Laozi himself tells us (in chapter 20) that he, at least, values drawing
sustenance
from the Mother.
Teaching-the-Daode-Jing
,'' in Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 283-321; Liu Xiaogan, Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters, trans.
William Savage (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1994).
20. Graham initially proposed the latter two categories to represent two major authorial voices in the Zhuangzi. Liu Xiaogan preferred the categories ''anarchist''
third-person and first-person approaches 29
and ''huang-lao'' to Graham's ''primitivist and ''syncretist,'' but, unlike Graham, he related these voices in Zhuangzi to larger intellectual movements. In this aspect,
I follow Liu. For the references, see the previous note.
21. I accept the Mawangdui variants of fu yan and fu zhi instead of the received text's bu yan and bu zhi. The negative adverb fu implies a direct object, whereas the adverb bu does not and is therefore more vague. The received text contains many examples of this sort, where a relatively clear text has been made vaguer and thus more ''mystical. '' See Lau, Chinese Classics, 218, 80.
22. For examples of this kind, see my essay ''The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,'' in Mark Csikszentmihalyi and P. J. Ivanhoe, eds. , Religious and Philosophical Aspects of Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999, 59-96. This is an excellent collection and provides a philosophical complement to the Kohn and LaFargue collection.
23. Lau, Chinese Classics, p. xl.
24. Ryden, Edition of the Bamboo-Slip Laozi, 206.
25. Donald Harper, ''The Bellows Analogy in Laozi V and Warring States Mac-
robiotic Hygiene,'' Early China 20 (1995): 381-392.
26. Ryden, Edition of the Bamboo-Slip Laozi, 207.
27. I read the last character in the line, tu (sincere, serious, solid), as a loan
for tu (also sincere, but can mean supervisor, to inspect, to correct), which when combined with the character mai (meridian) in Chinese medicine refers to the central supervisory meridian that controls the flow of yang qi in the human body. This is the reading in the Mawangdui recension. I interpret this passage to mean that the dominant mode by which emptiness is attained is by concentrating on the center.
I think the center here refers to the center of the body where breathing is experi- enced, and thus the passage commends focusing on breathing in order to attain emptiness.
28. LaFargue, Tao of the Tao Te Ching, 62-63.
29. Henricks, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
30. The twelfth essay of the Huainanzi, ''The Responses of the Way,'' consists of
a series of narratives presented to illustrate various statements from the Laozi. Each narrative ends with the formula, ''And so the Laozi, says . . . '' This ''reverse com- mentary'' genre is also found in the ''Commenting on Laozi'' and ''Explaining Laozi'' chapters of the Hanfeizi.
31. Allan Chan, ''A Tale of Two Commentaries: Ho-shang-kung and Wang Pi on the Lao-tzu,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 89-118, is a sum- mary of his book on the same subject. Isabelle Robinet, ''Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 119-142, is a masterful essay in which the late Professor Robinet provides insights from many Laozi commentaries that are virtually unknown to modern scholarship, both East Asian and Western.
32. Julia Hardy, ''Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 165-185.
33. Robinet, ''Later Commentaries,'' 121.
30 approaching the daode jing
34. The justification for this is detailed in my essay ''The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis. ''
35. This is one example of a more pervasive pattern of early Daoist meditation. For further details, see my essay ''Evidence for Stages of Meditation in Early Taoism,'' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60, no. 2 (June 1997): 295-314.
36. Evolutionary biology posits that all human beings (Homo sapiens) share a common genetic pool, whether they live in North America or in China, whether they live today or three thousand years ago. According to geneticist F. S. Collins, human beings are ''99. 9% genetically identical. '' ''Genome Research: The Next Generation,'' in The Genome of Homo Sapiens, ed. Bruce Stillman and David Stewart (Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. : CSHL Press, 2003), 50. Geneticists Y. Sasaki et al. state, ''Homo sapiens is a unique organism characterized by its highly developed brain, use of complex languages, bipedal locomotion, and so on. These unique features have been acquired by a series of mutation and selection events during evolution in the human lineage and are mainly determined by genetic factors encoded in the human genome. ''Hu- man versus Chimpanzee Chromosome-wide Sequence Comparison and Its Evolu- tionary Implications,'' in Stillman and Stewart, The Genome of Homo Sapiens, 455. This common genetic heritage leads to the common physiology and neurophysiology that distinguishes human beings from the other higher hominids.
? The Dao and the Field: Exploring an Analogy
Robert G. Henricks
Several years ago while looking for a way to explain to a class the meaning of Laozi's Dao (the Way, literally a road or a path), I hit upon an analogy that has proved to be quite fruitful. It is an anal- ogy that provides us with a model for understanding the nature of the Dao and the nature of its operations. It also provides us with a way to understand Laozi's moral philosophy, and it may help us understand what Laozi believed with regard to life after death/ immortality.
The analogy is drawn between the Dao and a field--not a farmer's field which is groomed and cultivated for the purpose of raising a single, hybrid crop, but a ''natural'' field, one left un- tended, one that is barren and deserted in the winter but filled with a host of different wildflowers throughout the spring and summer.
The appropriateness of this analogy and its usefulness for understanding the thought of Laozi will become clear once we see what Laozi himself said about the Dao. And to begin this task there is probably no better place to start than with the beginning of the book itself, the opening lines of chapter 1:
The Dao that can be told of is not the eternal Dao:
The name that can be named is not the eternal name. 1
A cryptic start to a cryptic book. Laozi tells us that anything he says about a Dao, after all, will not be about a true, eternal, or
32 approaching the daode jing
constant Dao. But at the same time he seems to confirm, in this backward way, that there is some such reality. Whatever the Dao might be, it is eternal and abiding. Moreover, there might be a name that is appropriate to it, a name that is equal to its reality, an eternal name, but the names we use do not qualify for such status.
All in all, the opening lines seem to suggest what is often suggested in mystic literature: that there is a transcendent, eternal reality, with which we may come into contact but that lies beyond the realm of precise description. All attempts to talk about it somehow fall short of conveying a true sense of what it is. That this is Laozi's meaning seems to be confirmed, as a matter of fact, in the very next line of chapter 1, where he calls the Dao the ''Nameless. '' He adds, moreover, that in this aspect it is the origin of the phenomenal world, the beginning of all things: ''The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth. ''2
But the label ''Nameless'' can be understood in two different ways. It can mean, as we have suggested, something for which an appropriate name cannot be found. But it might also refer to a time or a condition of things--undiffer- entiated reality--when distinct phenomenal forms had not yet appeared, a state lacking nameable realities. The Chinese for ''Nameless'' (wu ming) allows both of these interpretations (i. e. , not having a name and not having names), and as it turns out the Dao for Laozi is ''nameless'' in both ways. The Dao is that elusive, difficult to describe, single reality that existed prior to, and gave rise to, all other existing things.
Thus in chapter 14, where problematically ''names'' are assigned to the Dao, we find the following:
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 (formless).
These three cannot be further inquired into, And hence merge into one. 3
And in chapter 25 we have this:
There was something undifferentiated and yet complete,
Which existed before heaven and earth.
Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger.
It may be considered the mother of the universe.
I do not know its name; I call [or, I would style it] Dao. If forced to give it a name, I shall call it Great. 4
This is a telling statement on the nature of the Dao. It reports motifs that we already know: that the Dao is eternal, undifferentiated, the source of the phe- nomenal world, and something vague and elusive. But to this is now added the sense that the Dao is a reality that continues to be functional after creation, insofar as it is something that operates everywhere, and of course this also tells us that it is omnipresent. Moreover, the distinction that is made here between ''name'' (ming), which we do not know, and ''style'' (zi--Wing-tsit Chan ''calls it''), is informative. In China a person's name (personal name, that is, not surname) is given at birth; it is personal and rarely used in direct address. But the ''style'' is taken at capping age (around 20), and it is less personal, more publicly used, and less a part of that person's reality--who he or she really is. The word Dao has this ''style'' kind of relation to the reality at hand.
