In the Shadows of the Dao

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor

 In the Shadows of the Dao
stuvs

Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing

THOMAS MICHAEL

SUNY
P R E S S
 Published by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Michael, Thomas, [date]

  In the shadows of the Dao : Laozi, the sage, and the Daodejing / Thomas
Michael.
    pages cm. — (SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture)
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN 978-1-4384-5897-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
  ISBN 978-1-4384-5899-1 (e-book)
  1. Laozi. Dao de jing.  2. Confucius. Lun Yu.  I. Title.

  BL1900.L35M53 2015
 299.5'1482—dc23 2015001388

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for my teachers, Anthony Yu and Wendy Doniger
And so for all of the many hermits who honor the techniques of Laozi:
externally they disdain glory and splendor and internally they nourish life and
longevity, yet they experience no hardships in this dangerous world. The mois-
ture of Laozi’s vast spring that has long flowed forth is abundant, abundant,
like this. How could he not have been established by Heaven and Earth as
the teacher for ten thousand generations?

及諸隱士其遵老子之術者皆外損榮華內養生壽無有顛沛於險世
其洪源長流所潤洋洋如此豈非乾坤所定萬世之師表哉

—Ge Hong, Shenxian Zhuan 1:7a.

 Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Preface xv

1. Reading the Daodejing Synthetically 1

Orientations 1
Conventions 3
Shadows 9
On the Early Daoism Label 12

2. Modern Scholarship on the Daodejing 15

Religious and Philosophical Approaches to the Daodejing 15
Modern Western Approaches to the Daodejing 21
Modern Chinese Approaches to the Daodejing 35

3. Traditions of Reading the Daodejing 47

Daojia, Daojiao, and Early Daoism 47
The Role of Commentary in the Daodejing 51
The Heshang Gong Commentary 53
viii Contents

The Xiang’er Commentary 55

The Wang Bi Commentary 57
Three Commentaries in Comparison 58

4. The Daos of Laozi and Confucius 67

Records of the Interview 67
Glimpses into the Dao of Antiquity 74
The Fault Line 81
Two Disciplines of the Body 85
Laozi and Confucius Revisited 91

5. Early Daoism, Yangsheng, and the Daodejing 93

The Hiddenness of Early Daoism 93
A Separate History 100
Orality and the Daodejing 103
Early Daoism and Yangsheng 109
Two Master Traditions and a Third 119
Yangsheng and the Daodejing 132

6. The Sage and the World 139

Early Chinese Archetypes: the Sage, the King,
  and the General 139
The Benefits of the Sage 146
Qi: The Stuff of Life 152
De: Circulation Is Not Always Virtuous 157
De in Action 165

7. The Sage and the Project 175

The Death-World 175
Projects 183
The Great Project of the World 189
Salvation 194
 Contents ix

8. The Sage and Bad Knowledge 197

A Confucian Study Break 197
Knowledge and Yangsheng Sequences 201
Brightness and Yangsheng Sequences 205
Knowledge Is a Sickness 211
The Question of Early Daoism Revisited 222

9. The Sage and Good Knowledge 225

The Second-Order Harmony 225
Yangsheng and the Knowledge of the Sage 229

Appendix: The Daodejing 235

Notes 269
Bibliography 293
Index 303
 Acknowledgments

My first acknowledgement goes to the very long line of Daodejing readers and
practitioners who get important insights from this short work into what is wrong
in the world and who are committed to its fullest philosophy of life contained in
the simple word “nurturance” 養 (yang). These readers and practitioners whom
I acknowledge here also see in it the wonderful possibilities of life transformed
by nurturance, and I have depended on the momentum from such readers and
practitioners long dead and others who shall live long to carry the present work
to completion.
I have struggled for many years to bring this work to completion. The process
of engaging the Daodejing so intimately for so long has provided me with joys
and satisfactions that I will forever cherish, and this process has opened many
doors to me. It has pushed me to experience countless Daoist urban temples
and mountain monasteries throughout many parts of China, and I have made
solid friendships with some of the best scholars of Daoism in the contemporary
world, Chinese, European, and American. On this note, I want to particularly
acknowledge Livia Kohn’s magnificently successful efforts in bringing together
the best modern scholars and practitioners of Daoism from both the East and the
West by way of the International Conferences of Daoist Studies, to which she
has devoted herself for many years; I have had the satisfaction of participating
in almost all of them. Further, I also thank her for allowing me to work very
closely with her in organizing the 9th Conference in the series that was held at
Boston University in 2014.
Finally having the opportunity to cap In the Shadows of the Dao gives me the
opportunity to acknowledge Lin Qiaowei, my very dear friend and fellow scholar

xi
xii Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

of Daoism, for escorting me through many bookstores in China where I was able
to amass a solid library of scholarly works on which I continue to depend for
all of my research in early Daoism. Qiaowei also spearheaded and organized my
lecture series at Sichuan University some years ago, where I had the unforgettable
experience of meeting and spending an entire afternoon and evening with modern
China’s foremost scholar of Daoism, Qing Xitai. His recognition and appreciation
of my researches into Daoism provided me with the courage and confidence to
continue to pursue them. His generosity in giving me his support as well as his
ideas became a major source of strength as I pushed the present book to the end.
Since the publication of my first book on early Daoism (The Pristine Dao:
Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse) some ten years ago, In the Shadows of the
Dao has been gestated, formed and reformed, and brought finally into the light of
day from within the academic environment that I have inhabited for most of my
adult life. Those readers who come to this book from their own positions in the
academic environment of Daoist Studies (or Early Chinese Studies, or Chinese
Philosophy, or Chinese Religion) will know the controversy that infuses most
discussions of the Daodejing in such circles. The publication of In the Shadows of
the Dao will likely add a few more degrees of intensity to these discussions, as
several readers of the manuscript before publication have remarked. So my next
acknowledgment goes to those people already familiar with it and who have
encouraged me to persevere and bring this project to conclusion. Of particular
note in this regard are two of my closest friends and colleagues, Chris Ellson and
Georges Favraud, but also my friends Cassandra, Sarah, Andrew, Colin, and Tara.
I situate this work as one further addition to the field of Daoist Studies.
This field is notorious for the intense debates between two (or three, as I argue
later) radically divergent perspectives centered on a single and highly conten-
tious methodological conflict. This conflict stems from the fact that a minority
of modern Western scholars insists that Daoism started centuries later than what
has traditionally been taken as established historical fact, and it is precisely this
traditional understanding for which I argue in all of my scholarship on early Dao-
ism. I am not alone in this, and there are many modern Western scholars who
agree with me on just this point, namely that the appearance of the Daodejing
was a foundational event from its earliest circulations beginning around the end
of the Spring and Autumn period of early China, roughly the fifth century BC.
To find even a single ordained Daoist over the last two thousand years who would
refute this is to engage in a losing battle.
While it is tempting to reduce this methodological conflict to a debate
between “Philosophy” and “History” or “Religion” in their most general senses,
the primary issue at stake concerns how exactly we are to approach the Daodejing.
This is a contentious debate in which the various participants have clearly staked
out positions intellectually, historically, and professionally. On the one side are
historians of early Chinese religions. At the head of this camp stand the French-
 Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s xiii

language scholars Henri Maspero, who wrote in the earlier twentieth century, and,
a few decades later, Kristofer Schipper, who himself was an ordained Daoist; both
firmly held that Daoism existed centuries before the turn of the Common Era.
Their influence has been mostly felt in French-language scholarship on Daoism,
but the three most important English-language scholars who embrace their posi-
tions are Roger Ames, Harold Roth, and Livia Kohn. I heartily acknowledge the
path that these five scholars have pioneered for my own work here.
Henry Rosemont Jr. was instrumental in bringing my previous work on
Daoism in The Pristine Dao to the attention of Roger Ames, and Roger accepted
both that work and this one for inclusion in his State University of New York
Press series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Harold Roth, whom I have not
yet had the honor of meeting, was extremely generous in his recommendation that
SUNY Press publish The Pristine Dao, and without that recommendation, In the
Shadows of the Dao would never have seen the light of day. Livia Kohn, finally,
has meant more to me than I can say in my struggles to continue with this book.
On the other side, Nathan Sivin and Michel Strickmann, both of whose
major works on the question of the origins of Daoism were published in the 1970s,
pioneered the view that denied the Daoism label to anything before the second
century CE (including the Daodejing itself). Later scholars who have embraced and
furthered this view include first of all Robert Campany and Stephen Bokenkamp.
Although neither of them has published on the early circulations of the Daodejing
precisely because they do not recognize that those early circulations mattered or
had anything to do with Daoism, both of them are formidable scholars, impec-
cable and exacting in everything that they have published and whose work will
last for a very long time. Together they have trained a generation of scholars to
maintain this absolute second-century CE restriction on the Daoism label, but I
am convinced that they are wrong. I also and very sincerely acknowledge their
scholarly work and opinions, both professional and personal, and their presence in
the back of my mind (and often even in the forefront of it) remains one further
and decisive motivating factor for In the Shadows of the Dao. I can say without
hesitation that without their intellectual presence in my own thinking about Dao-
ism beginning long ago, this would be a very different, and much weaker, work.
Nancy Ellegate, the editor at SUNY Press with whom I have worked closely
over the past many years and throughout the many evolutions of In the Shadows
of the Dao, deserves more credit than I know how to give. I can only imagine
the numerous headaches she experienced with every round of reader reports that
came to her desk following each of its several submissions. She received and
read a wide range of them, some fawning and others critical, and she, however
inexplicably, continued to stand strong with this work through thick and thin. I
shall tip my hat to her forever and again.
As these pages go into press, I am also delighted to take this very last-minute
opportunity to recognize Laurie Searl and her entire production team at SUNY
xiv Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Press for their unbelievably painstaking and exacting work with formatting this
work. I am convinced that Laurie will be very happy never to hear the phrase
“Interlocking Parallel Style” from me ever again. Kudos on top of kudos to you
and your team.
I also acknowledge all of those scholars who wrote those reports on the
manuscript. I am grateful for those reports that lauded it, and they were invalu-
able for my own ability to stick with it. I am also grateful for those reports that
criticized it, and they were, in all truth, even more precious to me. Surgical in
their critiques, they provided me with opportunities to think even more deeply,
to dig even deeper into the available scholarship, and to be even more exacting
in my claims and ideas. Thank you for the time and effort that each of you gave
to those reports, and I hope we can share a beer one day, whoever and wherever
you are.
My next acknowledgments go to Stephen Prothero, Karen Nardella, and
Stephanie Nelson. Steve stood with me and had my back from start to finish,
and to him, I can say that I have no regrets. Karen, fully armed with her tenac-
ity, pushed me harder than anybody I have ever known. Stephanie, who is far
more Daoist than she may ever realize, has been my Rock of Gibraltar. These
three have provided me with direction, purpose, and a standard of professionalism
without which In the Shadows of the Dao would never have become what it is.
Patricia has showered me with an unending rain of faith, love, and charity,
and if there is one person for whom I do what I do, it is most certainly her. Keith
has been my deepest source of inspiration; may you surpass me in all things when
your time comes. Katharine did not leave me during those prolonged periods of
darkness when I was completely immersed in this work and not even close to
being fully present to her. I hope all three of you know how important you have
been to me over these last several years as I strove to complete this book. Without
each of you, I would have been lost in the shadows. But I am not.
 Preface

The present work, In the Shadows of the Dao, attempts to cover a lot of ground in
its explorations of Laozi, the Sage, and the Daodejing. Many of its areas of brief
mention are in themselves more than adequate topics worthy of concentrated
gaze and further research and study. One of my hopes is that it might spur future
studies in those areas on which I at times perfunctorily remark without providing
more in-depth scrutiny, including more exacting examinations of regional and
geographical difference; a clearer focus on the historical interactions between the
separate groups named herein or even groups within these groups; a more concise
vision of the continuity, or lack thereof, between ancient and early China, espe-
cially as this concerns the interactions, differences, and similarities between the
Northern Zhou and the southern Chu cultures than what I can pursue here; and,
finally, a more nuanced approach to early Chinese forms of religiosity, particularly
those that might involve something that I call early Daoism.
I do not mean to say that I have ignored or even attempted to cover up
these holes; I in fact celebrate them. In some ways, raising more questions than
I do or can answer is one goal of this work, because the answers that I have
found to previous questions, as well as many of the questions themselves, do not
entirely fit with the indications that have led me to ask different questions of
the historical record, so far as I have come to understand it. I contend with a lot
of questions and answers put forth by modern scholars in the pages that follow
because I do not believe that their questions and answers have adequately and
once and for all been correctly targeted. If they had, then this work would never
have left the ground.

xv
xvi P r e f ac e

I attempt to provide one possible reading of the Daodejing that finds its home
in a mountainous milieu where masters and disciples pursued a program of physical
cultivation called yangsheng 養生, which involved techniques of breath circulation
in combination with specific sets of bodily movements. The present work attempts
to provide an understanding of the ways in which the Daodejing systematically yet
enigmatically anchored these techniques to a Dao-centered worldview, providing
a total canvas of meaning for the tradition of early Daoism that was oriented
toward sagehood, long life, and world-transformation.
In my first book, The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse, I
explored and examined this Dao-centered worldview shared by a handful of other
early Chinese writings that have traditionally been identified as Daoist. I have
maintained this traditional attribution to these writings based on an exclusive
discourse that I find in them, which gives witness to a shared thematic, verbal,
and intellectual cohesion of a complex of notions centered on the pristine Dao. I
framed that early Daoist worldview in regard to four domains: cosmogony, cosmol-
ogy, ontology, and soteriology, and I examined it in terms of a specifically early
Daoist understanding not shared by any other early Chinese writings with their
own traditions of discourse demonstrating their own separate concerns. This early
Daoist worldview, however, would soon enough exert a tremendous impact not
only on the traditional Chinese worldview as it has come to be known to us, but
also on that of East Asian worldviews as a whole. The present study assumes and
builds on that previous work, and I do not rehearse that again here.
This specifically early Daoist worldview, however, is precisely that in which
the Daodejing anchors its ideas of the program of yangsheng. I want to be clear
on these two points: First, while the program of yangsheng is central to the read-
ing of the Daodejing that I explore, that writing is anything but a manual for its
practice, and the present study assumes that program without displaying it in any
great detail. While it provides the backbone of the Daodejing, its fundamental
foundation around which the writing is built, yangsheng remains in the shadows
of everything that I discuss. Second, this work is devoted to the Sage of the
Daodejing (who just happens to be, as some records suggest, the ideal master of
yangsheng).
I argue that this early Daoist reading of the Daodejing predates various other
traditional Chinese readings of it that have been variously labeled philosophical,
political, and religious. I understand the Daodejing as initially emerging from an
early Chinese movement that has its own separate history (that of yangsheng) apart
from other early Chinese schools of thought and traditions of practice. In the Shad-
ows of the Dao surveys and thereby challenges the long tradition of Western schol-
arship that reads the Daodejing as a philosophical manual of enlightened kingship.
This is where some controversy arises. I call this movement early Daoism,
but members did not call themselves by this term (at least so far as the historical
records go; but then this was a hidden tradition), nor did anybody else; in fact,
 P r e f ac e xvii

