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? The Reception of Laozi
Livia Kohn
In teaching Daoism, one of the key texts that is usually discussed early in the class is the Daode jing, also known as the Laozi after its alleged author. The text, which in its standard version consists of eighty-one chapters and is divided into two parts, is highly philo- sophical and inspiring and has been translated into English numer- ous times. As likely as not, students are already familiar with it and may even own one or the other translation. From reading it--and from popular citations and adaptations made of it, such as the famous Tao of Pooh--students in close imitation of mainstream America have gained the idea that Daoism is all about going along with the flow, living in harmony with nature, acting by not acting, cultivating qui- etude and spontaneity, and generally being a nonachieving, nature- loving kind of person. It typically comes as somewhat of a shock to them to learn that there are some serious historical realities in the background of the book, that not everyone reads it in the same, Americanized way, that translations differ considerably in wording and outlook, and that there is an entire two-thousand-year-long reli- gious tradition called Daoism, in which the text has played an im- portant and often devotional role, being used both in communal ritual and in personal cultivation.
The first reception of Laozi, therefore, that our students tend to be already familiar with is the reception of the text Laozi as scripture, that is, as something of eternal value that can and must be adapted to one's own particular circumstances and interpreted accordingly. As
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Michael LaFargue has described it, this reception focuses on the idea that the text has something important to say to the present-day reader. 1 The main problem to be overcome, then, is the apparent cultural distance between this reader and the ancient writing, the best way of bringing the text into the modern world and making it into a document addressing questions of most interest today. A given interpretation is most successful if it allows the reader to find in the text something stimulating, moving, or inspiring. While this ap- proach is perfectly valid and should be discussed in the classroom, we as ed- ucators also have the task to inform students about the historical realities surrounding the text. At this point three different topics emerge as central to the discussion: the concrete, textual unfolding of the work; the historical reality surrounding its conception; and the text's role in the later religious tradition.
First, the concrete, textual history of the work includes a discussion of the three major editions of the work. Among them is most prominently the so- called standard edition, also known as the transmitted edition. Handed down by Chinese copyists over the ages, it is at the root of almost all translations of the text. It goes back to the third century c. e. , to the erudite Wang Bi (226-249), who edited the text and wrote a commentary on it that Chinese since then have considered inspired. It has shaped the reception of the text's worldview until today.
A somewhat earlier edition is called the Mawangdui version, named after a place in southern China (Hunan) where a tomb was excavated in 1973 that dated from 168 b. c. e. It contained an undisturbed coffin surrounded by numerous artifacts and several manuscripts written on silk, mostly dealing with cosmology and longevity techniques, such as gymnastics and sexual practices. Among them were two copies of the Daode jing. The Mawangdui version differs little from the transmitted edition: there are some character variants that have helped clarify some interpretive points, and the two parts are in reversed order; that is, the text begins with the section on De, then adds the section on Dao. The manuscripts are important because they show that the Daode jing existed in its complete form in the early Han dynasty, and that it was considered essential enough to be placed in someone's grave. 2
Yet another important edition of the Daode jing was discovered in 1993 in a place called Guodian (Hubei). Written on bamboo slips and dated to about 300 b. c. e. , the find presents a collection of various philosophical works of the time, including fragments of Confucian and other texts. Among them are thirty-three passages that can be matched with thirty-one chapters of the Daode jing, but with lines in different places and considerable variation in characters. Generally, they are concerned with self-cultivation and its application to questions of rulership and the pacification of the state. Polemical attacks against Confucian
virtues, such as those describing them as useless or even harmful (chapters 18- 19), are not found; instead negative attitudes and emotions are criticized. The Guodian find of this so-called Bamboo Laozi tells us that in the late fourth century b. c. e. the text existed in rudimentary form and consisted of a collection of sayings not yet edited into a coherent presentation. Another text found at Guodian, the Taiyi sheng shui (Great Unity Creates Water), gives further in- sights into the growing and possibly even ''Daoist'' cosmology of the time, as does a contemporaneous work on self-cultivation, the ''Inward Training'' (Neiye) chapter of the Guanzi. It appears that, gradually, a set of ideas and practices was growing that would eventually develop into something specifi- cally and more religiously Daoist. 3
In describing and discussing the textual history, instructors must make it clear that the Daode jing was not naturally standardized, but that the standard version evolved over time, from a rudimentary form found at Guodian through the first fairly complete texts at Mawangdui to the standard edition of Wang Bi in the third century c. e. , which did not arise until six centuries after the text's first conception. This standardization, moreover, depended on what the Chi- nese of that age considered valuable and relevant. Prior to Wang Bi--and less so but still even after him4--the Daode jing was a text in flux, consisting of mis- cellaneous sayings in various stages of coherent collation that were changed, rearranged, and reinterpreted many times. Especially the new Guodian find is of importance here, because it shows the context of the work as part of the educational repertoire of a southern crown prince, used--at least as much as we can tell so far--together with philosophical works of other schools to give the next ruler the best possible education for his future responsibilities. 5
Another topic is the historical reality surrounding the text's creation, the environment of Warring States China, as well as the wider perspective of world history. In this context it is helpful to students to point out that both the person and the text Laozi arose around 500 b. c. e. in a period of great change not only in China but the world over. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers called this period the ''axial age'' in his seminal work The Origin and Goal of History. The term refers to the fact that at this time in many different cultures new thinkers and religious leaders arose who, for the first time, placed great emphasis on the individual as opposed to the community of the clan or tribe. Examples include the Buddha in India, Zoroaster in Persia, Socrates in an- cient Greece, and Confucius in China. The ideas proposed by these thinkers and religious leaders had a strong and pervasive impact on the thinking of humanity in general, contributing significantly to our thinking even today.
