Daoism
4 min readDaoism(or Taoism), like Confucianism, has made huge contributions to the Chinese philosophical thought. Daoism is based on the theory of Laozi and Zhuang Zi as its basic doctrine. Daoism believes that behind all the material things and all the changes in the world lies one fundamental, universal principle: the Way or Dao. This principle gives rise to all existence and governs everything, every change and every aspect of life. Daoism is ofa conception of the universe and a conception of life, which is both naturalistic and mystical.
Laozi or Lao Tzu(570 B.C.-490 B.C.) is the founder of Daoism and the author of Dao De Jing(or Tao Te Ching). He observed nature with great interest and scrutiny, and he believed that all things are in a constant change between opposites such as being and non-being, have and non-have, success and failure, activity and tranquility. In Dao De Jing, the philosophical elaborations range from the essentials of human nature to the practice of government, with the focus on the relationship between human behavior and the way or Dao and De which are two important conceptions of Daoism.
Dao means a road, the way or the method, the law, the principle people must follow. Dao is unchanging and permeates everything and it is everywhere in the world.
Laozi believes”Dao nourishes everything”. Dao is the essence and ultimate end ofall things, and it is the process of reality itself, the way things come together while they are still transforming. Dao is a kind of constant, universal principle that underlies all phenomena.
Dao has no fixed form and sound, and it has always existed and has no beginning of itself. People and everything in the universe should follow Dao, and through Dao everything can be achieved without effort and exertion, without rules and regulations, and without interference with nature.
De means virtue or quality, and it is the whole of the spontaneity or naturalness of the world derived from Dao.
De is the intrinsic quality of everything in the universe. It is De that makes a man become a real man, so De is the ingrain quality of human being, the summation of man’s gift and talent.
Laozi held,”Dao produces a thing; De maintains it.”Zhuang Zi believed “That which things get in order to live is called De.”
The relation between De and Dao is just like that between the water in river. De is what an individual thing receives from Dao, the materialization of Dao.
Wuwei is another important tenet of Daoism. Wuwei means “non-doing”, but it does not mean “doing nothing”, yet it does mean “to do or act naturally”,”the effortless action”.
This Daoist philosophical thought involves knowing when to act and when not to act. It is the natural action just as planets revolve around the sun; they “do”this revolving, but without “doing”it; or as trees grow, they “do”, but without “doing”. There is no need for man interfering with the flow of reality, but it is action that should be spontaneous and effortless.
Zhuangzi turns to analogies and fables to illustrate the idea of wuwei, one of which is the story of a butcher called Ding who learned what it means to wuwei through the perfection of his craft.
On the whole, the concept of wuwei is a state of mind for man to gain spiritual peace and tranquility, and it is the principle towards life for man to act naturally or to do the natural things.
Dao De Jing(Book of the Way and its Power) is the doctrine of Daoism consisting of both prose and poetry with 81 chapters and about 5,000 words. The book is divided intotwo parts: the Daojing (Chapters 1-3 7) and the Dejing (Chapters 38-81). It begins by explaining that “the Dao that can be told of or illustrated is not the same as the Dao that cannot be told of or explained,”which immediately highlights the gist point of the book, which is the significance of Dao.
Dao De Jing is fundamental to both the Daoist school of Chinese philosophy and Chinese religion, and it considerably influenced other schools, such as Legalism, Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism. Many Chinese artists have taken the advantage of the book as a source of inspiration for artistic creation.
With hundreds of translations into foreign languages, the influence of the Dao De Jing has spread extensively in Asia and even in Europe and America.
Another important classics of Daoism is Zhuangzi or the Book of Master Zhuang or Nan Hua Jing because Zhuang Zi was conferred with the title “Perfect Man of Nanhua”by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty.
Zhuangzi consists of Inner Chapters(7 chapters), Outer Chapters(15 chapters), and Miscellaneous Chapters(11 chapters). Scholars and experts generally hold that the Innerchapters were written by Zhuang Zi himself and the other chapters are elaborations and explanations of Zhuang Zi’s ideas partially written by Zhuang Zi’s disciples or supplemented by people of later ages.
Some fables and analogies used by Zhuang Zito illustrate his ideas have become household idioms, such as “Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly”,”learn the Handan walk”,”the happiness of fish”,”three at dawn and four at dusk”,”Butcher Ding”.
Daoism as religion flourished in the Wei and Jin dynasties. The Tang Dynasty esteemed Daoism and the emperors regarded Laozi as the ancestor of the Royal Li family by revering Laozias “Tai Shang Xuan Yuan Emperor”(Super-sovereign). Emperors in Song Dynasty, most notably Huizong, were very active in promoting Daoism. However, Daoism began to decline gradually in Qing Dynasty because the rulers gave preference to Lamaism.
Daoism has been influential in all aspects of Chinese culture, for example, Chinese alchemy, astrology, fengshui culture, witchcraft, some martial arts and styles of qigong, traditional medicine, even cuisine are closely related with Daoism.