we have no records of what they were called, and this has led a good number of
scholars to deny that that movement had anything to do with Daoism. While
some if not most of us are familiar with the labels “philosophical Daoism” and
“religious Daoism,” the early Daoism that I explore belonged to neither of them.
Can it still be called Daoism? My answer is “Absolutely,” but my reasons for this
are found in the pages that follow.
While I contend with the modern understanding that there were two long-
standing traditions of Daoism, philosophical and religious, I am actually dancing
with six different partners. My first partner is religious Daoism, and my second is
modern Western scholars of religious Daoism. While religious Daoists themselves
never doubted or questioned that there were other Daoists who preceded them,
these scholars for some reason do, and they claim that these religious Daoists were
the very first Daoists, who formed their Daoist religion in the second century AD.
My third partner is philosophical Daoism, and my fourth is modern Western
scholars of philosophical Daoism. While philosophical Daoists were not, as I argue,
actually Daoist (they were mostly Confucian), modern Western scholars of philo-
sophical Daoism call them Daoist. These scholars do not say that religious Daoists
never existed—in fact, they are unanimous in accepting that they did—but claim
that they came into existence long after philosophical Daoism, which they take to
have formed in the third century BC. Moreover, these scholars claim that there
are distinct differences between the philosophical Daoism that they study and the
religious Daoism that scholars of religious Daoism study, so much so that these
two Daoisms, philosophical and religious, represent their own independent and
autonomous traditions with very little in common.
My fifth partner is that group, movement, or tradition (more on these terms
later) that predates the philosophical Daoists, and my sixth (a very small and
exclusive group indeed, among whose ranks I count myself) is modern Western
scholars who take this group seriously (although they do not always call it “Dao-
ist”; among other labels, they sometimes call it “proto-Daoist”). These scholars
do not deny the Daoism label to either religious or philosophical Daoists (but I
actually do deny the Daoism label to the latter). They claim that early Daoism
(but that is my label) came together somewhere between the sixth and fourth
century BC, and it is characterized by specific programs of physical cultivation
not shared by any other early Chinese groups, movements, or traditions.
There are two things to note in all of this. First, scholars of religious Dao-
ism say that there was no Daoism before the Daoists that they study. Scholars
of philosophical Daoism say that there was a religious Daoism that came after
the Daoists that they study but no Daoists before them. Scholars of early Dao-
ism, finally, do not question that there was both a philosophical and a religious
Daoism that postdated the Daoism that we study (but note that I am unusual in
the claim that philosophical Daoism was not actually Daoist). Sound confusing?
This is where the field is.
xviii P r e f ac e

Second, what all three of these groups, movements, or traditions of Daoism

have in common is in fact the Daodejing. No matter how one looks at Daoism,
the Daodejing is the foundational writing for anything that could ever fall under
that label, whether that includes one, some, or all of the following adjectives:
early, philosophical, or religious.
But the Daodejing is about nothing if not the Sage. And there is a lot to
get through before I can directly attend to him.
Chapter 1 is primarily orientational. I present my arguments for a synthetic
reading of the Daodejing that takes the received text as a coherent, interrelated,
and interreferential whole. As this raises questions about what could have pre-
ceded the received text as we know it, I engage issues involving various ways of
dating it that have been offered. In the end, I argue that early Daoism was hidden,
but I posit this hiddenness as an end (or a beginning) point that I try to work
my way back to over the course of the next several chapters.
Chapter 2 initially introduces what is at stake in the three readings of the
Daodejing that are at hand (early, philosophical, and religious), and it does so by
a focused attention to the first chapter of the Daodejing. The ensuing exploration
of the modern history of Western scholarship on the Daodejing attempts to lay
out the ways in which the categories “philosophical” and “religious” have been
applied to both Daoism in general and the Daodejing in particular, with a nod
to where this has left current scholarship in the field. The chapter then turns its
attention to a line of modern Chinese scholars spanning roughly one hundred
years whose work on Daoism and the Daodejing can be taken as decisive for how
the Chinese academy approaches both, with special attention paid to how it may
or may not compare with current Western scholarship.
Chapter 3 directly engages the historical construction of the major traditions
of early and traditional Chinese readings of the Daodejing that were substantially
based on three commentaries that more or less disregarded (for reasons that I go
into) the early reading with which I am primarily concerned. These commentaries
are the Heshang Gong, the Xiang’er, and the Wang Bi. I explore the major features
and components of each one separately, and then I draw a series of comparisons
among and between them. The chapter ends with a consideration of how they
might compare with an early Daoist reading.
Chapter 4 attempts to get behind each of these traditional readings by
exploring the central hub, if not the essential source, of early Chinese think-
ing, namely the culturally foundational notion of the Dao itself. I pursue this by
situating the accumulative process of the coming together of the Daodejing next
to that of the Analects, and I examine how both writings were built from their
own ideas of the ancient dao, which were most immediately available to them
from the Shijing (The Classic of Odes). The chapter then moves on to explore
the ways in which both writings developed their own separate programs of cul-
 P r e f ac e xix

tivation by delving into their own separate theories of cultivation. This opens
the way for the following chapters to situate their approach to the core of the
Daodejing.
Chapter 5 is by far the longest one, and it is so without apology. It takes
seriously the hiddenness of early Daoism as well as it separate history. It examines
the ways in which some scholars, those who also seriously consider the separate-
ness of the history of early Daoism, have conceived this. Those who have done so
demonstrate a definite tendency to attribute this to ancient shamanism, but I do
not accept this; I instead attribute this separate history to the history of yangsheng,
and I find this to speak to the origins of the Daodejing as an oral phenomenon.
This discussion then directs the study to an exploration of the earliest records of
yangsheng, and from there into some of the nuts and bolts of various other move-
ments and traditions of early China, which themselves tapped into the yangsheng
teachings of early Daoism and took them into different directions, quite possibly
with their own interests at heart. This coincides with what other scholars have
designated as the period when the Daodejing went from being a hidden text to one
of the widest popularity among many sectors of early Chinese society. The chapter
ends with an exploration of some of the specifically early Daoist techniques of
yangsheng that can be culled from the Daodejing.
Chapter 6 is the first chapter that brings its focus to bear directly on the
internal contents of the Daodejing with a sustained gaze on the Sage, and this
continues through the following three chapters that bring In the Shadows of the
Dao to an end. A word of warning: starting from this chapter onward, the schol-
arly works presently available have less and less to say for my own purposes. My
footnotes reflect this, dwindling to just one or two by the time of the penultimate
chapter, and zero by the time of the final chapter. This will probably cause some
readers to castigate me, but will be a relief to others.
Chapters 6, 7, and 8 open with further attempts to compare the Analects with
the Daodejing, but this is not done to demonstrate their shared history; in fact, its
purpose is the exact opposite. I pursue these comparisons by taking recourse to many
of their shared terms that evince deep dissymmetries, one to the other. Chapter 6
pursues this in relation to each writing’s vision of the Sage next to its vision of the
King (with a little bit of the General thrown in from Sunzi’s Art of War); Chapter
7 does this through an analysis of two key terms of early Chinese discourses, Dao-
ist or otherwise, namely qi 氣 and de 德; and chapter 8 compares their separate
valuations of another term, that for “study” 學 (xue). But these comparisons only
take up the first few pages of each chapter; the bulk of each chapter uses this as a
launching board for a more direct engagement with, again, the internal contents of
the Daodejing as this concerns the Sage, the prime actor of the Daodejing.
Chapter 6 primarily examines ways of understanding the physical possi-
bilities of the Sage, chapter 7 explores what the Sage does and can do, chapter
xx Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

8 explores the yangsheng sequences of the Sage, and chapter 9 attends to the
knowledge of the Sage.
All of this is followed by a complete translation of the Daodejing in the
appendix. It significantly differs from most other Western-language translations
currently in print, but this is because it does not settle for either a “philosophical”
or a “religious” reading of it.
 1

Reading the Daodejing Synthetically

sts

Orientations

In this work, I offer a new hermeneutical reading of the Daodejing 道德經 with an
eye to how it could be read for a tradition of early Daoism and how that might
contribute to the long line of previous English-language readings and translations
that began in earnest with James Legge in the nineteenth century.1 The present
reading significantly differs from previous readings primarily in that I do not
take a predetermined point of view that depends on the Analects 論語 or the
Zhuangzi 莊子. I take this position despite the fact that the Analects, circulat-
ing contemporaneously with the Daodejing, remains my preferred talking partner,
especially in my attempts to highlight the differences between the two works
and not the derivation of one from the other. I take this position also despite
the fact that the Zhuangzi, first circulating possibly more than two centuries after
the first appearance of the Daodejing, has more to say about a specifically early
Daoist reading of the Daodejing than any other writings until Ge Hong 葛洪 in
the fourth century CE.
I also do not take a predetermined point of view that depends on the Wang
Bi 弼注 commentary, the Xiang’er 想爾 commentary, or even the Heshang Gong
河上公 commentary, all of which were written some five hundred years after those
first circulations of the Daodejing. That is a very long time, and there is very little
by way of previous Western-language translations and readings of the Daodejing
that can be said to approach it in this manner. Specifically, I take very seriously
those aspects of the Daodejing not commonly recognized in previous readings,

1
2 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

namely the early Daoist emphasis on yangsheng 養生 (“the nurture of life”), a

term referring to a specific regimen of bodily techniques of cultivation. I have a
lot more to say about yangsheng in the pages that follow.
If we take the arguments of Bruce Brooks and Taeko Brooks seriously (and
I examine them more closely in chapter 5), then we need to stop talking about
absolute dates in terms of a onetime composition for the Daodejing and the Ana-
lects. According to them, both of these writings absorbed textual accumulations,
or at least underwent various redactions and editions, over time until 249 BC, the
date of the Lü conquest, and I have no reason to argue with them on this point.2
This is important to note, because neither text is systematic in chronologically or
thematically ordering their sections or chapters—there is little rhyme or reason
in their continuities and progressions, as every reader of them quickly realizes.
These two texts did, however, provide the raw material that later writings
would systematize, as the Mencius 孟子 did with the Analects by providing a
fleshed-out theory of the historical cycle of Sage-Kings, and as the Zhuangzi did
with the Daodejing by providing a fleshed-out theory of the historical breakdown
of the world and the concomitant loss of the Dao. My project here, however, is
not to provide this kind of textual history; although I affirm that the Daodejing is
an accumulated text, I do not take early and separate accumulations, redactions,
editions, or versions (as, for example, found in the Guodian 郭店, the Mawangdui
馬王堆, the Beida 北大, the Yan Zun 嚴遵, and the Heshang Gong versions) as
being radically different in thought or spirit from each other.
What this means most importantly is that my reading radically differs from
that of, for example, Michael La Fargue, who argues that the Daodejing is a col-
lection of aphorisms culled from various and multiple voices (and I return to
his ideas on the dating and content of the Daodejing soon enough), or, in the
words of D. C. Lau, “the Daodejing is an anthology in which are to be found pas-
sages representing the views of various schools.”3 I take the text synthetically, not
atomically, and I hold to the view that the ideas from one section or chapter are
deeply involved with all other ideas in every other section or chapter. To read
the text otherwise is to be handcuffed from the start: if the sections and chapters
are not inherently inter-referential, then each section and chapter must be taken
by itself on its own terms, and the way they are to be read in this approach is
always already established beforehand by any philosophical Confucian or religious
Daoist reading, either chronologically or thematically.
My approach to the Daodejing is somewhat similar to some parallel con-
temporary approaches to the Bible that attempt to steer between the Scylla of
traditional interpretation (either philosophical or religious), with its false hope
of continuity, and the Charybdis of historical-critical methods, with its destruc-
tive path of atomization.4 Even if there are redactors or editors of originally
disparate accumulations, redactions, editions, or versions, the redactors or editors
 R ea d in g t h e Daodejing S yn the tical l y 3

have brought the disparate components together in a way that sees a coherent
unity in the whole. Although the synthetic reading I espouse will certainly do
some degree of injustice to the “original” Daodejing, what I receive in return is
the authority provided by the early Daoist tradition of yangsheng cultivation for
a possible third reading, which I call the early Daoist reading. This authority is
very hard to downplay in the modern quest for some elusive (and atomic) original
text.
To treat the Daodejing synthetically (albeit with a bias toward yangsheng
cultivation) also means that I strive to remain open to it as a poetic, mythic,
philosophical, political, religious, and imaginative work. Even if the Daodejing at
the time of its first circulation was not completed in anything like its present
form as we have come to know it, it did at some point come to that comple-
tion, and certainly by the time of the Mawangdui editions, from which point
onward it was more or less the full, received text that we have today. It is this
synthetic reading of the Daodejing that I here espouse, a reading that is deeply
informed by the experience of it as a specifically Daoist writing most immediately
owned by the tradition of early Daoism with its strong emphasis on yangsheng
practice.

Conventions

I give my translation of the Daodejing in the Appendix, and in this study it is

to this translation that all of my references, discussions, and analyses of the text
refer. I announce the specific passage or chapter under discussion as DDJ followed
by the chapter number; for example, DDJ 7 refers to Daodejing, chapter 7. In the
translation, I have relied on the format structure uncovered by Rudolf Wagner
that he calls “the interlocking parallel style” (IPS).5 This structure provides for
a non-linear way to read certain sections or chapters of the Daodejing, but by
no means every section or chapter, that clearly were not meant to be read in
the typical linear fashion. In the IPS structure, for example, two consecutive
sentences, A and B, are not to be read A on top followed by B underneath,
familiar as we are with this structure from most printed verse; instead, A is to be
read on a left-hand column and B on a right-hand column directly next to it;
thus, A and B are parallel with each other. The main thematic content of A is,
typically but not always, contrastive, complementary, or connective with B; thus,
the thematic content interlocks. Furthermore, there is often a middle column that
progresses, contains, or links the AB parallel. I have not adopted each and every
IPS structure designated by Wagner, and I have tended to simplify those I have
adopted with the aim of ease of reading. A straightforward instance of the IPS
is found in DDJ 7:
4 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Heaven is long. Earth is lasting.

The reason why

Heaven is long and Earth is lasting

is that they do not live for themselves.

This is why they are able to be

long and lasting.

Because of this, the Sage

marginalizes his body but and disregards his body yet his
his body is first, body lasts.

Is it not because he has no self-interest
that he is able to realize his self-interest?

