Tao philosphy

Along with Confucianism, “Daoism” (sometimes called “Taoism“) is one of the two great indigenous philosophical traditions of China. As an English term, Daoism corresponds to both Daojia (“Dao family” or “school of the Dao”), an early Han dynasty (c. 100s B.C.E.) term which describes so-called “philosophical” texts and thinkers such as Laozi and Zhuangzi, and Daojiao (“teaching of the Dao”), which describes various so-called “religious” movements dating from the late Han dynasty (c. 100s C.E.) onward.  Thus, “Daoism” encompasses thought and practice that sometimes are viewed as “philosophical,” as “religious,” or as a combination of both.  While modern scholars, especially those in the West, have been preoccupied with classifying Daoist material as either “philosophical” or “religious,” historically Daoists themselves have been uninterested in such categories and dichotomies.  Instead, they have preferred to focus on understanding the nature of reality, increasing their longevity, ordering life morally, practicing rulership, and regulating consciousness and diet.  Fundamental Daoist ideas and concerns include wuwei (“effortless action”), ziran (“naturalness”), how to become a shengren (“sage”) or zhenren (“perfected person”), and the ineffable, mysterious Dao (“Way”) itself.

What is Daoism?

Strictly speaking there was no Daoism before the literati of the Han dynasty (c. 200 B.C.E.) tried to organize the writings and ideas that represented the major intellectual alternatives available. The name daojia, “Dao family” or “school of the dao” was a creation of the historian Sima Tan (d. 110 B.C.E.) in his Shi ji (Records of the Historian) written in the 2nd century B.C.E. and later completed by his son, Sima Qian (145-86 B.C.E.). In Sima Qian’s classification, the Daoists are listed as one of the Six Schools: Yin-Yang, Confucian, Mohist, Legalist, School of Names, and Daoists. So, Daoism was a retroactive grouping of ideas and writings which were already at least one to two centuries old, and which may or may not have been ancestral to various post-classical religious movements, all self-identified as daojiao (“teaching of the dao“), beginning with the reception of revelations from the deified Laozi by the Celestial Masters (Tianshi) lineage founder, Zhang Daoling, in 142 C.E.This article privileges the formative influence of early texts, such as the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi, but accepts contemporary Daoists’ assertion of continuity between classical and post-classical, “philosophical” and “religious” movements and texts.

Classical Sources for Our Understanding of Daoism

Daoism does not name a tradition constituted by a founding thinker, even though the common belief is that a teacher named Laozi originated the school and wrote its major work, called the Daodejing, also sometimes known as the Laozi. The tradition is also called “Lao-Zhuang” philosophy, referring to what are commonly regarded as its two classical and most influential texts: the Daodejing or Laozi (3rd Cn. B.C.E.) and the Zhuangzi (4th-3rd Cn. B.C.E.). However, various streams of thought and practice were passed along by masters (daoshi) before these texts were finalized. There are two major source issues to be considered when forming a position on the origins of Daoism.. 1) What evidence is there for beliefs and practices later associated with the kind of Daoism  recognized by Sima Qian prior to the formation of the two classical texts? 2) What is the best reconstruction of the classical textual tradition upon which later Daoism was based?

With regard to the first question, Isabelle Robinet thinks that the classical texts are only the most lasting evidence of a movement she associates with a set of writings and practices associated with the Songs of Chu (Chuci), and that she identifies as the Chuci movement. This movement reflects a culture in which male and female masters variously called fangshi, daoshi, zhenren, or daoren practiced techniques of longevity and used diet and meditative stillness anto create a way of life that attracted disciples and resulted in wisdom teachings.. While Robinet’s interpretation is controversial, there are undeniable connections between the Songs of Chu and later Daoist ideas. Some examples include a coincidence of names of immortals (sages), a commitment to the pursuit of physical immortality, a belief in the epistemic value of stillness and quietude, abstinence from grains, breathing and sexual practices used to regulate internal energy (qi), and the use of ritual dances that resemble those still done by Daoist masters (the step of Yu).