Laozi does venture here, when forced of course, to find some name to use for this reality, choosing the word da, the Great. But Kaltenmark has probably caught the import of this when he says, ''It is clear that he [Laozi] is using da in an absolute sense: the Immense, the Incommensurable. ''5
There is one more thing that Laozi tells us in chapter 25 which is important for our understanding of the nature of the Dao. He says, ''It may be considered the mother of the universe. '' When we move into the realm of image and metaphor, we find that Laozi depicts the Dao as a very feminine reality indeed. And to be more precise, as the line here makes clear, as something like a mother.
Three kinds of evidence can be called forth to support this and draw it out. To begin with, Laozi explicitly refers to the Dao as the ''Mother'' in no fewer than five different chapters. In addition to the reference already noted in chapter 25, in chapter 1, picking up the text where we left off, we find: ''The Named is the mother of all things [literally, the ten thousand things]. ''6 In chapter 20 Laozi laments that he alone values ''drawing sustenance from Mother (Dao). ''7 Chapter 52 begins, ''There was a beginning of the universe, Which may be called the Mother of the universe. ''8 And in chapter 59 the statement is made, ''He who possesses the Mother (Dao) of the state will last long. ''9
Second, the Dao is often pictured as womblike or vagina-like in its capacity as the source and originator of all forms. At the end of chapter 1, womb and vagina symbolism are both quite explicit. The Dao is said to be ''deeper and more profound, the door of all subtleties. ''10 An inexhaustible womb is the image portrayed at the opening of chapter 4: ''Dao is empty (like a bowl). It may
the dao and the field 33
34 approaching the daode jing
be used but its capacity is never exhausted. ''11 As a womb the Dao would contain all things in essence or seedlike form, and chapter 21 seems to me to support this:
The all-embracing quality of the great virtue follows alone from the Dao.
The thing that is called Dao is eluding and vague. Vague and eluding, there is in it the form [or forms]. Eluding and vague, in it are things.
Deep and obscure, in it is the essence.
The essence is very real; in it are evidences. 12
Chapter 6, without question, is the best chapter to cite in this regard. Called here the ''spirit of the valley,'' the valley itself being a symbol of constant fertility, the Dao is again described in terms of womb and vagina. But again in contrast to its mammalian counterpart, this is a source that can never be used up, one that will last forever:
The spirit of the valley never dies.
It is called the subtle and profound female.
The gate of the subtle and profound female.
Is the root of Heaven and Earth.
It is continuous, and seems to be always existing. Use it and you will never wear it out. 13
The third point to be made on behalf of the maternal nature of the Dao is that the Dao not only contains all things and brings them forth to life, but it also continues to function in a maternal way in the rearing of its children. That is to say, it nourishes them and protects them and brings them to maturity and completion. And in providing sustenance and care for all things, it has no favorites. Yet in contrast to its human counterpart, it does not seek to control and direct that growth, nor does it ever claim credit for the work it has done.
There are two chapters in the text that make this point, chapters 34 and 51. Chapter 34 reads:
The great Dao flows everywhere.
It may go left or right.
All things depend on it for life, and it does not turn away from them. It accomplishes its task, but does not claim credit for it.
It clothes and feeds all things, but does not claim to be master
over them.
Always without desires, it may be called the Small.
All things come to it and it does not master them; it may be called the Great.
Therefore (the sage) never strives himself for the great, and there by the great is achieved. 14
In chapter 51 two points of interest are added: the Dao and its virtue (really Power) are ''naturally'' honored and esteemed for what they do even though they promise no reward (in contrast, perhaps, to the honor and esteem ac- corded state rulers), and the involvement of the Dao in the complete life cycle of its children is neatly underscored:
The Dao brings them to life and virtue nourishes them.
Substance gives them form and ability completes them.
Therefore the 10,000 things honor the Way and esteem virtue.
No one rewards this honoring of the Way and esteeming of virtue. And yet they are constantly so of themselves.
The Way brings them to life, nourishes them, develops them, rears them, rests them, makes them secure, cares for them, and protects them.
It brings them to life, and yet it does not possess them.
It brings them to action, and yet it does not make them dependent. It brings them to completion, and yet it does not rule over them. This is called the Profound Virtue. 15
We may now turn with benefit to explore the analogy. My contention is that in the model of a field of wildflowers passing through the seasons we have an almost perfect model for grasping the nature of the Dao in its totality--we can see it, as it were, prior to, during, and after creation.
Let us approach it this way. Were we to go to an untended field in the midst of the winter, we might see no form of life whatsoever. There would be nothing but a still, silent void, with nothing for the senses to grasp. Did we not know better, we would presumably conclude that there was no relationship whatso- ever between this inert mass and the variety of forms, sounds, and smells that we know as summer life.
But were we to return to that field sometime in mid-June, we would find that the most marvelous of transformations had occurred. The very same field that had been barren and still is now the scene of bustling activity, covered with ten thousand (as it were) different forms of life. There are sunflowers and nightshade and butter-and-eggs and chicory, hundreds of kinds of wildflowers, all different shapes and colors and sizes, some tall and some short, some with one big flower, others in tiny clusters, to say nothing of the many nonflowering
the dao and the field 35
36 approaching the daode jing
grasses. And just as there seems to be an infinite number of kinds, there is as well an infinite number of each kind.
It would now seem clear to our minds that what had appeared to us in winter to be an inert, sterile void was in reality a fecund, perhaps inexhaustible womb, containing the seeds for all forms of life. Had we dug into the earth in winter, of course, we would never have detected these forms--there would have been only one, undifferentiated, homogeneous earth. And yet somehow, mysteriously, in the most minute, infinitesimal forms, the seeds of all these many plants, as yet indistinguishable, were there all the time.
The work of the field does not stop with springtime creation. Just as it made no distinctions in bringing forth a variety of forms, so too it remains impartial through the summer in providing support and nourishment for all, bringing all of the plants to completion of their natural life cycles. It does this all, however, somewhat mysteriously, with no sign of any ''action'' on its part at all. It, like the Dao, does indeed do everything by seeming to do nothing at all. 16 And the marvel of it all is that though none of this would have come to be without the soil--the earth--the field itself never claims any credit. Instead, it remains in the background, assuming a low and withdrawn position. We lose sight of the real source for all this beauty; our senses are captivated by the variety of forms and colors and smells. After all, the field, in contrast, is drab and uninteresting.
In discussing our field point for point have we not in fact also been talking about Laozi's Dao? They are both, before they give birth, still and tranquil, the undifferentiated one. They might appear to be lifeless but are in fact fecund wombs. They both bring into being a multitude of forms and provide nour- ishment for all alike. They bring all things to completion but claim no credit and act without force. It is only in its cyclical character that the field seems to vary from the Dao. The field passes through cycles of creation and destruction, of evolution and devolution of plant life. But although the Dao's forces may wax and wane, total cosmic reabsorption, a swallowing up periodically of even Heaven and Earth, does not seem to be part of its movement.
We can continue with the analogy. Although the field makes no demands on the plants for which it provides, there is one obvious condition that must be met for any flower that wants to realize its given nature, destiny, and life span, that condition being that it must keep its roots in the ground. A sunflower will never realize its ''sunflowerness'' and will never live the four to eight weeks possible for its species if it forgets its origins and tries to make it on its own, uprooting itself from its very source of sustenance.
It is the same for man, I think, in Laozi's terms. The only way for a man to realize his particular way of being human, and to realize his given span of years,
is somehow to keep his roots planted in the Dao.