I take the Laozi jiaoshi 老子校釋, based on the Longxing guan 龍興觀 stele, as
my base text of the Daodejing. All of my amendments to it have textual sup-
port in the various other versions and editions that I have consulted as well as
in the commentaries and notes to them. These other versions of the Daodejing
include the Guodian Laozi 郭店老子, the Mawangdui Laozi 馬王堆老子, the Laozi
Daodejing Heshang Gong zhangju 老子道德經河上公章句, Wagner’s critical text
of the Laozi Daodejing Wang Bi zhu 老子道德經王弼注, the Laozi Zhushi ji pingjie
老子註釋及評介, and the Laozi duben 老子讀本. My amendments to the Laozi
jiaoshi are for the most part relatively minor. The largest amendment is from DDJ
23; in this chapter, all versions other than the Laozi jiaoshi include an average
of an additional twenty-seven characters, which I have kept in the translation.
By far the greatest number of my amendments to the Laozi jiaoshi concerns par-
ticles, either adding them or subtracting them, again based on variations from
these other Chinese versions that greatly assist in the clarification of discrete
sentences.
Speaking of the various editions of the Daodejing, Wagner writes, “Most dif-
ferences are in particles, where textual variations usually are largest but meaning is
least likely to be influenced.”6 I have also amended many adverbs and transitions
such as shigu 是故 (“therefore”) and shiyi 是以 (“for this reason”), again only
so far as the separate versions I consulted assist in clarifying specific passages. It
is not my intention to document each and every instance of this; on the other
hand, I make no claim to provide yet another critical or “authentic” edition of
 R ea d in g t h e Daodejing S yn the tical l y 5

the Daodejing. In the end, my most important hermeneutical claim is simply that
I take the Daodejing as a synthetic, self-referential text.
I have put all Chinese transliterations from primary sources into pinyin,
as well as all quotations from Western scholarship that employ the Wade-Giles
system; for example, I have changed all Wade-Giles transliterations of tao-chia to
daojia. I have kept the original Wade-Giles only for citational and bibliographical
purposes. I have also changed all quoted references that name “the Laozi” to “the
Daodejing,” as most modern Chinese scholars and some Western scholars are wont
to use that writing’s alternative title; I have done this, again, for continuity and
ease of reading. Additionally, I have changed all quotations from Western sources
that use BCE (or B.C. or B.C.E.) to BC, and A.D. to CE.
I have adopted two further conventions that I need to clarify here. First, all
of my translations from the Analects are taken directly from the Shisan jing 十三
經, and they are easy enough to locate in any number of the English translations
to that text; therefore, I do not give specific citations for the translated passages,
only the chapter and verse. I use the version of the Sunzi Bingfa from the Chinese
Text Project,7 and I also do not give specific citations for the translated passages
from it, only the chapter. I do, however, provide specific page citations for all
other passages translated from all other primary Chinese sources.
Second, I use the capitalized and non-italicized form with a determinative
for the term dao 道 as “the Dao” in most cases when I discuss it as a foundational
concept; in other cases, I keep the term in its non-capitalized and italicized form
without a determinative as dao when I discuss or employ it in its archaic uses before
it became a foundational concept, and also when the term is coupled with other lim-
iting terms, as for example in the phrase daojia. I also keep two further terms which
will be found to play a central role in the following pages in their transliterated,
non-capitalized, and italicized forms, namely de 德 and qi 氣, because the mean-
ings of these terms change in accord with their use in any specific textual context;
their multivalency makes any single and direct translation into English unworkable.
If I am to be pressed into giving a precise date for the Daodejing, my imme-
diate response is to ask if that concerns its first circulations (already unleashed
by the mid-fourth century BC, the common date for the closing of the Guodian
tomb) or its received version(s); the first dates for each are likely separated by
centuries. I am not, however, overly concerned with either date, but I am deeply
concerned with the original environment from which the writing emerged. I can
accept any date from the sixth century BC (in conformity with the traditional
Chinese dates for Laozi) to the mid-second century BC (the general date most
closely aligned with the closing of the Mawangdui tomb). My reading of the
Daodejing does not depend on any particular date within these general parameters,
but it does depend on establishing its earliest circulation within an environment
oriented around physical cultivation and not political persuasion.
6 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

That said, I prefer to keep an early date for the Daodejing. Although I
would like to argue for a sixth-century date, I refuse to get bogged down in such
­arguments; modern scholars have been arguing its date for a very long time, and I
certainly will not solve the riddle here. To avoid such entanglements, I can simply
accept a fifth-century BC date relying on William Baxter’s arguments. Among all
of the scholarship that argues for either an early or a late date, I find his to be
the most persuasive (but then I also choose to rely on his arguments because they
bolster my own, despite the fact that I find even his date a bit conservative); he
writes, “[I] will conclude that the Daodejing was probably composed around 400
BC—that is, after Confucius but before Zhuangzi.”8
Corresponding to the period of the closing of the Guodian tomb, which has
not yet been definitively dated but is generally reckoned to have occurred around
the mid-fourth century BC, I believe that holding to at least a fifth-century BC
date for the Daodejing (and realizing that many readers will certainly challenge
even this, claiming that it is either too early or too late) will not have any seismic
consequences for the synthetic reading to which I adhere. On the other hand,
every date for the Daodejing put forth by scholars has been and will continue to
be challenged; there is no scholarly consensus.
Dating the Daodejing should not be feared, however, because this is one of
the more exciting debates going on in the modern academy, and it is anything
but sterile. Generally speaking, scholars who date the Daodejing to the fourth
century BC or earlier share certain ideas about the text, primarily that it centers
on physical cultivation and targets the hidden Sage, while those who date it to
the third century BC or later also share certain ideas about it, primarily that it
centers on philosophy and targets the public King. Although I present this in an
either/or way (either early or late), Baxter is much more nuanced, and he looks
a bit more closely at traditional arguments than I have:

There have been three main theories . . . One traditional view attri-

butes the Daodejing text to a certain person called Laozi who is recorded
as having had conversations with Confucius. Since Confucius’s dates
are 551–479 BC or thereabouts, the theory dates the Daodejing at some-
where around 500 BC. A second traditional view dates the Daodejing
considerably after the time of Confucius, but before the philosopher
Zhuangzi, whose dates are approximately 365–285 BC. In this view,
the Daodejing is generally attributed to a figure named Lao Dan who
is said to have been the Grand Historiographer of Zhou. This theory,
then, dates the Daodejing in the early fourth century BC—let us say,
at about 375 BC. In the twentieth century, there has been consider-
able support for dating the Daodejing text (at least in its final version)
much later, well after the lifetime of Zhuangzi: probably in the late
third century, say about 225 BC.9
 R ea d in g t h e Daodejing S yn the tical l y 7

Commenting on this specific passage, Alan Chan offers a breath of fresh air
for those of us who look for an earlier date; he writes:

An interesting development in contemporary sinological scholarship

is that traditional accounts are increasingly coming back into favor.
This stems in some cases from recent archaeological discoveries; but
more generally the trend may be seen as a reaction against the radical
distrust of tradition that characterizes much of 20th-century sinological
research . . . Admittedly, this represents a minority view at present.
However, there are reasons why the claim of an early date may enjoy
a sunnier scholarly fortune in future.10

To round off this very brief foray into the importance of dates, Brian Cook
writes:

Prior to the Guodian discovery, however, the dating of this text has been
a matter of great controversy . . . There has been little agreement as to
precisely where to place the temporal origins of the text, with some even
going so far as to date the work, counter-intuitively, to after the time of
Zhuangzi . . . But now with the discovery at Guodian of three separate
“Laozi” bundles containing material which, added together, equates to
roughly a third of the received Daodejing, we may now ascertain that
at least a substantial portion of the latter almost certainly predated the
composition of even the earliest Zhuangzi chapters . . . Needless to say,
this still leaves open the possibility that the text (in some form) or
the ideas behind it could have originated with a “Lao Dan” or some
other person roughly contemporary with Confucius.11

Despite any and all of these arguments, the Daodejing remains a cumulative
text, which means that the search for a onetime composition of it on any specific
date is a futile endeavor; as Robert Henricks writes, “The traditional Chinese
position on this—which remains a popular view in the West—is that the entire
book was written by a single person called the ‘Old Master’ (Laozi), who lived
at the time of Confucius, that is, around 500 BC.”12 So what does this mean for
the Guodian Laozi, which, as Henricks comments, “contains material from only
thirty-one of the present eighty-one chapters”?13 Does this mean that the portions
of the received text that are not present in the Guodian Laozi were later additions,
which would mean that the Guodian Laozi is a proto version that developed over
time into the Daodejing, or that the Guodian Laozi, for whatever reason we can
imagine, simply did not include them?
As an aside, I would like to point out Chen Guying’s position on this
very question. Chen stands as one of contemporary China’s foremost and most
8 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

respected scholars on Daoism, so his ideas, while they mirror those of traditional
China, are not to be taken lightly; he writes:

We can, therefore, understand the partial completeness of the Guodian

Laozi versions as having two causes. First, the difficulties of copying
texts in those times made complete works rare; second, transcribers
chose texts, or portions of texts, that suited their particular interests
and intentions . . . Comparing these three copies of the Laozi with
the later Mawangdui version and the transmitted Daodejing, we find
that little more than the order has changed. The content remains
fundamentally the same.14

Either position, namely seeing the Guodian Laozi as a proto version or as a

partial version of a complete text, continues to measure the Guodian Laozi against
the more or less complete version recovered from Mawangdui, which itself is not
exactly the same as the Heshang Gong version that is recognized as the “standard”
text, or at least as close to one as we will ever get. These questions are tricky,
but they also matter a lot for how we read the Daodejing. The easy answer is that
future excavated versions of the Daodejing, if any more are forthcoming, should go
a long way toward clarifying this, but we do not have them at the moment, and
there is no guarantee that we ever will. But hope remains eternal.
Relying on at least some scholarly support in positioning the first circulations
of the Daodejing somewhere between the sixth and fifth centuries BC immediately
relieves me of the major burden of situating its ideas in relation to such texts as
the Mencius and the Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋, as well as the Xing zi ming chu 性
自命出 and the Wu xing 五行, the last two of which were excavated together
with the Guodian Laozi. I realize that even if the first circulations of the Daodejing
predate all of these texts, it still does not mean that it was the complete text as we
know and have received it, or even that its original core was self-cultivation and
not politics. If the earliest circulations of the Daodejing predate all of them, then,
for better or worse, I do not have to explore the ways in which its earliest writers
and editors and redactors were or were not engaging in the various philosophical
debates visible in the received writings from the period of the Warring States.
In other words, the Daodejing (originally a text of early Daoism) served to set
in motion many of the debates that were the subject of dispute among the later
philosophers, but it was not an active participant in them; it predated them all.
The early situation of the Daodejing is very much like that of the Analects:
not only were they circulating before the various debates and disputes were taken
up by later Warring States philosophers, but they also set the table for them. This
is why I find the Analects, more or less contemporaneous with the Daodejing in
their earliest circulations, the best speaking partner in approaching the Daodejing.
At the same time, I also find very little benefit in looking to various later texts
 R ea d in g t h e Daodejing S yn the tical l y 9

for understanding its original environment of physical cultivation, whether this

be the Xing zi ming chu and Wu xing slips or the earliest commentaries to the
Daodejing found in the Han Feizi 韓非子 and the Huainanzi 淮南子. They are
all already later than the earliest circulations of the Daodejing, based on the date
of the Guodian tomb, and even more force is given to this view if the Guodian
Laozi is a partial version of a fuller Daodejing in circulation at the time that has
not yet been excavated, although probably not fully developed into the full ver-
sion that we have today.15
As a final nail in the coffin of the argument that the Guodian Laozi is best
seen as a proto version of the received Daodejing, it has become clear that the
Guodian Laozi itself already calls upon three separate and already existing versions
of the Daodejing, named “Laozi” Jia 甲, Yi 乙, and Bing 丙, or, as they are known
in Western languages, “Laozi” A, B, and C.16

Shadows

In concluding this chapter, I would like to say a few words about the title of this
study, In the Shadows of the Dao: The Daodejing, Laozi, and the Sage. All three
members named in the subtitle inhabit the shadows, and each of them can be
seen only in the same way that one can see stars—by not looking at them directly.
The meanings, ideas, symbols, and images that fill the Daodejing waft in the
ebbs and flows of shadow; as soon as we are confident of nailing down the concrete
sense of any one of them, it fades and loses itself in a different level of signification.
The various conditions and entities targeted by the Daodejing never attain constant
levels of stability; instead, they remain in flux: names have no constancy, long gives
way to short, life gives way to death, virtue turns into vice, and this is all due to
the shadowy realm of the Dao itself, in which the constant interplay of Being 無
(wu) and Non-being 有 (you) can never once and for all be made to pose.
Laozi also exists in the realm of shadows; in fact, his actual life, if there even
was a Laozi, is lost in the shadows of the interplay between myth and history. In
the numerous recorded biographies and episodes about him, he jumps into and
out of the shadows, at times giving audience to Confucius, at times burrowing
away in the libraries, and once or twice just packing off altogether. And this is
only and already according to the biographies that predate his divinization in the
latter Han, because from those that postdate it, he is said to have stayed in his
mother’s womb for eighty-one years before being born (interestingly, the Daode-
jing also has eighty-one chapters), jumping out of his mother’s womb only in the
shadowy night to pass time with other mysterious sages who also inhabited the
shadows. Laozi is also said to transform his appearance eighty-one times in the
course of a single day, a shadowy figure indeed.17
The Sage, that most mysterious and anonymous figure who has the lead-
ing role throughout every page of the Daodejing, also lives in the shadows (the
10 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

gender of the Sage is never announced, and throughout this study I refer to the
Sage in the masculine singular for no other reason than the fact that English has
no gender-neutral third-person pronoun). The Daodejing’s many announcements
and proclamations about the Sage provide the essential skeleton upon which the
flesh of the text depends for life. The Sage makes everything in the text matter,
but his direct words are only displayed in a few passages. He appears, directly or
indirectly, in nearly half of the text’s eighty-one chapters, but we never actually
see him because he is, as DDJ 15 says, “Fading, like melting ice. Vacant, like a
valley. Undifferentiated, like muddy water” 渙兮若冰之將釋曠兮其若谷混兮其
若濁 (huan xi ruo shui zhi jiang shi kuang xi qi ruo gu hun xi qi ruo zhuo).
Perhaps the most shadowy region into which the present work steps is that
of early Daoism itself with its fundamental and foundational emphasis on yang­
sheng cultivation believed to lead the adept to sagehood. This is an early Daoism
that also provides powerful indications that masters and disciples of yangsheng
had a strong attraction for the natural environments of mountains and forests
山林 (shanlin) for their practice, what the Daodejing calls “the natural world”
自然 (ziran).
I might be accused of using the early Daoism label as if the existence and
significance of what it intends to designate were intuitively obvious, but in fact it
is anything but that. How could I or anyone go about establishing the empirical
or historical foundation for such a label, particularly when not a single participant
of early Daoism ever referred to him- or herself by such a term? I am not entirely
sure, even at this point, but I nevertheless hold to the claim that the Daodejing
was written (or recited, as the case may be) by masters of yangsheng cultivation
and their disciples. Further, I argue that the original environment of the Daodejing
had a lot to do with mountains and forests, and closely associated with this type
of environment is the concomitant notion of hiddenness; early Daoism is a hidden
tradition. Because of this, the best I can do is to provide certain indications, and
some of them are simply of a logical sort. I put forth my understanding of early
Daoism with the intention of opening new ways of approaching the Daodejing
as a writing that has yangsheng cultivation at its core, and I hope to spur future
scholars to a deeper engagement with the avenues opened by such a perspective.
My positing of an original environment of the natural world of mountains
and forests for at least some practitioners of early Daoist yangsheng is not set in
stone, but all signs point to precisely that. Choosing to live outside of society was
not unheard of in early China, and that was most commonly done for periods
of time rather than permanently. When modern scholars have looked into this
phenomenon (most notably Michel Strickmann, Aat Vervoorn, and Alan Berkow-
itz18), they have focused their attention on any number of Confucians who did just
that, which is not surprising because they were pretty much the only ones to have
substantial records written about them. These Confucians left society deliberately
and with some amount of fanfare, primarily to make a political statement about
 R ea d in g t h e Daodejing S yn the tical l y 11

