire that fuels and inflates self-gratification, which knows no end. Nonaction entails at the personal level simplicity and quietude, which naturally follow from having few desires. At the political level, the Laozi condemns aggressive measures such as war ch.
If the ruler could rid himself of desire, the Laozi boldly declares, the world would be at peace of its own accord chs. In this sense, the Laozi describes the ideal sage-ruler as someone who understands and follows ziran e. In this same sense, it also opposes the Confucian program of benevolent intervention, which as the Laozi understands it, addresses at best the symptoms but not the root cause of the disease.
The Confucian project is in fact symptomatic of the decline of the rule of Dao. Conscious efforts at cultivating moral virtues only accentuate the loss of natural goodness, which in its original state would have been entirely commonplace and would not have warranted distinction or special attention chs. Worse, Confucian ethics assumes that learning and moral self-cultivation can bring about personal and social improvement.
The concept of nonaction is exceedingly rich. It brings into play a cutting discernment that value distinctions are ideological, that human striving and competitive strife spring from the same source. Nonaction entails also a critique of language and conventional knowledge, which to the Daoist sage has become impregnated with ideological contaminants. The use of paradoxes in the Laozi especially heightens this point.
Some scholars would object that this interpretation misses the religious import of the Daodejing , while others would question whether it is too eager to defend the philosophical coherence of the classic. Perhaps the Laozi in chapter 65 of the current text did mean to tell the ruler literally to keep the people ignorant or stupid for better control, which as a piece of political advice is not exactly extraordinary.
The remarks offered here take nonaction as central to the Daoist view of life, recognizing that the concept of wuwei does not only initiate a critique of value but also points to a higher mode of knowledge, action, and being. At the critical level, the Laozi emphasizes the relativity of knowledge and value. Things appear big or small, for example, only in relation to other things; knowledge and ignorance are meaningful only in relation to each other.
Good and bad, being and nonbeing, and other opposites should be understood in the same light ch. Distinctions as such are not necessarily problematic; for example, an object can be described as rare or difficult to find as compared with other objects. When certain things or features e. The recognition of the relativity of value does not end in a kind of moral relativism or ethical paralysis. The deconstruction of conventional beliefs and values opens the door to deeper reflection on the order of ziran.
The Laozi also does not appear to be advocating the obliteration of all distinctions, and by extension civilization as a whole, in a state of mystical oneness.
For example, while there is some concern that technology may bring a false sense of progress, the antidote does not lie in a deliberate rejection of technology but rather in a life of natural simplicity and contentment that stems from having few desires ch.
In this way, the apparent conceptual inconsistency in the Laozi can be resolved. This constitutes a radical critique of a world given to the pursuit of wealth and power. Desire is a complex concept. Fundamentally, it depicts the movement of the mind as it is drawn to things it finds agreeable e. Phenomenologically, the mind is always in motion. Calmness or tranquility of mind does not mean the cessation of all cognitive or affective movement. Rather, from this perspective, it is the act of desiring that transgresses the order of nature, resulting in a plethora of desires pulling the mind in different directions, that is seen to be at the heart of the problem.
Nonaction contrasts sharply, according to the Laozi , with the way people typically act in a world in which the rule of Dao no longer prevails, with profit motives, calculated steps, expectations, longings, regrets, and other expressions of desire. As a philosophical concept, wuwei intimates a mode of being that governs existential engagement at all levels, transforming the way in which we think, feel, and experience the world.
It does not stipulate what one ought to do or ought not to do in particular cases. Terms such as quietude, emptiness, and simplicity favored by the Laozi describe a general ethical orientation rather than specific practices. Although in following wuwei there are things that a person of Dao naturally would not do e. Again, nonaction need not exclude spiritual practice—ethics and spirituality generally form an integral whole in the Daoist frame—rather, the point is that once realized, the transformative power of nonaction would ensure not only personal fulfillment but also sociopolitical order.