In addition to the controversial connection to the Songs of Chu, the Guanzi (350-250 B.C.E.) is a text older than both the Daodejing and probably all of the Zhuangzi, except the “inner chapters” (see below). The Guanzi  is a very important work of 76 “chapters.” Three of the chapters of the Guanzi are called the Neiye, a title which can mean “inner cultivation.” The self-cultivation practices and teachings put forward in this material may be fruitfully linked to several other important works: the Daodejing; the Zhuangzi; a Han dynasty Daoist work called the Huainanzi; and an early commentary on the Daodejing called the Xiang’er. Indeed, there is a strong meditative trend in the Daoism of late imperial China known as the “inner alchemy” tradition and the views of the Neiye seem to be in the background of this movement. Two other chapters of the Guanzi are called Xin shu (Heart-mind book). The Xin shu connects the ideas of quietude and stillness found in both the Daodejing and Zhuangzi to longevity practices. The idea of dao in these chapters is very much like that of the classical works. Its image of the sage resembles that of the Zhuangzi. It uses the same term (zheng) that Zhuangzi uses for the corrections a sage must make in his body, the pacification of the heart-mind, and the concentration and control of internal energy (qi). These practices are called “holding onto the One,” “keeping the One,” “obtaining the One,” all of which are phrases also associated with the Daodejing (chs. 10, 22, 39).

The Songs of Chu and Guanzi still represent texts which are themselves creations of actual practitioners of Daoist teachings and sentiments, just as do the Daodejing and Zhuangzi.  Who these persons were we do not know with certainty.  It is possible that we do have the names, remarks, and practices of some of these individuals (daoshi) embodied in the passages of the Zhuangzi. For example, in Chs. 1-7 alone, Xu You, Ch.1; Lianshu, Ch.1; Ziqi Ch. 2; Wang Ni, Ch. 2; Changwuzi, Ch. 2; Qu Boyu, Ch. 4; Carpenter Shi, Ch. 4; Bohun Wuren, Ch. 5; Nu Y, Ch. 6; Sizi, Yuzi, Lizi, Laizi, Ch. 6; Zi Sanghu, Meng Zifan, Zi Qinzan, Ch. 6; Yuzi and Sangzi, Ch. 6; Wang Ni and Putizi, Ch. 7; Jie Yu, Ch. 7; Lao Dan, Ch. 7; Huzi, Ch. 7).

As for a reasonable reconstruction of the textual tradition upon which Daoism is based, we should not try to think of this task so simply as determining the relationship between the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi, such as which text was first and which came later. These texts are composite. The Zhuangzi, for example, repeats in very similar form sayings and ideas  found in the Daodejing, especially in the essay composing Zhuangzi Chs. 8-10. However, we are not certain whether this means that whomever was the source of this material in the Zhuangzi knew the Daodejing and quoted it, or if they both drew from a common source, or even if the Daodejing in some way depended on the Zhuangzi. In fact, one theory about the legendary figure Laozi is that he was created first in the Zhuangzi and later became associated with the Daodejing. There are seventeen passages in which Laozi (a.k.a. Lao Dan) plays a role in the Zhuangzi and he is not mentioned by name in the Daodejing.

Based on what we know now, we could offer the following summary of the sources of early Daoism. Stage One: Zhuang Zhou’s “inner chapters” (chs. 1-7) of the Zhuangzi (c. 350 B.C.E.) and some components of the Guanzi, including perhaps both the Neiye and the Xin shu. Stage Two: The essay in Chs. 8-10 of the Zhuangzi  and some collections of material which represent versions of our final redaction of the Daodejing, as well as Chs. 17-28 of the Zhuangzi representing materials likely gathered by Zhuang Zhou’s disciples.. Stage Three: the “Yellow Emperor” (Huang-Lao) manuscripts from Mawangdui and of the Zhuangzi (Chs. 11-19, and 22), and the text known as the Huainanzi (c. 139 B.C.E.).

Is Daoism a Philosophy or a Religion?