the government authority under which they lived, which they felt was not up to
standard. But most of those men did not move into the mountains; they chose
to live in their country estates; for them, that was far enough away.
The common verb applied in the early and traditional sources for such a
move was yinju 隱居, and one who made such a move was called yinshi 隱士.
Both Vervoorn and Berkowitz, among others, demonstrate some degree of fluid-
ity in using various terms directly signifying or closely related to “recluse” and
“reclusion” to translate yinshi and yinju.19 This fluidity might be fine for discussing
Confucianism, but it is certainly not in order for discussing early Daoism. These
terms come with far too much baggage from the Christian tradition of renun-
ciation in which religiosi devoted themselves to religious practices often of the
extremely ascetic sort. This does not apply to early Daoism.
I refrain from applying the reclusive label to early Daoism, particularly
because of the complex issues surrounding the phenomenon of reclusion itself.
The term “reclusion” derives from the Latin recludere, which has the meaning of
“to shut up in seclusion.”20 The early Daoist urge to inhabit the natural world is
less about shutting oneself up and off from society and much more about simply
going into the mountains and forests where the qi, the primary ingredient of
yangsheng, is fresh, pure, and pristine. None of those English translations of yinju
and yinshi brings out the quality of going into the mountains and forests to be in
harmony with the natural world.21
The early Daoism that I explore directs itself to the exact opposite of shut-
ting oneself up; it directs the adept to open up, specifically to open up the body
to the energies of the Dao and its qi. DDJ 48, for example, speaks of relinquish-
ing the products of human socialization to open oneself up to the energies of the
natural world: “Those who pursue study increase daily. Those who pursue the Dao
decrease daily. They decrease and decrease until they reach a point where they
act non-intentionally” 為學日益為道日損損之又損以至於無為 (wei xue ri yi wei
dao ri sun sun zhi you sun yi zhi yu wuwei).
For early Daoism, going into the mountains and forests of the natural world
for either longer or shorter periods of time did not require complete and perma-
nent removal from the social world in accord with some form of institutionalized
reclusion on a par with the cloistered Essenes of ancient Israel.22 I would like to
point out one story from the Zhuangzi,23 about a certain Gengsang Chu 庚桑楚:
he moved into the mountains to practice the yangsheng teachings of his master,
Laozi, and he took his wife and certain selected members of his household retinue
with him. No, early Daoism was not of the type represented by the cloistered
Essenes of ancient Israel; according to the Zhuangzi, these mountain-dwellers were
often married and had children whom they did not abandon (neither did they
relinquish their possessions) when moving into such mountain communities to
pursue their yangsheng. There are more such stories in the Zhuangzi of masters and
disciples who go into the mountains to pursue their yangsheng cultivation p­ ractices,
12 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

to which I return in chapter 5, but they were not alone: they participated in
communities that eschewed the light of public recognition and political office
to pursue a hidden lifestyle where they, too, inhabited the shadows of the Dao.
But let’s return to the original phrases, yinju and yinshi, both of which are
built on the term yin 隱, which literally means “to hide” or, adjectively, “hid-
den.” Accordingly for early Daoism, the phrase yinju means “to live hiddenly,”
and yinshi refers to “one who is hidden.” There is still a danger that even these
English translations can be taken too far because I venture to say that the early
Daoist Sage was not “hiding from”; he was not hiding from society or anybody
or anything in it; he was just hidden, like a hidden treasure.
The early Daoist Sage was likely hidden away in the mountains and forests,
but he could also be hidden away even in the towns and cities of the urban
world; as the Sage says in DDJ 70, “Because those who know me are few, I’m
of great value” 知我者希則我者貴 (zhi wo zhe xi ze wo zhe gui). Not only is the
Sage hidden, but he also hides great treasures within, as DDJ 70 states: “This is
why the Sage wears coarse cloth, but inside it he embraces jade” 是以聖人被褐
懷玉 (shi yi shengren bei he huai yu). Hidden, certainly, but if one wanted to find
a Sage badly enough, he could still be found, even in the mountains, and if he
was willing, he would become your master and you his disciple. He was, after all,
a willing teacher.
My preferred term for naming this tradition is early Daoism, and my primary
characterization of it is that it was a hidden tradition that flourished in the natural
world of mountains and forests. My translation of yin in this way is not without
textual support, and this support comes from the Daodejing itself: DDJ 41 cuts right
to the chase where it states, “The Dao is hidden and nameless” 道隱無名 (dao
yin wu ming). Hidden and nameless, the Dao is itself the world of the shadows.

On the Early Daoism Label

One of the biggest debates informing the contemporary field of Daoist studies is
the question of early Daoism, and I present a lot of what modern scholars, both
Western and Eastern, say on this subject in chapter 2. Although there is at present
a definite trend among some modern Western scholars, particularly those with a
tendency to historical anthropology, to argue that Daoism first originated in the
second century CE, there are still a good number of stalwarts who continue to
argue for a tradition or movement of Daoism (philosophical or otherwise) stretch-
ing back to the period of the Warring States, roughly spanning the fifth to third
centuries BC. This is not even to mention an even fewer number of scholars who
would push the first emergence of a possible early Daoist movement back even
further to the period of the Spring and Autumn; I count myself among them.
On the one hand, scholars who hold for a late second-century CE origin
for Daoism have a solid point, namely that there are no records of anybody who
 R ea d in g t h e Daodejing S yn the tical l y 13

either called themselves or others Daoist, at least until the Han Dynasty, and even
that designation by Sima Tan 司馬談 in the Shiji 史記 has come under fire for not
exactly referring to any actual, sociological tradition; it was a bibliographic label.24
Here I want to present a few ideas of what is entailed by my use of the
early Daoism label. To start, I see two strands of early Daoism, one taking form
around the sixth or fifth century BC and associated with the Daodejing that I call
early yangsheng Daoism, and the other taking form around the third century BC
and associated with the Zhuangzi that I call early zuowang 坐亡 (“to sit and for-
get”) Daoism.25 In the present work, I am exclusively concerned with the former
(reserving my study of the latter for a future work), although from time to time
I call upon indications from the Zhuangzi that speak to the first strand.
Although the participants of each strand did not call them Daoist as such,
both strands separately contain the core elements of what will later explicitly be
called Daoism, at least by the time of Ge Hong. The possession of these core
elements is exclusive and unique to each strand; in other words, no other group,
movement, or tradition incorporated them in their own writings (and, we can
surmise, they therefore did not practice them). We do not know of any other
label they used to describe what it was that they were doing, at least in terms
of self-identifying their tradition or movement, but this is not unusual for the
period at hand, as very few other groups had explicit labels. The shamans stand
out by having their own explicit label, wu 巫, as do priests 柷 (zhu) and scribes
史 (shi), yet these are more or less government positions, not autonomous groups.
Because of the absence or hiddenness of an irrefutable sociological group
clearly recognized and designated as Daoist in the historical records of the War-
ring States, scholars such as Nathan Sivin and Michel Strickmann, who have
put forth the most influential arguments against calling anything Daoist until
the formation of the Celestial Masters in the second century CE, are right, in a
way. But there was something there, something central to later Daoism: namely,
the initial genesis of the earliest transmissions of those core elements that would
later become the defining features of Daoism as it was practiced at the time of
Ge Hong and as it is still practiced by Daoists today.26 This primarily refers to
the transmission of yangsheng, which began long before the origin of the Celestial
Masters (the singular event that Sivin and Strickmann use to date the birth of
Daoism). But this relates to that first strand of early Daoism.
The core elements of early yangsheng Daoism cohere around the complex
of notions about the pristine Dao, yangsheng, mountains, and wuwei 無為. In
this complex, the pristine Dao provides the “stuff” of yangsheng, primarily the
“o­riginal qi” 元氣 (yuanqi) that the practitioner intends to circulate throughout
the body, resulting in its transformation. This original qi is found, in its purest and
most vital form, in mountains (I have more to say about mountains in chapter
5 because they represent, at least symbolically if not ecologically, the hiddenness
of early Daoism27). Wuwei, then, is the type of bodily behavior that comes as
14 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

a consequence of mastering yangsheng, in which the adept acts in spontaneous

accord with the Dao.
The core elements of early zuowang Daoism cohere around a slightly differ-
ent complex of notions. These are the pristine Dao, zuowang, and wuwei. Like the
first strand, this one also starts from the notion of the pristine Dao, but here it
serves as the ground of unbounded existence. Instead of the physical techniques
of yangsheng, this strand focuses on the spiritual techniques which, as many of
the works of Harold Roth and Livia Kohn cogently point out, are best recognized
as a type of apophatic meditation in which the contents of consciousness, but
especially notions of self, are emptied out. The successful practice of such then
leads to wuwei, which, for the Zhuangzi, does not necessarily refer to a mode of
spontaneous or non-intentional behavior as it does for the Daodejing, but rather
to a spiritual or mental freedom called xiaoyaoyou 逍遥遊 (often translated and
“free and easy wandering”).
In all likelihood an originally oral phenomenon, the Daodejing is a much
earlier, much shorter, and very different kind of text compared with the Zhuangzi,
which was put together as a collection of relatively independent and self-contained
essays. The Daodejing differs from this first of all in that it is self-contained as a
whole, at least in the synthetic reading I offer. It accumulated, we can be sure,
by way of discrete additions measured in sections and inter-referential chapters,
whereas the Zhuangzi accumulated by the addition of entirely self-contained chap-
ters which may or may not be entirely in keeping, in some cases, with all or even
any of its other chapters.28
From time to time in the present study I call upon what the Zhuangzi says
about Laozi, the Daodejing, and the Sage, but my inquiry here is predominantly
directed to a sustained study of an early yangsheng Daoist reading of the Daodejing,
and I reserve further explorations into the similarities and differences between
these two strands of early Daoism associated with the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi
for a later study.
So let’s see how much of this hidden Dao can be spoken . . . 
 2

Modern Scholarship on the Daodejing

sts

Religious and Philosophical Approaches to the Daodejing

The Daodejing is one of the more fascinating texts that undergraduate students
discover in their Introduction to World Religions classes. It is also very popular
among those members of modern Western societies who share an alternative bent.
The short book speaks a lot about doing nothing and living a life of spontaneity
outside of the hubbub of urban modernity. Our image of a Daoist Sage is typi-
cally of a very old and wrinkled man with a glint in his eyes and a long white
beard, wearing flowing robes, completely in harmony with the birds and the bees
outside his mountain cave.
In this study, I take issue with this vision. While most likely leading a
hidden existence amid any of the numerous Chinese mountains high above and
far away from the cares of the world, or also and maybe sometimes within the
heart of grand metropolises,1 I attempt to show that the Sage of the Daodejing
is first of all committed to a project of hands-on transformation. More precisely,
the Sage is committed to three separate yet related projects of transformation: a
transformation of the physical body through uniquely Daoist techniques of cul-
tivation, a transformation of the political body that begins with the Daodejing’s
relentless call to awareness of the ravages of political and economic unfairness,
and a transformation of the cosmic body that foresees the inception of a universal
peace throughout the world.
The descriptions of the Sage in the Daodejing portray him as a devoted
adept and master of the yangsheng techniques of physical cultivation. He is also
portrayed as a compassionate presence who feels the sufferings and injustices of

15
16 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

the common people exacerbated by the thirst for wealth and power of the ruling
elites. Finally, the Sage, by way of having united with the pristine Dao, is also
portrayed as an agent of a cosmic salvation who transforms the world into a life-
giving realm of natural harmony.
These three projects of transformation comprise the essence of the religious
aura surrounding the Sage. Any reading of the Daodejing that adopts a religious
interpretation of it, I should add, is a very different kind of reading from one that
adopts a philosophical interpretation. I have a lot to say about these two kinds
of readings, but I am interested most of all in a exploring a third reading of the
Daodejing that is somewhat different from readings that traditionally have come
to be identified as “philosophical” or “religious” in the formal sense. Although
this third reading still has much of the philosophical and the religious in it, it is
based on a tradition that I call early Daoism, and thus I call this the early reading.
This, then, brings me to say a few words about what this study hopes to
offer, which is an interpretive reading of the Daodejing that is grounded first of
all in the idea of a transformation of the physical body that comes about as the
result of a successful program of yangsheng in the production of a Sage. The Sage
is said to become one with the Dao, and the transformation of the political
body and the cosmic body both depend on this initial transformation. This study,
therefore, is primarily focused on the Sage, the yangsheng program of cultivation
he undertakes, and the nature of his being after he has come to embody the
Dao. To get a better perspective on what is entailed in this third reading of the
Daodejing, I first of all need to open up the necessary space that will allow for
a direct confrontation with it in which the influence of other readings on the
text and other understandings of the Sage are kept at bay as much as possible,
primarily because they encourage either a philosophical or a religious reading that
is not identical with this one. This includes traditional Chinese voices as well as
modern Chinese and Western ones.
I have only a few words about those traditional Chinese voices at this point.
Although Confucius and the records of his teachings in the Analects indeed play
a significant role in this study, it is mostly orientational, and I reckon with him
mostly in chapter 4. The Zhuangzi, which has a lot to say about Laozi, is even
more neglected, which might surprise some readers because it has a lot to say
about the major ideas treated herein, but it still pops up from time to time in
the following pages. The earliest commentarial writings to the Daodejing, ones
that read it philosophically, found in the Han Feizi 韓非子, the Xunzi 荀子, and
the Huainanzi 淮南子, I leave almost entirely to the side, as I do with the com-
mentary of Wang Bi, which magisterially provided its first systematically complete
philosophical reading. Furthermore, although the first Daoists of the institutional-
ized religion of Daoism, namely the early Celestial Masters 天師 (tianshi), should
arguably have a more prominent role, this work only briefly recognizes them. My
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 17

only response to these absences is that the Daodejing can stand on its own and
take care of itself.
The bigger space that needs to be cleared to pursue this third reading of the
Daodejing has for a long time been filled with the fruits of modern scholarship,
and they have reinforced and cemented the philosophical and religious readings.
Although it should go without saying that the philosophical reading of the Daode-
jing has dominated English-language scholarship on it from its first reception, over
the next many pages of the present chapter and into the following one, I want to
see what is at stake with both of these two readings before leaving them behind
once and for all in my attempt to chart and pursue an approach to this third,
early reading that might be able to avoid both of their predetermined pathways.
I will go into the historical construction of these three readings (philosophi-
cal, religious, and early) much more fully, but here I want briefly to introduce
them from a modern Western, non-historical or, more precisely, ahistorical, per-
spective. The philosophical reading, although starting with the Han Feizi, Xunzi,
and Huainanzi, did not come into full bloom until the commentary of Wang
Bi 王弼, and A. C. Graham is its most influential modern Western voice. The
religious reading points to a very specific approach involving an institutionalized
form of Daoism with doctrine, ritual, and ecclesiastics, historically appearing with
Zhang Daoling 張道陵 and the Xiang’er commentary, and Stephen Bokenkamp
is its most influential modern Western voice. The early reading that I explore is
different from both of them; it focuses on a specific type of physical cultivation
called yangsheng for which the first two readings do not sufficiently account.
To bring out more clearly what is at stake in these readings, I offer a brief
analysis of DDJ 1 because it is the most famous and fascinating of all of the
Daodejing’s chapters. However, because the religious reading is not well represented
in Western scholarship, and the Xiang’er commentary as we have recovered it no
longer includes DDJ 1, I leave that reading to the side for the moment. In the
following, I first present its philosophical translation followed by Graham’s philo-
sophical analysis. I then present a different translation of it followed by a non-
philosophical and non-religious analysis of it. Here is the philosophical translation:

The Dao that can be spoken is not the constant Dao.