This seems to weigh against a strictly mystical reading of the Laozi , if mysticism is understood to entail a kind of personal union with the Dao transcending all political interests.
The ethics of wuwei rests on this insight. To elaborate, wuwei as an ethical-spiritual ideal entails that the man of Dao, the sage, would be free from the disquieting movement of desire.
This would naturally find expression in a mode of being and action characterized by not doing certain things e. This is different from the argument that wuwei prescribes not doing or doing less of certain things, if such prescription requires deliberate effort.
As a guide to recovering or attaining that ideal, there may be room for the ruler to impose conditions that would lead to a diminishing of desire-driven action; but this is not quite ideal wuwei.
Similarly, although it may be said that nonaction points to a state of mind in which one does everything that one does, it is on the understanding that in that ideal state certain actions simply would not occur as a matter of course, as the mind would not be aroused and move in their direction. For example, to argue that there is a qualitatively different wuwei way of stealing or gambling would not be meaningful in the world of the Laozi , because such action would not arise in the ideal realm of naturalness.
To elaborate further, consider the ideal ethical situation in the cosmological reading of the Laozi as represented by the Heshanggong commentary. The dispensation of qi gives rise to a pristine hierarchical order in which those who are blessed with a perfect qi endowment, the rare sages, would govern the majority.
It can be assumed that the sages are naturally predisposed to quietude, whereas the common people are driven by desire in varying degree. Indeed, at one point, the Laozi seems to distinguish three different grades of human beings ch.
The role of the sage-ruler, then, would be to guide the people to abide by simplicity through personal charisma and example, and also by means of policies designed to cultivate an environment in which desire would not run rampant. In the absence of a true sage-ruler, the Laozi is saying, according to this interpretation, those in power should emulate the Daoist sage, cultivate their internal qi energies, and bring about peace and harmony through naturalness and nonaction.
The decisive difference is that on this account, human beings all share the same essential nature, as distinguished from their qi -constituted capacities. For example, some people may be better endowed and therefore could live to a ripe old age, while others with a poorer endowment may die prematurely; but this does not detract from the fundamental assertion that they share the same inherent de , which defines their nature.
Sages are not a different kind of being, god-like, with a radically different nature; rather, they are individuals who manage to realize their authentic de to the full. Being one with Dao does not describe any mystical union with a divine source or sacred power, but reflects a mode of being that accords with the assumed original nature marked by natural goodness and the absence of excessive desire.
Regardless of the position one takes, in this general interpretive framework a number of symbols which both delight and puzzle readers of the Laozi can be highlighted. Suggestive of its creativity and nurturance, Dao is likened to a mother e. This complements the paradigm of the feminine e. The infant e. First, it brings out the relationship between Dao and world; second, the kind of innocence and wholesome spontaneity represented by the infant exemplifies the pristine fullness of de in the ideal Daoist world.
Natural symbols such as water e. The low-lying and fertile valley e. Carefully crafted and ornately decorated objects are treasured by the world, and as such can be used as a powerful symbol for it. In contrast, the utterly simple, unaffected, and seemingly valueless pu , a plain uncarved block of wood, brings into sharp relief the integrity of Daoist virtue and of the person who embodies it e.
Finally, one may mention the notion of reversal e. With respect to the latter, it is true that in many chapters the text seems to be addressing the ruler or the ruling elite, explaining to them the ideal government of the Daoist sage. This is not surprising given the Zhou context and given that the production of written documents and the access to them were generally the preserve of the ruling class in ancient China. However, this need not restrict interpretation to politics in the narrow sense of statecraft or political strategies.
In the light of the emphasis on ziran and wuwei , there is sufficient evidence that the Laozi views politics in a larger ethical-spiritual context, in which the flourishing of sociopolitical order is rooted in self-cultivation. In the final analysis, naturalness and nonaction are seen to reflect the function of the nameless and formless Dao.
