“When the reality of the non-ultimate [non existent] and the essence of

Having reviewed the historical context of Chinese philosophy that led to the blending of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism into the enduring tradition of Neo-Confucianism, our next steps are to examine specific thinkers who contributed to its metaphysical foundations starting with Zhou Dunyi (Chou Tun-i), the “father” of Song dynasty Neo-Confuciansim. He was born at Yangdao in Daozhou (modern state of Huan) in 1017 and lived until 1073. He was both a magistrate and a professor, known for his love of all life. His major works were Taijtu or An Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate and Tongstu or Penetrating the Book of Changes.²

Zhou starts by discarding one feature of earlier Taoist thought, the negative side of Tao as non-being, perhaps as it approximates too closely Buddhist thought which the Neo-Confucianists hoped to replace. Instead he speaks of the T’ai-chi or the Great Ultimate as the source of all things starting with the forces of yin and yang. The primeval Great Ultimate is active hence the source of yang, but as it exhausts itself becomes tranquil generating yin. The interaction of these two in turn leads to the Five Elements (also called the Five Phases) – water, fire, wood, metal, and earth – which are not things as such, but the principles of things. Their interactions proceed to create the rest of reality.³ We have perhaps our first complete Chinese cosmology which explains how the many are ultimately One and the means by which the One is differentiated in the many.⁴

Zhou introduces us to the Diagram of the Great Ultimate, a symbolic representation of these propositions hauntingly similar to the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism.

At the top is the mystic phrase: “The Ultimateless and yet the Great Ultimate” above an empty circle. Just below is the black and white banded circle, representing both the Great Ultimate and its progeny yang or movement and yin or quiescence. Beneath this is the web of interconnectivity of the Five Elements which are above another circle with the qian (ch’ien) or the male principle on the left and the kun (k’un) or yin or the female principle on the right. The lowest circle symbolizes the production and transformation of the myriad things engendered by the circle above.⁵

(continued next post)

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¹Koller, John M., Oriental Philosophies. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1970. ISBN 684-13668-6, page 255.

²McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 104.

³Koller, John M., Oriental Philosophies. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1970. ISBN 684-13668-6, page 254.

⁴Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972. Volume 2, page 92.

⁵McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 105.

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We pick up now with our overview of the Chinese tradition of Neo-Confucianism. After the fall of the Han dynasty in the 3^rd century C.E., Taoism and Buddhism became dominant while Confucianism waned. This dominance lasted until the end of the Tang dynasty which declined after the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763) and finally fell in 907 leaving a fragmented and chaotic China. Meanwhile Han Yu (768-824), a government official, had written an influential text, Essentials of the Moral Way (or An Inquiry on the Tao) in 805, in which he promoted a return to Confucianism, although he was exiled thereafter.¹

When the Song dynasty appeared in 960, a period of peace and prosperity followed climaxing in a remarkable period of philosophical flourishing in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Scholars at this time concentrated on adding to the prevailing Confucian ethics a metaphysical foundation derived from Taoist and Buddhist teachings. This phase of Neo-Confucianism, known as Hsing-li hsüeh or ‘the school of Nature and Principle’ was initially dominated by the ‘rationalists’ starting with Zhou Dunyi who proposed the evolution of the universe from the Great Ultimate through the two material forces yin and yang.

Later rationalists referred to the Great Ultimate in dualistic terms: Principle or li and Material Force or qi (ch’i). In this theory, Principle is the law according by which a thing exists while Material Force actualizes things. Other thinkers suggested Principle endows man’s nature which is thus originally good since the Principle of Nature is universal truth with its imperative to do good. Others defined a Neo-Confucian cosmology where Material Force is itself dual as substance and activity.²

The second rail in this tradition encompasses the ‘idealists’ or ‘the school of the Mind.’ In the 12^th century Lu Hsiang-shan proposed Mind and Principle are really the same, and include all things, hence, one can apprehend all things by investigation of the mind. This branch peaked in the 16^th century in the thought of Wang Yang-ming who emphasized the direction of the mind or ‘will’. Still later idealists sought to bring the concrete further into the domain of human mental experience.³

To be sure, Neo-Confucian metaphysics is complex, even abstruse, but in the next few posts I hope to dissect our some of their more original thinking as we try to round out our understanding of ultimate reality as presented in Chinese philosophy.