Laozi himself tells us (in chapter 20) that he, at least, values drawing sustenance from the Mother. And in chapter 52 he talks of holding on to the Mother, even after we have become aware of her sons, and he says that one who does so will remain free from harm throughout his life:
There was a beginning of the universe
Which may be called the Mother of the universe. He who has found the mother (Dao)
And thereby understands her sons (things),
And having understood the sons,
Still keeps to its [their] mother,
Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime. 17
Our analogy, however, perhaps breaks down at this point, in that Laozi seems to assume that this is precisely what most people do not do. In contrast to our flowers in the field, people can and do go against the natural way of things: they turn their backs on the mother and become uprooted. Or, to put it another way, as Laozi does in chapter 53, people ought to stay on the Great Way, a road that is broad and smooth, but somehow they all delight in bypaths. 18
Thus, in the case of man a rupture occurs. And if a man is to be what he can be, if he is to realize his nature and destiny, a return must be made: he must get back to the highway, get back to mother Dao. Laozi speaks of re- turning to the roots in chapter 16, and perhaps this is what he means:
Attain complete vacuity.
Maintain steadfast quietude.
All things come into being,
And I see thereby their return.
All things flourish,
But each one returns to its root.
This return to its root means tranquility.
It is called returning to its destiny.
To return to destiny is called the eternal (Dao).
To know the eternal is called enlightenment.
Not to know the eternal is to act blindly to result in disaster. 19
The fitness of the field analogy for understanding the nature of the Dao ought to be clear by now. That it works so well might not be all that remarkable. One of the names used for the Dao at certain places in the Zhuangzi is in fact
the dao and the field 37
38 approaching the daode jing
the ''great Clod'' (that is, the great lump of earth). 20 And the Dao that Laozi talks about sounds in many ways like the Mother Earth deities that we find in other cultures at other times. To take but one example, when the Sioux holy man Black Elk speaks of the earth in the following passage, we are reminded of things Laozi says about the Dao: how it is the source for all things and how he himself draws nourishment from it.
Is not the sky a father and the earth a mother and are not all living things with feet or wings or roots their children? And the hide upon the mouthpiece here [Black Elk is describing a holy pipe],which should be bison hide, is for the earth, from whence we came and at whose breast we suck as babies all our lives, along with all the ani- mals and birds and trees and grasses. 21
Of course, the Dao is not exactly the same as Mother Earth. For example, in Black Elk's statement at least, the fecundity of the Earth is in some part dependent on the sky-father: life-giving rain and the heat of the sun come from him. Conversely, the Dao's creativity seems to be self-contained, and the Dao as a conception of ultimate reality is both more transcendent and more universal than that which we find in the Earth Mother. 22 The Dao is an eternal, unchanging, invisible reality that is somehow present everywhere, not localized in space. And the Dao gives birth to the entire universe, including Heaven and Earth, not just to man, the animals, and plants. Moreover, the use of the name Dao or Way for this reality underscores the identity of it with the ongoing process of change and transformation in the universe as a whole, just as it underscores the fact that there is a Way for man to live, that is, to remain in touch with the Way.
Still, the correspondence of Dao and Mother Earth is interesting, and it is tempting to think that somewhere behind Laozi's conception of the Dao lies an earlier belief in or veneration of a Mother Earth deity in China. However, we find little indication of this in the religious beliefs and practices of dynastic times. There is, apparently, evidence in the oracle bones of Shang (c. 1766- 1122 b. c. ) of sacrifices to the Earth, and the Zhou (c. 1122-249 b. c. ) did offer periodic sacrifices to the Earth, or at least to the Gods of the Land, at the she altars. 23 But in both cases, that is, in both the Shang and the Zhou, the masculine deities in the heavens, Shangdi (the Lord on High) and Tian (Heaven), and the royal ancestors held center stage. 24
This is a question that could be further explored. Perhaps this is simply another indication of Laozi's southern origins; the goddess form and the sacredness of the earth were perhaps more important in Chu. 25
I claimed at the start that the field analogy also sheds light on other aspects of Laozi's thought, and I would like to show how this works with two issues in particular: morality and immortality.
Although there are passages in the Laozi that could be interpreted to suggest that Laozi's ideal sage is harsh, calculating, and inhumane,26 the overall tenor of the text is moral. To put it more precisely, Laozi seems to have little quarrel with the Confucian ideal of the ''good man,'' namely, the man who is filial to his parents, compassionate to his children, loyal to his prince, and genuine in all his relationships. Laozi's quarrel with the Confucians is rather one of method. He implies that left alone, people would naturally manifest these traits, and that consciousness of virtue--that there is a ''good'' way to act that needs to be cultivated--in fact destroys the possibility of genuineness and spontaneity, without which there can be no true virtue.
This is what I conclude from reading the two passages where he attacks the Confucian virtues of humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi), and propriety (li), first in chapters 18 and 19 (which should be read as continuous) and then in chapter 38. From chapter 18:
When the great Dao declined,
The doctrine of humanity and righteousness arose.
When knowledge and wisdom appeared,
There emerged great hypocrisy.
When the six family relationships are not in harmony,
There will be advocacy of filial piety and deep love to children. When a country is in disorder,
There will be the praise of loyal ministers.
From chapter 19:
Abandon sageliness and discard wisdom;
Then the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Abandon humanity and discard righteousness;
Then the people will return to filial piety and deep love. Abandon skill and discard profit;
Then there will be no thieves and robbers.
From chapter 38:
The man of superior virtue is not (conscious of) his virtue, And in this way he really possesses virtue.
The man of inferior virtue never loses sight of his virtue,
the dao and the field 39
40
approaching the daode jing
And in this way he loses his virtue.
The man of superior virtue takes no action,
but has no ulterior motive to do so.
The man of inferior virtue takes action,
And has an ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior humanity takes action,
But has no ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior righteousness takes action,
and has an ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior propriety takes action,
And when people do not respond to it, he will stretch his arms
and force it on them.
Therefore when Dao is lost, only then does the doctrine of
virtue arise.
When humanity is lost, only then does the doctrine of righteous-
ness arise.
When righteousness is lost, only then does the doctrine of propri-
ety arise.
Now, propriety is a superficial expression of loyalty and faithful-
ness and the beginning of disorder.
Those who are the first to know have the flowers of Dao but are
the beginning of ignorance.
For this reason the great man dwells with the thick, and does not rest
with the thin.
He dwells with the fruit, and does not rest with the flower. Therefore he rejects the one, and accepts the other. 27
The analogy to the field might make this clearer. I interpret Laozi to be saying that all people feel and express compassion, filial piety, loyalty, and humaneness, and perhaps righteousness and propriety, just as all black-eyed susans have yellow flowers with a brown cone, daisylike heads of ten to twenty rays, and hairy stems of one to three feet in length. This is the natural condition of things, and just as in the natural field black-eyed susans grow this way spontaneously, unaware of it, in a sense effortlessly, so too, when the Dao has not declined, do people feel and express these attitudes spontaneously, effort- lessly, and without self-consciousness.
However, that is not to say that they all do so in the same way at the same time. Just as black-eyed susans differ from one another in their number of petals, in their length of stalks, and even perhaps in their shade of color, so too do people differ in their degree of feelings and their modes of expression.
But the evaluation of certain feelings and actions, the labeling of them as good, brings about self-consciousness and inevitably leads to the defining of a standard. The cultivation of virtue, like the cultivation of a field, aims at de- veloping a hybrid crop by weeding out variety. This means that one way of expressing loyalty will be set up as the true way; there will be only one true way to be filial in any given situation. And it would be comparable to saying that all black-eyed susans ought to have, say, fifteen petals, stems of two feet, and a dark shade of yellow to be ''good'' black-eyed susans.
If flowers are anything like people the results of this would be (a) conflict, as each flower takes its own properties as the standard for all to follow; (b) hypocrisy, as flowers deny their given properties and try to become something they are not; and (c) discontentment, dissatisfaction with one's given condi- tion when it does not match the norm.
All of this could be avoided by maintaining the variety, spontaneity, and natural harmony of the uncultivated field--that is, by returning to the Dao.
On the problem of afterlife/immortality, Laozi never comes right out and says that there is or is not life after death, or if there is, what it would be like. One can reach different conclusions on this point, depending on how one understands certain passages.