Students should understand that no document arises in a historical vac- uum. They need to see how China at this time was undergoing tremendous
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economic and political changes. The arrival of iron-age technology, and with it better ploughshares, wagon axles, and weapons, had caused an increase in food production and massive population growth, as well as greater mobility and wealth among the people. This in turn led to a heightened hunger for power among local lords, who began to wage wars in order to expand their lands and increase their influence, setting large infantry armies against each other. While the central king of the Zhou dynasty (1122-221 b. c. e. ) was still officially in charge of the entire country, there were in fact many independent states in a more or less constant state of conflict. The period is thus appro- priately named the Warring States (zhanguo). It was a time of unrest and transition which left many people yearning for the peace and stability of old, and ended only with the violent conquest of all other states and the estab- lishment of the Chinese empire by the Qin dynasty in 221 b. c. e.
Most Chinese philosophers of the Warring States, in accordance with the situation they faced, were concerned with the proper ''way'' or ''method'' (dao) leading to the recovery of the harmony and social manageability of an earlier, golden age. The word dao was accordingly not limited to one specific school but arose as a generic term used by all philosophers, so generic, in fact, that A. C. Graham entitled his work on early Chinese philosophy Disputers of the Dao. The works of the ancient Chinese philosophers can thus be described as characterized by a strong backward focus and feudalistic vision. Although Western scholars usually characterize them as ''philosophers,'' they always placed a strong emphasis on the practical dimensions of their teachings, both in regard to the individual's social behavior and to his or her personal self- cultivation. In fact, at the core of most ancient Chinese thought are practices of social discipline and the transformation of individuals and communities. Followers often congregated in small, almost sectarian groups rather than in what we think of as philosophical schools. 6
This phase of the discussion of the text also lends itself most opportunely to an introduction of the basic history and doctrines of Confucianism as a comparative backdrop. It can be emphasized here that, while the quest for harmony and political stability was equally at the root of philosophers' efforts, early Confucians focused predominantly on the idea of ritual formality or etiquette (li), the proper behavior in all social situations. This social formality was to be observed on all three levels of life: in family and society, in gov- ernment, and in religious ritual. It meant the guidance toward proper behavior among people of different rank and status, defined through the five rela- tionships of ruler-minister, father-son, husband-wife, elder-younger brother, and friend-friend. In each case, there was a senior and a junior, and each had obligations toward the other, expressed in the so-called Confucian virtues. 7
This social focus and emphasis on set behavior patterns, then, can be con- trasted effectively with the doctrines of ziran and wuwei in the Daode jing.
An aspect students should be made aware of is the role of the text in the later religious tradition, and especially its importance in Daoist ritual. As early as the first century b. c. e. , the Daode jing was considered a sacred text that should be recited to the greater benefit of self and state. By the second century c. e. , it was the central text of the Celestial Masters, who recited it regularly both as a devotional exercise and for its magical effect. To ensure the proper efficacy of this recitation, practitioners had to be morally pure. Accordingly, the Ce- lestial Masters also used it as the inspiration for certain behavioral rules. These rules are connected with the Xianger commentary to the Daode jing, a text that survives among the manuscripts found at Dunhuang. Attributed to Zhang Lu, third Celestial Master and grandson of the founder Zhang Daoling, who lived in the early third century, it describes the contemporaneous interpretation of the text. The precepts listed here are of two kinds: a group of nine precepts providing general rules of behavior based on the philosophy of the Daode jing, and a group of twenty-seven precepts, which present a mixture of general rules, behavioral regulations, and temporal taboos. 8
In the fifth century, recitation of the Daode jing was widely practiced among Daoist schools and linked closely with the attainment of immortality. As such, it appears in the Wenshi neizhuan (Inner Biography of the Master at the Beginning of the Scripture), a sixth-century hagiography of Laozi that tells of his transmission of the Daode jing to Yin Xi, the Guardian of the Pass--a tale symptomatic for the idealized relationship between master and disciple in the religion. At first Laozi rejects Yin Xi's demand to join him on his further travels, saying:
In order to follow me, you first have to attain the Dao. But your many impurities are not eradicated yet, so how can you follow me on my distant wanderings? For the present, recite the ''Text in Two Sec- tions'' [the Daode jing] ten thousand times. Then your Dao will be perfected and you can follow me on my distant wanderings. 9
Yin Xi did as he was ordered and recited the Daode jing ten thousand times over a period of three years. As a result, he ''gained eternal life and the state of no death. '' According to another source, he ''attained inner sincerity in his essence and pervasion in his meditation so that he could pervade the mystery,'' as the Xisheng jing (Scripture of Western Ascension, DZ 726) states (1. 11ab).