As such, Daoist ethical ideals are anchored in a non-empirical, idealized view of nature. Specifically, the ethics of the Laozi rests on the understanding that de is inherent in nature, or better, the Daoist world.
The understanding of de , however, is dependent on that of Dao, which in turn hinges on the interpretation of wu as either original substance or nonbeing. Both readings are plausible and are within the semantic range of the Laozi.
Whereas the former subscribes to the prevalent qi theory that underlies much of Chinese philosophy and on that basis provides an integrated view of the cosmos, self-cultivation and government, the latter focuses on the fundamental unity of being characterized by natural simplicity and quietude that ideally should define the ethical course for both the individual and society.
These materials provide a direct access into the Daoist criticism of the Confucian project. The teachings that were later called Daoism were closely associated with a stream of thought called Huanglao Dao Yellow Emperor-Laozi Dao in the 3rd and 2nd cn. The thought world transmitted in this stream is what Sima Tan meant by Daojia. The Huanglao school is best understood as a lineage of Daoist practitioners mostly residing in the state of Qi modern Shandong area.
Huangdi was the name for the Yellow Emperor, from whom the rulers of Qi said they were descended. When Emperor Wu, the sixth sovereign of the Han dynasty r. And yet, at court, people still sought longevity and looked to Daoist masters for the secrets necessary for achieving it. Wu continued to engage in many Daoist practices, including the use of alchemy, climbing sacred Taishan Mt.
Tai , and presenting talismanic petitions to heaven. This is a highly synthetic work formed at what is known as the Huainan academy and greatly influenced by Yellow Emperor Daoism. John Major and a team of translators published the first complete English version of this text All this is of added significance because in the later Han work, Laozi bin ahua jing Book of the Transformations of Laozi the Chinese physics that persons and objects change forms was employed in order to identify Laozi with the Yellow Emperor.
Even though Emperor Wu forced Daoist practitioners from court, Daoist teachings found a fertile ground in which to grow in the environment of discontent with the policies of the Han rulers and bureaucrats. Popular uprisings sprouted. Indeed, the basic moral and philosophical text that provided the intellectual justification of this movement was the Classic of Great Peace Taiping jing , provided in an English version by Barbara Hendrischke.
The present version of this work in the Daoist canon is a later and altered iteration of the original text dating about CE and attributed to transnormal revelations experienced by Zhang Jiao. Easily the most important of the Daoist trends at the end of the Han period was the wudou mi dao Way of Five Bushels of Rice movement, best known as the Way of the Celestial Masters tianshi dao.
This movement is traceable to a Daoist hermit named Zhang ling, also known as Zhang Daoling, who resided on a mountain near modern Chengdu in Sichuan. The revelation said that those who followed Zhang would become part of the Orthodox One Covenant with the Powers of the Universe Zhengyi meng wei. Zhang began the movement that culminated in a Celestial Master state.
The administrators of this state were called libationers ji jiu , because they performed religious rites, as well as political duties. They taught that personal illness and civil mishap were owing to the mismanagement of the forces of the body and nature.
The libationers taught a strict form of morality and displayed registers of numinal powers they could access and control. Libationers were moral investigators, standing in for a greater celestial bureaucracy. The Celestial Master state developed against the background of the decline of the later Han dynasty.
Indeed, when the empire finally decayed, the Celestial Master government was the only order in much of southern China. But this backfired because it actually served to disperse Celestial Masters followers throughout China. The movement remained strong because its leaders had assembled a canon of texts [ Statutory Texts of the One and Orthodox Zhengyi fawen ].
This group of writings included philosophical, political, and ritual texts. It became a fundamental part of the later authorized Daoist canon. The resurgence of Daoism after the Han dynasty is often known as Neo-Daoism. As a result, Confucian scholars sought to annotate and reinterpret their own classical texts to move them toward greater compatibility with Daoism, and they even wrote commentaries on Daoist works. It is represented by a set of scholars, including some of the most prominent thinkers of the period: Wang Bi , He Yan d.