To begin with there are several places where Laozi claims that those who live in accord with the Dao will live out their life free from harm. At the end of chapter 16 we find: ''Being one with Nature, he is in accord with Dao. Being in accord with Dao, he is everlasting, and is free from danger throughout his lifetime. ''28 In chapter 32 we find: ''It is by knowing when to stop that one can be free from danger. ''29 This is repeated in chapter 44: ''He who knows when to stop is free from danger. Therefore he can long endure. ''30 Chapter 52 reads: ''He who has found the mother (Dao) and thereby understands her sons (things), And having understood the sons, Still keeps to its [their] mother, Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime. ''31 And finally in chapter 59 we find the conclusion: ''He who possesses the Mother (Dao) of the state will last long. This means that the roots are deep and the stalks are firm [note the relevance to the analogy], which is the way of long life and everlasting vision. ''32
Since no more than freedom from harm is claimed here, the conclusion seems to be that for the Daoist, long life--or at least to reach one's natural or destined end--is the limit of expectation. However, the words ''he is everlast- ing'' (chapter 16) and ''he can long endure'' (chapter 44) in these passages could be read as suggesting an unnaturally long life, or even continued life, either physical immortality or life beyond the limits of the body. 33
Physical immortality may be found in chapter 50, where we hear about one who is good at preserving his life:
the dao and the field 41
42
approaching the daode jing
I have heard that one who is a good preserver of his life will not meet tigers or wild buffaloes,
And in fighting will not try to escape from weapons of war. The wild buffalo cannot butt its horns against him,
The tiger cannot fasten its claws in him,
And weapons of war cannot thrust their blades into him. And for what reason?
Because in him there is no room for death. 34
In later Daoism, when it was thought that one could transform his body into something refined and subtle, and thus impervious to harm, through breathing exercises, drugs, and other means, these lines would be taken quite literally. And I do not know that we can conclude for sure that Laozi himself did not have that in mind. However, the lines are certainly open to other interpretations. For example, that tigers and buffaloes and weapons of war could not harm such a man might come about because he lives cautiously and avoids dangerous sit- uations. 35 Or it could be that he adapts to the natural tendencies of things and thus knows how to act with wild animals and soldiers so that they are not moved to anger. 36 That there is in him ''no room for death'' might only mean that he is not vulnerable in the ways that others are, that he will not be easily killed. Or it could mean that to the true Daoist ''death'' is not really ''death''; he does not dwell on or fear it as others do, and he can thus better avoid it.
The end of chapter 33 is also a problem area. There we have the lines: ''He who does not lose his place (with Dao) will endure. He who dies but does not really perish enjoys long life. '' What does this last line mean? On the surface of it, it seems to say that life can go on (perhaps in a spiritual way) even after the body dies, and that this is true long life (i. e. , not simply a matter of living many years). But maybe the death he speaks of refers to dying in a spiritual sense, a dying to the old ways, that is, and a rebirth to a life lived in accord with the Way. Or perhaps ''perish'' means to die an ''unnatural'' death, to come to an end before one's time: to reach one's natural end, then, is long life. Or finally, one could follow Wing-tsit Chan on this, who reads this as speaking of an im- mortality of virtue; so long as one is remembered by future generations one does not really perish. 37
There would seem to be three ways to read Laozi on the problem of af- terlife/immortality: (1) he believed in physical immortality, continual life in the body for those who had lived right and learned how to preserve their lives; (2) he believed in some form of life after death (not specified) for those who had become one with the Dao;38 and (3) he recognized death as final for all: the Daoist hope was for a long, natural life, free from danger and harm.
Moreover, the possibility of life after death may be understood in two different ways. It could be understood in a mystical sense. Insofar as the Dao is that one, eternal reality that gives rise to everything else, and insofar as the Daoist in some sense becomes one with the Dao, he could, at death, become fully identical with it--one with the eternal and unchanging. But in a more materialistic sense, insofar as the Dao is in some sense equivalent to the on- going process of life and material change, the Daoist could see death as just a stage in that process, and by developing matter and energy he does continue on.
The analogy of the field does not solve this problem; it does not show us for sure what Laozi thought. But it does help us visualize several distinct ways in which the problem could work out. The analogy does not, so far as I can see, support a notion of physical immortality; wildflowers do not continue on past their season. But that option aside, there are three different views to which it could point. One is that at death we merge once again with that storehouse of matter and vitality, the Dao, and that as matter and energy we are constantly recycled, reemerging in new forms of life, forms other than the human--in the analogy, the stuff of this year's sunflowers, bluebells, dandelions, and so on.
This is a view that other Daoist texts seem to draw out,39 and it is presented as the natural way of things, a prospect that we ought to be willing to accept and perhaps even look forward to. For example, in chapter 6 of Zhuangzi when a certain Master Li is on the verge of dying, his friend Master Lai says to him, ''How marvelous the Creator is! What is he going to make out of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat's liver? Will he make you into a bug's arm? ''40 And he continues:
The Great Clod burdens me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death.
So if I think well of my life, for the same reason I must think well of my death. When a skilled smith is casting metal, if the metal should leap up and say ''I insist upon being made into a Mo-yeh! '' he would surely regard it as very inauspicious indeed.
Now having had the audacity to take on human form once, if I should say, ''I don't want to be anything but a man! --Nothing but a man! ,'' the Creator would surely regard me as a most inauspicious sort of person. 41
Second, the field of flowers analogy could also lead to a transmigration of souls theory. That is to say, we could argue that the essence of each plant is contained in the seed, and that this provides a continuum of identity in the different plants that appear each year (i. e. , the seeds from this year's black-eyed susans will give rise to next year's).
the dao and the field 43
44 approaching the daode jing
I do not know of Daoists ever developing this possibility, but it was used by an early Chinese convert to Buddhism, Mouzi, to explain rebirth:
The spirit never perishes. Only the body decays. The body is like the roots and leaves of the five grains, the spirit is like the seeds and kernels of the five grains. When the roots and leaves come forth they inevitably die. But do the seeds and kernels perish? Only the body of one who has achieved the Way (here the Buddhist Way) perishes. 42
Finally, one could also conclude from looking at the field that unique forms of life are unique forms of life, that this year's flowers will live and die to be replaced by a totally new crop next year. In short, one might conclude that death is final, and that the best one can hope for is a long life of health, natural growth, and a natural end.
notes
This essay first appeared in St. John's Papers in Asian Studies series, no. 27, in 1981. It is reprinted with kind permission of St. John's University, Institute of Asian Studies.
1. Wing-tsit Chan, Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1963), 97. This is Chan's translation. Note that where I cite Chan's translation, words in parentheses are his own; my own comments or suggested var- iant translations are included in brackets. This article was written before I completed my own translation of the Laozi: Robert G. Henricks, tr. , Lao-tzu Te-tao ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui Texts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989).
2. Ibid. , 97. The silk texts of the Laozi, read differently here. They both say, ''The Nameless is the beginning of the 10,000 things. '' The silk texts (there are two, des- ignated chia and I) were discovered in 1973 in a Han dynasty tomb at Mawangdui in Changsha. They are the earliest known versions of the Laozi, dating from the first half of the second century b. c. While the content of the texts is generally the same as other known versions, there are occasional interesting variations, and I note some of these in the pages that follow. The silk texts are now readily available to Chinese scholars in book form in Laozi: Mawangdui Han mu bo shu (Peking: Wen-wu, 1975), hereafter cited as Laozi: Mawangdui. For the references to chapter 1, see p. 82.
3. Chan, The Way, 124.
4. Ibid. , 152.
5. Max Kaltenmark, Lao Tzu and Taoism, trans. Roger Greaves (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1969), 29.
6. Chan, The Way, 97. This is literally the ''10,000 things''; in some of my own
translations below I use that term. The term is a comprehensive way to refer to all forms of life.
