Taoism—The Way of Harmony
Some of you may know of my practice of t’ai chi, so first I want everyone to relax—we’re not going to do t’ai chi or qi gong this morning. But you are welcome to join the t’ai group tomorrow at 1 pm here in the church.
T’ai chi is one of many avenues to understand Taoism—it is the physical expression of Taoism and a form of moving meditation—a Way to experience the Tao. But, this morning I want to respond to several requests I’ve had to talk about the Way of Taoism—the ancient Chinese philosophy.
So I’d like to talk first about the history of Taoism, next about three classics of taoist philosophy, and finally about three terms—tao, te, and wu wei. Exploring these together help is supporting my understanding of Taoism as the Way of Harmony—the harmony that is implied by its—symbol, the yin yang symbol, or the great t’ai chi.
I’ve been musing for quite a while, many years in fact, about a way of life, a philosophy, and a religion that has existed in China since the fifth century before the common era, or 500 BC if you will. Taoism. Spelled with a “T” pronounced as a “d”—Taoism.
In Infinity in Your Hand, UU minister William H. Houff stated:
“Except for Zen, which arose out of it, Taoism is more enigmatic, more contemplative, more naturalistic, and less creedal, intellectual, and meddlesome than all the other religions.”
And I join him as he continues:
“Although my own way of life and thinking comes nowhere close to being a Taoist, still my spiritual impulse esteems Taoism above all others, and hungers for it.”
(Houff, Infinity in Your Hand, p. 109).
History and legend combine to tell us about an old man of the family Li who became disgusted with politics and tired of his work as curator of the Royal Library of Cho. This man Li decided to leave China for a distant and secluded countryside. At the frontier, the warden Yin Hsi implored him to write a book. Thereupon the man Li wrote a book in two parts—Tao, the way, and Te, virtue—altogether about 5,000 words. He then went on his way, never to be heard of again. This book, the Tao Te Ching, is the most important text of Taoist philosophy, and the man Li became known as Lao-Tze—the Old Master.
In truth, there is no reliable biographical information that points to a single author. We simply have this marvelous collection of sayings attributed to Lao-Tze in this little book—the most often translated and published book after the bible. The collection has its roots in ancient shamanism and is most likely the result of three centuries—650 to 350 BCE—of oral composition of a group of philosophers. These people traveled from state to state within the disintegrating Chinese empire looking for a king who would put their ideas into practice.
It
has passages quite similar to some in the Bhagavad Gita, the most important
text of the Hindu religion, and some ideas similar to Sufism, which lets us
know that the concepts were not isolated in China. The book was completed by
the end of the third century BCE.
From the third century BCE forward, Taoism has undergone many changes and divisions, and Taoist have followed many paths from alchemist looking for the formula for eternal life to magicians and sorcerers performing for money to monastic monks and hermits seeking solitude in the mountains and oneness with the Tao. The forms of the different paths that Taoism has taken through the ages are not dissimilar to the paths of just about any other religion after its auspicious beginnings. But the basis of all of these Taoist forms is the Tao Te Ching.
The Tao Te Ching plus two others books make up the Three Classics.
The second of the three classics is Chuang-Tze—a compilation gathered between 475 and 221 BCE, with additions being incorporated as late as 420 CE and attributed to one person, Chuang-Tze. According to Eva Wong, who is in the process of translating much of the 14,000 plus books in the Taoist Canon, “Chuang-Tze is an eccentric who chuckles to himself and is not concerned about being understood.” From Chuang-Tze we learn about a wise man who said:
He who is content with himself has done a worthless work. Achievement is the beginning of failure. Fame is the beginning of disgrace. Who can free himself from achievement and from fame, descend and be lost amid the masses of men? He will flow like the Tao, unseen. He will go about like Life itself with no name and no home. Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances, he is a fool. His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation. Since he judges no one, no one judges him. Such is the perfect man. His boat is empty.
The third book of the Three Classics is Lieh-Tze—“a friendly voice, a casual voice,” according to Wong; “someone who gives us advice not because he is an expert but because he has made mistakes and learned from them.” Written between 300 BCE and 300 CE, Leih-Tze is yet another compilation. Here is a story from Leih-Tze: (Lieh-Tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living. Number 20, p. 67. Translated by Eva Wong, Shambhala Dragon Editions, 1995.)
“The Man Who Could Walk Through Fire”
A group of hunters were having some bad luck and not catching any game. They decided to set fire to the brush to see if that would chase out the animals. As the fire burned they saw a figure come out from the rocks and dance in the flames and smoke. They thought it was a ghost. As the fire died down and the smoke cleared, they came closer and saw that the figure was a man and that he was walking easily as if nothing was unusual.
“How is it that you can walk on the rocks and dance in the flames?” one of the hunters asked.