That this practice and its effect was not merely part of mythology is evidenced in the Zhen'gao (Declarations of the Perfected, DZ 1016), a record of Daoist teachings and practices dated to around the year 500. According to
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this, a certain Old Lord instructed three members of the Zhou family, the father and two sons, to recite the Daode jing. The father and elder brother succeeded in reciting the text ten thousand times and flew off as celestials. The younger brother, however, reached only 9,733 times and did not attain immortality (5. 6a).
In addition, the Daode jing also stood at the center of a ritualized medi- tation. According to a fifth-century text that survived in Duhuang and served as a preface to the text, the Daode zhenjing xujue (Introductory Explanations to the Daode jing), Laozi gave detailed instructions on how to properly venerate the scripture. Adepts should purify themselves thoroughly and enter a special meditation chamber, where they burn incense, straighten their robes, bow to the ten directions, and actively visualize Laozi and his major assistants.
Only in the venerable presence of these divine personages is the Daode jing to be opened. Its recitation must further be preceded by a formal prayer, by which the adept calls upon the Lord of the Niwan Palace, the central repre- sentative of the gods and resident in the central palace of the head, to descend. As the divinity approaches, the room undergoes mysterious changes: a radiance as of seven jewels spreads, doors and windows open spontaneously. A link of light to the higher spheres is thus established, through which the practitioner floats up and away into the purple empyrean. Finding himself among the stars, he has the sun and moon at his sides and approaches the divine immortals to gain immortality for himself--and not only for himself but also for his an- cestors of seven generations.
After this invocation, when the adept has placed himself firmly among the celestials, he proceeds with the ritual. The text says:
Finish the recitation, then clap your teeth and swallow your saliva thirty-six times. Visualize the green dragon to your left, the white tiger to your right, the red bird in front of you, and the dark warrior at your back.
Your feet stand between the eight trigrams, the divine turtle and the thirty-six masters bow to you. In front, you see the seventeen stars, while your five inner organs give forth the five energies and a network pattern streams across your body.
On three sides you are joined by an attendant, each having a retinue of a thousand carriages and ten thousand horsemen. Eight thousand jade maidens and jade lads of heaven and earth stand guard for you. (sect. 5)
Clapping one's teeth and swallowing saliva are part of the standard Daoist meditation ritual, symbolic forms of announcing one's communication with
the deities. The adept is instructed to place himself in the cosmic center by seeing himself surrounded by the four mythical animals of the four direc- tions, representing constellations in the sky, and placing his feet firmly on the eight trigrams of the Yijing (Book of Changes). Everyone bows to him, and he is fully established among the stars; his body has become a pure constellation of light and energy patterns. Then he sees himself supported by attendants, one on each side and behind him, who in turn, as in an imperial procession, are joined by thousands of followers and servants. Now that the celestial position of the meditator at the center of the cosmos is firmly established, he can recite the Daode jing in its truest environment and to its greatest effect. 10
Over the following centuries, the Daode jing continued to be actively used both in meditation and liturgy and played an important role in the formal ordination of priests, representing a level of advanced lay followers who were preparing to leave the householder's life but had not yet done so. Their progress was divided into two stages. First, he or she--women being treated as equals in the priestly system--learned basic meditation and recitation techniques, worshipped Laozi and Yin Xi as their major patriarchs, and ob- served ten precepts that included five basic rules against killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and intoxication, together with a set of guidelines to help practitioners to live in harmony with their families and their commu- nities, striving for the liberation and salvation of all beings.