The Name that can be named is not the constant Name.
The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth;
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Therefore be constantly without desire in order to observe its mysteries;
Be constantly with desire in order to observe its manifestations.
These two emerge together but have different names.
Call them the same; they are “the mystery.”
Mystery upon mystery: the gateway of all mysteries.
18 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

To call this a philosophical reading means first of all that this chapter is
exploring epistemology, the limits of human knowledge, and the relation of that
to language’s capacity to signify, especially in regard to what is beyond language.
Here is Graham’s philosophical analysis:

It might seem that the Daodejing had only to tell us straightforwardly

that the Way is inexpressible in words, is the source of all things, and
is discovered in ridding oneself of desire. That however is not quite
what it wants to say. The trouble with words is not that they do not
fit at all but that they always fit imperfectly; they can help us towards
the Way, but only if each formulation in its inadequacy is balanced by
the opposite which diverges in the other direction . . . The approach
of the Daodejing is to lay out couplets which, juxtaposed as parallel,
imply both that there is and that there is not a constant Way with
a constant name, and then try out the two alternatives in turn. Call
the Way nameless, and it is put back to the time before there were
things distinguished by names; name it, and it becomes a thing out
of which all others have grown. The text proceeds to its first “There-
fore,” marking as usual not an inference but the collision of abruptly
juxtaposed statements which forces us to seek connections where least
expected. How does the Way being with or without a name connect
with the sage being with or without desires? An answer is that divid-
ing out and naming both are guided by and guide desire and dislike.
There is a paradox in desire as in naming; to return to the undivided
Way you have to cease desiring one thing more than another; yet
Daoism loses all point unless when distinctions cease you do find
yourself drawn in the direction which is the Way . . . The Daodejing’s
method is simply to smash the dichotomy of desire and desirelessness
by contradictory commands both constantly to be without desire and
constantly to desire. Arriving at the last pair of couplets, what are
“the two”? “Named/nameless,” or “desire/desirelessness,” or “mystery/
manifestations?” Any or all, but the dichotomy on which the whole
stanza focuses is “named/nameless.” Having tried out both sides of the
dichotomy the text now throws it aside; to name as “nameless” is itself
to divide named and nameless in what is ultimately the same. “Call
them the same, they are the mystery,” use a new name to propel you
towards the darkness beyond naming, and momentarily discard the
name “Way” itself for the “gateway” out of which things come in the
mystery of the commencement of distinctions.2

Here is a different translation of DDJ 1 that follows neither “the philosophi-

cal” reading of Wang Bi nor “the religious” reading we can assume from Zhang
Daoling. Note that it is presented in the IPS format:
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 19

Dao’s can lead, but these Names can name, but these
are not constant dao’s. are not constant names.

Non-being names the Being names the Mother
beginning of Heaven and of the ten thousand living
Earth. things.3

For this reason:

Hold to the standpoint of Hold to the standpoint of

Non-being with the intent Being with the intent to
to witness its mysteries. witness its manifestations.

These two together emerge.
They have different names yet they are called the same.
That which is even more profound that the profound:
The gateway of the many and the mysteries.

The first line of the DDJ 1 is arguably the most famous line in the entire
tradition of East Asian religion and philosophy. The standard translation (shown
above) is “The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao” 道可道非常道
(dao ke dao fei chang dao). There is, however, nothing that corresponds to any
article in the original, whether this be “the,” “a,” or “any.” In fact, there are many
different daos discussed in the Daodejing (the daos of humans, of heaven, of water,
of the Sage, of antiquity), and even more, for example, in the Analects (the daos
of kings, of noblemen, and of good men, to name just a few). In this sense, one
major meaning of dao is simply a tested and approved way of doing something,
and so there are many daos, and there is no reason to read the first dao in the first
line of DDJ 1 as being something different from this, namely dao in the plural.
Verbally, dao means to speak, of course, but it also means to open a way or
to guide; I might translate the first line into a literal but clumsy English as “Ways
of doing things can open ways to do things, but these ways of doing things are
not constant ways to do things.” The reason these ways, or daos, are not con-
stant is precisely because things are always in a state of change. The tested and
approved way of playing basketball, for example, has changed a lot from the day
it was invented to today; the game has changed, and it does so every year with
the addition or subtraction, for example, of rules. So too have names. At this
moment, the name “reader” names you, but when you stop reading then another
name will name you (“basketball player,” for example, if you next go to the court).
The idea of these first two lines is not only that change is constant, but also that
we live best when we spontaneously allow ourselves to flow with change instead
of impeding it. This is a difficult feat to accomplish, and it points to the type of
behavior that the Daodejing will soon enough call wuwei.
20 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The following lines are also entirely amenable to two very different trans-
lations. The standard translation is “The Nameless is the beginning of Heaven
and Earth, the Named is the mother of the ten thousand living things” 無名
天地之始有名萬物之母 (wu ming tiandi zhi shi, you ming wanwu zhi mu). The
original Chinese has wu ming 無名 and you ming 有名 as the first two characters
of each line. Adjectively, wu means “not to have” or “to be without,” while you
means “to have” or “to be with,” and nominally ming means “name,” so taking
these characters in this sense we have the Nameless and the Named; as DDJ
32 says, “The Dao is constantly without name” 道常無名 (dao chang wu ming).
This reading of these lines remains a central component of Graham’s philosophi-
cal analysis because they are seen to explore the limits of the human ability to
signify by recourse to language, given that there is a level of existence beyond
language and signification.
How these lines are grammatically construed, however, can radically change
their meaning, depending on whether wu and you are taken as adjectives or as
nouns. Nominally, wu means “that-which-is-not” or “Non-being,” and you means
“that-which-is” or “Being,” and we have already seen ming used verbally in the
second line. Like this, the translation is “Non-being names the beginning of
Heaven and Earth. Being names the Mother of the ten thousand living things.”
In accordance with what I call the early reading, these two lines are not
about epistemology; they are rather directed toward cosmogony, the ultimate ori-
gins of all that there is. Other chapters of the Daodejing also provide loaded pas-
sages in which wu and you are used nominally (not to mention the immediately
following lines in this chapter); the clearest example, of course, is given in DDJ
40, which positively bolsters the reading of Non-being naming the beginning
of Heaven and Earth and Being naming the Mother of the ten thousand living
things: “The ten thousand living things of the world are born from Being, and
Being is born from Non-being” 天下萬物生於有有生於無 (tianxia wanwu sheng
yu you, you sheng yu wu).
If wu and you are taken nominally in this way, and there is no grammati-
cal reason not to do so, then the next lines also demonstrate a reading radically
departing from the standard translation: “Be constantly without desire to observe
its mysteries. Be constantly with desire to observe its manifestations” 常無欲觀
其妙常有欲觀其徼 (chang wu yu guan qi miao, chang you yu guan qi jiao). But
we must ask ourselves, why would the text raise the issue of having desire and
not having desire as a requisite for observing the world, and how could being
with or without desire cause us to see mysteries and manifestations? Furthermore,
this reading elides the force of the possessive “its” 其 (qi), as that term modifies
“mysteries” 妙 (jiao) and “manifestations” 徼 (miao).
Here the task is to interpret the first three characters of each line, which
are chang wu yu and chang you yu. Adverbially, chang 常 means “constantly,” but
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 21

verbally it means “to frequent,” in the sense of “to hold to.” Nominally, yu 欲
means “desire,” but verbally it also means “to intend.” The significant difference
in interpreting these two lines comes down to “Constantly without desire,” where
chang is adverbial, wu is adjectival, and yu is nominal, versus “Hold to the stand-
point of Non-being, in order to . . .” where chang is adverbial, wu is nominal, and
yu is verbal; the following line accordingly substitutes you for wu.4
In terms of epistemology, these lines explore the relation of desire to lan-
guage and signification; in terms of cosmogony, they explore the greatest mystery
of life, the transition from not existing to existing. Philosophically, these lines
examine the mind “in here,” and cosmologically, they examine actual reality “out
there.” This early reading seamlessly comes as the result (gu 故 “for this reason”)
of the origins of the cosmos and the source of ongoing life in terms of the inter-
play of Non-being and Being, so the text advises us to attend to the continued
interactions of Being and Non-being in the world in the present. The “two” 兩
(liang) of the final section most probably refer to “the beginning” 始 (shi) and
“the Mother” 母 (mu).
With such subtle nudges, these readings of DDJ 1 radically differ.

Modern Western Approaches to the Daodejing

Modern Western scholarship on the Daodejing began to appear in full force at

the end of the nineteenth century and typically took the form of translations
and appended studies. The reading of the Daodejing from its first Western recep-
tions was solidly based on the commentarial tradition established by Wang Bi.
Writing some five hundred years after its first circulation, Wang Bi, however, was
for all intents a devoted Confucian and not in any sense of the word a Daoist.
As Kristofer Schipper remarks, “The Confucian commentary of Wang Bi [is] an
interpretation which is very widespread among non-Daoists in China. Wang Bi’s
commentary has also influenced almost all translations of the Daodejing into West-
ern languages.”5 This commentary and its exalted position within the Confucian
tradition were adopted wholesale by Western sinologists from their first receptions
of it, and it remains fundamental to this day. Schipper continues:

But Wang Bi was not a Daoist. His thinking was even quite removed
from what we have come to recognize as the background of the Old
Master’s [Laozi] aphorisms . . . The philosophical speculations of this
brilliant scholar did, however, greatly impress his contemporaries and
gained widespread acceptance, whereas the earlier commentaries men-
tioned above were forgotten. For the Chinese literati, the ­philosophical
interpretation of the Daodejing became the only acceptable one, and from
then on they claimed to have the only true key to the text . . . From
22 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

then on, following Wang Bi’s exegesis, the literati made the famous
distinction between a “philosophical” Daoism that they claimed was
noble and pure, and a “religious” Daoism that was supposedly vulgar
and materialistic, that is, the Daoism of the people.6

Speaking about those “earlier” and “forgotten” commentaries to the Daode-

jing, primarily the Heshang Gong, the Xiang’er, and a select few others, Alan
Chan writes:

Heshang Gong’s commentary occupied the position of preeminence in

traditional China, at least until the Song dynasty. For a long period,
Wang Bi’s work was relatively neglected. The authority of the Heshang
Gong commentary can be traced to its place in the Daoist religion,
where it ranks second only to the Daodejing itself. Besides Heshang
Gong’s work and the Xiang’er, there are two other commentaries, the
Laozi jiejie (Sectional Explanation) and the Laozi neijie (Inner Explana-
tion), that are closely associated with religious Daoism  .  .  .  These texts,
however, only survive in citations . . .7

I have quite a few more things to say about these lost commentaries to the
Daodejing in the next chapter, but the point that I want to make here is that
although there are not a lot of textual evidences for early Chinese readings other
than the philosophical that we can see today, they did exist; Schipper continues:
“These ancient commentaries have often been ridiculed as being nothing but erro-
neous and even absurd extrapolations. Such a negative appraisal has led many to
view Daoism’s philosophical thought as something quite separate from its religious
practice and even to view them as two distinct historical and social realities!”8
The “many” to whom Schipper refers who see a radical difference between
the philosophy and the religion include the Confucian literati as well as Western
sinologists; these two groups of Daodejing readers, furthermore, standardly elevate
the philosophy over the religion in their assessment and judgment of the central
meanings and import of the text. The irony in this is that the formation of the
tradition known as Daoist philosophy, as I argue, is actually the creation of the
tradition of Confucian literati.
Before pursuing the ramifications of this claim, and I do, I want to look a bit
more into Western sinology’s inheritance of Wang Bi’s Confucian commentarial
tradition to the Daodejing. Starting from the earliest moments of that reception,
Western scholars established a couple of staples hardly seen before, including the
conviction that Laozi never lived and that the Daodejing was not written by a
single author.9 The milestones in this line of Western translation and exegesis
include James Legge (1891), Arthur Waley (1934), and D. C. Lau (1963). Their
works firmly established and directed Western readings of the Daodejing for gen-
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 23

erations, and they maintained their positions as the highest of standards until
well into the 1990s. Even today, when contemporary scholars quote and cite the
Daodejing, their references more often than not rely on Lau’s translation.
The deep influence of those previous translations can be seen in the first
generation of independent studies of Laozi and the Daodejing not tied to concomi-
tantly published translations. Arguably the most important early studies were those
of Herlee G. Creel in the 1950s (collected and published together in 1970). Com-
ing on the heels of Creel’s work, Holmes Welch’s study of the Daodejing (1965)
enjoyed some degree of popular reception. Although he also adhered to the by
then mainstream Confucian philosophical reading, his advocacy of the idea that
Laozi actually lived and wrote the Daodejing did not gain much traction in the
face of modern scholarship’s distrust of tradition; he writes, “Finally, it is possible
that Laozi never existed at all and that both the Daodejing and its putative author
are composites of various teachings and teachers. This is the opinion of some
contemporary scholars. It is my opinion that, except for a few interpolations, the
book was written by one man.”10 In spite of Welch’s position that Laozi wrote the
Daodejing, these two works by Creel and Welch did much to further entrench the
philosophical reading, and things remained somewhat quiet in Daodejing studies
for the next few decades in English-language studies.
The years around 1990 witnessed a resurgence of solid Daodejing translations
and studies. Victor Mair (1990) published his very literary translation, and this
was followed by Michael LaFargue’s (1992) very historical translation. Together
with Graham’s important article on the legendary character of Laozi (I return to
that in chapter 5), three book-length studies came to dominate scholarly discus-
sion, and each of them regarded the Daodejing as a work of Daoist philosophy:
Benjamin Schwartz (1985), Graham (1989), and Chad Hansen (1992). These
works see the origin of Daoist philosophy emerging with the first circulation of
the Daodejing roughly around the third century BC. Each of them explores early
Chinese philosophy in general, and they see the Daodejing as one participant in
the philosophical debates of the Warring States period, one tradition standing
alongside Confucianism, Mohism, Nominalism, and Legalism, with each tradition
in conversation and argument with the others. In these studies, Laozi and the
Daodejing receive their own single chapter next to the other early Chinese think-
ers and their writings; they also give little attention to the prehistory of Daoism
before the Daodejing. These three works solidly set scholarly approaches to the
study of the Daodejing in the strict terms of sinology and comparative philosophy,
and they were instrumental for my own initial understandings of early Daoism.
To this point, I have limited myself to specifically English-language transla-
tions and studies of the Daodejing. I do not mean to ignore the invaluable work by
a highly distinguished line of French scholars who have taken the religious aspects
of early Daoism seriously, and this also represents my own secondary exposure
(after Schwartz, Graham, and Hansen) to early Daoism, which drew me into direct
24 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

engagements with modern Chinese scholarship. Outstanding in this line of French

scholarship is the work of Henri Maspero (who passed in Buchenwald in 1945);
his work was largely written in the 1920s but not collected and published together
until 1971 with an English translation in 1981. Max Kaltenmark’s study of Laozi
and the Daodejing came out in 1965 with an English translation in 1969, and
Schipper published in 1982 what is probably the single-most important study of
Daoism in any Western language, which received an English translation in 1993.
If I have refrained from saying anything substantive about any and all of
these translations and studies, it is because I do not want to get mired in the
nuances of their specific insights (but I call upon them from time to time through-
out the course of this study). Holding myself (only for a few more moments) to
the Western categories of philosophy and religion, I want to point out a few
comments by Julia Hardy, who writes,