“What rocks? What flames?” asked the man. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Later, when the Marquis of Wei heard about this, he asked Tzu-hsia, “Have you heard of people who can walk through fire?”
Tzu-hsia said: “My teacher Confucius once said if someone is in harmony with the elements around him, he will not be harmed by them. This person would be able to merge with the rocks and walk through fire.”
“Can you do this?”
“I can’t do it because I am still unable to empty my mind and throw away my knowledge. I only know enough to talk about it.”
“Can your teacher do it?”
“My teacher can do it, but he doesn’t want to.”
When the marquis heard this, he was delighted and asked no more.
Lao Tze, in the Tao Te Ching, is a sage. His ideas are presented in an organized manner. We learn from him—
Nothing in the world is softer and more supple than water.
Yet when attacking the hard and the strong, nothing can surpass it.
The supple overcomes the hard.
The soft overcomes the strong.
None in the world do not know this, yet, none can practice it.
I find for my practice of t’ai chi as well as life in general, that these words have great meaning. T’ai chi has a martial art component as well as meditation, and its guiding principle is to yield as water yields, to be supple and soft to overcome the hard. Whether applied literally or figuratively, this approach to harmonizing yields positive results, because it finds the path or way through a situation.
Lao-Tze and Chuang-Tze talk about enlightenment, merging with the Tao. And they tell us about how we can behave. Lao-Tze is poetry and provides serious wisdom while Chuang-Tze is prose and provides crazy wisdom. Lieh-Tze is a comic strip, the voice of humorous wisdom. All of the books provide us with glimpses of the wisdom of living a life of harmony.
This presents a problem. Chuang-Tze tells us any word we give for it points to something greater. And Lieh-Tze tells us again—if we can talk about it we probably don’t know what it is—only if we can do it. But then, we might not want to if we’re really, truly Taoist. Lao-Tze tells us that “he who speaks doesn’t know, he who knows doesn’t speak.” Being UUs, we talk about it anyway. And you are welcome to join the small group of UUs that meets twice a month here at the church to do just that—something that others have done for more than two thousand years.
Literally the word tao translates from the Chinese as “The Way,” and or the path. There are many ways that you and I have open to us through life, but the path of Taoism is the one of harmony, the one that is natural, the one that takes the least effort—or wu wei—Chinese for non-ado. So translating Tao is easy—the WAY. But understanding the term is more difficult, because “the Tao is deeply imbedded in elemental human experience.” Mair, Tao Te Ching, p. 132
If we go to the translations of the Tao De Ching—The “bible” of Taoism, it says that “the name that can be named is not the name.” The way I think of it is this: Before there was something there was nothing and that nothing I call Tao. You might come up with something different—and that’s fine, because, for a Taoist, Tao can’t be named or explained.
It’s best then, to leave the Tao out there and understand that it has to be experienced. I believe that’s what Taoist meditation and the practice of t’ai chi open up for us—the experience of oneness, or wuji. Become one with the Tao and never know just what it is? Can we be happy with that state of affairs? A Taoist would say, Yes.
So we leave Tao—the Way—and go to the next word—te—The way of what? The title—Tao Te Ching—is often translated as the Way of Virtue. Ching means text or scrolls or book.
Victor H. Mair provides a different view in his new translation of the Tao Te Ching—this one from the oldest and most recently discovered silk manuscripts. He recounts how he spent two full months trying to arrive at a satisfactory translation of te.
Walking through the woods, riding on the train, buying groceries, chopping wood—the elusive notion of te was always on my mind. In certain instances perhaps another word such as “self,” “character”, “personality,” “virtue,” charisma,” or “power”
might have been more befitting. But “integrity” is the only word that seems plausible throughout. By ‘integrity,’ I mean the totality of an individual including his or her moral stance, whether good or bad. . . . The term signifies the holistic inner quality or character of a person. The strengths of an individual, one’s personhood. Te is determined by the total of one’s actions, good and bad—so we can cultivate our te—our self-nature or self-realization in relationship to the cosmos. Te is the embodiment of the Way and is the character of all entities in the universe. Each creature, each object has a te that is its own manifestation of the Tao.
So Taoism leaves us to our own “virtue.” Leaves each of us to determine how best to understand the Way from our own life and our own moral beliefs—from our own integrity and uniqueness in the universe. How simple. How harmonious.
So to live a harmonious and virtuous life becomes the goal of the Taoist, and Taoism tells us how to do it—wu-wei. No effort. The most dynamic notion of Taoism.
