TOAISM NOTES FOR 1ST QUARTER - 4TH QUARTER

N:/A

1. TAOISM
•Maybe 225 million followers
•Yin/Yang far older in Chinese thought than
Taoist/Confucian schools.
"We believe in the formless and eternal Tao,
and we recognize all personified deities as
being mere human constructs. We reject
hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary
violence, and embrace harmony, love and
learning, as we are taught by Nature. We
place our trust and our lives in the Tao, that
we may live in peace and balance with the
Universe, both in this mortal life and
beyond.“--Creed of the Western Reform
Taoist Congregation

2. •Lao Tzu (Tze) are both figures of the
“axial age” (800-200 BCE), along with
Confucius, Buddha, and Greek
progenitors of philosophy.
•Laozi is held to be the author of the
Tao de Ching

3. Laozi (Lao Tze) the “Old
Master” on his water
buffalo
•Whether he existed
or whether the Tao
te Ching is a
composite work is
contested.
•But approximately
a contemporary of
Confucius and of
Greek pre-Socratic
philosophers.

4. Yin Yang
•Taoist symbol. "It
represents the
balance of
opposites in the
universe. When
they are equally
present, all is calm.
When one is
outweighed by the
other, there is
confusion and
disarray."

5. Eastern Wisdom by C. Chuh

6. Compare with:
•Chi Lu asked about serving the
spirits. Confucius said, "If you
can't yet serve men, how can
you serve the spirits?"  Lu
said, "May I ask about death?"
Confucius said, "If you don't
understand what life is, how
will you understand death?"
•Confucius said: "If you govern
the people legalistically and
control them by punishment,
they will avoid crime, but have
no personal sense of shame. If
you govern them by means of
virtue and control them with
propriety (li), they will gain
their own sense of shame, and
thus correct themselves."
--Analects 11:11 & 2:3

9. The Tao Te Ching
(Book of the Way and of Virtue)
The Tao: What is it?
•1. The way of ultimate reality; way of the universe;
way of human life. The root source or first-cause of
the universe: "that which makes things what they
are.”
Metaphors of the Tao: The uncarved block, the
baby, the ‘watercourse way’.
•2. The ‘path’ one should take or follow; nature’s
way adopted as a normative guide to one’s
conduct.

10. Mysticism and the Limits of Language
and Discursive Understanding
•The Tao as indescribable & mysterious: “The way
that can be spoken of is not the everlasting way”
---TTC, 1.
• “We look at it and do not see it;
Its name is The Invisible.
We listen to it and do not hear it;
Its Name is The Inaudible.
We touch it and do not find it;
Its name is The Subtle (or Formless).
These three cannot be inquired further into,
and hence merge into one….
Infinite and boundless, it cannot be given name;
It reverts to nothingness…It is the Vague and
Eluding.”
—TTC, 14.

11. • “A bait is used to catch fish. When you
have gotten the fish, you can forget about
the bait. A rabbit trap is used to catch
rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, you
can forget about the trap. Words are used
to express meaning. When you understand
the meaning, you can forget about the
words.
Where can I find a man who forgets about
words in order that I may talk with him?”
--Zhuangzi

12. Mysticism in the
‘coincidence of opposites’
•We find aspects of one in the other (being &
nonbeing; yin & yang; the “dots” on the
yin/yang symbol)
•Western thought more a “conflict dualism,”
Eastern more “complementary contraries.”
Change in Taoism seen as “cyclical reversal”
between Yin and Yang poles.
•The Tao as both the ‘higher synthesis’ of
complementary opposites, and as the unitary
source out of which they are differentiated.