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¹Hardy, Grant, Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition. The Great Courses, Chantilly, Virginia, 2011. Pages 71-72.

²Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972. Volume 2, pages 92-93.

³Ibid., pages 93-94.

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“Nature is nothing else than Law.”

Those of us from the West with our traditions of three major religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – and our manifold philosophies – stoicism, epicureanism, and skepticism for the ancients and empiricism, idealism, positivism, and existentialism for the moderns – should not be surprised that multiple movements developed simultaneously in China. The three main traditions  – Confucianism, Taoism, and imported Buddhism – although originally distinct, began cross-fertilizing, and at last became intertwined. Neo-Confucianism, the term applied to the evolving composite of these three systems, was first formulated in the 10^th century and endured into  the 20^th century.

The followers of Confucius brought into the amalgam much of their social mores and political philosophy whereas Taoism and Buddhism added metaphysical, mystical and spiritual elements, and key ethical principles. It is not possible to extract from the blend strictly Taoist concepts, in fact any ascription is ultimately arbitrary , but I will attempt in this next series of blogs to tease out that portion of the metaphysics, ethics, and later thinking that most appears to build upon the earlier Taoist edifice.

Unfortunately the propagation of Taoism within Neo-Confucianism is far too complicated to be presented in one or two posts, so I offer the following outline of this subsection::

1. Introduction
2. Historical overview.
3. Zhou Dunyi (Chou Tun-i)
4. Zhang Zai (Chang Tsai).
5. The Cheng Brothers.
6. Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi).
7. Wang Yangming.
8. Other thinkers
9. Summary and synthesis.

We will start with a review of the history of the origination and progression of  Neo-Confucian thought. We then take up critical metaphysical thinkers in rough chronological order, starting with Zhou Dunyi and Zhang Zai and their concepts of the Great Ultimate and Neo-Confucian cosmology followed by the Cheng brothers with their emphasis on human nature as proxy of the principle of the world. Thereafter we will meet Zhu Xi who professes a dualist metaphysics of principle and material force followed by Wang Yangming who focuses on goodness and moral action. Last we will look briefly at the contributions of a few less consequential, but still notable thinkers and end with a summary and synthesis.

Prepare for an epic ride!

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¹Durant, Will, Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963. ISBN0-671-54800-X, page 732.

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One sect, known as Tien-shih Tao or ‘Taoism of the Celestial Master,’ began with Chang Tao-ling, a prominent early Taoist, who migrated west and claimed to have brought all of the demons and spirits under his power enabling him to protect his followers against all evil. This power was transmitted to his line of descendants who by 1016 dwelled on the Dragon and Tiger mountain (Lung-hu shan) in Kiangsi creating a kind of Taoist ‘papacy’ that lasted into the 20^th century. Among its rituals of repentance included some of ecstatic and orgiastic character.⁹

Taoism continued to evolve mainly to counteract the arrival of Buddhism in China. The focus on immortality continued, but leaders increasingly taught that immortality came from moral conduct and ascetic practices. Under the T’ang Dynasty (618-906) the Taoist ‘church’ and monasticism were strongly supported by the government which also persecuted the Buddhists.  Monks and nuns pledged to keep several ‘commandments’ such as not to kill, steal, lie, eat meat, drink alcohol, or engage in sexual activity.¹⁰

There appeared a puritan streak at this time authored by Lu Tung-pin (755-805) whose accounting system of moral merits and demerits climaxed in the The Book of Rewards and Punishments during the Sung Dynasty wherein years of life were lost for immorality. By the fifteenth century, the Taoist Canon (Tao-tsang) was published outlining three ‘Domains of Purity’ (San-ch’ing ching): (1) the domain of the saints or ‘Jade Purity’, (2) the domain of these who unite with Tao or the ‘Highest Purity’ and (3) the domain of the immortals or ‘Greatest Purity.’ The deities over these domains were reconfigured as the highest Taoist trinity.¹¹