Second, they took additional precepts and received more detailed instruc- tions on the Daode jing, undergoing an ordination ceremony that named them Gaoxuan fashi or Preceptors of Eminent Mystery and bestowed upon them a variety of exegetical, devotional, and technical materials linked with the text. These included early commentaries on the Daode jing, technical interpretations of the text, philosophical and mystical exegeses, practical manuals on Daode jing meditation and ritual, and formal hagiographies of Laozi and Yin Xi. 11 The importance of the Daode jing as a sacred scripture in priestly and monastic ordination continues to the present day. It is one of the texts chanted at reli- gious services in the Complete Perfection (Quanzhen) school, handed to or- dinands at the time of first initiation together with a set of ten precepts and certain guidelines for self-cultivation. The Daode jing as much as the figure of Laozi have inspired seekers of self-cultivation, and numerous meditation techniques through history as well as Qigong methods of recent years have appeared in their name. 12
Discussing these topics with students and placing the text in its larger historical and ritual context will inevitably lead into the reception of Laozi the person, a figure typically thought of as a contemporary of Confucius. Based on an account of his person in the Shiji, he is typically described as a learned and
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somewhat reclusive official at the Zhou court, where he served as an archivist. His first call to fame came when Confucius, eager to expand his knowledge of the ancient rites, went to the Zhou capital to consult him. Lao Dan, instead of imparting his wisdom, put Confucius down, advising him to forget all about things to cram into his head and instead to let go of everything and follow the natural way. Confucius, stunned for several days, finally emerged with the verdict that he had met many impressive people in his day but none like Lao Dan, who was ''truly like a dragon,'' free from all constraints and powerfully soaring in the sky. Laozi's second call to fame came when he decided to emigrate because nothing much good was going to come of the Zhou dynasty anymore. Stopped by the Guardian of the Pass, he was compelled to spell out his ideas and thus, under some duress, wrote the Daode jing.
As A. C. Graham has shown, this image is largely legendary, the figure Laozi being originally a Confucian creation, used to show the master's hu- mility and eagerness to learn. The hoary master was then taken over by the growing ''Daoist'' school when it needed a respectable founder in the fourth century b. c. e. Presented to the conquering Qin rulers as a powerful political thinker of unusual longevity in the third century b. c. e. , Laozi was then re- moved from the scene by the story of his western emigration, which conve- niently also accounted for the compilation of the Daode jing. Under the Han, finally, when the close connection to the Qin turned problematic, Laozi's birthplace was located at Bozhou (Henan) near the Han rulers' homeland of Pei, and he was linked with the Li clan, a family of loyal Han retainers. 13
While Laozi the man remains shrouded in the mists of early history and legend, Laozi the god has been a significant and dominant figure in the religion from the Han dynasty to the present day. In the Han dynasty, he was divinized through adoption by three separate groups:
1. The magical practitioners (fangshi) or individual seekers of immortal- ity, who saw in him the patriarch of their arts and idealized him as an immortal.
2. The political elite, that is, the imperial family and court officials, who found in Laozi the personification of the Dao and worshiped him as a representative of their ideal of cosmic and political unity along- side the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) and the Buddha and engraved inscriptions to this effect.
3. Popular, millenarian cults, who identified Laozi as the god who manifested himself through the ages and would save the world yet again and bring about the age of Great Peace (Taiping). Called Ve- nerable Lord (Laojun) or Yellow Venerable Lord (Huanglao jun), this
deified Laozi was like the personification of cosmic harmony wor- shipped by the court but equipped with tremendous revolutionary power. As a messiah, he could overturn the present and reorganize the world, leading the faithful to a new state of heavenly bliss in this very life on earth.
Through this adaptation of Laozi as a deity of these various groups, his biography changed into a hagiography, the mythical life of a cosmic saint. He was described as fully identical with the Dao, the creator of the entire world, and the ever newly appearing savior of the world, the so-called teacher of dynasties. His birth on this earth as Laozi was embellished by increasing his time in the womb to eighty-one years and giving him the physiognomy of a sage. His life after his western emigration was also elaborated, so that he was either said to have wandered west and converted the barbarians to his teaching, which duly became known as Buddhism, or believed to have ascended back to heaven and returned variously to reveal the different Daoist teachings in China.
The result is a highly complex Laozi myth, which describes his super- natural existence in six distinct parts or phases:
1. Laozi as the Dao creates the universe (creation).
2. Laozi descends as the teacher of dynasties (transformations).
3. Laozi is born on earth and serves as an archivist under the Zhou
(birth).
4. Laozi emigrates and transmits the Daode jing to Yin Xi (transmission). 5. Laozi and Yin Xi go west and convert the barbarians to Buddhism
(conversion).
6. Laozi ascends to heaven and comes back again to give revelations to
Chinese seekers, founding Daoist schools (revelations).
This fully developed myth appears first in the fifth century, then is further elaborated in more extensive details until a high point is reached during the Song dynasty, when three major hagiographies appear that each encompass many chapters in the Daoist canon and include and systematize all previous information on the god. 14 Aside from these, there were also many shorter works of Laozi. He is further mentioned in countless passages in Daoist texts, and large numbers of scriptures are claimed to go back to his revelations. To the present day, he plays an active role in the Daoist religion as the sponsor of new methods of Qigong and a key deity of both major Daoist schools, the Celestial Masters and Complete Perfection.