In general, these scholars share in common an effort to reinterpret the social and moral understanding of Confucianism in ways to make it more compatible with Daoist philosophy. These thinkers included landscape painters, calligraphers, poets, and musicians. He practiced not only philosophical reflection, but also external alchemy, manipulating mineral substances such as mercury and cinnabar in an effort to gain immortality.
For him, longevity and immortality are not the same, the former is only the first step to the latter. The mixture of these two traditions is represented in the writings of the Xu family. The Xu family was an aristocratic group from what is today the city of Nanjing.
Seeking Daoist philosophical wisdom and the long life it promised, many of them moved to Mao Shan Mountain, near the city. There they claimed to receive revelations from immortals, who dictated new wisdom and morality texts to them. Yang Xi was the most prominent medium recipient of the Maoshan revelations CE.
These revelations came from spirits who were local heroes named the Mao brothers, but they had been transformed into deities. The writings were extraordinarily well done and even the calligraphy in which they were written was beautiful. The importance of these texts philosophically speaking is to be found in their idealization of the quest for immortality and transference of the material practices of the alchemical science of Ge Hong into a form of reflective meditation.
Some thirty years after the Maoshan revelations, a descendent of Ge Hong, named Ge Chaofu went into a mediumistic trance and authored a set of texts called the Numinous Treasure Lingbao teachings. These works were ritual recitation texts similar to Buddhist sutras, and indeed they borrowed heavily from Buddhism. At first, the Shangqing and Lingbao texts belonged to the general stream of the Celestial Masters and were not considered separate sects or movements within Daoism, although later lineages of masters emphasized the uniqueness of their teachings.
As the Lingbao texts illustrate, Daoism acted as a receiving structure for Buddhism. Many early translators of Buddhist texts used Daoist terms to render Indian ideas.
Some Buddhists saw Laozi as an avatar of Shakyamuni the Buddha , and some Daoists understood Shakyamuni as a manifestation of the dao , which also means he was a manifestation of Laozi. An often made generalization is that Buddhism held north China in the 4th and 5th centuries, and Daoism the south. But gradually this intellectual currency actually reversed. Daoism grew in scope and impact throughout China. By the time of the Tang dynasty CE Daoism was the intellectual philosophy that underwrote the national understanding.
The imperial family claimed to descend from Li by lore, the family of Laozi. Laozi was venerated by royal decree. Officials received Daoist initiation as Masters of its philosophy, rituals, and practices.
A major center for Daoist studies was created at Dragon and Tiger Mountain longhu shan , chosen both for its feng shui and because of its strategic location at the intersection of numerous southern China trade routes.
In aesthetics, two great Daoist intellectuals worked during the Tang. Wu Daozi developed the rules for Daoist painting and Li Bai became its most famous poet. Interestingly, Daoist alchemists invented gunpowder during the Tang. The earliest block-print book on a scientific subject is a Daoist work entitled Xuanjie lu CE.
As Buddhism gradually grew stronger during the Tang, Daoist and Confucian intellectuals sought to initiate a conversation with it. The Buddhism that resulted was a reformed version known as Chan Zen in Japan. During the Five Dynasties CE and Song periods CE Confucianism enjoyed a resurgence and Daoists found their place by teaching that principal thinkers of their tradition were Confucian scholars as well.
Most notable among these was Lu Dongbin, a legendary Daoist immortal that many believed was originally a Confucian teacher. Daoism became a complete philosophy of life, reaching into religion, social action, and individual health and physical well-being.
A huge network of Daoist temples known by the name Dongyue Miao also called tianqing guan was created through the empire, with a miao in virtually every town of any size. The Daoist masters who served these temples were often appointed as government officials. They also gave medical, moral, and philosophical advice, and led religious rituals, dedicated especially to the Lord of the Sacred Mountain of the East named Taishan. Daoist masters had wide authority.
