Things to keep in mind when learning Taoist thought and culture
All things are encompassed by the Tao, which cannot be divided.
- We should trace all things back to the Tao. Once this has shaped our own way of thinking, we can use the Tao in turn to explain all things.
- The Tao is the underlying principle; appearances are specific things.
- The Tao can explain infinitely many appearances.
- The tip of a pyramid can give rise to countless bricks.
- That is: being comes from nonbeing.
- The greatest being comes from nonbeing; the most yang comes from the most yin.So the world is dualistic; the character “opposite” comes into play too.
- Reach a state of utmost nonbeing, and you can transform it into a state of utmost being.Return to the Tao, and you can encompass all things.
- When it reaches its most yin state, it transforms into its most yang state.: The two elements can transform into each other; this transformation gives rise to “return.”
The purpose of this course on the Dao De Jing
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- The course is about the heavenly principles and the Great Dao—the core formula of life.
- Many of the problems we encounter in life, and the questions in various fields discussed by different teachers, are simply altered and transformed versions of this underlying formula.
- Bodhisattvas are inherently formless. Put in scientific terms, they are a mass of higher-dimensional energy, without form.
- But when a bodhisattva guides Tang Sanzang, it can manifest as an eminent monk.
- When guiding petty people, it can manifest as a demon and use the awe-inspiring power of the Vajra to awaken them.
- A bodhisattva can manifest in all kinds of forms, but its essence is formless.
- The Buddhist relationship between form and emptiness
- The Heart Sutra: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; form is no different from emptiness, emptiness is no different from form.”
- It is also Laozi’s relationship between yin and yang, being and nonbeing.
- “Form” is all the phenomena in the world that people see.
- “Emptiness” is the underlying source and principle—the core principle.
- So form is emptiness, and emptiness is also form.
- “Emptiness”: the explanation of the Dao in core classics such as the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi, though it is not true emptiness.
- Because true emptiness is the Dao itself, which cannot be spoken of.
- We can only understand it through the first layer of “form”—the original texts of the Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi. The original texts are a form, an abstract description of the Dao.
- Then we can understand it by combining this with the lower layer of “form”—all the things in everyday life.
- Original texts of the classics
- Chapter 28 of the Dao De Jing: “The great order does not divide”; “order” refers to the system, scale, and general picture of heaven, earth, and all things. The different events in life are fundamentally one and the same. This is the core spirit of the Dao De Jing.
- The “Tianxia” chapter in the miscellaneous chapters of Zhuangzi
- “Judge the beauty of heaven and earth, analyze the principles of the myriad things, and examine the wholeness of the ancients.”
- What does it really mean to judge the beauty of heaven and earth? : The beauty of heaven and earth is nature. Nature is a state in which yin and yang are not divided, where all phenomena are unified as one.
- One can analyze the principles of all things.
- “Ancients” does not refer to people from the past in a temporal sense. It refers to people who were close to the Dao, whose understanding of things had not been divided into distinctions.
- “Wholeness”: Many things are fundamentally one and the same.
- “Few can embody the beauty of heaven and earth or match the countenance of the divine.”
- This is Zhuangzi’s regret and sympathy for later generations.
- Later generations are rarely able to truly encompass the beauty of heaven and earth, or to truly recognize a complete system: the Great Dao itself.
- People themselves have fragmented the world, so their understanding is fragmented too.
- Accord with the nature of the divine.
- “Accord” means to conform. “The divine” refers to the Dao: the fundamental law of the universe, the law that governs all things.
- Zhuangzi considered this law wondrous and called it “the divine.”：People should accord with this divine state—in other words, view the world holistically and resolve the various perplexities of life.
- People throughout the world each pursue what they desire, taking their own approach as the way.
- A financial literacy teacher takes a piece from the Dao, conjures a particular form from it, and uses it to teach financial literacy.
- A family education teacher takes a piece from the Dao and conjures a theory from it to teach family education.
- How lamentable!：How sad!
- The hundred schools go forth without returning; they are bound to fall out of harmony.
- This sentence can guide you throughout your life.
- “The hundred schools” has two meanings.
- The contention of the hundred schools of thought in Zhuangzi’s time.：The disputes among different schools of thought; in Zhuangzi’s view, all these teachings arose from the Dao.
- Connecting this to contemporary life.
- The various perplexities and situations we encounter across different areas of life are, in fact, all examples of “the hundred schools.”：We think they are separate things, which is why Zhuangzi says they “go forth without returning.” We branch out from the Dao, from the tip of the pyramid. What was originally one unified meaning splits into countless fields, until we can no longer return.
- People today feel at odds with life: fragmented, conflicted, and constantly struggling with themselves.：This is because something has gone wrong with the way people understand the world, so naturally their way of handling things is also out of harmony.
- Scholars of later generations, unfortunately, fail to see the purity of heaven and earth or the great wholeness of the ancients.
- Zhuangzi believed that scholars in his own time had already begun to fragment their understanding.
- Today, that fragmentation is even greater.
- The world today is filled with a dazzling variety of things. People see it as flourishing and full of novelties, but young people increasingly find that trends come full circle.
- People are starting to revive things from the 80s–90s.：People have discovered that this path of going forth without returning leads nowhere; they cannot simply keep going. Fragmentation grows, things become more complex, and ever more novel, unusual, and clever ideas emerge. In the end, people find themselves farther from their inner selves, so they are forced to turn back.
- Unfortunately, people today have not seen heaven and earth in their purest state.：What is the purest state of heaven and earth? It is the fundamental state in which all things remain undivided.
- “Purity” and “great wholeness” mean the same thing as “duality in unity” and the “Dao”; they are other names for the Dao.
- The way of the Dao will be fragmented by the world.：“The way of the Dao” means the Great Dao—the underlying logic that people throughout the world have fragmented.
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- Resolving life’s perplexities：The Zhuangzi opens with “Free and Easy Wandering”; what is true free and easy wandering?; It means that one's understanding has reached the Dao itself—an undivided whole whose grand design cannot be carved apart. Then, when dealing with things, one can see their essence at a glance, without agonizing, wavering, or clinging, and without being misled by myriad appearances. Freedom and ease arise naturally.
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- Resolving educational dilemmas
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- Daoist thought can help you tackle half of the classical Chinese passages on the gaokao