The Highest Middle Ground:
The Mysteries of Taoism
by Jonathan Lapsley
I am not going to lie to you. I am writing this the day before it's due. After carefully reading the text over two days, I then procrastinated until the last moment. Some would call me foolish for this choice; but the more I thought about it the more it was in line with the spontaneity of Taoism. In a way, I have entered the situation where these words must flow out; and thus they do, and the natural order is preserved. The Tao-te ching, the central book of Taoism, is full of contradiction, cryptic advice and flowing text; it is at times obscure and other times quite lucid. I have been exposed to Taoist beliefs before in my life, and to finally read this central text was an interesting experience. I do not consider myself a Taoist in any formal sense; yet, I do find within the Tao-te ching a strong reflection of my personal views. Then again, there are parts where I disagree, where the way of the Tao does not seem to be mine. Ultimately, Taoism is a path, an outlook, or a moral code (perhaps all three). It is not something to be believed in as a matter of faith; rather, it describes a practical and concrete outlook that fosters an even temperance and, in the authors opinion, a happy life.
But who is the author? The Tao-te ching is generally attributed to Lao Tzu. Seeing as he lived about 2,500 years ago details regarding his life are lacking, but he is regarded as having been a real person by the majority of historians. Lao Tzu and Confucius were contemporaries and, according to Chinese historical texts, even met on one occasion. It should be noted that the Tao-te ching is also called the Lao Tzu in many texts, but keeping to that convention in a paper that will discuss the man and the book would be cumbersome, and the Chinese have kindly given me two names by which to refer to the book anyways so. The name Tao-te ching literally means “Classic of the Way and its Virtue”, and was chosen as a title long after Lao Tzu's death. The only real insight we have into the mind of Lao Tzu is through his work; but what an insight it is. The Tao-te ching is cryptic, poetic (well, in Chinese anyway), and profound, condensing Lao Tzu's entire view into some five thousand words. Those five thousand words have had a huge impact on the world. Wing-Tsit Chan, whose translation of the Tao-te ching I read, goes so far as to say “Chinese civilization and the Chinese character would have been utterly different if the book Lao Tzu had never been written.” (136) Although the Tao-te ching was not originally divided, over time it has gained some organization: it is now generally presented in two sections containing eighty-one chapters total.
My initial plan in covering this text was to attempt a systematic addressing of each chapter. However, there are many chapters that are, in my humble opinion, are really just restating previous chapters in different words. That is not to say that the alternate angles provided by those chapters is meaningless, especially in the poetic verse of the original Chinese, rather, the lessons one could extrapolate and comment on are going to be the same. Such a systematic approach would be as dull to read as to write, so I will spare the reader (and myself). So then I considered a grouping by subject: but all the classifications I could think of were either too broad or too narrow; I suppose thats the Tao's hidden nature in action. Finally I decided to go for a liberal arts “reactionary reading” style, while still trying to maintain some overall cohesion and focus. This means I will go through the chapters in order, but will only respond to what I find interesting along the way, rather than attempting a comprehensive breakdown of the material. Without further adieu, I give to you the Tao-te ching.
“The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” (139) As far as philosophical starting points for Chinese literature of Lao Tzu's time go, this is an interesting one. Previous to the Tao-te ching, the concept namelessness, an undefined nothing, was not that big in China. Taoists hold that the true source of reality, the center, the Tao, is nameless because it is undivided; it is only when things are separated that they can have names. “One can name lakes but not the drops of water within them” is a classic Taoist thought, and expresses this idea of namelessness well. The first chapter of the Tao-te ching goes on to say that the Tao resides in non-being and in being; the opposing forces complement each other like the faces of a coin, the mere existence of one mandates the other. This duality within a larger framework is the center of Taoism. The opening of chapter two continues this idea: “When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, There arises the recognition of evil.” (140) Lao Tzu is saying that all “good” that man knows must be due to the perception of its difference from that which man does not like, and that by the simple act of differentiating between things we create the dualisms we see. Chapter 3 then lays out his views about this “creation of dualisms”: “Do not exalt the worthy, so that the people shall not compete. Do not value rare treasures, so the people shall not steal. Do not display objects of desire, so that the people's hearts shall not be disturbed.” (141) Thus we see that the Taoist attempts to minimize the perception of distinction; seeing good and evil as meaningless a distinction as the color of a zebra. However, chapter three is also where I first begin to notice the more oppressive sentiment that runs through Lao Tzu's work. He says the sage ruler holds people down, leaves them uneducated and without ambition, because this causes them to be closer to the Tao. I don't really agree with that.
Lao Tzu starts chapter four by attempting to explain the nature of the Tao: “Tao is empty (like a bowl), It may be used but its capacity is never exhausted. It is bottomless, perhaps the ancestor of all things.” (141) This idea that the Tao is a vessel, a thing which holds and from which things spring fourth, is taken up several times in the Tao-te ching. I find it somewhat obscure, as I don't feel Lao Tzu makes clear what emanates from the Tao. I suppose he could mean that all things come from the Tao, and he does say this many times, but then I would ask: “Are they coming from the Tao now, or did they come from it in the past?” To say everything comes from the Tao at all moments sounds strange and illogical, but to say that everything came from the Tao long ago seems entirely too simplistic, like some kind of creation myth. Ultimately, we can't know what Lao Tzu truly felt, we can only extract his feelings on philosophy from his writing. Clearly he felt he said what words were necessary for us to understand him, so in theory one who meditates on this long enough should be able to see how the cryptic parts of the Tao-te ching relate to the whole. Some things will remain unknowable, while others will remain simply unknown.