In the late 1970s Western and comparative philosophers began to point out that an important dimension of the historical context of Daoism was being overlooked because the previous generation of scholars had ignored or even disparaged connections between the classical texts and Daoist religious belief and practice not previously thought to have developed until the 2nd century C.E. We have to lay some of the responsibility for a prejudice against Daoism as a religion and the privileging of its earliest forms as a pure philosophy at the feet of the eminent translators and philosophers Wing-Tsit Chan and James Legge, who both spoke of Daoist religion as a degeneration of a pristine Daoist philosophy arising from the time of the Celestial Masters (see below) in the late Han period. Chan and Legge were instrumental architects in the West of the view that Daoist philosophy (daojia) and Daoist religion (daojiao) are entirely different traditions.

Actually, our interest in trying to separate philosophy and religion in Daoism is more revealing of the Western frame of reference we use than of Daoism itself. Daoist ideas fermented among master teachers who had a holistic view of life. These daoshi (Daoist masters) did not compartmentalize practices by which they sought to influence the forces of reality, increase their longevity, have interaction with realities not apparent to our normal way of seeing things, and order life morally and by rulership. They offered insights we might call philosophical aphorisms. But they also practid meditative stillness and emptiness to gain knowledge, engaged in physical exercises to increase the flow of inner energy (qi), studied nature for diet and remedy to foster longevity, practiced rituals related to their view that reality had many layers and forms with whom/which humans could interact, wrote talismans and practiced divination, engaged in spellbinding of “ghosts,” led small communities, and advised rulers on all these subjects. The masters transmitted their teachings, some of them only to disciples and adepts, but gradually these teachings became more widely available as is evidenced in the very creation of the Daodejing and Zhuangzi themselves.

The anti-supernaturalist and anti-dualist agendas that provoked Westerners to separate philosophy and religion, dating at least to the classical Greek period of philosophy was not part of the preoccupation of Daoists. Accordingly, the question whether Daoism is a philosophy or a religion is not one we can ask without imposing a set of understandings, presuppositions, and qualifications that do not apply to Daoism. But the hybrid nature of Daoism is not a reason to discount the importance of Daoist thought. Quite to the contrary, it may be one of the most significant ideas classical Daoism can contribute to the study of philosophy in the present age.

The Daodejing

The Daodejing (hereafter, DDJ) is divided into 81 “chapters” consisting of slightly over 5,000 Chinese characters, depending on which text is used. In its received form from Wang Bi , the two major divisions of the text are the dao jing (chs. 1-37) and the de jing (chs. 38-81). Actually, this division probably rests on little else than the fact that the principal concept opening Chapter 1 is dao (way) and that of Chapter 38 is de (virtue). The text is a collection of short aphorisms that were not arranged to develop any systematic argument. The long standing tradition about the authorship of the text is that the “founder” of Daoism, known as Laozi gave it to Yin Xi, the guardian of the pass through the mountains that he used to go from China to the West (i.e., India) in some unknown date in the distant past. But the text is actually a composite of collected materials, most of which probably originally circulated orally perhaps even in single aphorisms or small collections. These were then redacted as someone might string pearls into a necklace. Although D.C. Lau and Michael LaFargue had made preliminary literary and redaction critical studies of the texts, these are still insufficient to generate any consensus about whether the text was composed using smaller written collections or who were the probable editors.

For almost 2,000 years, the Chinese text used by commentators in China and upon which all except the most recent Western language translations were based has been called the Wang Bi, after the commentator who used a complete edition of the DDJ sometime between 226-249 CE. Although Wang Bi was not a Daoist, his commentary became a standard interpretive guide, and generally speaking even today scholars depart from it only when they can make a compelling argument for doing so. Based on recent archaeological finds at Guodian in 1993 and Mawangdui in the 1970s we are certain that there were several simultaneously circulating versions of the Daodejing text as early as c. 300 B.C.E.

Mawangdui is the name for a site of tombs discovered near Changsha in Hunan province. The Mawangdui discoveries consist of two incomplete editions of the DDJ on silk scrolls (boshu) now simply called “A” and “B.” These versions have two principal differences from the Wang Bi. Some word choice divergencies are present. The order of the chapters is reversed, with 38-81 in the Wang Bi coming before chapters 1-37 in the Mawangdui versions. More precisely, the order of the Mawangdui texts takes the traditional 81 chapters and sets them out like this: 38, 39, 40, 42-66, 80, 81, 67-79, 1-21, 24, 22, 23, 25-37. Robert Henricks has published a translation of these texts with extensive notes and comparisons with the Wang Bi under the title Lao-Tzu, Te-tao Ching (1989). Contemporary scholarship associates the Mawangdui versions with a type of Daoism known as the Way of the Yellow Emperor and the Old Master (Huanglao Dao)..