7. Ibid. , 134.
8. Ibid. , 192.
9. Ibid. , 205.
10. Ibid. , 97.
11. Ibid. , 105.
20. Graham initially proposed the latter two categories to represent two major authorial voices in the Zhuangzi. Liu Xiaogan preferred the categories ''anarchist''
third-person and first-person approaches 29
and ''huang-lao'' to Graham's ''primitivist and ''syncretist,'' but, unlike Graham, he related these voices in Zhuangzi to larger intellectual movements. In this aspect,
I follow Liu. For the references, see the previous note.
21. I accept the Mawangdui variants of fu yan and fu zhi instead of the received text's bu yan and bu zhi. The negative adverb fu implies a direct object, whereas the adverb bu does not and is therefore more vague. The received text contains many examples of this sort, where a relatively clear text has been made vaguer and thus more ''mystical. '' See Lau, Chinese Classics, 218, 80.
22. For examples of this kind, see my essay ''The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis,'' in Mark Csikszentmihalyi and P. J. Ivanhoe, eds. , Religious and Philosophical Aspects of Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999, 59-96. This is an excellent collection and provides a philosophical complement to the Kohn and LaFargue collection.
23. Lau, Chinese Classics, p. xl.
24. Ryden, Edition of the Bamboo-Slip Laozi, 206.
25. Donald Harper, ''The Bellows Analogy in Laozi V and Warring States Mac-
robiotic Hygiene,'' Early China 20 (1995): 381-392.
26. Ryden, Edition of the Bamboo-Slip Laozi, 207.
27. I read the last character in the line, tu (sincere, serious, solid), as a loan
for tu (also sincere, but can mean supervisor, to inspect, to correct), which when combined with the character mai (meridian) in Chinese medicine refers to the central supervisory meridian that controls the flow of yang qi in the human body. This is the reading in the Mawangdui recension. I interpret this passage to mean that the dominant mode by which emptiness is attained is by concentrating on the center.
I think the center here refers to the center of the body where breathing is experi- enced, and thus the passage commends focusing on breathing in order to attain emptiness.
28. LaFargue, Tao of the Tao Te Ching, 62-63.
29. Henricks, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.
30. The twelfth essay of the Huainanzi, ''The Responses of the Way,'' consists of
a series of narratives presented to illustrate various statements from the Laozi. Each narrative ends with the formula, ''And so the Laozi, says . . . '' This ''reverse com- mentary'' genre is also found in the ''Commenting on Laozi'' and ''Explaining Laozi'' chapters of the Hanfeizi.
31. Allan Chan, ''A Tale of Two Commentaries: Ho-shang-kung and Wang Pi on the Lao-tzu,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 89-118, is a sum- mary of his book on the same subject. Isabelle Robinet, ''Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 119-142, is a masterful essay in which the late Professor Robinet provides insights from many Laozi commentaries that are virtually unknown to modern scholarship, both East Asian and Western.
32. Julia Hardy, ''Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 165-185.
33. Robinet, ''Later Commentaries,'' 121.
30 approaching the daode jing
34. The justification for this is detailed in my essay ''The Laozi in the Context of Early Daoist Mystical Praxis. ''
35. This is one example of a more pervasive pattern of early Daoist meditation. For further details, see my essay ''Evidence for Stages of Meditation in Early Taoism,'' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60, no. 2 (June 1997): 295-314.
36. Evolutionary biology posits that all human beings (Homo sapiens) share a common genetic pool, whether they live in North America or in China, whether they live today or three thousand years ago. According to geneticist F. S. Collins, human beings are ''99. 9% genetically identical. '' ''Genome Research: The Next Generation,'' in The Genome of Homo Sapiens, ed. Bruce Stillman and David Stewart (Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. : CSHL Press, 2003), 50. Geneticists Y. Sasaki et al. state, ''Homo sapiens is a unique organism characterized by its highly developed brain, use of complex languages, bipedal locomotion, and so on. These unique features have been acquired by a series of mutation and selection events during evolution in the human lineage and are mainly determined by genetic factors encoded in the human genome. ''Hu- man versus Chimpanzee Chromosome-wide Sequence Comparison and Its Evolu- tionary Implications,'' in Stillman and Stewart, The Genome of Homo Sapiens, 455. This common genetic heritage leads to the common physiology and neurophysiology that distinguishes human beings from the other higher hominids.
? The Dao and the Field: Exploring an Analogy
Robert G. Henricks
Several years ago while looking for a way to explain to a class the meaning of Laozi's Dao (the Way, literally a road or a path), I hit upon an analogy that has proved to be quite fruitful. It is an anal- ogy that provides us with a model for understanding the nature of the Dao and the nature of its operations. It also provides us with a way to understand Laozi's moral philosophy, and it may help us understand what Laozi believed with regard to life after death/ immortality.
The analogy is drawn between the Dao and a field--not a farmer's field which is groomed and cultivated for the purpose of raising a single, hybrid crop, but a ''natural'' field, one left un- tended, one that is barren and deserted in the winter but filled with a host of different wildflowers throughout the spring and summer.
The appropriateness of this analogy and its usefulness for understanding the thought of Laozi will become clear once we see what Laozi himself said about the Dao. And to begin this task there is probably no better place to start than with the beginning of the book itself, the opening lines of chapter 1:
The Dao that can be told of is not the eternal Dao:
The name that can be named is not the eternal name. 1
A cryptic start to a cryptic book. Laozi tells us that anything he says about a Dao, after all, will not be about a true, eternal, or
32 approaching the daode jing
constant Dao. But at the same time he seems to confirm, in this backward way, that there is some such reality. Whatever the Dao might be, it is eternal and abiding. Moreover, there might be a name that is appropriate to it, a name that is equal to its reality, an eternal name, but the names we use do not qualify for such status.
All in all, the opening lines seem to suggest what is often suggested in mystic literature: that there is a transcendent, eternal reality, with which we may come into contact but that lies beyond the realm of precise description. All attempts to talk about it somehow fall short of conveying a true sense of what it is. That this is Laozi's meaning seems to be confirmed, as a matter of fact, in the very next line of chapter 1, where he calls the Dao the ''Nameless. '' He adds, moreover, that in this aspect it is the origin of the phenomenal world, the beginning of all things: ''The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth. ''2
But the label ''Nameless'' can be understood in two different ways. It can mean, as we have suggested, something for which an appropriate name cannot be found. But it might also refer to a time or a condition of things--undiffer- entiated reality--when distinct phenomenal forms had not yet appeared, a state lacking nameable realities. The Chinese for ''Nameless'' (wu ming) allows both of these interpretations (i. e. , not having a name and not having names), and as it turns out the Dao for Laozi is ''nameless'' in both ways. The Dao is that elusive, difficult to describe, single reality that existed prior to, and gave rise to, all other existing things.
Thus in chapter 14, where problematically ''names'' are assigned to the Dao, we find the following:
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 (formless).
These three cannot be further inquired into, And hence merge into one. 3
And in chapter 25 we have this:
There was something undifferentiated and yet complete,
Which existed before heaven and earth.
Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger.
It may be considered the mother of the universe.
I do not know its name; I call [or, I would style it] Dao. If forced to give it a name, I shall call it Great. 4
This is a telling statement on the nature of the Dao. It reports motifs that we already know: that the Dao is eternal, undifferentiated, the source of the phe- nomenal world, and something vague and elusive. But to this is now added the sense that the Dao is a reality that continues to be functional after creation, insofar as it is something that operates everywhere, and of course this also tells us that it is omnipresent. Moreover, the distinction that is made here between ''name'' (ming), which we do not know, and ''style'' (zi--Wing-tsit Chan ''calls it''), is informative. In China a person's name (personal name, that is, not surname) is given at birth; it is personal and rarely used in direct address. But the ''style'' is taken at capping age (around 20), and it is less personal, more publicly used, and less a part of that person's reality--who he or she really is. The word Dao has this ''style'' kind of relation to the reality at hand.