And as practitioners moving through the t’ai chi form, we aspire to move with no effort, in accordance with what’s natural, and in the process improve our health as well as our martial skills. But in no way does wu-wei mean to live limply, passively, or apathetically. Taoism wants us to live according to our nature. Lieh-Tze tells us:
If you understand what it means to be effortless, then there is nothing you cannot do. You can be yin or yang, hard or soft, short or long, round or square, hot or cold; you can live or die, float or sink, strike a high pitch or low, appear or disappear, take on colorations of black or yellow, become sweet or bitter, and be fragrant or pungent. By knowing and doing nothing, you can know all and do all. (Wong, Lieh-Tze, p. 31)
Wu-wei. It is not about absence of action. It is about spontaneity and noninterference. It is about letting things follow their own natural course. It means being ready to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done with as much effort as is needed and no more. For individuals, it means accomplishing what is necessary without ulterior motive. To Stoics, a similar concept meant spiritual potential.
In The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff explains the meaning of Wu Wei to be without doing, causing, or making. In other words, without being meddlesome, combative, or egotistical—not going against the nature of things. The symbol for wei shows a clawing hand and a monkey—Huff suggests that it means no monkeying around.
The man answered, I have no particular method of swimming, except that when I am in the water, I do not fight the water’s superior power. I float with it and sink with it instead of trying to force my way through it. I started my learning with what was given to me at birth, continued with what was natural for me to do, and completed by trusting what was meant to be.”
Non-ado, no action, wu-wei. It means following the natural
course of things and trusting what was meant to be. Wu-wei
So this brings us to the symbol of Taoism—yin and yang. In Chinese the symbol itself is called the great t’ai chi—t’ai—supreme, chi—ultimate.
Embodied in this symbol is the constant, harmonious flow of opposites from one to another. Nothing can ever be completely at an extreme—it can come close, but the white portion—the yang—has a black dot and the black portion—the yin—a white dot, letting us know that any extreme will eventually return to center.
Black and white, good and bad, dark and light, male and female, heavy and light, being and nothing—all are on a continuum and ever changing. It can never be all one or the other. As soon as it gets to the extreme, it returns. And this great learning can help us flow in our constantly changing world. Change is constant. Flow is constant. From yin to yang and back again. If we can just get with the natural flow of things.
One day Lieh-Tze said to his students:
“Think about this. Old man sky never says a word, but we can see that everything has its place in the universe. Nature has a lot to teach us. All you need is to open your eyes and look. The changes you see in nature follow a course. The four seasons behave in a regulated way. In truth, all human matters follow the same principles as the workings of heaven and earth. What more is there for me to say?” (Wong, Lieh-Tze, p. 26)
Thus, the Way of Harmony, Taoism, tells us to yield to what is—accept and understand the flow of yin and yang, act with non-ado—wu-wei, act with personal integrity—te. It is this behavior that brings us to being one with the Tao.
“So what do you think, Pooh?” Asks Benjamin Hoff at the end of the Tao of Pooh.
“I’ll sing it,” says Pooh Bear:
To know the Way,
We go the Way;
We do the Way
The way we do
The things we do.
It’s all there in front of you,
But, if you try too hard to see it,
You’ll only become Confused.
I am me,
And you are you,
As you can see;
But when you do
The things that you can do,
You will find the Way,
And the Way will follow you.
When the wisest people hear of the Tao
they try hard to live in accordance with it.
When average people hear of the Tao
they give it thought now and again.
When foolish people hear of the Tao
they break into laughter.
If they didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the tao.
Tao Te Ching Chap. 41
Tao produced the One.
The One produced the two.
The two produced the three.
And the three produced the ten thousand things.
The ten thousand things carry the yin and embrace the yang, and through the blending of the material force—ch’i—they achieve harmony.
Tao Te Ching Chap. 42
Reading: Where is what you call the Tao to be found? Chuang-Tze
Tun Kuo Tze asked Chuang-Tze, saying “where is what you call the Tao to
be found?” Chuang Tze replied, “Everywhere.” The other said, “Specify an
instance of it. That will be more satisfactory.” “It is here in this ant.” Give
a lower instance. “It is in this panic grass.” Give a still lower instance. “It
is in this earthenware tile.” Surely that is the lowest instance? “It is in
that excrement.” To this Tung Kuo Tze gave no reply.
Chuang-Tze said, “Your questions, my master, do not touch the fundamental point of the Tao. They remind me of the questions addressed by the superintendents of the market to the inspector about examining the value of a pig by treading on it, and testing its weight as the foot descends lower and lower on the body. You should not specify any particular thing. There is not a single thing without the Tao. So it is with the perfect Tao. And if we call it the great Tao, it is just the
Have patience for a moment.
The wind will calm down,
And the wave will recede.
Get back half a step.
The seas will be wide and the sky clear.
To yield a few steps will improve your life.
From a Chinese scroll
© Elizabeth Reed
June 23, 2002
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