The Guodian find consists of 730 inscribed bamboo slips found near the village of Guodian in Hubei province in 1993. There are 71 slips with material that is also found in 31 of the 81 chapters of the DDJ and corresponding to Chapters 1-66. It may date as early as c. 300 B.C.E. If this is a correct date, then the Daodejing was already extant in a written form when the “inner chapters”  of the Zhuangzi were composed. These slips contain more significant variants from the Wang Bi than do the Mawangdui versions. A complete translation and study of the Guodian cache has been published by Scott Cook (2013).

 Fundamental Concepts in the Daodejing

The term Dao means a road, and is often translated as “the Way.” This is because sometimes dao is used as a nominative (that is, “the dao”) and other times as a verb (i.e. daoing). Dao is the process of reality itself, the way things come together, while still transforming. All this reflects the deep seated Chinese belief that change is the most basic character of things. In the Yi jing (Classic of Change) the patterns of this change are symbolized by figures standing for 64 relations of correlative forces and known as the hexagrams. Dao is the alteration of these forces, most often simply stated as yin and yang. The Xici is a commentary on the Yi jing formed in about the same period as the DDJ. It takes the taiji (Great Ultimate) as the source of correlative change and associates it with the dao. The contrast is not between what things are or that something is or is not, but between chaos (hundun) and the way reality is ordering (de). Yet, reality is not ordering into one unified whole. It is the 10,000 things (wanwu). There is the dao but not “the World” or “the cosmos” in a Western sense.

The Daodejing teaches that humans cannot fathom the Dao, because any name we give to it cannot capture it. It is beyond what we can express in language (ch.1). Those who experience oneness with dao, known as “obtaining dao,” will be enabled to wu-wei .  Wu-wei is a difficult notion to translate. Yet, it is generally agreed that the traditional rendering of it as “nonaction” or “no action” is incorrect. Those who wu wei do act. Daoism is not a philosophy of “doing nothing.” Wu-wei means something like “act naturally,” “effortless action,” or “nonwillful action.” The point is that there is no need for human tampering with the flow of reality. Wu-wei should be our way of life, because the dao always benefits, it does not harm (ch. 81) The way of heaven (dao of tian) is always on the side of good (ch. 79) and virtue (de) comes forth from the dao alone (ch. 21). What causes this natural embedding of good and benefit in the dao is vague and elusive (ch. 35), not even the sages understand it (ch. 76). But the world is a reality that is filled with spiritual force, just as a sacred image used in religious ritual might be inhabited by numinal power (ch. 29). The dao occupies the place in reality that is analogous to the part of a family’s house set aside for the altar for venerating the ancestors and gods (the ao of the house, ch. 62). When we think that life’s occurrences seem unfair (a human discrimination), we should remember that heaven’s (tian) net misses nothing, it leaves nothing undone (ch. 37)

A central theme of the Daodejing is that correlatives are the expressions of the movement of dao. Correlatives in Chinese philosophy are not opposites, mutually excluding each other. They represent the ebb and flow of the forces of reality: yin/yang, male/female; excess/defect; leading/following; active/passive. As one approaches the fullness of yin, yang begins to horizon and emerge and vice versa. Its teachings on correlation often suggest to interpreters that the DDJ is filled with paradoxes. For example, ch. 22 says, “Those who are crooked will be perfected. Those who are bent will be straight. Those who are empty will be full.” While these appear paradoxical, they are probably better understood as correlational in meaning. The DDJ says, “straightforward words seem paradoxical,” implying, however, that they are not (ch. 78).