To bring these intricate and complex historical facts to our students is not an easy task. Students often resist the debunking of their ideas and reject the
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religious dimensions of a text and a figure that they have learned to associate with personal philosophy and a spontaneous way of life. It is important, therefore, to make it clear from the beginning of the class that Daoism is first and foremost a religion and that, while philosophical ideas bandied about in its name have their place in this religion, they are far from dominant in it. Even the early texts, interpreted largely as philosophical documents in aca- demia, are, as Harold Roth has shown convincingly, based on meditative and cultivation experiences and come from a distinctly religious context. To make the adjustment to this new view easier for students, it helps greatly to intro- duce comparative perspectives into the discussion.
For example, the phenomenon of mysticism is very helpful in placing the scriptural reception of the Daode jing, because it makes it clear that mystics of whatever tradition, like practicing Daoists, are primarily religious practitioners whose ideas are secondary to their experiences. In addition, Daoist seekers aim to undergo a transformation from ordinary life and perception to a more spiritual dimension in a threefold progress, which can be matched with the spiritual progress outlined in other traditions. Daoist transformation as un- derstood from reading the Laozi and Zhuangzi, then, begins first with the embrace of simplicity, both physical and mental, with the goal of ''seeing things as equal'' and ''having no one-sided feelings. '' This involves a withdrawal from ordinary sensory experience and a refocusing of one's goals, a tendency to ''diminish and again diminish'' (Daode jing), as opposed to the urge to accu- mulate things and grow bigger and better all the time.
Once the mind is emptied of worldly concerns, it is, in a second step, opened up to perceive the intricacies of Dao, filled anew with a more cosmic, flowing, and universal perspective. It comes to accept all things equally, to stand alone among the multitude, to appear stupid and simple where everyone else is bright and complex. This new vision in turn leads, third, to a complete letting go of all personality, to a merging with the ''Great Thoroughfare'' of the Dao, the attainment of nonaction in all aspects of life and thought, the reali- zation of perfect happiness and free and easy wandering. These three stages of withdrawal, openness, and merging with the Dao can then be compared, but of course never equalized, with the three mystical stages outlined by Evelyn Un- derhill on the basis of Christian writings: the purgative, where one eliminates old ideas and attachments; the illuminative, where one is filled with a new vision and complete focus on God; and the unitive, where one finds mystical union with the deity and enters a completely new life. 15 They can, moreover, be linked to other religions and their visions of spiritual attainment.
Then again, a discussion of the controversy surrounding the historical Jesus and his role in later Christianity may help to place the idea of Laozi as a
legendary figure and as a god into a wider and more familiar context.
Here it may be pointed out that certain classical motifs of the hero myth appear in both figures' hagiographies, for example, the virgin birth, the rejection by the es- tablishment, the fight for their ideals, and the stylization as king over a vast empire (in Laozi's case, after his emigration). 16 Both figures, in addition, have become models for the believers of the religions that grew in their wake, giving people guidance and representing the ideals of the religion. The historical Jesus is often quite as unfathomable as the historical Laozi, and the veneration as savior has caused both figures to be stylized as immensely supernatural.
If students are not familiar with the debates surrounding the historical Jesus, the figure of Santa Claus might be a useful means of clarifying the legendary and divine status of Laozi. Most certainly, students are familiar with the common image of Santa Claus as a white-haired, chubby, and cheerful old man who makes toys galore, then rides around in a wondrous sled drawn by reindeer (some with red noses), and drops his gifts into the chimneys and stockings on Christmas morning. No student, I am sure, would assert that he is a fully real, historical figure, yet they all realize that Santa Claus is important in our culture today. It can be pointed out in class that there was in fact a historical person at the origin of our Santa Claus story, namely Saint Nicholas, a wealthy man from Asia Minor who gave away all his wealth to the poor, especially favoring children, and died a saint--his ascension day of December 6 be- coming a holy day in the Catholic Church. The story we know grew over the centuries on the basis of the historical facts, reaching a culminating point in the nineteenth century. Yet most people are totally unaware of them, and what is important for them is not the man, but the saint: the religiously stylized figure who represents more an idea than a real life.
On another note, teachers of Daoism profit greatly from firmly estab- lishing the idea that no religion ever is a unified and fully integrated entity. Just as there are many different forms of Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Chris- tianity; as all major religious traditions of the world have undergone serious schisms in their history; as they all are expressed in a multitude of forms, including mysticism, doctrine, philosophy, ritual, ordination hierarchies, and popular practices (even superstition)--so Daoism is a multifaceted tradition that has continued to reinvent itself ever since its first inception in the Warring States. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to demand of a Chinese tradition what no Western or other religion can deliver, and to pass judgment if it fails to do so. It is equally meaningless and even detrimental to understand modern Daoism or Daoism in the United States as a deviant and declined form of the tradition, when all we see here is just another way in which the tradition reinvents itself right under our eyes. On the contrary, encouraging students to actively seek out
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and engage themselves with these modern forms will increase their practical understanding of the religion and open their eyes to its historical forms, while also aiding their appreciation of its religious unfolding and growth in general.