For two thousand years Daoism has existed in China as a religious

institution, with priestly functionaries, ritual practices, gods and
goddesses, heavens and hells, and all the accoutrements of religious
organization. In the Daoist religion, Laozi is revered as a god, and the
Daodejing is one of thousands of texts in the Daoist canon. In the late
1970’s and early 1980’s, some scholars began to point out that all this
rich material was being virtually ignored in favor of the philosophy
expressed in ancient texts like the Daodejing . . . The reason for this,
they argued, was a bias in favor of a philosophical interpretation of
Daoism that had proven immensely attractive to Western thinkers and
created an idealized vision of ancient China.11

Modern sinologists have made a lot of this distinction between Daoist phi-
losophy and Daoist religion, but it gets even more complicated. There was not
a single monolithic tradition that we might (or might not) designate as Daoist
in early China; rather, what we find in the historical writings of the time is that
there were multiple groups, lineages, and traditions that were in play, each of
which still demands to be attended to much more closely in any consideration
of what the Daoism label intends to designate.
As a first step into this complicated arena, let me say that there were at least
three different traditions (actually more, but for the sake of simplicity let’s leave it
at this for the moment) that can possibly merit the Daoism label, and they were
anything but uniform. In brief, we can single out a tradition of institutionalized
Daoism 道家 (daojiao) that was born with Zhang Daoling and the founding of
the Celestial Masters in 142 CE. We can single out a tradition of philosophical
Daoism 道教 (daojia) initially discernible in the “Jie Lao” 解老 and “Yu Lao”
喻老 chapters of the Han Feizi and the “Dao ying” 道應 chapter of the Huainanzi,
all of which provide commentarial ruminations on what they take to be some
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 25

of the essential political components of the Daodejing, but that did not come to
full fruition until the writings of Wang Bi. Finally, we can single out a somewhat
more shadowy tradition (“early Daoism” is the best term that I can find for it,
but I could further specify this as early yangsheng Daoism in distinction to the
early zuowang Daoism espoused by the Zhuangzi12) that appears to have existed
in the closest proximity to the earliest circulations of the writing, and that was
deeply invested in the achievement of sagehood by way of physical cultivation.
The approaches of modern Western scholars of Daoism can be seen to
reflect these two (or three) ways of understanding Daoism. At present, scholars of
philosophical Daoism smoothly apply the Daoism label especially to the Daodejing
(but also very smoothly to the Zhuangzi) and base their reading of it on Wang
Bi’s philosophical commentary; Hansen and Roger Ames remain two outstanding
representatives of this line.13 Next to them, a growing number of contemporary
scholars of religious Daoism typically restrict the Daoism label to the religion
whose origins are attributed to Zhang Daoling (and I introduce this approach
more fully below).
But my naming of a third tradition of Daoism next to daojia and daojiao
is not entirely without precedent, and the major scholars representing this line
include Schipper, Kohn, and Roth.14 Kohn writes: “Within the Daoist tradition,
then, one can distinguish three types of organization and practice: literati, com-
munal, and self-cultivation.”15 Although Kohn does not explicitly designate them
as such, the first refers to daojia, the second to daojiao, and the third is equal to
what I call early Daoism.
For his part, Roth writes,

[A] distinct group of people existed who can justifiably be labeled Dao-
ists because they followed and recommended to others an apophatic
practice of breathing meditation aimed at the mystical realization of
the Way and its integration into their daily lives. These people also
created and transmitted a body of doctrinal texts that evolved over
time in response to the changing circumstances in which the members
of this ‘distinctive lineage’ found themselves.”16

Although what both Kohn and Roth describe is very close to my own
understanding of early Daoism, let’s step back for a moment. The modern schol-
arly debate on the question of an early Daoism with its possible origins in the
practice of yangsheng is entirely separate from the issue of a philosophical or a
religious Daoism. This is not to say that these two Daoisms are not problematic
each in its own way, particularly so with regard to a possible Warring States
tradition of philosophical Daoism.17 But the question of a non-philosophical and
a non-religious early Daoism remains a very different issue. Although the term
daojia appears to have first been coined by the Han dynasty historiographers, the
26 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

two terms, daojia (“the school of Dao”) and daojiao (“the lineage of Dao”), were
not opposed until many centuries after.18
Xu Dishan 许地山 was one of the first modern Chinese scholars of Daoist
religion to have articulated the daojia/daojiao distinction in a systematic way in his
Daojiao Shi道家史 (The History of Daojiao), first printed in 1934 (more on him a
bit later). But it was Derk Bodde’s widely read 1966 translation of Zhongguo Zhexue
Shi 中国哲学史 (The History of Chinese Philosophy) (interestingly also published in
1934, the same year of Xu’s publication) by Fung Yu-lan (or Feng Youlan) 冯友
兰 that made this distinction immediately available for Western scholarship. The
crucial passage from it that is often quoted in Western studies is the following:
“As for Daoism, there is a distinction between Daoism as a philosophy, which is
called Daojia (the Daoist school), and the Daoist religion (Daojiao). Their teach-
ings are not only different; they are contradictory.”19
Fung’s use of daojia to designate a Daoist philosophy and daojiao to designate
a Daoist religion gave the powerful impression that these two terms marked the
obvious difference between religion and philosophy that is referentially obvious
to modern Western thinking. It should be pointed out, however, that in the long
period of traditional Chinese history, the terms daojia and daojiao were applied
interchangeably (together with the term daozhe 道者as a third entrant that is not
often attended to in modern scholarship20), and they did not express the hard dif-
ference between philosophy and religion that Fung injected into them. It was only
during the Tang dynasty that the terms daojia and daojiao became fixed, but not for
describing the difference between Daoist philosophy and Daoist religion; rather,
daojia first of all referred to a Confucian reading of the Daodejing, and daojiao to
a Daoist reading of the Daodejing (I look at this historical moment in more detail
in the next chapter). Fung’s usage of these terms in this very different modern
application was made possible in large part by the development of the Chinese
term “religion” 宗教 (zongjiao), brilliantly examined by Anthony Yu, who writes:

Part of the recent controversy of scholarship, moreover, extends to

the discussion of the modern term for religion in Chinese (zongjiao
宗教), one of the many neologisms allegedly coined by the Japanese
in the nineteenth century and re-imported for Chinese usage, and
whether such a term is applicable to cultural phenomena of early or
imperial China. Even if it is, so the question continues, is it a proper
or adequate synonym of the word “religion” in its full English and
European linguistic connotations?21

Although there is no easy answer to Yu’s question, Fung clearly understood

that his strict distinction between daojia and daojiao was firmly supported by the
very modern and Western conception of the hard separation between philosophy
and religion. He directly applied it as an analytic tool for understanding two
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 27

separate traditions of Daoism, one philosophical and one religious, and this has
become virtually dogmatic for much modern sinology.
This way of thinking takes the works of early Daoism, primarily the Daode-
jing, the Zhuangzi, the Huainanzi, as well as the Liezi 列子as a somewhat later
member, as the foundational writings of Daoist philosophy. But it turns out to be
a tradition without any clear social movement, unlike, for example, the Confucian
tradition that did have a substantially clearer Warring States period sociological
movement. Yet even this tradition is not as clear as we modern scholars would
like, as Michael Nylan provocatively states: “The stable entity that later scholars
have called Confucianism has never really existed. ‘Confucianism’ is an abstrac-
tion and a generalization—apparently useful but always obfuscating—a product of
an ongoing intellectual engagement as much as a subject of it.”22
If my persistent use of the labels “Daoist” and “Confucian” gives the impres-
sion that what I take them to designate are stable, transparently identifiable move-
ments or traditions, this is not my intent, although I hesitate to go all in with
Nylan’s comments. Other scholars do not share my hesitation. Nathan Sivin in
1978, and then Michel Strickmann in 1979 (both of whose works followed in
the footsteps of Creel’s earlier studies; I return to all of them shortly), put forth
the strong claim that the Daoism label should be exclusively restricted to the
religious movement identified with Zhang Daoling that originated in 142 CE.
Given that the Daoism label for the most part has been, since the publication
of Sivin’s and Strickmann’s studies, limited to that institutionalized Daoism by
a growing minority of modern scholars of Daoism, other kinds of Daoism have
received limited representation. But my naming of a third tradition of Daoism—an
early Daoism next to Daoist philosophy daojia and Daoist religion daojiao—is not
entirely without precedent (see my above citations of Schipper, Roth, and Kohn).
One consequence of the claims put forth by Sivin and Strickmann is seen in
the general opinion shared by some modern Western scholars of Daoism that the
Daodejing can no longer be identified as Daoist. Such scholars who accept their
claims challenge the use of the Daoism label for a text that every practitioner
of the Daoist religion has identified as his or her foundational scripture for more
than two thousand years. What I am attempting to do is to challenge in turn
this extremely modern (or is it postmodern?) argument and come to terms with
why the Daodejing is foundational for anything called Daoism, early or late. I am
not alone in the endeavor; what is unique about my approach is the articulation
of a tradition that I call early Daoism.
I grant that my use of the Daoism label in this way is controversial, and I
will engage those criticisms soon enough. It is one thing to challenge the use of
the Daoism label for anything predating Zhang Daoling; it is quite another thing
altogether to challenge the Confucian label, as Nylan does, even and particularly
as this pertains to Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, and (as I callously jump over the
entirety of the Han dynasty) Wang Bi. I do not have any great reservations about
28 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

continuing to use the Confucian label as applied in the period of the Warring
States; not to have access to it would simply cripple our ability to speak sensibly
about any movement or tradition at all during that period. If required, I could
also change the label “Confucian” to “literati” (a label more or less synonymous
with Confucianism anyway), but I expect that my doing so will only exacerbate
this issue. As Mark Czikszentmihalyi writes, “While perhaps not yet widely dis-
seminated outside of the community of specialists, many scholars have begun to
question the application of the term ‘Confucianism’ to some aspects of premodern
China on the grounds that it mistakenly suggests a tradition that grew out of the
traditional teachings of one person.”23 Indeed.
Ever next to this Confucian label is the Daoism label. The early Confu-
cian tradition had at least a general designation with the ancient term that long
predated Confucius himself, namely ru 儒, although there is a lot of scholarly
debate as to whether this term should apply to Confucianism strictly speaking as
we understand it in the West. Either way, the term ru corresponds much more
closely to what we take to be Confucianism (rightly or wrongly) than any other
available early Chinese term that could possibly refer to Daoism. A tradition such
as early Daoism (if I am even close in my designation of it) will not be self-evident
primarily because nobody in the period of early China (at least until Sima Tan)
appears to have called him- or herself or anybody else “Daoist.”
Part of the problem for seeing early Daoism is that it was, to some degree,
“hidden” 隱 (yin). Early Daoists were, also to some degree, “hidden,” which means
in part that they were not especially fond of the public spotlight; therefore, they
did not get the attention of a lot of writers of the time. Kenneth DeWoskin is
one of a number of scholars who want to translate yin as “eremitic,” and while
I will not go that far in characterizing early Daoism, his following comments
are well taken: “The immortal is characteristically eremitic, and he emerges into
public view only in the rarest of circumstances. The historians not only had little
of written record to convey, but they had little by way of praise to extend to this
group.”24 This is the greatest difficulty in speaking about early Daoism: it is, in
fact, hidden. But its hiddenness should not divert us away from the powerful (yet
still shadowy) indications of its historical existence.
Although we recognize that Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi are proper names, we
really have no clear idea to whom these names refer. Despite the fact that Laozi
received a substantial biography in the Shiji, what we know of him is steeped in
myth and legend and is filled with contradictions.25 The Shiji also gives a biography
to Zhuangzi, but it is fairly brief, and our knowledge of his life remains minimal.26
Our knowledge of Liezi, however, is even more negligible; he is thought to have
lived in the fourth century BC and was famous for his ability to ride the wind;27
and his teacher, Huzi 壺子, is the model of enigmaticity.28
What we know of these early Daoist figures allows for no comparison with
what we know of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, each of whom has a biography
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 29

in the Shiji, which comes already after numerous other early Chinese writings
have discussed them individually and in relation to each other in a “Confucian
tradition.” Csikszentmihalyi, however, would not let me get away with this term;
his preference is for a phenomenon that he calls “disciple traditions” within what
he calls “the Ru academic lineage.”29 He writes:

Disciple traditions emphasize different elements of the Ru tradi-

tion . . . Statements in the Analects attributed to Zi Zhang emphasize
an inclusivity that is sometimes at odds with the words of other dis-
ciples . . . By the Han dynasty, the disciple Zixia came to be closely
associated with the interpretation of the Odes and Documents, and with
the maintenance of an esoteric transmission from Kongzi [Confucius].
Several early traditions outside the Analects concerning Zengzi highlight
his filial piety, which is sometimes considered by other disciples to be
excessive. Finally, the first or second generation disciple, Zisi, who
later came to be identified as Kongzi’s grandson, comes to be associ-
ated with a particular set of doctrines which are harshly criticized in
the third century BC text Xunzi. The variety of disciple traditions
reflects a diversity that appears to have existed at most a generation
after Kongzi’s death. Indeed, among the earliest excavated texts that
bear on the Ru tradition are individual texts whose titles have been
identified with particular disciples such as “Zigao,” “Zengzi,” “Zilu,”
and “Yan Yuan.”30