What is the image of the ideal person, the sage (sheng ren), or  the perfected person (zhen ren) in the DDJ? Well, sages wu-wei, (chs. 2, 63). They act effortlessly and spontaneously as one with dao and in so doing, they “virtue” (de) without deliberation or volitional challenge. In this respect, they are like newborn infants, who move naturally, without planning and reliance on the structures given to them by culture and society (ch. 15). The DDJ tells us that sages empty themselves, becoming void of the discriminations  used in conventional language and culture. Sages concentrate their internal energies (qi). They clean their vision (ch. 10). They manifest naturalness and plainness, becoming like uncarved wood (pu) (ch. 19). They live naturally and free from desires rooted in the discriminations that human society makes (ch. 37) They settle themselves and know how to be content (ch. 46). The DDJ makes use of some very famous analogies to drive home its point. Sages know the value of emptiness as illustrated by how emptiness is used in a bowl, door, window, valley or canyon (ch. 11). They preserve the female (yin), meaning that they know how to be receptive to dao and its power (de) and are not unbalanced favoring assertion and action (yang) (ch. 28). They shoulder yin and embrace yang, blend internal energies (qi) and thereby attain harmony (he) (ch. 42). Those following the dao do not strive, tamper, or seek to control their own lives (ch. 64). They do not endeavor to help life along (ch. 55), or use their heart-mind (xin) to “solve” or “figure out” life’s apparent knots and entanglements (ch. 55). Indeed, the DDJ cautions that those who would try to do something with the world will fail, they will actually ruin both themselves and the world (ch. 29). Sages do not engage in disputes and arguing, or try to prove their point (chs. 22, 81). They are pliable and supple, not rigid and resistive (chs. 76, 78). They are like water (ch. 8), finding their own place, overcoming the hard and strong by suppleness (ch. 36). Sages act with no expectation of reward (chs. 2, 51). They put themselves last and yet come first (ch. 7). They never make a display of themselves, (chs. 72, 22). They do not brag or boast, (chs. 22, 24) and they do not linger after their work is done (ch. 77). They leave no trace (ch. 27). Because they embody dao in practice, they have longevity (ch. 16). They create peace (ch. 32). Creatures do not harm them (chs. 50, 55). Soldiers do not kill them (ch. 50). Heaven (tian) protects the sage and the sage’s spirit becomes invincible (ch. 67).

Among the most controversial of the teachings in the DDJ are those directly associated with rulers. Recent scholarship is moving toward a consensus that the persons who developed and collected the teachings of the DDJ played some role in advising civil administration, but they may also have been practitioners of ritual arts and what we would call religious rites. Be that as it may, many of the aphorisms directed toward rulers in the DDJ seem puzzling at first sight. According to the DDJ, the proper ruler keeps the people without knowledge, (ch. 65), fills their bellies, opens their hearts and empties them of desires (ch. 3). A sagely ruler reduces the size of the state and keeps the population small. Even though the ruler possesses weapons, they are not used (ch. 80). The ruler does not seek prominence. The ruler is a shadowy presence, never standing out (chs. 17, 66). When the ruler’s work is done, the people say they are content (ch. 17). This picture of rulership in the DDJ is all the more interesting when we remember that the philosopher and legalist political theorist named Han Feizi used the DDJ as a guide for the unification of China. Han Feizi was the foremost counselor of the first emperor of China, Qin Shihuangdi (r. 221-206 B.C.E.). However, it is a pity that the emperor used the DDJ’s admonitions to “fill the bellies and empty the minds” of the people to justify his program of destroying all books not related to medicine, astronomy or agriculture. When the DDJ says that rulers keep the people without knowledge, it probably means that they do not encourage human knowledge as the highest form of knowing but rather they encourage the people to “obtain oneness with the dao.”

 The Zhuangzi

The second of the two most important classical texts of Daoism is the Zhuangzi. This text is a collection of stories and remembered as well as imaginary conversations.  The text is well known for its creativity and skillful use of language. Within the text we find longer and shorter treatises, stories, poetry, and aphorisms. The Zhuangzi may date as early as the 4th century B.C.E. and according to imperial bibliographies of a later date, the Zhuangzi originally had 52 “chapters.” These were reduced to 33 by Guo Xiang in the 3rd century C.E., although he seems to have had the 52 chapter text available to him.  Ronnie Littlejohn has argued that the later work Liezi may contain some passages from the so-called “Lost Zhuangzi” 52 chapter version. Unlike the Daodejing which is ascribed to the mythological Laozi, the Zhuangzi may actually contain materials from a teacher known as Zhuang Zhou who lived between 370-300 B.C.E.. Chapters 1-7 are those most often ascribed to Zhuangzi himself (which is a title meaning “Master Zhuang”) and these are known as the “inner chapters.” The remaining 26 chapters had other origins and they sometimes take different points of view from the Inner Chapters. Although there are several versions of how the remainder of the Zhuangzi may be divided, one that is gaining currency is Chs. 1-7 (Inner Chapters), Chs. 8-10 (the “Daode” essay), Chs. 11-16 and parts of 18, 19, and 22 (Yellow Emperor Chapters), and Chs. 17-28 (Zhuang Zhou’s Disciples’ material), with the remains of the text attributable to the final redactor.