In fact, the practical and contemporary dimension of Daoism can be regarded as another important teaching tool. Students tend to relish hands-on experiences and have a great deal more empathy for ideas and practices active in the here and now than those important in China fifteen hundred years ago. Showing the historical, scriptural, and devotional dimensions of Laozi the text and the personage together with their contemporary transformation offers the opportunity to teach Daoism in a way that is both academically sound and practically relevant to our students.
To sum up, the multiplicity of views and interpretations attached to both Laozi the book and Laozi the personage is a positive phenomenon that can greatly enrich the teaching experience of Daoism for both students and teacher. There is no single Daode jing; there is no single figure Laozi. Rather than looking for unity, we should realize that it is exactly this multifaceted richness of the text and the personage that attracts us to them and that makes them model cases for the study of Daoism and, by extension, of religion in general. Sharing this attraction and fascination with our students in an atmosphere free from prej- udice and preconception will increase their critical awareness of both Daoism and the phenomenon of religion in their academic study, in contemporary so- ciety, and in their own lives. This is what makes teaching Daoism so rewarding.
notes
1. See Michael LaFargue, ''Recovering the Tao-te-ching's Original Meaning: Some Remarks on Historical Hermeneutics,'' in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 255-276.
2. The Mawangdui manuscripts are translated in Robert Henricks, Lao-Tzu: Te- Tao ching (New York: Ballantine, 1989). He also has an article on the division of the chapters: ''A Note on the Question of Chapter Divisions in the Ma-wang-tui Manu- scripts of Lao-tzu,'' Early China 4 (1978/79), 449-57.
3. For a translation of the Guodian text, see Robert G. Henricks, Lau Tzu's Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). For an initial study of the documents, consult Sarah Allan and Crispin Williams, eds. , The Guodian Laozi (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000).
4. The most recent rearrangement of the Daode jing into new sections and di- visions is found in Michael LaFargue, Tao and Method: A Reasoned Approach to the Tao Te Ching (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). For a translation of
Wang Bi's work, see Paul J. Lin, A Translation of Lao-tzu's Tao-te-ching and Wang Pi's Commentary (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies Pub- lications, 1977). A thorough discussion is found in Alan Chan, Two Visions of the Way: A Study of the Wang Pi and the Ho-shang-kung Commentaries on the Laozi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
5. To demonstrate the variety of interpretations and the versatility of the text even in later centuries, students may be referred to Isabelle Robinet, ''Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 119-42.
6. For a broader account of the Daode jing in the philosophical and political climate of Zhou-dynasty China, see A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La Salle, Ill. : Open Court, 1989); Benjamin Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1985).
7. A good discussion of the early Confucian school that also pays attention to social context and ritual realities is found in Robert Eno, The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).
8. On the precepts and the Xianger commentary, see Stephen R. Bokenkamp, ''Traces of Early Celestial Master Physiological Practice in the Xiang'er Commentary,'' Taoist Resources 4, no. 2 (1993): 37-52. He also has a complete translation of this text in his Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
9. This text is cited in the encyclopedia Sandong zhunang (A Bag of Pearls from the Three Caverns, DZ 1139, 9. 10b). The materials are also discussed in some detail in my God of the Dao: Lord Lao in History and Myth (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1998).
10. For more details on the ritual uses of the Daode jing, see Livia Kohn, ''The Tao-te-ching in Ritual,'' in Kohn and LaFargue, Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, 143-161. 11. For an overview of Daoist ordination in the Middle Ages, see Charles Benn, ''Daoist Ordination and Zhai Rituals,'' in Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn, (Leiden:
E. Brill, 2000), 309-338. For a detailed discussion of the main forms of ordination practiced in the Tang, many of which focus on the ten precepts and the Daode jing, see Kristofer M. Schipper, ''Taoist Ordination Ranks in the Tunhuang Manuscripts,'' in Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien: Festschrift f u ? r Hans Steininger, ed. G. Naundorf, K. H. Pohl, and H. H. Schmidt, (Wu ? rzburg, Germany: Ko ? nigshausen and Neumann, 1985), 127-148. A more recent discussion of the precepts and ordination in Daoism is forthcoming in my Daoist Precepts (Cambridge, Mass. : Three Pines Press, 2004).
12. On the contemporary rules and practices of ordination in Complete Perfec- tion Daoism, see Livia Kohn, ''Monastic Rules in Quanzhen Daoism: As Collected by Heinrich Hackmann,'' Monumenta Serica 51 (2003).
13. See A. C. Graham, ''The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan,'' in Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature, ed. A. C. Graham (Albany: State Uni- versity of New York Press, 1990), 111-124.
the reception of laozi 143
144 recent scholarship and teaching the daode jing
14. For a detailed study of the development of Laozi in history, from the be- ginnings to the 1990s, as well as an analysis of his myth in the Youlong zhuan, one of the key Song dynasty hagiographies, see Kohn, God of the Dao.
