Russell Kirkland

[1] As is so often the case, the issue of death and its transcendence reveals that the Taoist tradition did not typically formulate or promulgate specific positions, nor demand adherence to common positions as a criterion of “membership” in “Taoism”.Those who were attracted to Taoism seem to have been those who were not interested in laboring to determine better or worse, much less “correct”, ways of conceptualizing the Taoist life.Rather, they seem to have been those who would gladly draw upon any combination of traditional and contemporary cultural elements to facilitate their effort to live the Taoist life as fully as possible.

[2] Such was the case in regard to practice as well as belief.What the tradition did, from the fifth century onward, was to collect and preserve all the models of and for the spiritual life that anyone had ever suggested.Practitioners would then follow the model that held the most appeal to them, with of course whatever modifications or enhancements seemed appropriate in light of current realities.

[3] Yet, it would be wrong to surmise that all those many models of and for the spiritual life had no underlying commonalities, or that they shared no fundamental perspectives regarding what life is and how one should live it.It is possible to identify, on very broad terms, elements of a common “Taoist worldview”, as well as a con-comitant “Taoist ethos”, which informed and stimulated Taoist practice in all its many forms, as well as Taoist modes of engagement with other elements of Chinese culture and society.

[4] At the most basic level, one assumption common to Taoists of most periods is that most people live fundamentally unaware of the true nature of the reality within which their lives take place.As a consequence, most people live their lives on terms that are not in accord with the true nature of their own reality.Their lives are therefore inherently flawed and ultimately fruitless.And, for such people, there is no hope for anything good to ensue when their biological existence ends.Their lives are essentially wasted.

[5] However, in this view, the “true nature” of people’s reality is not something ontologically alien to them — not something “out there” that is somehow other than their own nature.Hence, the starting point for making our lives into what they should be is learning to discriminate between a fruitless existence — mere survival, then pointless death — on the one hand, and a form of true living on the other hand — living in accord with what really is, and engaging in a fruitful process of spiritual development.That learning process was never simply a matter of thinking certain thoughts about life and trying to put them into action.That approach would be as fruitless as living without regard for life’s realities.Rather, the Taoist life consists in a process that is focused on a change in experiential awareness.

[6] Elements of other Asian traditions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, begin with very similar assumptions.In time, China’s Taoists encountered forms of Buddhism in which they found interesting parallels.And, during certain periods, certain Taoists adapted certain Buddhist ideas, further enriching the diversity of Taoist models of and for the spiritual life.Yet, they often found that some Buddhist assumptions did not fully accord with their own.For instance, Taoists generally did not accept the idea — common in some forms of Ch’an/Zen — that the desired transformation in experiential awareness was typically a matter of a sudden event.Some interpreters lightly assume that Taoists and Buddhists have always been thinking and doing the same thing.But by the time of Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen, at least, Taoists had pondered the full range of spiritual models long enough to decide that ideals such as “suddenness” made little sense on Taoist terms.As we will see more fully below, an exemplary elder reportedly taught Ho Chih-chang, “One cannot advance swiftly, but must take yielding restraint as the prime concern [This] is like refusing [to accept] a horse for racing away.” Though Taoists in later ages did sometimes appropriate terms such as wu, “achieving new experiential awareness” (a term most familiar to students of Zen in its Japanese pronunciation, satori) Taoists always integrated such terms into a Taoist perspective on life.

[7] Likewise, Taoists did not find value in the Buddhist assumption that spiritual transformation could take place merely as a change in one’s consciousness, without any real reference to one’s physical life or to the subtle processes at work in the world around us. Taoists typically believed that personal transformation must be a holistic transformation, a transformation of all their being — including what other traditions have often distinguished as mind, body, and spirit — in accord with the most subtle and sublime processes at work in the world within which we live.

[8] In the year 2000, a scholar of Chinese religion, Donald Harper, said that Taoism is about personal transformation within a universe that is set up for such transformation.It might be fair to say that the core of Taoist practice — from classical times down to the present — has involved a practice of self-cultivation within a cosmos comprised of subtly linked forces.

[9] We must beware of misinterpreting Taoist practices on terms of modern individualism.Taoist theory did not accept any dichotomization of “self” from “other”.Contrary to the charges of its critics — both among China’s Confucians and among modern Westerners — Taoist “self-cultivation” has never been grounded in a belief that each human being has any separate, enclosed, individualized “self” that is more worthy of value and attention than what is outside such enclosures.Rather, Taoists generally assume that one’s“self” cannot be understood or fulfilled without reference to other persons, and to the broader set of realities in which all persons are naturally and properly embedded.It is this fundamentally holistic perspective that sets Taoist ideas and practices apart from most of what is taught in other traditions of China or those of other lands, in Asia or elsewhere.

Notes

1.Text C is an excerpt from Russell Kirkland’s book Taoism: The Enduring Tradition, Part V—The Cultivated Life.

2.Russell Kirkland: He received his B.A.in Religious Studies and M.A.in Asian History from Brown University in 1976, and an M.A.in Religious Studies (1982) and Ph.D.in East Asian Languages and Cultures (1986) from Indiana University.He currently serves on the executive board of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion’s Chinese Religions group, and the board of directors of the U.S.Taoist Association.

3.Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen（司马承帧）(647-735): He was a Taoist in Tang Dynasty and also lived as a hermit in Mount T’ien-tai.

4.Ho Chih-chang （贺知章）(about 659-about 744): a poet in Tang Dynasty.

For Fun

Works to Read

1. Moment in Peking by Lin Yutang

It was a historical novel originally written in English.In the preface, Lin writes that “[This novel] is merely a story of...how certain habits of living and ways of thinking are formed and how, above all, [men and women] adjust themselves to the circumstances in this earthly life where men strive but gods rule.” Lin Yutang was nominated the Nobel Prize in literature with this book in 1975.

2.Kwaidan Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan by Kozumi Yakumo

It was a collection of haunting Japanese folktales and insightful essays on the natural world.

3. The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura

It was first published in 1906, and has since been republished many times.In the book, Kakuzo introduces the term Teaism and how Tea has affected nearly every aspect of Japanese culture, thought, and life.

Movies to See

1. Madame Butterfly (1996)

Puccini’s classic opera of a trusting woman and how her love was tragically betrayed comes to the screen in this faithful film adaptation.

2.Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

It is an epic love story-cum-action drama set against the breathtaking landscapes of ancient China.The film led to a boost in popularity of Chinese wuxia films in the western world, where they were previously little known.

3. The Last Samurai (2003)

It gives epic sweep to an intimate story of cultures at a crossroads.A tormented Civil War veteran Capt.Nathan Algren began to learn, appreciate and adopt the samurai code, switching sides for a climactic battle that will put everyone’s honor to the ultimate test.

4. Memoirs of A Geisha (2005)

It tells the story of a young girl, Chiyo Sakamoto and her struggle as a geisha to find love, in the process making a lot of enemies.

[1] From Professor H.A.Giles’s translation, Chuang Tzu (Quatrich, London), which is a complete translation of Chuangtse’s works.