Chapters five through eight deal with the major Taoist symbols and the roles of Heaven and Earth. Lao Tzu introduces the concept of the female in chapter six, saying “The gate of the subtle and profound female is the root of Heaven and Earth.” (142) Femininity, infants, and water are all major Taoist symbols, as they show the power of the passive over time. Water, particularly, is important to the Taoist because it only follows the course nature sets for it. In introducing water Lao Tzu says “The best (man) is like water. Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them. It dwells in (lowly) places that all disdain. This is why it is so near the Tao.” (143) The Taoist symbols recur many times throughout the Tao-te ching. I personally find the Chinese interest in “Heaven and Earth” as some deep and symbolic relationship is somewhat dull and overused, all thought then again when one is reading Tolken in this day and age, elves and dwarves seem played to death also. One has to keep in mind that the Tao-te ching is the origin of many philosophical thoughts that then became entrenched parts of Chinese thought and culture, they only seem trite at times because we have all heard them regurgitated back at us so often.
Chapter nine is a straightforward warning against pride and material wealth, but isn't very interesting in its phrasing. Chapter ten is more wacky dualism. I have great respect for the Tao-te ching, but I think there are way too many chapters where the bulk of the text is just observations of various random opposites. One could argue that they are there to serve as points of contemplation, or that they are not nearly as arbitrary as they seem but rather were deliberately chosen for complex reasons beyond my unenlightened mind's ability to grasp, but half of them I suspect are there more for the random mystery and the Chinese poetry scheme I'm assuming they reinforce than anything. Regardless, my interest is not caught again until chapter eleven, which is about being and non-being, where Lao Tzu says “Clay is molded to form a utensil, But it is on its non-being that the utility of the utensil depends. Doors and windows are cut out to make a room, But it is on its non-being that the utility of the room depends.” (145) This seems strange at first glance, but Lao Tzu is saying that the objects before us are not the conceptual objects we utilize. The lump of clay in a particular shape is not a spoon, it is a lump of clay. We make it a spoon by seeing it as one, by perceiving its “non-being”, by forcing it into a role. A parallel concept to this in Greek philosophy is that of the archetypical object; which says that we have an idea of a tool called a spoon in our minds, but the idea isn't really attached to any physical object. We carry the idea of a spoon tool, and implement it as we need. We can hold different spoons up and compare them to one another, but what we are truly comparing is how closely the objects in our hands match our archetypical concept of what a spoon is and what it should do. In short, the Matrix was right: There is no spoon. There are only lumps of clay. While I feel I understand that much, the last line, “Therefore turn being into advantage, and turn non-being into utility” (145) is still unclear to me.
Chapter twelve is a comparatively clear cut warning against indulgence of the senses, and wasn't very interesting to me. But, in chapter thirteen, things heat up again as Lao Tzu comments on the Taoist view of the body, and by extension life: “The reason why I have great trouble is that I have a body (and am attached to it). If I have no body, what trouble could I have?” (145) To me this says the Taoist sees that all his concerns with the world, and thus all his conflict, stem from the desires of his body, but also that the absences of these desires would remove any point to life. Thus to the Taoist death is not something to be feared, for it would simply be the ultimate expression of not perceiving distinction.
I really honestly feel this is the point in the book where Lao Tzu decides to start dressing old ideas in new clothes. He does say many, many more profound things, but I feel that ninety percent of the text from chapter fourteen on will boil down to the same core ideas already brought up before. Thus, I am going to start skipping about a bit more, as there are now whole chapters I find almost nothing new in. Again, I wish to make clear that these later chapters are not lacking in insight or advice, just that they will be the same insights they were in the previous chapters.
Chapter nineteen shocked me, and on my first reading made me much more strongly aware of the oppressive tone sometime taken in the Tao-te ching: “Abandon sageliness and discard wisdom; Then the people will benefit a hundredfold. Abandon humanity and discard righteousness; then the people will return to filial piety and deep love.” (149) This sentiment runs throughout the text and is quite strongly against the trappings of education. I could see if Lao Tzu wanted the intelligentsia of his time to get out of their ivory towers and embrace the true world, but telling everyone to abandon sageliness and discard wisdom seems like overkill to me.
Ultimately, we can say the Tao is a path of moderation, of striking the balance between all extremes. However, in traveling away from one view we must be walking towards another: could one reject law without embracing order? Or embrace spirituality without giving up the material world? Lao Tzu said “Common folks see differences and are clear-cut; I alone make no distinctions. I seem drifting as the sea; Like the wind blowing about, seemingly without destination.” (150) Don't worry about your views or your position, he says, for they are what they are. Instead be like a cloud upon the wind: shifting and stirred by forces beyond it. Can the shape of a cloud be wrong? As long as one follows the Tao, and sees all distinctions as a temporary illusion, a temporary separation of the eternal and nameless Tao into individual named things, then the cloud can never be wrong. “Nature says few words. For the same reason a whirlwind does not last a whole morning, nor does a rainstorm last a whole day. What causes them? It is Heaven and Earth (nature). If Heaven and Earth cannot make them last long, How much less can man?” (151) We are all transitory creatures; not just in the grand sense that were all going to die but also in the more immediate sense that we are always changing: our looks, our sense of self, our relations to others, and even our own bodies. Over the course of seven years your body will have replaced just about every cell in it. You, then, are the ghost in the shell: an avatar of action being continually, slowly reborn every moment. By embracing Taoism and its love of spontaneity and natural action, we can strive to follow the true Way of the Tao, and find ourselves always in the highest middle ground. |