Through the last millenium, new sects appeared and trends developed which exceed the needs of this site, and elements of Taoism and Buddhism mixed with Confucianism to create Neo-Confucianism which is the subject of our next section. My source states that, at least as of its 1988 publication, Taoism as a religion is still alive in China and Taiwan and has been acknowledged by the government of mainland China since 1957. It remains for most Chinese the worship of Nature and the desire for harmony with it. Taoist tradition supports the Socialist construction of the state and the goal of world peace and religious freedom.¹²

SUMMARY

Taoism as a religionhas offered a shifting pantheon of deities, an ethic of moral turpitude and purity in harmony with Nature, and the admirable goal of Universal Peace. Laozi and the other Taoist philosophers might cringe to see how their teachings were distorted by later societies, but then again, perhaps not. At least Guo Xiang, if not the others, might recognize that a reverence for Nature includes respect for human nature as well through which people invariably seek to identify themselves with a personal ultimate being over an impersonal one.

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⁸Zaehner, R.C., Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions. Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1997. ISBN 0-76070-712-X, pages 380-381.

⁹Ibid., pages 382-383.

¹⁰Ibid., pages 386-387.

¹¹Ibid., pages 387-389.

¹²Ibid., pages 391-392.

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For the diligent reader who has perused the last 33 blogs covering the I Ching, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Liezi, and Guo Xiang, doubt may have arisen as to whether Taoism should be classified as a philosophical school rather than a religion, so today we muddy the water with a brief consideration of later-appearing theological elements. The philosophical purist may choose to skip this and the next blog, but may miss out on a telling example of how philosophy may be contorted into a religion.

We travel back to Chinese prehistory where beliefs in that region were most likely similar to those of other primitive societies – a mix of animistic fear and worship, reverence for fertility and reproduction, adoration of the heavens, and deification of ancient leaders.² Taoism offered a more sophisticated foundation and as it spread, the ineffable Tao, was imagined to have emanated itself into being as the Supreme God, Yüan-shih t’ien-tsun or the ‘Celestial Venerable of the Mysterious Origin.’ Official worship began during the first Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 8 C.E).³

By the second century C.E., Laozi was seen as a god originating through a supernatural conception. Miraculous cures and elixirs of immortality appeared and sacrifices and commemorative rituals developed in order to allow its proponents to achieve the aid of unseen spirits. Over time a complete religion evolved with temples and priests. ⁴ By the third century C.E. the One had become a trinity (possibly due to Christian influence) with the two other divine manifestations being T’ai-lao tao- chün or the “August Ruler of the Tao,’ and T’ai-shang lao chün or ‘August Old Ruler’ – considered a divine incarnation and saint.⁵

Meanwhile, following 60 years of political instability and natural catastrophes, a new sect, the Yellow Turbans appeared. Their rebellion in 184 C.E. was led by Chang Chio – considered a messiah by his followers. He taught that the misfortunes of their society were due to sin and that confession and atonement could lead to T’ai-p’ing’ or Universal Peace. This sect’s supreme deity was called Huang-lao-chün or ‘Yellow Old Ruler’ and considered the god of both the external macrocosm and the interior of man.⁶

Not surprisingly the belief in immortality in an abode of paradise took hold in the developing Taoist religion.  The search for the deathless utopia ensued. Some thought it was blessed islands off the coast of Shangtung, and the first  Ch‘ in emperor sent out ships to find them. Additional locations of paradise were postulated including the summit of K‘un-lun mountain in West China, where His-wang-mu or the ‘Western Royal Mother’ (the god of medicine) resided.⁷

(continued next post)

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¹Durant, Will, Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963. ISBN0-671-54800-X, page 787.

²Ibid., page 783.

³Zaehner, R.C., Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions. Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1997. ISBN 0-76070-712-X, page 378.

⁴Durant, Will, Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963. ISBN0-671-54800-X, page 783-786.

⁵Zaehner, R.C., Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions. Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1997. ISBN 0-76070-712-X, page 381.