Laozi does venture here, when forced of course, to find some name to use for this reality, choosing the word da, the Great. But Kaltenmark has probably caught the import of this when he says, ''It is clear that he [Laozi] is using da in an absolute sense: the Immense, the Incommensurable. ''5
There is one more thing that Laozi tells us in chapter 25 which is important for our understanding of the nature of the Dao. He says, ''It may be considered the mother of the universe. '' When we move into the realm of image and metaphor, we find that Laozi depicts the Dao as a very feminine reality indeed. And to be more precise, as the line here makes clear, as something like a mother.
Three kinds of evidence can be called forth to support this and draw it out. To begin with, Laozi explicitly refers to the Dao as the ''Mother'' in no fewer than five different chapters. In addition to the reference already noted in chapter 25, in chapter 1, picking up the text where we left off, we find: ''The Named is the mother of all things [literally, the ten thousand things]. ''6 In chapter 20 Laozi laments that he alone values ''drawing sustenance from Mother (Dao). ''7 Chapter 52 begins, ''There was a beginning of the universe, Which may be called the Mother of the universe. ''8 And in chapter 59 the statement is made, ''He who possesses the Mother (Dao) of the state will last long. ''9
Second, the Dao is often pictured as womblike or vagina-like in its capacity as the source and originator of all forms. At the end of chapter 1, womb and vagina symbolism are both quite explicit. The Dao is said to be ''deeper and more profound, the door of all subtleties. ''10 An inexhaustible womb is the image portrayed at the opening of chapter 4: ''Dao is empty (like a bowl). It may
the dao and the field 33
34 approaching the daode jing
be used but its capacity is never exhausted. ''11 As a womb the Dao would contain all things in essence or seedlike form, and chapter 21 seems to me to support this:
The all-embracing quality of the great virtue follows alone from the Dao.
The thing that is called Dao is eluding and vague. Vague and eluding, there is in it the form [or forms]. Eluding and vague, in it are things.
Deep and obscure, in it is the essence.
The essence is very real; in it are evidences. 12
Chapter 6, without question, is the best chapter to cite in this regard. Called here the ''spirit of the valley,'' the valley itself being a symbol of constant fertility, the Dao is again described in terms of womb and vagina. But again in contrast to its mammalian counterpart, this is a source that can never be used up, one that will last forever:
The spirit of the valley never dies.
It is called the subtle and profound female.
The gate of the subtle and profound female.
Is the root of Heaven and Earth.
It is continuous, and seems to be always existing. Use it and you will never wear it out. 13
The third point to be made on behalf of the maternal nature of the Dao is that the Dao not only contains all things and brings them forth to life, but it also continues to function in a maternal way in the rearing of its children. That is to say, it nourishes them and protects them and brings them to maturity and completion. And in providing sustenance and care for all things, it has no favorites. Yet in contrast to its human counterpart, it does not seek to control and direct that growth, nor does it ever claim credit for the work it has done.
There are two chapters in the text that make this point, chapters 34 and 51. Chapter 34 reads:
The great Dao flows everywhere.
It may go left or right.
All things depend on it for life, and it does not turn away from them. It accomplishes its task, but does not claim credit for it.
It clothes and feeds all things, but does not claim to be master
over them.
Always without desires, it may be called the Small.
All things come to it and it does not master them; it may be called the Great.
Therefore (the sage) never strives himself for the great, and there by the great is achieved. 14
In chapter 51 two points of interest are added: the Dao and its virtue (really Power) are ''naturally'' honored and esteemed for what they do even though they promise no reward (in contrast, perhaps, to the honor and esteem ac- corded state rulers), and the involvement of the Dao in the complete life cycle of its children is neatly underscored:
The Dao brings them to life and virtue nourishes them.
Substance gives them form and ability completes them.
Therefore the 10,000 things honor the Way and esteem virtue.
No one rewards this honoring of the Way and esteeming of virtue. And yet they are constantly so of themselves.
The Way brings them to life, nourishes them, develops them, rears them, rests them, makes them secure, cares for them, and protects them.
It brings them to life, and yet it does not possess them.
It brings them to action, and yet it does not make them dependent. It brings them to completion, and yet it does not rule over them. This is called the Profound Virtue. 15
We may now turn with benefit to explore the analogy. My contention is that in the model of a field of wildflowers passing through the seasons we have an almost perfect model for grasping the nature of the Dao in its totality--we can see it, as it were, prior to, during, and after creation.
Let us approach it this way. Were we to go to an untended field in the midst of the winter, we might see no form of life whatsoever. There would be nothing but a still, silent void, with nothing for the senses to grasp. Did we not know better, we would presumably conclude that there was no relationship whatso- ever between this inert mass and the variety of forms, sounds, and smells that we know as summer life.
But were we to return to that field sometime in mid-June, we would find that the most marvelous of transformations had occurred. The very same field that had been barren and still is now the scene of bustling activity, covered with ten thousand (as it were) different forms of life. There are sunflowers and nightshade and butter-and-eggs and chicory, hundreds of kinds of wildflowers, all different shapes and colors and sizes, some tall and some short, some with one big flower, others in tiny clusters, to say nothing of the many nonflowering
the dao and the field 35
36 approaching the daode jing
grasses. And just as there seems to be an infinite number of kinds, there is as well an infinite number of each kind.
It would now seem clear to our minds that what had appeared to us in winter to be an inert, sterile void was in reality a fecund, perhaps inexhaustible womb, containing the seeds for all forms of life. Had we dug into the earth in winter, of course, we would never have detected these forms--there would have been only one, undifferentiated, homogeneous earth. And yet somehow, mysteriously, in the most minute, infinitesimal forms, the seeds of all these many plants, as yet indistinguishable, were there all the time.
The work of the field does not stop with springtime creation. Just as it made no distinctions in bringing forth a variety of forms, so too it remains impartial through the summer in providing support and nourishment for all, bringing all of the plants to completion of their natural life cycles. It does this all, however, somewhat mysteriously, with no sign of any ''action'' on its part at all. It, like the Dao, does indeed do everything by seeming to do nothing at all. 16 And the marvel of it all is that though none of this would have come to be without the soil--the earth--the field itself never claims any credit. Instead, it remains in the background, assuming a low and withdrawn position. We lose sight of the real source for all this beauty; our senses are captivated by the variety of forms and colors and smells. After all, the field, in contrast, is drab and uninteresting.
In discussing our field point for point have we not in fact also been talking about Laozi's Dao? They are both, before they give birth, still and tranquil, the undifferentiated one. They might appear to be lifeless but are in fact fecund wombs. They both bring into being a multitude of forms and provide nour- ishment for all alike. They bring all things to completion but claim no credit and act without force. It is only in its cyclical character that the field seems to vary from the Dao. The field passes through cycles of creation and destruction, of evolution and devolution of plant life. But although the Dao's forces may wax and wane, total cosmic reabsorption, a swallowing up periodically of even Heaven and Earth, does not seem to be part of its movement.
We can continue with the analogy. Although the field makes no demands on the plants for which it provides, there is one obvious condition that must be met for any flower that wants to realize its given nature, destiny, and life span, that condition being that it must keep its roots in the ground. A sunflower will never realize its ''sunflowerness'' and will never live the four to eight weeks possible for its species if it forgets its origins and tries to make it on its own, uprooting itself from its very source of sustenance.
It is the same for man, I think, in Laozi's terms. The only way for a man to realize his particular way of being human, and to realize his given span of years,
is somehow to keep his roots planted in the Dao.