Basic Concepts in the Zhuangzi

Zhuangzi taught that a set of practices, including meditative stillness, helped one achieve unity with the dao and become a “perfected person” (zhenren). The way to this state is not the result of a withdrawal from life. However, it does require disengaging or emptying oneself of conventional values and the demarcations made by society. In Chapter 23 of the Zhuangzi, aNanrong Chu inquiring of the character Laozi about the solution to his life’s worries was answered promptly: “Why did you come with all this crowd of people?” The man looked around and confirmed he was standing alone, but Laozi meant that his problems were the result of all the baggage of ideas and conventional opinions he lugged about with him. This baggage must be discarded before anyone can be zhenren, move in wu-wei and express profound virtue (de).

Like the DDJ, Zhuangzi also valorizes wu-wei, especially in the Inner Chapters, the Yellow Emperor sections on rulership, and the Zhuangzi disciples’ materials in Ch. 19. For its examples of such living the Zhuangzi turns to analogies of craftsmen, athletes (swimmers), ferrymen, cicada-catching men, woodcarvers, and even butchers. One of the most famous stories in the text is that of Ding the Butcher, who learned what it means to wu wei through the perfection of his craft. When asked about his great skill, Ding says, “What I care about is dao, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now—now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint. A good cook changes his knife once a year—because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month—because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness….[I] move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until—flop! The whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground.” (Ch. 3, The Secret of Caring for Life)  The recurring point of all of the stories in Zhuangzi about wu-wei is that such spontaneous and effortless conduct as displayed by these many examples has the same feel as acting in wu-wei.  The point is not that wu-wei results from skill development.  Wu-wei is not a cultivated skill. It is a gift of oneness with dao.  The Zhuangzi’s teachings on wu-wei are closely related to the text’s consistent rejection of the use of reason and argument as means to dao (chs. 2; 12, 17, 19).

Persons who exemplify such understanding are called sages, zhenren, and immortals. Zhuangzi describes the Daoist sage in such a way as to suggest that such a person possesses extraordinary powers. Just as the DDJ said that creatures do not harm the sages, the Zhuangzi also has a passage teaching that the zhenren exhibits wondrous powers, frees people from illness and is able to make the harvest plentiful (ch.1).  Zhenren are “spirit like” (shen yi), cannot be burned by fire, do not feel cold in the freezing forests, and life and death have no effect on them (ch. 2).  Just how we should take such remarks is not without controversy.  To be sure, many Daoist in history took them literally and an entire tradition of the transcendents or immortals (xian) was collected in text and lore.

Zhuangzi is drawing on a set of beliefs about master teachers that were probably regarded as literal by many, although some think he meant these to be taken metaphorically. For example, when Zhuangzi says that the sage cannot be harmed or made to suffer by anything that life presents, does he mean this to be taken as saying that the zhenren is physically invincible? Or, does he mean that the sage has so freed himself from all conventional understandings that he refuses to recognize poverty as any more or less desirable than affluence, to recognize blindness as worse than sight, to recognize death as any less desirable than life? As the Zhuangzi says in Chapter One, Free and Easy Wandering, “There is nothing that can harm this man.” This is also the theme of Chapter Two, On Making All Things Equal. In this chapter people are urged to “make all things one,” meaning that they should recognize that reality is one. It is a human judgment that what happens is beautiful or ugly, right or wrong, fortunate or not. The sage knows all things are one (equal) and does not judge. Our lives are snarled and jumbled so long as we make conventional discriminations, but when we set them aside, we appear to others as extraordinary and enchanted.