All this was obvious in the temple iconography. Taishan was represented as the emperor, the City God cheng huang was a high official, and the Earth God was portrayed as a prosperous peasant. This process of synthesis continued throughout the Song and into the period of the Ming Dynasty. Such a wide dispersal of Daoist thought and practice, taken together with its interest in merging Confucianism and Buddhism, eventually created a fragmented ideology.
For the first time, Daoist teachers adopted monastic forms of life, created monasteries, and organized themselves in ways they saw in Buddhism. This version of Daoist thought interpreted the classical texts of the DDJ and the Zhuangzi to call for a rejection of the body and material world. The Quanzhen order became powerful as the main partner of the Mongols Yuan dynasty , who gave their patronage to its expansion.
Less frequently, the Mongol emperors favored the Celestial Masters and their leader at Dragon and Tiger Mountain in an effort to undermine the power of the Quanzhen leaders.
Under patronage he was allowed to build a Dongyue Miao in the city in and make it the unofficial town hall of the capital.
But by the time of Khubilai Khan r. When the Ming dynasty emerged, the Mongols were expulsed, and Chinese rule was restored. The emperors sponsored the creation of the first complete Daoist Canon Daozang , which was edited between and This was an eclectic collection, including many Buddhist and Confucian related texts.
Daoist influence reached its zenith. The Manchurian tribes that became rulers of China in and founded the Qing dynasty were already under the influence of conservative Confucian exiles. Only Quanzhen was tolerated. White Cloud Monastery Baiyun Guan was reopened, and a new lineage of thinkers was organized.
They called themselves the Dragon Gate lineage Longmen pai. In the s, the Western traders arrived, and so did Christian missionaries. This millennial movement built on a strange version of Chinese Christianity sought to establish the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace taiping. As the Taiping swept throughout southern China, they destroyed Buddhist and Daoist temples and texts wherever they found them.
During most of the 20th century the drive to eradicate Daoist influence has continued. Accordingly, by the year only two copies of the Daoist Canon Daozang existed and Daoist philosophical heritage was in great jeopardy. But permission was granted to copy the canon kept at the White Cloud Monastery, and so the texts were preserved for the world.
There are titles in this collection in 5, volumes. Much of this material has yet to receive scholarly attention and very little of it has been translated into any Western language. The Cultural Revolution attempted to complete the destruction of Daoism. The miaos were closed, burned, and turned into military barracks. At one time, there were Daoist sites in Beijing alone, now there are only a handful.
However, Daoism is not dead. Ronnie Littlejohn Email: ronnie. Table of Contents What is Daoism? While the author is traditionally believed to be the philosopher Lao Tzu, there is little evidence that Lao Tzu existed at all. Rather, the Tao Te Ching is a gathering of earlier sayings from many authors.
This book was given an origin with the philosopher Lao Tzu for cultural and political reasons. Lao Tzu is sometimes understood as the image of the Tao, or a god, and given legendary status. The Tao or Dao is hard to define but is sometimes understood as the way of the universe. Taoism teaches that all living creatures ought to live in a state of harmony with the universe, and the energy found in it. The Tao Te Ching and other Taoist books provide guides for behavior and spiritual ways of living in harmony with this energy.
However, Taoists do not believe in this energy as a god. Rather, there are gods as part of the Taoist beliefs, often introduced from the various cultures found in the region known now as China. These gods are part of the Tao, like all living things. Taoism has temples, monasteries, and priests who make offerings, meditate , and perform other rituals for their communities.
One of the main ideas of Taoism is the belief in balancing forces, or yin and yang. These ideas represent matching pairs, such as light and dark, hot and cold, action and inaction, which work together toward a universal whole.
Yin and yang show that everything in the universe is connected and that nothing makes sense by itself. Taoism became well-known in the eighth century C. In the following centuries, it existed alongside Buddhism and Confucianism another philosophical religion. However, during the Communist takeover in , Taoism, Confucianism, and other religions were banned.
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