⁶Ibid.

⁷Ibid., page 380.

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Wu wei is now explained: one must not try to intellectually solve the riddle of correct action, but instead ‘go with the flow.’ Non-action is not no action, but natural, spontaneous action. Consider Guo Xiang’s commentary:

“Without-action (wuwei) does not mean doing nothing. Let everything do what it does, and then its character will be satisfied.”⁷

In brief, the question is not what one does, but how one does it, meaning without external influence or confromity to conventional standards. This applies to the individual as well as society; since everything changes, it is natural for us and society to change. We should not imitate past sages, nor attempt to return to historical norms.

This takes us to a paradox; human action is, in a sense, always artificial, but artificial action is natural for humans. Practicing Taoism then is acting without excessive deliberation of what is natural versus artificial, and by ‘remembering to forget,’ one may enter the mysterious oneness of heaven and earth.⁸ A related paradox is that wisdom is not the acquisition of knowledge, rather the sage is wise because it is his or her character to be wise. And imitation of the sage is contrary to the Tao unless it is the spontaneous behavior of the individual.⁹

We end with Guo Xiang’s description of the sage:

“There has never been a person who has roamed over the transcendental world to the utmost and yet was not silently in harmony with the mundane world, nor has there been anyone who was silently in harmony with the mundane world and yet did not roam over the transcendental world. Therefore the sage always roams in the transcendental world in order to enlarge the mundane world. By having no deliberate mind of his own, he is in accord with all things.”¹⁰

Take a moment to let all of that sink in.

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⁶McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 81-82.

⁷Ibid., page 82.

⁸Ibid., page 83.

⁹Ibid., page 83.

¹⁰Koller, John M., Oriental Philosophies. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1970. ISBN 684-13668-6, page 43.

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“…if God is being and not

Having completed our examination of ultimate reality and human connection to it as presented by the three great classical Taoists – Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi – we jump five centuries to the later Han dynasty where we encounter the great medieval Taoist, Guo Xiang (Kuo Hsiang; died 312 C.E.). In conjunction with his senior contemporary, Xiang Xiu (Hsiang Hsiu), he edited the Chuang Tzu, cutting the number of chapters from fifty-two to thirty-three while adding an authoritative commentary on Zhuangzi’s thinking. For our purposes, I will attribute the text to Guo Xiang, though in fact it is the blended effort of these two third century scholars. It is also important to note that Guo Xiang was influenced by other currents of the time – particularly the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove who practiced qing tan or the art of pure philosophical conversation and the Xuan Xue or ‘Mysterious Teachings.’²

The first clarification Guo Xiang makes is definitional; the Tao is not ‘the first cause’ or ‘God’ but ‘spontaneous order’ or perhaps ‘spontaneous processes.’ Consider the following astonishing quote:

“Tao is nothing. How can it cause the gods to be divine and the world to be produced? It does not cause the gods to be divine, but they are divine themselves. So Tao causes them to be divine by not causing them. Tao does not produce the world, but the world produces itself. So Tao produces it by not producing it…Tao is everywhere, but everywhere it is nothing.”³

Guo Xiang is denying substantialistic thinking with regard to Tao which for him is more akin to a field of interrelatedness. Things arise spontaneously by contextual processes of interaction and transformation. Guo Xiang also rejects the classic deterministic trap of eternal reversion:

“We may claim that we know the cause of certain things, but there is still the question: what is the cause of these causes? If we continue to ask this question again and again, we have to stop at something that is spontaneously self-producing and is what it is. We cannot ask about the cause of this something. We can only say that it is.”⁴

This causeless ‘is-ness’ is the very nature of Tao. In the West, we might think of the phrase, ‘necessary existence,’ but Guo Xiang coins the seemingly more descriptive, if not fully comprehensible phrase – ‘self-so-ing’ (ziran) which can perhaps be understood alternatively as ‘being-so’ or ‘the way a thing is by itself.’ While this sounds much like the Existentialist term, ‘being-in-itself,’ Guo Xiang suggests something more, i.e. the capacity for self-transformating (duhua), hence not mere static being, but an intrinsically dynamic process of being.⁵

(continued next post)

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¹Underlining added by me to emphasize Macquarrie’s originally italicized words.

²McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 80.

³Ibid., pages 80-81.

⁴Ibid., page 81.

⁵Ibid.

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The sixth chapter, Endeavor and Destiny, contrasts the ways of humanity or ‘endeavor’ with the course of nature or ‘destiny’ (ming). Liezi tells us that while people think they accomplish things by their own efforts, in truth, they are destined to achieve wherever they succeed. However Liezi is not advocating strict fatalism regarding our actions, only reiterating the desirability of following the path of natural spontaneity rather than of premeditated action. He uses the analogy of the swimmer following the current rather than fighting against it.⁵

In the eighth chapter, Explaining Conjunctions, he solidifies this principle suggesting that the coincidence of seemingly chance events informs how one ought to act. Again we are encouraged to discard societal conventions and preconceived goals in order to align ourselves with nature’s procession  Liezi uses the example of one’s shadow which mirrors the shape of the body and follows its actions. Similarly, we are urged to track the non-human world in which we find ourselves.⁶

Finally we back up to the seventh chapter, Yang Zhu, which offers a different nuance of spontaneity. Yang Zhu was often attacked by the Confucians for his reported selfishness when he said he would not be willing to sacrifice one hair from his shin to save an empire. Liezi parlays this into the choice of a hedonistic self-indulgence and pursuit of pleasure as another spontaneous and natural choice for the Taoist. Like the Epicureans, however, he warns us of the ills of over-indulgence. In short, the life of disciplined pleasure and enjoyment free of conventional restraints can be seen as an alternative path of genuine spontaneity.⁷

We close now with the following quote from one of the apocrypha discourses inspired by the I Ching hexagram Ch’ien, the Creative. It attributes to Liezi the following mystical description of ultimate reality framed as a translation of the 14^th chapter of the Daodejing:

“It is said (by Lieh-tsu): There is a primal change, a primal beginning, a primal origin, and a primal creation. The primal change is the state in which energy does not yet express itself. The primal beginning is the state in which energy originates; the primal origin is the state in which form originates; the primal creation is the state in which matter originates. When energy, form, and matter are present, but not yet separate, we call this chaos. Chaos means the state in which all things still exist mixed together and have not yet separated one from another. If one looks at it there is nothing to see; it if one listens to it there is nothing to hear; if one follows it one obtains nothing.”⁸

Once again I leave the reader to reflect on words that stop one’s thinking in its tracks.

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⁵McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 78.

⁶Ibid.

⁷Ibid., pages 78-79.

⁸Wilhelm, Hellmut, Change – Eight Lectures on the I Ching. Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey, 1973. ISBN 0-691-01787-5, page 82. The Westerner is reminded of the hierarchy of Platonic metaphysics.

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“The great Lieh Tzu could ride the wind, going to the edges without concern, but returning after fifteen days. In search of good fortune he knew no boundaries. Although he never had to bother with walking, nevertheless he needed some way of getting around.  If instead he had risen through the naturalness of Heaven and Earth, travelled on the six elemental forces and voyaged into the unknown and unlimited, he would have to depend on nothing! The perfect man has no self; the spiritual man has no merit; the holy man has no fame.”

We stop now briefly to meet the last of the three great classical Taoists, Liezi (also Lieh Tzu or  Lieh Yu Kou). His eponymous book was compiled about 300 C.E., although the man, if not mere myth, was apparently a contemporary of Zhuanzi as the epigram above suggests. Whatever the case, according to experts, the collection of eight chapters attributed to him presents Taoist teachings more clearly than the earlier texts by Laozi and Zhuangzi, echoing their principles, but with variation of nuance.