15. See Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism (London: Methuen, 1911).
16. The understanding of Laozi as hero is discussed in more detail in Kohn, God of the Dao. For more on the hero myth, see Robert A. Segal, ed. , In Quest of the Hero (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
? Hermeneutics and Pedagogy: Methodological Issues in Teaching the Daode Jing
Russell Kirkland
Naturally, there are many ways of teaching the Daode jing. My own approaches have shifted in several ways over the years, and will doubtless continue to do so. In addition, I continue to teach the text in different ways to different audiences, adjusting to the level and fo- cus of the participants of each course. So I recognize no definitive way to teach the text. Nonetheless, I maintain that there are better and worse approaches, and that it is necessary (1) to base one's approach soundly upon the facts, and (2) to adjust it in accordance with the evolution of the field. What follows, therefore, examines the herme- neutical and pedagogical implications of a variety of methodological issues. 1
I should note first of all that my approach is, in many regards, contrarian. That is, I never settle for teaching students to under- stand the Daode jing along traditional lines. For the most part, our textbooks do a credible job of explaining traditional concepts of the text's content (the sage, wuwei, etc. ). And at any course level, I ensure that my students are duly exposed to such inherited ''mainstream'' lenses. But those lenses are warped by Confucian bias and an abundance of Western misconceptions, mostly born of a desire to find in the Daode jing a utopian antidote to an array of perceived deficiencies in Western culture. 2
My primary thrust is generally to stimulate critical thought about such mainstream interpretations. My justifications for doing so re- side, in the first instance, in my assumption that a primary facet of
146 recent scholarship and teaching the daode jing
liberal education is to stimulate critical examination of inherited models of understanding. But in this case, our culturally constructed model of the ed- ucator as Socratic gadfly is, at least in my own mind, supported by a compa- rable Zhuangzian thrust. Of course, using a Zhuangzian method to elucidate the Daode jing is, on a theoretical level, somewhat arbitrary, but doing so provides me with, at the very least, the pleasant illusion that my predilection for shocking my students with untraditional perspectives can be justified in ''Daoist'' terms. I should also acknowledge my former colleague Lee Yearley for convincing me that we are not entirely unjustified in reading Zhuangzi in terms that are, to some degree, postmodern. That is, I have come to the position, presumably Zhuangzian if not Socratic, that there is no position that can simply be assumed to be valid, and that it is proper to question every assumption, no matter how well-accepted it might be. For these reasons, my lenses for studying and teaching the Daode jing are constantly being removed and reexamined, and sometimes replaced by other lenses that for some in- telligible reason seem preferable, if not necessarily demonstrably correct. Such a reflexive deconstructionism (to appropriate a term from part of my own culture) is often appreciated by advanced students, and, if presented in terms of delicious Zhuangzian parables rather than postmodernist jargon, is tolerated even by students at the most introductory level.
In essence, my approach to teaching the Daode jing is, in various ways, to challenge students to grapple with an array of hermeneutical issues. I challenge them to question whatever they read or hear about the Daode jing, even from their knowledgeable and conscientious instructor. Many college students, particularly at the introductory level, have rarely been exposed to critical thought, much less expected to perform it themselves: they have been taught to assume that ''truth'' is known, and that their job is simply to accept what they are given (by their textbooks and by their instructors) and to commit it to memory. Naturally, the conscientious educator must (whether by Socratic or Zhuangzian imperatives) challenge students to consider truth as not neces- sarily known and to stimulate them to reconsider all that they learn from others. In other words, in teaching students the Daode jing, I teach them to ponder the viability of the ''radical'' new perspectives that I present to them while, in the final analysis, thinking for themselves. This model is quite alien to the mind-set of Qing dynasty Confucianism and its parallels in Christian cat- echism and its various secular analogues. To the shock and consternation of many students, I, like Zhuangzi, challenge my students to imagine that what they read in their books about the Daode jing might be unreliable, and that it is not just permissible, but actually necessary, for them to reflect on their own response to the material.
hermeneutics and pedagogy: methodological issues 147
For these reasons, I frustrate some students by requiring them to read the Daode jing in translations that are stark and minimalist, translations like those of D. C. Lau or Robert Henricks. 3 Students are sometimes frustrated by such translations because these translations tell them only what the text says, not what it means. Most students would be happier with one of the many trans- lations (or pseudo-translations) that presume to explain the meaning of each passage. What I challenge students to understand is that such explanations are really a window not into the text itself, but merely into the mind of the translator. Such windows provide false comfort indeed, for whether any of us like it or not, the text of the Daode jing--in the original Chinese--is stark, murky, and remarkably polyvocal. My goal, therefore, is to give students an experience of the text that is, to the greatest extent possible, comparable to the frustrating experience of reading the original text.
Before my students read the text for the first time, I often urge them to think about their experience of reading it and to ask themselves the following questions:
? What kind of text is this?
? How is this text affecting me?
? How is this text supposed to affect the reader?
? Who is ''the reader'' supposed to be?