My point in presenting this long quote is not to say anything innovative

or even interesting about the early history of Confucianism; it is, rather, to show
that early Chinese writings provide nothing comparable in discussing any person,
group, movement, lineage, or tradition that could be identified with early Dao-
ism. And this compels us to make a very serious choice: either we deny anything
to which the early Daoist label, philosophical or otherwise, could be applied or
we accept the shadowy nature of the scant indications that are available and
recognize that whatever it is to which we append the early Daoist label, it was
hidden (a term that categorically does not apply to those Confucians named by
Csikszentmihalyi). I chose the latter option.
Entertaining the possibility of an early Daoism that came together sometime
between the sixth and fifth centuries BC, it could only be a tradition without an
extensive public membership. Daoism only became a more or less public tradition
on a wide scale with Zhang Daoling’s investiture in 142 CE, marking the initial
appearance of an institutionalized Daoist religion. If, furthermore and for the
moment, we also entertain a Warring States tradition of Daoist philosophy, then
it would be separated from the Daoist religion by some five hundred years. Sinolo-
gists who maintain the existence of that Warring States philosophical tradition
30 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

have long claimed that the origins of Daoist religion are essentially independent
from any line of Daoist philosophy; they are separate and different (and scholars
who deny that Warring States tradition of Daoist philosophy, obviously, have no
need to claim that it had no influence on the origins of the Han dynasty religion).
The convention of denying any relation between a Warring States period
tradition of Daoist philosophy (whether one takes it to have existed or not) and
an Eastern Han dynasty tradition of Daoist religion is a particular mark of English-
language sinology; the main line of French-language sinology, however, is remark-
able for doing the exact opposite. Schipper, arguably the main representative of
that line, has often remarked on English-language scholarship that has expressed
a tangible disdain for anything smacking of Daoist religion in the scholarship
predating Sivin (who was one of the first modern English-language scholars to
take Daoist religion seriously); Schipper writes, “Such a negative appraisal has led
many to view Daoism’s philosophical thought as something quite separate from
its religious practice and even to view them as two distinct historical and social
realities!”29 Isabelle Robinet expands on this view where she writes:

During this account we shall often have to consider the question of

the relationship between what are called “philosophical Daoism” and
“religious Daoism.” . . . Much ink has been spilled on this matter, but
usually, it must be admitted, by people who have not studied the texts
of “religious Daoism.” We shall see again and again that this division
has no significance. I share the view that this is a nonexistent prob-
lem arising from only an apparent difference, one that exists in all
religions and mystical systems—the difference between self-discipline
(techniques, training, etc.) and either the results of this discipline or
the speculations that can accompany or crown it.32

I am fully sympathetic to these primarily French-language attempts to close

the gap between a Warring States philosophical Daoism and a Western Han reli-
gious Daoism, but I think that effort is doomed from the start, primarily because
what these scholars understand by “philosophical Daoism” is far too vague. And
yet this line of French scholarship, ultimately inspired by the works of Maspero,
has done more to account for and attend to the techniques of early Daoist self-cul-
tivation of both the yangsheng and the zuowang sort that consistently spill through
the pages of all texts identified as early Daoist than any English-language studies
published before the last two decades or so (with respect to the works of Roth).
Still, these works do not conceive of a tradition of early Daoism that could
be anything other than philosophical (albeit with a huge dose of self-cultivation)
in the sense that we understand Confucianism or Platonism or Aristotelianism to
be philosophical. Although Schipper and Robinet (following many of Maspero’s
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 31

indications) have effectively laid out the contours of an early Daoism committed
to physical self-cultivation, they still identify it as philosophical daojia.
When contemporary scholars do pronounce on the historical influences that
went into the formation of Daoist religion daojiao, various other religious move-
ments from early China are looked to, primarily the fangshi 方士.33 Without over-
generalizing the fangshi as a tradition, some segments of which appear to focus on
the achievement of immortality, certain members of that group appropriated some
of the central insights of early Daoist discourse (primarily the idea of the pristine
Dao) to endow their own practices with a certain philosophical legitimacy (or so
the argument goes; I cannot say that I am entirely persuaded by it).
The classic statement on this view was set forth most succinctly by Creel
in his 1956 article, “What Is Taoism?” in which he does not appear to be aware
of the differences between the fangshi and Daoist religion; in fact, he conflates
them. His work nevertheless paved the way for later sinologists to deepen and
exploit the divide between Daoist philosophy and Daoist religion—these were two
completely separate traditions with two entirely separate histories that never met.
Or, if they were related, it was only insofar as the Daoist religion was a degrada-
tion of the Daoist philosophy, for which wuwei was the defining feature and its
crowning glory; Creel writes, “The differences between Xian Taoism [read: religious
Daoism, daojiao, which he does not differentiate from the fangshi] and philosophic
Daoism [daojia] are striking to say the least. The mere idea of all this toiling for
immortality is repugnant to that of wuwei, not striving.”34
Sivin heartily accepted Creel’s challenge by adding a greater degree of clarity
to the split between these two kinds of Daoism with the following claim: “I will
not attempt to encompass all of Daoism in a single definition . . . Instead, I will
attempt to use the much more specific terms ‘philosophical Daoism’ and ‘religious
Daoism’ in a relatively consistent way.”35 Or, to dip into modern Chinese scholar-
ship briefly here before turning back to it shortly, Ren Jiyu writes: “The Daodejing
and the Zhuangzi together with the daojia of the Qin and Han made up a school
of learning, but this was not a religion . . . Daojiao readily appropriated daojia
theories, waving their banners to identify themselves with the destiny of daojia.
This created a relationship between daojia and daojiao which neither identifies
them together nor absolutely distinguishes them.”36
Creel went on to insert a further critical distinction within Daoist philoso-
phy, a “contemplative Daoism,” which he mostly identified with the Zhuangzi, and
a “purposive Daoism,” which he mostly identified with the Daodejing.37 The result
of this was that it challenged any possible relationship between the Zhuangzi and
the Daodejing that might conceive them as equal members in an early and shared
tradition of early Daoism and that later sinologists also would surgically exploit.
It was again Sivin who took this idea and ran with it where he writes,
“. . . ‘philosophical Daoism’ has no sociological meaning . . . The philosophical
32 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Daoists were not a group, but a handful of authors scattered through history.”38
And herein lies the rub: of all possible forms of Daoism, we have only two options
from which to choose, and no other conceivable forms remain, so if something
is going to be Daoism, it has to be one (daojia) or the other (daojiao). A possible
third, namely early Daoism, is not religious because that did not emerge until the
second century CE, and it is also not philosophical because even Daoist philosophy
itself has nothing holding it together once the relationship between the Zhuangzi
and the Daodejing is broken.
In the end, we are not even left with two options for Daoism, one philo-
sophical and the other religious, whether this be early or late; now there is only
religious Daoism, and this is where Strickmann’s work comes into play full force;
he writes, “It seems to me that the two opposing faces of Daoism, philosophical
and religious . . . represent two such disparate phenomena that they do not admit
of meaningful comparison. Still less do they invite a factitious union under a single
descriptive term [Daoism]. The classics of ‘philosophical Daoism’ are anonymous
compilations of the Warring States period.”39 Furthermore, where Sivin writes, “By
‘religious Daoism’ I refer to groups [that] shared a recognition of Zhang Daoling
as the founder of true Daoism [and] to people initiated into a line of scriptural
transmission which branched out of an orthodox group . . . ,”40 Strickmann takes
what feels like the inevitable next step:

Thus, I am proposing to use the word Daoist only in referring to those

who recognize the historical position of Zhang Daoling, who worship
the pure emanations of the Dao rather than the vulgar gods of the
people at large, and—I may add—who safeguard and perpetuate their
own lore and practices through esoteric rites of transmission. In other
words, I should like to restrict the term [Daoism] to the Way of the
Celestial Masters and the organizations that grew out of it.41

Gil Raz underscores the impact that Strickmann’s delimitation of the Daoist
label has had; he writes: “With this formulation, Strickmann manages to move
beyond the earlier debates, which tended to focus on the obscure relationship
between the ancient Daoist classics and the later religious communities . . . This
was indeed a breakthrough in the study of Daoism. Little wonder then that this
definition of Daoism has been influential and generally accepted by recent West-
ern scholarship.”42 Ironically, then, neither Laozi nor the Daodejing can be called
Daoist of either a philosophical or a religious sort; nor could any other person,
text, practice, lineage, or tradition that predates 142 CE, nor those who came
after 142 CE who do not recognize Zhang Daoling.
The work of Robert Campany is presently situated at the cutting edge of
this line of Daoist scholarship that includes Fung, Creel, Sivin, and Strickmann,
but he stands out for his focused attention on the fourth-century CE figure Ge
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 33

Hong. Campany’s body of work builds on those of these earlier scholars, but he
takes considerations to a highly theoretical level. His approach, which among
other influences relies heavily on the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
that argues that humans all too often think in terms of metaphors,43 is ostensi-
bly to approach anything that might be called “a religion” in terms of linguistic
metaphors that “distort with alien assumptions whatever [they] might have gained
in emic clarity. And until these general, metaphor-rooted problems of reifying
nomenclature are addressed, the classic sinological quandary of how to define the
contents and boundaries of what counts as ‘Daoist’ cannot be solved.”44
Here I want to point out once again the loaded options of what modern
Western scholarship on Daoism has left us with, namely a forced choice between
identifying any possible tradition of early Daoism as either philosophical or reli-
gious, with the caveat that there is no such thing as an early Chinese philosophical
Daoism—it’s either religious Daoism or it is not Daoism at all. Campany hits the
mark where he writes, “Without further specification, an apparent entity named by
some such name as ‘Daoism’ seems to exist simply in a kind of contextless stasis.
We can write its history, but the very form of the name suggests that ‘Daoism’ is
one unitary, perduring thing whose permutations we simply trace through time.”45
Campany’s key phrase is “Without further specification.” Lakoff and Johnson
are right; we do use metaphors to think, but there is a difference between a non-
critical use of metaphorical thinking and a critical one. The previous specifica-
tions applied to the general category of something called Daoism (philosophical,
religious, or even early) have already brought a certain degree of exclusion to
the use of the Daoism label, but this does not yet go far enough. The next step
in raising for discussion the possibility of an early Daoism is to reject the false
dichotomy between an exclusively philosophical versus exclusively religious Dao-
ism and open the field to a wider consideration of further groups, lineages, and
traditions that can be encompassed by neither of these two forms of the Daoism
label. Is it possible that a redefined understanding of an early Daoism could include
something other than, and something possibly earlier than, an institutionalized
tradition born on 142 CE?
As Campany points out, our use of the label “suggests that ‘Daoism’ is one
unitary, perduring thing.”46 I am also in complete agreement with him when he
writes, “Discourse on religions is first and foremost a linguistic affair, whatever
concepts or theories end up being invoked.”47 Note that the modern use of the
Daoism label works from the same linguistic “ism” structure that lies at the root
of Western discourse on religion. Is it possible that these ideas speak more to the
way we in the modern West have come to conceive of religions rather than to
“the religions” themselves? In other words, are there other “linguistic affairs” lying
at the heart of other languages that do not share in the reification consequences
so poignantly pointed out by Campany, or, if other languages do have reification
consequences, are they identical to ours?
34 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

English-language uses of the Daoism label (as well as the many other “ism”
labels of the discourses on religions) tend to be target specific: any person, group,
movement, lineage, tradition, or religion is said to participate in that label if and
only if he or she or they fulfill each of the necessary requirements for participa-
tion that have gone into the construction of its definition, and if and only if
he or she or they do not fulfill the minimum requirements for participation in
any other label (by which I refer to the law of participation by exclusion). To
be labeled a Christian means that one has a participation in a Christian group,
movement, sect, tradition, or religion, and this is what it means to be targeted
by that particular “ism.”
And yet such labels can be abstracted away from any specific targeting, as
when we sometimes describe our Western culture as “Christian” or “Judeo-Chris-
tian”; these terms still work on a certain level of exclusion (we do not describe
Chinese culture as “Judeo-Christian”). On any level of usage, the terms still point
to a meaningful content, and the targeting of a specific person, group, and so forth
is something that is appended to the wider signification of the “ism” label. The
tendency to reify that content still remains one of the tricks of modern Western
discourses on religion. How does this work for the Chinese language, particularly
in relation to the Daoism label? I examine this in the next section of this chapter.
In sum and in concluding this section on modern Western scholarship on
early Daoism, I see three general approaches. First is that of scholars of early
Daoist philosophy, who perceive a coherent tradition (or school or lineage, let’s
call it what we will) of philosophical continuity that typically encompasses the
Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and the Huainanzi, among other writings (and I see Ames
as the best representative of this approach, following in the footsteps of Schwartz,
Graham, and Hansen). Second is that of scholars of early Daoist religion, who
hesitate to employ the Daoism label for anything predating Zhang Daoling (and
I have spent the greater portion of the latter pages of this section of this chapter
engaging their works, including those of Sivin, Strickmann, and Campany). Third
is that of scholars of early Daoism, who articulate an elusive third tradition next
to (and even prior to) philosophical and religious Daoism (besides the French
scholars mentioned above, including Maspero, Schipper, and Robinet, I see Kohn
and Roth as the best representatives of this approach). My work, however, if there
is anything of value to be taken from it, is indebted to all of them.
In the next chapter, I resume the exploration of the question of the pos-
sible relationship between daojia and daojiao (and I indeed argue for the merits
of maintaining a strict separation between them—their differences are real, but
all too often misconstrued). In the following section of this chapter, however, I
intend to present a few of the more important Chinese scholars of Daoism and
the kinds of approaches that they take to the question of early Daoism, with
particular attention to their applications of the daojia and daojiao terms.
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 35

Modern Chinese Approaches to the Daodejing

Modern Chinese scholarship views Daoism as the single religion indigenous to

China with a prehistory spanning (depending on each specific scholar) two, three,
or even four thousand years into the past. According to many Chinese scholars
raised in the Marxist ideology, it emerged from the common grounds of religion
and thus has no specific history, because its earliest origins lie in the hoary past
outside of what can possibly be known. This does not mean that these scholars
name something from thousands of years ago as Daoism per se; what it does mean
is that they typically do not see Daoism (either as daojia or daojiao) as a new and
innovative phenomenon of early China. Rather, daojia and daojiao are historical
manifestations of very ancient and uniquely Chinese religious and cultural reali-
ties; Liu Fengzhao writes:

From primitive society onwards, there appeared totemism, nature

worship, the worship of spiritual beings, ancestor worship, and the
worship of paragons of sagacity, and these are the most primitive, the
most tentative, and the most fundamental roots recognizable in the
emergence of daojiao. But shamans, invokers, diviners, and scribes were
the intermediate vehicles for advancing these kinds of worship, and
daojiao absorbed their functions, calling the spirits, exorcising ghosts,
foretelling the future, and performing divinations; these were all the
necessary subjects that those who cultivated the dao had to study.48

According to modern Chinese scholars such as Liu, the first solid historical
manifestation of Daoism appeared as daojia (Daoist philosophy) beginning with
the first recognizable circulation of the Daodejing, and although daojiao (Daoist
religion) did not form until 142 CE, the year of Zhang Daoling’s investiture, it was
deeply conditioned by its own prehistory from daojia. In other words, the histori-
cal formation and emergence of daojiao is primarily attributable to the practical
inevitabilities of the internal developments of daojia, and this represents one aspect
of the uniquely Chinese character of Daoism as a civilizational force.
This all likely sounds very Marxist, so let me try to put this in a different way.
One striking feature of modern Chinese scholarship on Daoism is that Chinese
scholars tend not to divide Daoism into separate and unrelated compartments,
some of which are deemed to be Daoism and some of which are not, as modern
Western scholarship tends to do. And here we can begin to feel very real differ-
ences in the consequences of the “linguistic affairs” invoked by Campany to which
I attended in the last section of this chapter and their implications for the modern
discourses of religion, Eastern versus Western. For Chinese scholarship, Daoism is
simply Daoism, and as Daoism, it comes in waves that separately reveal different
36 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

areas of what falls under the Daoism label, but they are all still Daoism. Not only
are there a daojia and a daojiao, but there are lots of other Daoisms as well. And
it is still all Daoism. Qing Xitai 卿希泰(more on him in a few moments) gives
a good idea of how modern Chinese scholars approach Daoism differently from
modern Western scholars; he writes:

Daoism is China’s indigenous religion and it has a very long history.