The first chapter, Heaven’s Gift, restates the principle that life and death are part of a natural cycle and one should not cling to either, but instead embrace the cycle. Liezi gives several arguments for his position: (1) opposites are complementary, so one cannot exist without the other, that is, life and death are natural transformations of the comic life force, qi (or ch’i), (2) personal identity is an illusion created by social conventions, thus clinging to life is an unnatural obsession with an artificial self, (3) nothingness is our original home to which we must expect to return, and (4) death is nothing to be feared, rather it is a deserved rest and liberation from the burdens of living.²

The second chapter, Yellow Emperor, explains the Taoist theory of ideal action done selflessly and purposelessly in harmony with nature. Using the example of himself as a skilled archer who nonetheless sweats and trembles when asked by his master to shoot while perched over a precipice, Liezi is chastised for his self-conscious fear that produces the very danger such internalizing can evoke. Wu wei then is action in harmony with the Tao free of self-awareness – ‘the action of no-action.”³

The third through fifth chapters explore reality, illusion, and human knowledge. In King Mou of Zhou, Liezi tells us life is a dream, but dreams are real and necessary. However, instead of yearning for a higher realm, the Taoist learns to merge with nature. In Kongzi, he shows how practical knowledge and conventional distinctions only serve to distort one’s natural spontaneity and are signs one is falling out of harmony with the Tao. In The Questions of Tang, we learn that human knowledge is ultimately limited while the world has no limit, space and time being infinite. Excessive analysis of reality and actions only blurs the world and our place in it while uncontested concordance with Tao is the sagacious course.⁴

(continued next post)

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³Palmer, Martin (translator), The Book of Chuang Tzu. Penguin Books, New York, 2006, ISBN-13; 978-0-140-45537-3, page 3.

²McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 06-270085-5, page 77.

³Ibid.

⁴Ibid., pages 77-78.

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“Let us set down as an incontestable maxim that the first movements of nature are always right.”

Our summary of Zhuangzi’s understanding of ultimate reality as the ontological and epistemic absoluteness of Tao that guides optimal human behavior and meaning is now complete. It now falls to our lot to seek points of integration into a coherent, modern philosophical system and to expose any weaknesses or inconsistencies in its description.

We begin with the two ‘natures’ – Nature (the terrestrial world and the cosmos) and true human nature or hsing. Here we find some consonance with Western philosophers like Rousseau (see epigram), with Native Americans, and perhaps with Hinduism where the word ‘nature’ is replaced by the word ‘self.’ It seems deep contemplatives typically tend to discover a fundamental confluence of external reality writ large with their inmost essence. For example the world displays eternal motion and activity as does the human mind. On the other hand, human excellence requires the attenuation of insular thinking, the development of mental clarity (ming), and, at last, harmonization of oneself with the course of Nature.

Tao then is simply the name given by Zhuangzi and others to the undeniable facticity and supremacy (as best humans can know) of the rhythm of the Cosmos. Virtue, purpose, contentment, freedom, salvation, and a kind of timeless immortality converge in the unfettered alignment with this universal order and flow. By virtue of its universal accessibility and utter simplicity, anyone can achieve apotheosis and comprehensive meaning.

But we must be careful before we accept Zhuangzi in toto. Because of his historicity he could not know the difference between common, often flawed knowledge and that of rigorous science. By abandoning the latter, we risk missing the chance not only to better understand the Tao, but also our unique opportunity as humans to bring about transformations that align with and catalyze the cosmic trajectory. To be sure, contemplation must be thorough to assure true accord with Nature, but much positive progress has occurred in the last 2300 years which we should not callously abandon.

There are other areas to critique. First, language may be flawed, but still it functions better than any other means available to us to advance human understanding not only of science, but of the Tao itself. Second, the speculation of metaphysical immortality based on tying oneself to Tao seems at best wishful thinking and at worst self-defeating, a sleight of hand that removes one’s eventual death as the focal point for a productive and meaningful life. Last, Zhuangzi does not present Tao as ‘God’, but any impersonal ultimate ‘being’ ends up religiously unappealing as the Deists discovered two millenia later.

For me, I can only say that in contemplation, I encounter a connection with the workings of the universe and Nature. Like Zhaungzi, I feel this connection informs a foundation for ethics, an elevated ground for purpose, a path to tranquility, and a context for meaning. It also offers the gloss of an eternalizing of the self. I urge readers to engage in such contemplation and share their experience.

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