? Why is the text in the form that it is in?
? How is the form of the text related to the message(s) that it intends
to convey?
In sum, I challenge students to set aside all that the text has generally been read to mean and to do something radical and original: to read it for themselves and to allow their own experience of the text to help inform their interpretive efforts. My assumption is not that students can find its ''true meaning'' within themselves, or even by themselves. I assume, rather, that because they have a starting point somewhere in a knowable cultural setting, one in which many of us grew up ourselves, the educator can identify and work to dislodge identi- fiable cultural illusions and stimulate students to react creatively to the facts of the text and its proper historical context.
Interpretation through Exegesis
Once, in a 1988 course at Oberlin College, I gave my students a stark, ''literal'' new translation of several intriguing Daode jing chapters (5, 6, 26, 35, and 56, in the traditional numbering), along with a colleague's explanation of the
148 recent scholarship and teaching the daode jing
exegetical process, as formulated and practiced in the field of biblical studies. I then tasked students to choose one of those passages and perform an exe- gesis of it, as follows:
1. Carefully think through the following questions:
What point is the writer trying to make in this passage? How is he
trying to make it? 4
What is the structure of the passage? How does the writer present
his point? What does the structure of the passage communicate? Is the passage a coherent unity? Does it have ''seams''? What conclusion can one draw from these facts?
What type of language is used in the passage? If symbolic language is used, how is it used? What are the symbols, images, meta- phors? Why are those symbols used as they are? If the writer uses devices such as imperatives or interrogatives, why?
Can one discern different levels of meaning in the passage? If so, how was the writer using those different levels of meaning to help communicate his point?
Are there specific key terms on which the writer relies to com- municate his point? If so, what do those terms mean here, in this context? Is there any evidence that the writer means for other associations to carry over from other passages?
Can one identify a particular audience for the passage? What does the writer assume from his audience? Does he assume certain common knowledge, certain viewpoints, certain experiences? What is the ''world of discourse''?
2. With these questions in mind, select one of the specified chapters of the Daode jing with which you feel that you can work most pro- ductively. Use all of the ''authorized translations. '' Analyze the chapter exegetically, and outline the results. It is not necessary to attempt to determine specific answers to all of the questions raised above: ''Let the text set the agenda'' (or, to employ idiomatic apho- risms: ''Hit the ball where it is pitched,'' and ''Take what the defense gives you. ''). Synthesize the results of your analysis, and present your synthesis in a brief paper of one to two double-spaced pages.
In the Oberlin course, this assignment worked well: students took one of the assigned passages and analyzed it as a text, interpreting it on its own terms. In so doing, they disregarded not only everything outside the text of the Daode jing--a radical move in itself--but everything outside of the specific passage
hermeneutics and pedagogy: methodological issues 149
in front of them. For instance, in performing exegesis, it is illicit to assume that a symbolic reference to ''the mysterious female'' in Daode jing 6 can necessarily be interpreted in terms of other passages in which images of ''the feminine'' or ''the Mother'' appear. And of course, it is illicit to assume that such a phrase can be interpreted in terms of maternal images found in other texts, other ages, or other cultures.
This assignment illustrates my rejection of certain ''traditional'' models for interpreting the Daode jing. For instance, I reject altogether the common assumption that the Daode jing represents the thought of an ancient Chinese school of philosophy, which is today widely, though incorrectly, called Dao- ism. Historically, there was, in fact, no such thing: the conflation of the thought-content of the Daode jing with the thought-content of the Zhuangzi, and subsequent reification of the overlap into a coherent school of thought, is a common but insidious fallacy. 5 Critical scholars have for decades generally agreed that there was actually no ''philosopher'' named Laozi. 6 And they have generally agreed that the text that we call the Daode jing was actually the result of a complex process of accretion and reinterpretation, which probably began in an oral tradition and took its final form sometime in the early third century b. c. e. Recent research furthermore suggests that the form of the Daode jing, as well as some of its ideas, were modeled on those of the germinal fourth- century b. c. e. text called the Nei ye, ''Inner Cultivation. ''7
In any event, if the Daode jing was not, as is generally agreed, the product of a single mind, it logically follows that passage A and passage B may share a given idea fully, incompletely, or not at all. I therefore teach my students that some passages of the Daode jing are likely more closely related than others, and that we will find in it a plethora of inexplicable ''inconsistencies'' unless we acknowledge the plurality of layers and voices that are embodied in it.
Elsewhere, I have argued that the multivocality of the Daode jing might best be explained by seeing the text as having been composed in layers. In my classes, I give students a ''Historical Outline of Taoism,'' which summarizes that explanation as follows:
The Daode jing [''Laozi''] (early third century b. c. e. )
Origins:
(1) Ideas from anonymous people (not intellectuals) of sixth through
fourth century b. c. e. , probably including local elders (''laozi''),
possibly including women; possible origins in the land of Chu.