13. Cosmogony in the Tao Te Ching:
“Something undifferentiated was born before
heaven and earth; still and silent, standing
alone and unchanging, going through
cycles unending, able to be mother to the
world. I do not know its name; I label it the
Way. Imposing on it a name, I call it
Great”—TTC, 25
•“Tao produced the One. The One produced
the two. The two produced the three. And
the three produced the ten thousand
things”—TTC, 42

14. Taoism and ethics
1.Wu Wei (actionless action i.e.
let nature take its course)
2.Virtue (te) in Taoist perspective
3.Intellectual humility as an
ethical virtue

15. 1. Wu Wei: Actionless Action
•“The Way of heaven helps and does not harm. The Way for
humans is to act without contention.”— TTC, 81
•“Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing
left undone.” "The tao of heaven does not strive, and yet it
overcomes. It does not speak, and yet it is answered....The
world is ruled by non-action, not by action.“—TTC, 37
•“The sage never strives for the great, and thereby the
great is achieved.”---TTC, 34
•“Do non-doing, strive for non-striving, savor the flavorless,
regard the small as important, make much of little, repay
enmity with virtue.”—TTC, 63

16. “Be water, my friend!”—Bruce Lee
•“Stiffness is thus a companion of death, flexibility a companion of
life” (TTC,76).
•“Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet
when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it,
because they have no way to change it” (TTC, 78).
•It is because they do not contend that no one can contend with
them”---TTC, 22. “The best person is like water...It is because he
does not compete that he is without reproach”— TTC, 8
•The ‘way of the intercepting fist’: of attacking but turning the
opponent’s energy against him .
•“Using no way as way; having no limitations as limitation”: This
Bruce Lee wore as an insignia medallion for the rest of his short life,
his own unique appropriation of the Taoist ideal of actionless action.
•http://www.metacafe.com/watch/23744/bruce_lee_lost_interview/

17. 2. Virtue
•“The Way is always uncontrived, yet there’s nothing it
doesn’t do. If lords and monarchs could keep to it, all
beings would evolve spontaneously…By not wanting
there is calm, and the world will straighten itself.” —TTC,
37
•“The Sage wants to have no wants…The sage embraces
unity as a model for the world.” — TTC, 22.
•“Cultivate it in yourself, and the virtue is real; cultivate it
at home, and that virtue is abundant; cultivate it in the
nation, and that virtue is rich; cultivate it in the world,
and that virtue is universal” —TTC, 54
•Habituation restores natural virtue: “When there is a
motive to be virtuous, there is no virtue” —TTC

18. ‘Stoic’ temperament in the face of fate
•Laozi states, “All that happens without
us knowing why is destiny…For one who
trusts destiny, and his mind, there is
nothing agreeable or offensive.” (232).
•The Taoist and the Stoic: Life is serene
if we accept things as they come;
accept changes as natural. “Sorrow is
merely a state of mind and may not be
warranted by the circumstances. Hence
whether or not you feel sad … is all in
the mind.” (237).

19. 3. Intellectual humility
•“Those who know do not say; those
who say do not know. Close the
senses, shut the doors; blunt the
sharpness, resolve the
complications; harmonize the light,
assimilate to the world”—TTC, 56

20. The limits of knowledge
•Knowing is not like ‘mirroring’ an objective reality
(i.e., what Heaven or nature makes). It is always
inevitably relational and situational. But often in
the West we take knowing as mirroring, and the
human ‘contribution’ as merely tarnishing or
clouding the mirror.
•Just as Taoist ethics rejects altruistic rules and
expectations, making place for greater
individuality, the Taoist approach to knowledge is
too psychologically acute to accept knowledge as a
mere ‘mirroring’ of nature. As with the philosopher
William James, ‘The trail of the human serpent’ over
what we take as truth and knowledge is too
apparent.

21. The “Three Sages” from a
Taoist Perspective
•1) K'ung Fu-tse (mispronounced
"Confucius") - considered life to be
sour. He felt that the world was a
disorderly place, which had to be
controlled.
2) Buddha - considered life to be
bitter. He saw the world as full of
pain and illusion, full of attachments
and traps. He felt that we must work
spiritually to rise above these things.
3) Lao-tse - considered life to be
perfect & wonderful as is. He saw a
natural harmony that could be
experienced by anyone at anytime.
He believed the world to be a teacher
of valuable lessons, and that we
should embrace the wonder of every
moment.

