The Tao of LaoTse

Having studied ChuangTse, there is no reason why I should not also give some attention to that wisest and to some extent the most enigmatic of all Chinese philosophers, Laotse. Let's find out what he has to say about that greatest problem which faces all Taoists: the problem of what we mean by Tao? What is the Tao that underlies all of reality? How does it manifest itself to man? What is it telling us? How can we find out more about it?  What can we learn from having a better understanding of the Tao? There is no better way than to get it from the horse's mouth! Let's hear what Laotse is said to have said, in the only suriviving text attributed to that librarian of the Chor Kingdom the Tao Te Ching (道德經 (TTC), that elder of Confucius whom the latter purportedly once consulted, more than 2000 years ago.

 

First of all, Laotse thought that the Tao is the principle of creation of the universe and all that is within it. The Tao is the ulitmate source and origin of the universe. It is the be all and end all of everything that there is, the alpha and the omega of all and everything and in many ways, the equivalent of the Western idea of God or of the Being of Heidegger or Reality (although obviously how that should be conceived or viewed is an entirely different matter). Laotse thinks that the Tao emerged from chaos and existed before the existencce of the universe, independently, and operates continuously in cycles. He says: "Something existed in a chaos, before the the birth of the universe. It runs by itself unalterably and goes around endlessly in cycles. We may consider it the mother of the universe. I don't know its name. I'll just call it Tao. " (TTC 25). (有物混成，先天地生。獨立而不改。周行而不殆，可以為天下母。吾在知其名，字之曰道。)

 

After the Tao created itself, it started to create other things and matter. It did so through the principle of of unity, the principle of One.  He says: " The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to two. Two give birth to three. Three give birth to everything. (TTC 42) Cap 42) (道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物). Therefore in the beginning there was one undivided, undifferentiated, inchoate mass. Then through it own operative principle, that initial mass began to divide and split into two, one postive and one negative and each complementing the other, rather like the cell division of afertilized egg cell which will eventually further divide until it becomes a human embryo or an embryo of other complex living things. Of course, at the time he wrote LaoTse knew nothing of the development of the human embryo and matters of fertilization of the female egg by the male sperm. But the idea is roughly similar. Laotse's way of saying the further growth and multiciplication is that it proceeded through division, but such growth and multiplication happened in arithmetic, not geometrical pogression. This is again, a matter of details, not of principle.

 

There are a lot of debates by scholars as to whether the Tao is a substance or just an abstract principle. Let's see what Laotse has to say. He says: "As something (object, matter), it's unstable, confused, moving. Within such instability, confusion and motion, there are phenomenan/images/pictures; Within such instability, confusion and motion, there are matters/objects; within its highest/furthest limits and its obscurity, there is essence. Its essence is so real/true and within that there is honesty/faith/truth". (TTC 21) (道之為物，惟恍唯惚。恍兮惚兮，其中有象；恍兮惚兮，其中有物；窈兮冥兮，其中有精。其精甚真，其中有信。). However, we must take into account the context in which this description was first mentioned by Laotse. He was then talking of the appearance of Confucius.. He was saying that the picture or image of the virtue or virtuous conduct of Confucius. He said that Confucius appeared to be following the way of the Tao. In any event, it appears that several charactersitics of the Tao according to Laotse are clear: it is something which can have manifestation; it manifestation are always plagued by uncertainties, ambiguities, instabilities, lack of clarity, defintion, precision and is constanty changing in uncertain directions: there is always a certain vagueness about it and somehow within that creative chaos, we can find its essence ( the highest expression of chi 氣), some form of truth, some elements of reality and some form of honesty within it. In other words, LaoTse does not think it proper to define it too clearly, probably because as he said earlier, it is not something which is nameable precisely. Especially with regard to the idea of honesty, Laotse seems to be suggesting that somehow, the there is a moral principle involved in the Tao too. Perhaps that is because he was commenting on the moral conduct of Confucius. If so, the Tao would seem to be endowed with a "human" aspect, a moral aspect.  The Tao is something metaphysical but the conduct of man is not. It belongs to the sphere of human experience, human social reality. This seems to tie in with Laotse's idea that the Tao has two aspect, its basic, fundamental metaphysical nature (體) and its 'use" or "manifestation" or "embodiment" in particular" persons, things, events, processes  (用).