An important theme in the Zhuangzi is the use of immortals to illustrate various points. Did Zhuangzi believe some persons physically lived forever? Well, many Daoists did believe this. Did Zhuangzi believe that our substance was eternal and only our form changed? Almost certainly Zhuangzi thought that we were in a constant state of process, changing from one form into another (see the exchange between Master Lai and Master Li in Ch. 6, The Great and Venerable Teacher). In Daoism, immortality is the result of what may be described as a wu xing transformation. Wu xing means “five phases” and it refers to the Chinese understanding of reality according to which all things are in some state of combined correlation of qi as wood, fire, water, metal, and earth. This was not exclusively a “Daoist” physics. It underlay all Chinese “science” of the classical period, although Daoists certainly made use of it. Zhuangzi wants to teach us how to engage in transformation through stillness, breathing, and experience of numinal power (see ch. 6). And yet, perhaps Zhuangzi’s teachings on immortality mean that the person who is free of discrimination makes no difference between life and death. In the words of Lady Li in Ch. 2, “How do I know that the dead do not wonder why they ever longed for life?”

Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor) is the most prominent immortal mentioned in the text of the Zhuangzi and he is a main character in the sections of the book called “the Yellow Emperor Chapters” noted above.. He has long been venerated in Chinese history as a cultural exemplar and the inventor of civilized human life. Daoism is filled with other accounts designed to show that those who learn to live according to the according to the dao have long lives. Pengzu, one of the characters in the Zhuangzi, is said to have lived eight hundred years. The most prominent female immortal is Xiwangmu (Queen Mother of the West), who was believed to reign over the sacred and mysterious Mount Kunlun.

The passages containing stories of the Yellow Emperor in Zhuangzi provide a window into the views of rulership in the text.  On the one hand, the Inner Chapters (chs. 1-7) reject the role of ruler as a viable vocation for a zhenren and consistently criticize the futility of government and politics (ch. 7).  On the other hand, the Yellow Emperor materials in Chs. 11-13 present rulership as valuable, so long as the ruler is acts by wu-wei.  This second position is also that taken in the work entitled the Huainanzi (see below).

The Daoists did not think of immortality as a gift from a god, or an achievement in the religious sense commonly thought of in the West. It was a result of finding harmony with the dao, expressed through wisdom, meditation, and wu-wei. Persons who had such knowledge were reputed to live in the mountains, thus the character for xian (immortal) is made up of two components, the one being shan “mountain” and the other being ren “person.” Undoubtedly, some removal to the mountains was a part of the journey to becoming a zhenren “true person.” Because Daoists believed that nature and our own bodies were correlations of each other, they even imagined their bodies as mountains inhabited by immortals. The struggle to wu-wei was an effort to become immortal, to be born anew, to grow the embryo of immortality inside. A part of the disciplines of Daoism included imitation of the animals of nature, because they were thought to act without the intention and willfulness that characterized human decision making.. Physical exercises included animal dances (wu qin xi) and movements designed to enable the unrestricted flow of the cosmic life force from which all things are made (qi). These movements designed to channel the flow of qi became associated with what came to be called tai qi or qi gong. Daoists practiced breathing exercises, used herbs and other pharmacological substances, and they employed an instruction booklet for sexual positions and intercourse, all designed to enhance the flow of qi energy. They even practiced external alchemy, using burners to modify the composition of cinnabar into mercury and made potions to drink and pills to ingest for the purpose of adding longevity. Many Daoist practitioners died as a result of these alchemical substances, and even a few Emperors who followed their instructions lost their lives as well, Qinshihuang being the most famous..

The attitude and practices necessary to the pursuit of immortality made this life all the more significant. Butcher Ding is a master butcher because his qi is in harmony with the dao. Daoist practices were meant for everyone, regardless of their origin, gender, social position, or wealth. However, Daoism was a complete philosophy of life and not an easy way to learn.

When superior persons learn the Dao, they practice it with zest.

When average persons learn of the Dao, they are indifferent.

When petty persons learn of the Dao, they laugh loudly.

If they did not laugh, it would not be worthy of being the Dao.DDJ,