Laozi himself tells us (in chapter 20) that he, at least, values drawing sustenance from the Mother. And in chapter 52 he talks of holding on to the Mother, even after we have become aware of her sons, and he says that one who does so will remain free from harm throughout his life:
There was a beginning of the universe
Which may be called the Mother of the universe. He who has found the mother (Dao)
And thereby understands her sons (things),
And having understood the sons,
Still keeps to its [their] mother,
Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime. 17
Our analogy, however, perhaps breaks down at this point, in that Laozi seems to assume that this is precisely what most people do not do. In contrast to our flowers in the field, people can and do go against the natural way of things: they turn their backs on the mother and become uprooted. Or, to put it another way, as Laozi does in chapter 53, people ought to stay on the Great Way, a road that is broad and smooth, but somehow they all delight in bypaths. 18
Thus, in the case of man a rupture occurs. And if a man is to be what he can be, if he is to realize his nature and destiny, a return must be made: he must get back to the highway, get back to mother Dao. Laozi speaks of re- turning to the roots in chapter 16, and perhaps this is what he means:
Attain complete vacuity.
Maintain steadfast quietude.
All things come into being,
And I see thereby their return.
All things flourish,
But each one returns to its root.
This return to its root means tranquility.
It is called returning to its destiny.
To return to destiny is called the eternal (Dao).
To know the eternal is called enlightenment.
Not to know the eternal is to act blindly to result in disaster. 19
The fitness of the field analogy for understanding the nature of the Dao ought to be clear by now. That it works so well might not be all that remarkable. One of the names used for the Dao at certain places in the Zhuangzi is in fact
the dao and the field 37
38 approaching the daode jing
the ''great Clod'' (that is, the great lump of earth). 20 And the Dao that Laozi talks about sounds in many ways like the Mother Earth deities that we find in other cultures at other times. To take but one example, when the Sioux holy man Black Elk speaks of the earth in the following passage, we are reminded of things Laozi says about the Dao: how it is the source for all things and how he himself draws nourishment from it.
Is not the sky a father and the earth a mother and are not all living things with feet or wings or roots their children? And the hide upon the mouthpiece here [Black Elk is describing a holy pipe],which should be bison hide, is for the earth, from whence we came and at whose breast we suck as babies all our lives, along with all the ani- mals and birds and trees and grasses. 21
Of course, the Dao is not exactly the same as Mother Earth. For example, in Black Elk's statement at least, the fecundity of the Earth is in some part dependent on the sky-father: life-giving rain and the heat of the sun come from him. Conversely, the Dao's creativity seems to be self-contained, and the Dao as a conception of ultimate reality is both more transcendent and more universal than that which we find in the Earth Mother. 22 The Dao is an eternal, unchanging, invisible reality that is somehow present everywhere, not localized in space. And the Dao gives birth to the entire universe, including Heaven and Earth, not just to man, the animals, and plants. Moreover, the use of the name Dao or Way for this reality underscores the identity of it with the ongoing process of change and transformation in the universe as a whole, just as it underscores the fact that there is a Way for man to live, that is, to remain in touch with the Way.
Still, the correspondence of Dao and Mother Earth is interesting, and it is tempting to think that somewhere behind Laozi's conception of the Dao lies an earlier belief in or veneration of a Mother Earth deity in China. However, we find little indication of this in the religious beliefs and practices of dynastic times. There is, apparently, evidence in the oracle bones of Shang (c. 1766- 1122 b. c. ) of sacrifices to the Earth, and the Zhou (c. 1122-249 b. c. ) did offer periodic sacrifices to the Earth, or at least to the Gods of the Land, at the she altars. 23 But in both cases, that is, in both the Shang and the Zhou, the masculine deities in the heavens, Shangdi (the Lord on High) and Tian (Heaven), and the royal ancestors held center stage. 24
This is a question that could be further explored. Perhaps this is simply another indication of Laozi's southern origins; the goddess form and the sacredness of the earth were perhaps more important in Chu. 25
I claimed at the start that the field analogy also sheds light on other aspects of Laozi's thought, and I would like to show how this works with two issues in particular: morality and immortality.
Although there are passages in the Laozi that could be interpreted to suggest that Laozi's ideal sage is harsh, calculating, and inhumane,26 the overall tenor of the text is moral. To put it more precisely, Laozi seems to have little quarrel with the Confucian ideal of the ''good man,'' namely, the man who is filial to his parents, compassionate to his children, loyal to his prince, and genuine in all his relationships. Laozi's quarrel with the Confucians is rather one of method. He implies that left alone, people would naturally manifest these traits, and that consciousness of virtue--that there is a ''good'' way to act that needs to be cultivated--in fact destroys the possibility of genuineness and spontaneity, without which there can be no true virtue.
This is what I conclude from reading the two passages where he attacks the Confucian virtues of humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi), and propriety (li), first in chapters 18 and 19 (which should be read as continuous) and then in chapter 38. From chapter 18:
When the great Dao declined,
The doctrine of humanity and righteousness arose.
When knowledge and wisdom appeared,
There emerged great hypocrisy.
When the six family relationships are not in harmony,
There will be advocacy of filial piety and deep love to children. When a country is in disorder,
There will be the praise of loyal ministers.
From chapter 19:
Abandon sageliness and discard wisdom;
Then the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Abandon humanity and discard righteousness;
Then the people will return to filial piety and deep love. Abandon skill and discard profit;
Then there will be no thieves and robbers.
From chapter 38:
The man of superior virtue is not (conscious of) his virtue, And in this way he really possesses virtue.
The man of inferior virtue never loses sight of his virtue,
the dao and the field 39
40
approaching the daode jing
And in this way he loses his virtue.
The man of superior virtue takes no action,
but has no ulterior motive to do so.
The man of inferior virtue takes action,
And has an ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior humanity takes action,
But has no ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior righteousness takes action,
and has an ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior propriety takes action,
And when people do not respond to it, he will stretch his arms
and force it on them.
Therefore when Dao is lost, only then does the doctrine of
virtue arise.
When humanity is lost, only then does the doctrine of righteous-
ness arise.
When righteousness is lost, only then does the doctrine of propri-
ety arise.
Now, propriety is a superficial expression of loyalty and faithful-
ness and the beginning of disorder.
Those who are the first to know have the flowers of Dao but are
the beginning of ignorance.
For this reason the great man dwells with the thick, and does not rest
with the thin.
He dwells with the fruit, and does not rest with the flower. Therefore he rejects the one, and accepts the other. 27
The analogy to the field might make this clearer. I interpret Laozi to be saying that all people feel and express compassion, filial piety, loyalty, and humaneness, and perhaps righteousness and propriety, just as all black-eyed susans have yellow flowers with a brown cone, daisylike heads of ten to twenty rays, and hairy stems of one to three feet in length. This is the natural condition of things, and just as in the natural field black-eyed susans grow this way spontaneously, unaware of it, in a sense effortlessly, so too, when the Dao has not declined, do people feel and express these attitudes spontaneously, effort- lessly, and without self-consciousness.
However, that is not to say that they all do so in the same way at the same time. Just as black-eyed susans differ from one another in their number of petals, in their length of stalks, and even perhaps in their shade of color, so too do people differ in their degree of feelings and their modes of expression.
But the evaluation of certain feelings and actions, the labeling of them as good, brings about self-consciousness and inevitably leads to the defining of a standard. The cultivation of virtue, like the cultivation of a field, aims at de- veloping a hybrid crop by weeding out variety. This means that one way of expressing loyalty will be set up as the true way; there will be only one true way to be filial in any given situation. And it would be comparable to saying that all black-eyed susans ought to have, say, fifteen petals, stems of two feet, and a dark shade of yellow to be ''good'' black-eyed susans.
If flowers are anything like people the results of this would be (a) conflict, as each flower takes its own properties as the standard for all to follow; (b) hypocrisy, as flowers deny their given properties and try to become something they are not; and (c) discontentment, dissatisfaction with one's given condi- tion when it does not match the norm.
All of this could be avoided by maintaining the variety, spontaneity, and natural harmony of the uncultivated field--that is, by returning to the Dao.
On the problem of afterlife/immortality, Laozi never comes right out and says that there is or is not life after death, or if there is, what it would be like. One can reach different conclusions on this point, depending on how one understands certain passages.