22. Chinese Multiple
Religious Participation
•A history fairly harmonious interplay
(sporadically upset) between the
three major religions of China.
Example of sharing the community
temple, rather than ‘jealously’
guarding it & excluding one others.
•“The co-existence of Confucianism,
Taoism, and Buddhism is not merely
an existence side by side in the same
land, they also coexist in the same
mind. That is, the same individual
may subscribe to all three value
systems at the same time…People of
MRP practice more than one religion
with a recognition that these are
different religions. They do it without
making an effort to integrate them
into one single religion on the basis
of some common tenets.”—C. Li

23. Science and/or Mysticism?
•“Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches;
scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science
does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science;
but man needs both.” —Taoist saying/ F. Capra, The Tao of
Physics
•“Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed
to one another. They are in the sense that the thumb and
fingers of my hand are opposed to one another. It is an
opposition by means of which anything can be grasped” –W.
Gragg in God for the 21
st
Century
•“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can
experience is the sensation of the mystical…It is the source of
all art and science…The religious geniuses of all ages have
been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which
knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s
image….Science without religion is lame, religion without
science is blind.”--Albert Einstein, The World as I See It (1934)

24. Western science and
Eastern mysticism?
•Niels Bohr’s self-designed ‘coat of arms,’
featuring Yin/Yang and “contraries in
complementarity.”
•“It is wrong to think that the task of
physics is to find out how Nature is.
Physics concerns what we can say
about Nature.”
•“The opposite of a correct statement is
a false statement. But the opposite of
a profound truth may well be another
profound truth.”
•At the micro-level, quantum physics tells
us there’s no ultimate substance-brick of
the universe. “It is no more particulars
than energy-packets; nor more energy
packets than particles…Both ‘this’ and
‘that’ are different ways for the same entity
to be” (C. Li)

25. Stayin’ in ‘the pivot of the Tao’
•“When there is no more separation of ‘this’ and ‘that,’ it is called the pivot
of the Tao. At the pivot in the center of the circle one can see the infinite
in all things.”—Zhuangzi
•“To know the Tao is not to discriminate against alternatives, but to be
open to them” (C. Li). Staying at the pivot of the ‘potter’s wheel of
Heaven’ is called “letting both alternatives proceed.”
•“Everything is a ‘that,’ and everything is a ‘this.’ You cannot see it as a
‘this’ if you are from the viewpoint of ‘that’; you see it as a ‘this’ when you
are from the viewpoint of ‘this’… Thus the sage does not bother with
these distinctions but sees all things the way they are….” “The Way is the
pivot of all things”—TTC 47

26. Ch’i Energy
•Each person must nurture the Ch'i (air, breath)
that has been given to them. Taoists strongly
promote health and vitality.
• Tai chi as an art of the balance of forces
•Tai chi works on all parts of the body, to
"stimulate the central nervous system, lowers
blood pressure, relieves stress and gently
tones muscles without strain. It also
enhances digestion, elimination of wastes and
the circulation of blood. Moreover, tai chi's
rhythmic movements massage the internal
organs and improve their functionality."
Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that
illness is caused by blockages or lack of
balance in the body's "chi" (intrinsic energy).
Tai Chi is believed to balance this energy flow.

27. Acupuncture & Meridians

29. Y/Y and the Five Elements

31. Chinese acupuncture
•Cultural “incommensurability” (‘no
common measure’) between Western
and Eastern explanations of pain.
•Ch’i energy travels throughout the
body along channels, or “meridians”.
•The method of selecting points along
for acupuncture anesthesiology:
"where a meridian traverses, there
is a place amenable to treatment.”
•This doesn’t jibe with Western
explanations; from the Western
perspective, its success is an
“anomaly.”

32. CTM & Western Medicine
•Different attitudes to acupuncture highlight
contrasting views of the the physician. The “gardener”
and the “mechanic.”
•Mechanic: structure determines function, and
structure is purely physical. Focus on parts to be
fixed.
•Gardener: Patient is viewed as a complete integration
of body and mind.
•Theory-dominant vs. practice-dominant orientations.
The Chinese generally more concerned about efficacy
than about explanation.
•CTM is “holistic” in directing itself to the person as a
physiological and psychological unity. Analyze not the
sickness but rather understand the sick person to
restore balance and health.
•“Eastern medicine’s traditional view of the body takes
the body’s mode in the opposite direction from modern
medicine’s procedure of anatomy first, then
physiology, and only finally psychology.”--Yuasa