To begin with there are several places where Laozi claims that those who live in accord with the Dao will live out their life free from harm. At the end of chapter 16 we find: ''Being one with Nature, he is in accord with Dao. Being in accord with Dao, he is everlasting, and is free from danger throughout his lifetime. ''28 In chapter 32 we find: ''It is by knowing when to stop that one can be free from danger. ''29 This is repeated in chapter 44: ''He who knows when to stop is free from danger. Therefore he can long endure. ''30 Chapter 52 reads: ''He who has found the mother (Dao) and thereby understands her sons (things), And having understood the sons, Still keeps to its [their] mother, Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime. ''31 And finally in chapter 59 we find the conclusion: ''He who possesses the Mother (Dao) of the state will last long. This means that the roots are deep and the stalks are firm [note the relevance to the analogy], which is the way of long life and everlasting vision. ''32
Since no more than freedom from harm is claimed here, the conclusion seems to be that for the Daoist, long life--or at least to reach one's natural or destined end--is the limit of expectation. However, the words ''he is everlast- ing'' (chapter 16) and ''he can long endure'' (chapter 44) in these passages could be read as suggesting an unnaturally long life, or even continued life, either physical immortality or life beyond the limits of the body. 33
Physical immortality may be found in chapter 50, where we hear about one who is good at preserving his life:
the dao and the field 41
42
approaching the daode jing
I have heard that one who is a good preserver of his life will not meet tigers or wild buffaloes,
And in fighting will not try to escape from weapons of war. The wild buffalo cannot butt its horns against him,
The tiger cannot fasten its claws in him,
And weapons of war cannot thrust their blades into him. And for what reason?
Because in him there is no room for death. 34
In later Daoism, when it was thought that one could transform his body into something refined and subtle, and thus impervious to harm, through breathing exercises, drugs, and other means, these lines would be taken quite literally. And I do not know that we can conclude for sure that Laozi himself did not have that in mind. However, the lines are certainly open to other interpretations. For example, that tigers and buffaloes and weapons of war could not harm such a man might come about because he lives cautiously and avoids dangerous sit- uations. 35 Or it could be that he adapts to the natural tendencies of things and thus knows how to act with wild animals and soldiers so that they are not moved to anger. 36 That there is in him ''no room for death'' might only mean that he is not vulnerable in the ways that others are, that he will not be easily killed. Or it could mean that to the true Daoist ''death'' is not really ''death''; he does not dwell on or fear it as others do, and he can thus better avoid it.
The end of chapter 33 is also a problem area. There we have the lines: ''He who does not lose his place (with Dao) will endure. He who dies but does not really perish enjoys long life. '' What does this last line mean? On the surface of it, it seems to say that life can go on (perhaps in a spiritual way) even after the body dies, and that this is true long life (i. e. , not simply a matter of living many years). But maybe the death he speaks of refers to dying in a spiritual sense, a dying to the old ways, that is, and a rebirth to a life lived in accord with the Way. Or perhaps ''perish'' means to die an ''unnatural'' death, to come to an end before one's time: to reach one's natural end, then, is long life. Or finally, one could follow Wing-tsit Chan on this, who reads this as speaking of an im- mortality of virtue; so long as one is remembered by future generations one does not really perish. 37
There would seem to be three ways to read Laozi on the problem of af- terlife/immortality: (1) he believed in physical immortality, continual life in the body for those who had lived right and learned how to preserve their lives; (2) he believed in some form of life after death (not specified) for those who had become one with the Dao;38 and (3) he recognized death as final for all: the Daoist hope was for a long, natural life, free from danger and harm.
Moreover, the possibility of life after death may be understood in two different ways. It could be understood in a mystical sense. Insofar as the Dao is that one, eternal reality that gives rise to everything else, and insofar as the Daoist in some sense becomes one with the Dao, he could, at death, become fully identical with it--one with the eternal and unchanging. But in a more materialistic sense, insofar as the Dao is in some sense equivalent to the on- going process of life and material change, the Daoist could see death as just a stage in that process, and by developing matter and energy he does continue on.
The analogy of the field does not solve this problem; it does not show us for sure what Laozi thought. But it does help us visualize several distinct ways in which the problem could work out. The analogy does not, so far as I can see, support a notion of physical immortality; wildflowers do not continue on past their season. But that option aside, there are three different views to which it could point. One is that at death we merge once again with that storehouse of matter and vitality, the Dao, and that as matter and energy we are constantly recycled, reemerging in new forms of life, forms other than the human--in the analogy, the stuff of this year's sunflowers, bluebells, dandelions, and so on.
This is a view that other Daoist texts seem to draw out,39 and it is presented as the natural way of things, a prospect that we ought to be willing to accept and perhaps even look forward to. For example, in chapter 6 of Zhuangzi when a certain Master Li is on the verge of dying, his friend Master Lai says to him, ''How marvelous the Creator is! What is he going to make out of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat's liver? Will he make you into a bug's arm? ''40 And he continues:
The Great Clod burdens me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death.
So if I think well of my life, for the same reason I must think well of my death. When a skilled smith is casting metal, if the metal should leap up and say ''I insist upon being made into a Mo-yeh! '' he would surely regard it as very inauspicious indeed.
Now having had the audacity to take on human form once, if I should say, ''I don't want to be anything but a man! --Nothing but a man! ,'' the Creator would surely regard me as a most inauspicious sort of person. 41
Second, the field of flowers analogy could also lead to a transmigration of souls theory. That is to say, we could argue that the essence of each plant is contained in the seed, and that this provides a continuum of identity in the different plants that appear each year (i. e. , the seeds from this year's black-eyed susans will give rise to next year's).
the dao and the field 43
44 approaching the daode jing
I do not know of Daoists ever developing this possibility, but it was used by an early Chinese convert to Buddhism, Mouzi, to explain rebirth:
The spirit never perishes. Only the body decays. The body is like the roots and leaves of the five grains, the spirit is like the seeds and kernels of the five grains. When the roots and leaves come forth they inevitably die. But do the seeds and kernels perish? Only the body of one who has achieved the Way (here the Buddhist Way) perishes. 42
Finally, one could also conclude from looking at the field that unique forms of life are unique forms of life, that this year's flowers will live and die to be replaced by a totally new crop next year. In short, one might conclude that death is final, and that the best one can hope for is a long life of health, natural growth, and a natural end.
notes
This essay first appeared in St. John's Papers in Asian Studies series, no. 27, in 1981. It is reprinted with kind permission of St. John's University, Institute of Asian Studies.
1. Wing-tsit Chan, Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1963), 97. This is Chan's translation. Note that where I cite Chan's translation, words in parentheses are his own; my own comments or suggested var- iant translations are included in brackets. This article was written before I completed my own translation of the Laozi: Robert G. Henricks, tr. , Lao-tzu Te-tao ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui Texts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989).
2. Ibid. , 97. The silk texts of the Laozi, read differently here. They both say, ''The Nameless is the beginning of the 10,000 things. '' The silk texts (there are two, des- ignated chia and I) were discovered in 1973 in a Han dynasty tomb at Mawangdui in Changsha. They are the earliest known versions of the Laozi, dating from the first half of the second century b. c. While the content of the texts is generally the same as other known versions, there are occasional interesting variations, and I note some of these in the pages that follow. The silk texts are now readily available to Chinese scholars in book form in Laozi: Mawangdui Han mu bo shu (Peking: Wen-wu, 1975), hereafter cited as Laozi: Mawangdui. For the references to chapter 1, see p. 82.
3. Chan, The Way, 124.
4. Ibid. , 152.
5. Max Kaltenmark, Lao Tzu and Taoism, trans. Roger Greaves (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1969), 29.
6. Chan, The Way, 97. This is literally the ''10,000 things''; in some of my own
translations below I use that term. The term is a comprehensive way to refer to all forms of life.
7. Ibid. , 134.
8. Ibid. , 192.
9. Ibid. , 205.
10. Ibid. , 97.
11. Ibid. , 105.