It was born in China more than 1,800 years ago and was nourished
within traditional Chinese culture. As one of its principal pillars, it
is closely interwoven into all cultural fields. During its long develop-
ment, it exercised influence over politics, the economy, philosophy,
literature, art, music, painting, architecture, chemistry, medicine,
pharmacology, self-cultivation regimens, and qigong, and it helped to
form and develop ethics, mores, national relations, national mentality,
national character, and national cohesion. Certain of its influences are
not negligible today in the Chinese lifestyle and cultural structure.49

Given the changing political tides in China over the last one hundred years,
and that modern Chinese scholarship on Daoism has stabilized during just the last
thirty, it has only been very recently that we have been able to get a handle on
the modern history of Chinese scholarship on Daoism (and this is borne out by
Edward Shaughnessy’s 2005 study on the topic). I was fortunate to have recently
come across Qing’s extensive bibliographic essay that documents and contextual-
izes all areas of this history, and I incorporate his findings limited to early Daoism
in the following pages, as they supplement my own reconstruction of the major
milestones of this history of modern Chinese scholarship.
In this section, I look at five modern Chinese scholars who have written
about early Daoism; there are many more, but in my estimation these are the
five most important.50 They are Xu Dishan, Fu Qinjia 傅勤家, Qing Xitai, Ren
Jiyu 任繼愈, and Hu Fushen 胡孚琛. Qing’s bibliographic essay mentioned above
breaks down the history of modern Chinese scholarship on Daoism into three
stages (and he names the future of Daoist studies as a fourth stage). According
to him, the first stage spans from 1900 to 1949 (the year of the founding of the
People’s Republic of China); the second stage spans from 1949 to 1978 (the year
that saw the end of the ten-year period of the Cultural Revolution); and the
third stage spans from 1978 to the present. Xu and Fu belong to the first stage,
and Qing, Ren, and Hu belong to the third stage.
Of the first stage, Qing writes, “In compiling the names of works and authors
on Daoism, we found that only about 160 scholars had studied over a half-century
period. Theirs were spontaneous and sporadic efforts, with no plan to study Daoism
methodically.”51 These works covered a handful of separate categories, including
studies on the Daozang 道藏 (the Daoist Canon); annotations and collations of
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 37

particular scriptures; Daoist music; internal and external alchemy; Daoist temples;
Daoist philosophy; and various works on the history of Daoism (and Qing includes
the works by Xu and Fu in this category). Qing gives an explanation for this
scholarly neglect:

This was mainly due to the prejudice of Chinese scholars who, for a
long time, considered Confucianism as the sole representative of tra-
ditional Chinese culture, and Daoism as a folk superstition, with no
theoretical system, that deserved to be eradicated  .  .  .  Consequently, a
strange phenomenon occurred whereby the quality of Chinese Daoist
studies fell behind those made by their Western counterparts.52

I have long recognized Xu Dishan’s 1934 work as the first solid piece of
modern scholarship on early Daoism (followed three years later by Fu’s work; see
below), and I was pleasantly surprised to read that Qing’s findings corroborated
this, given that he only lists the author and date of the works he cites; he does
not provide any substantive comments on their contents.
Recalling, as I mentioned in the previous section, that Xu’s work, Daojiao
Shi, was published in the same year as Feng’s Zhongguo Zhexue Shi (1934), I want
to point out that it presents an approach to the daojia/daojiao split from the
opposite perspective than his; whereas Fung’s agenda was to explore the history
of Chinese philosophy, thus giving priority to daojia while underplaying daojiao,
Xu’s agenda was to explore the history of Chinese religion, a somewhat different
scholarly endeavor, and thus he gave equal attention to daojiao and daojia, which
did not in any way disparage daojiao.
Xu specifies three ancient and initial sources of daojiao, namely ancient Chi-
nese shamanism, yin-yang cosmology, and history. According to him, the Daodejing
(which he identifies with daodejia 道德家, a slight variation of the phrase daojia)
emerged directly and only from the ancient yin-yang 陰陽 cosmology (and he goes
on to state that the occultists, diviners, and astrologists emerged directly from the
tradition of ancient shamans, while the Confucians and Mohists emerged from the
tradition of scribal historians). To clarify this, Xu claims that there is no originary
historical relation of the Daodejing with the other two foundational traditions of
Chinese philosophy, Confucianism and Mohism; Daoism has its own separate
history apart from both. This will become a staple of most modern Chinese schol-
arship, namely the idea of a separate history for Daoism and the Daodejing apart
from the Analects, which is very, very different from the mainstream approaches
of modern Western scholarship. He also sees the origins of daojiao in the merging
of the separate traditions of daodejia, occultism, divination, and astrology, outside
and apart from Confucianism.52
Fu Qinjia published his Zhongguo Daojiao Shi 中國道教史 in 1937, three
years after the publication of Xu’s and Fung’s work. Many elements of Fu’s approach
38 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

to Daoism echo those of Xu, the most important of which is the perspective that
sees early Daoism and the Daodejing as deriving from the ancient Chinese past
much more so than from any specific historical conditions of the Warring States.
When Fu writes that “every religion has its own particular history of how it came
into the world; daojiao, however, does not,”52 he is pointing to the ancient sources
of indigenous Chinese religion, standing well outside of the gaze of the modern
historian; this is precisely what he means in writing that daojiao does not have any
“particular history.” Fu, very much in line with Xu, sees the historical trajectory of
Daoism as one continuous whole from its archaic beginnings in earliest antiquity
to the present age, and history has only supplied forward-moving moments in
which various manifestations of diffuse movements and ways of thinking came
together, first in the formation of daojia and second in the formation of daojiao.
This is that staple of much modern Chinese scholarship on Daoism to which I
have been alluding.
According to Fu, what daojiao gets from daojia is primarily the figure of its
own highest worship, Laozi; the text of its own highest reverence, the Daodejing;
and the concept of its own highest principle, the pristine Dao; he writes, “Daojiao
had its real origins in daojia. From ancient times to the theories of the occultists
and the immortals, Laozi is claimed as its founder.”55 This goes against the main
trajectory of modern Western scholarship, which standardly denies any substan-
tial relation between daojia and daojiao. Next to daojia, the other two primary
sources for the emergence of daojiao were ancient Chinese shamanism and the
early fangshi; Fu writes:

All of the religions of the world have arisen from primitive beliefs.
In the earliest times they were very simple, but later they became
more complex and developed into religion. After they had formed
into religions, they continued to absorb elements from the environ-
ment and grew larger, when they split into separate sects. The earliest
beliefs continued to work together with these schools as they spread.
That is the case with daojiao: its highest principles were firmly rooted
in daojia, and its beliefs arose from ancient shamanism. They merged
in the time of the Qin and Han dynasties with the fangshi, and after
a further development these people became the priests of Daoism.56

One can argue that Fu’s perspective on the origins and formation of Daoism
stems from an uncritical acceptance of a type of social Darwinism shared also by
countless Chinese thinkers of the late Qing to the Republican era. It is, however,
important to point out that in this perspective the entire historical trajectory of
Daoism, from earliest antiquity to the Daodejing and finally into daojiao, is the
product of its own separate historical line of development. This line, however, is
not in any meaningful way connected to any other ancient or early Chinese tradi-
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 39

tions of religion or philosophy, with the exception of ancient Chinese shamanism

and the fangshi. The Daodejing, according to this modern Chinese view, is to be
approached by way of this separate history and not by way of the various philo-
sophical schools of the Warring States period. The Daodejing is simply different.
The two works by Xu and Fu stand as the only solid scholarly studies on
the origins of Daoism to have survived the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution. Qing writes, “The period of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to
1976, was characterized by ultra-left ideology. Studies on Daoism halted com-
pletely for ten years, producing hardly any publications.”57 This is not to say that
there were no other scholars who pursued this line of study, as Qing has already
stated, and Timothy Barrett singles out one scholar in particular whose research
into Daoism suffered the fate of many more whom we will never know about; he
writes: “Man Wentong, who had published some worthwhile research on Daoist
texts in the 1940’s, saw his work confiscated during the late 1950’s . . . from 1949
onward the only aspects of Daoist studies to see publication were those connected
with the history of peasant uprisings or the history of science.”58
This situation would not change until 1979, the year that saw the writ-
ing of a new constitution under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP); this took place at the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Com-
mittee in December of that year. Of note in the new constitution is “Article 19:
The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question During Our Country’s
Socialist Period,” which set forth the Party’s new stance of protecting, within
very strict limits, freedom of religious belief. More to the point, “Article 19”
not only allowed for research into religion, but positively encouraged it: “An
indispensable aspect of the Party’s theoretical foundation is the establishment of
theoretical research teams armed with Marxist ideology for the study of religious
theory which would strive to set up organizations for religious research and make
use of related university disciplines.”59 This call was immediately answered by the
two most important scholars of Daoism since the end of the Cultural Revolution,
Qing Xitai and Ren Jiyu.
Among Chinese thinkers, political, academic, or otherwise, Daoism has
become collectively recognized as that country’s single indigenous religion with
roots stretching back thousands of years, a view that Xu and Fu helped to estab-
lish for modern Chinese thought. For this reason, the CCP tended to look kindly
upon the two centers of Daoist studies that were founded in the early 1980s in
response to the call for scholarly research into religion announced by “Article
19.” Qing writes,

First, special national institutions were created to study Daoism.

With the government’s approval, a research group of Daoist studies
was founded within the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences in 1979, and the Institute of Religions,
40 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

with Daoism as its main interest, was created at Sichuan University in

1980. Their equivalents were founded within other institutions (such
as East Asia Normal University and Xiamen University).60

What Qing in his humbleness does not say here is that the Institute of
Religions at Sichuan University was his own child, while the Department of
Religion at the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing was Ren’s. Nonetheless
and most interestingly, the first major product of this newfound freedom of aca-
demic research, albeit under socialist sponsorship, was the Zongjiao Cidian 宗教词
典 (Dictionary of Religion).61 This project was carried out under Ren’s leadership
in Beijing, but Qing and his team wrote all of the entries on Daoism. The two
centers, however, would soon begin to take somewhat different directions.
But let me step back for a minute to recognize some of the other conse-
quences that came about as a consequence of “Article 19,” as displayed by Qing.62
In addition to the founding of these research centers, these centers were also
authorized to award master and doctorate degrees in Daoist studies; during these
years, China sponsored a healthy number of academic conferences on Daoism;
many academic journals devoted to Daoist studies were created; and local and
national Chinese Daoist associations were also instituted for the pursuit of personal
training in Daoism, which further led to a reciprocal cooperation between Daoist
practitioners and Daoist scholars.63
A further point that I need to make here as a preamble to the following
pages is that the works attributed to Qing and Ren that I briefly discuss were
all collaborative efforts, the academic results of their research teams at Sichuan
University and the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, respectively. The single
author attributions I give can be somewhat misleading.
Modern Chinese scholarship on Daoist history over the last thirty years takes
one of two directions. The first is defined by a commitment to Marxist ideology,
which sees Daoism (together with all other religions, for that matter) as the
product of the forces of ignorance and oppression, and it awaits the time in the
not-too-distant future when all religions will disappear (and a major motivation
of “Article 19” was to speed things up so that day would come even sooner).
This is the direction opened up by Qing, who writes: “To do researches into
the history of the emergence and development of Chinese daojiao, as well as its
course toward disappearance, including the practical consequences it has in his-
tory, has a tremendous significance for our studies and concrete understanding of
the Marxist study of religion.”64
The second direction is characterized by a (at times muted by necessity)
rejection of that ideology, and it sees the origins, formation, and spread of Daoism
as having internal causes, namely the development of its own particular beliefs,
practices, theories, and organizations. This is the direction opened up by Ren,
who, seemingly in response to Qing’s words, writes: “The question is, rather: how
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 41

are we going to correctly understand the foundational principles of Marxism, and

how are we going to concretely apply these principles to the development of
Chinese philosophy [and religion]? As for this question, we have adopted some
of the proven experiences, but we have also taken many detours.”65
Everything I have written so far on modern Chinese scholarship on Daoism
is meant first of all to describe the basic contours of that scholarship up to the
1980s (the first period designated by Qing) and second of all to serve as an intro-
duction to the groundbreaking works on Daoist history edited by Qing (published
in 1988) and Ren (published two years later); these two works, oddly enough,
even share the exact same title: Zhongguo Daojiao Shi 中國道教史.
In looking briefly at these two works, I mostly am interested in showing
how their approaches, differing from each other in terms of the degree to which
they rely on Marxist ideology (Qing) or attempt to disengage from it (Ren),
continue to hold to the general approach to early Daoism established by Xu
and Fu fifty years earlier. The most notable component of that approach is the
perspective that sees the prehistory of Daoism as lying in the archaic past of
indigenous Chinese civilization, possessing its own separate history apart from all
of the other Chinese traditions of religion and philosophy. Also noteworthy in
this approach is the placement of the Daodejing within that archaic and separate
history of religious development and the downplaying of the importance of the
philosophical reading of that text for the formation of daojiao. Here I only give
a few choice quotations from the works of Qing and Ren, with a few words of
contextualization. Qing writes:

Each of the three great religions of the world which have disseminated
and developed in China (Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam) has their
own long history, but daojiao is the only native Chinese traditional
religion, and it also has its own long history of development, which
has been deeply influenced by the production of Chinese history and
culture. Daojiao takes the term dao as its highest object of belief and
this is also where it gets its name. It believes that people can undergo
a certain process of cultivation in order to gain long life without death,
to get the dao and become a xian [here, this term means something like
“immortal”]. These thoughts about cultivating the Dao and becoming
a xian are at the core of daojiao, as are the theories that the divinized
Laozi is identical with this dao; they revere Laozi as their religious
founder and worship him as a god; and they take the Daodejing as their
most important scripture and have formulated religious explanations
of it from the language it uses.66

Notice here Qing’s placing the earliest origins of Daoism in the context of
the earliest forms of “Chinese history and culture,” extending forward through the
42 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Daodejing and encompassing it, culminating in the formation of daojiao. I want to

underline the very different kind of approach this presents, in contrast to modern
Western approaches that, ironically and in many important ways, owes its general
perspective to Bodde’s translation of Fung’s 1934 work. Fung dates the origin of
Daoism to the third century BC with the first circulation of the Daodejing, thereby
giving rise to the tradition of daojia. In this view, daojia is a school that formed as
a philosophical response to the various other philosophical schools of the Warring
States period, and it continued to exist in succeeding ages as such a philosophical
school. Accordingly, the origin of daojiao is an entirely separate historical forma-
tion from daojia, which originated with Zhang Daoling’s investiture in 142 CE.
For the five Chinese scholars under discussion here, as well as for their stu-
dents who have assumed the mantle of Daoist studies in their turn, daojia refers
first of all to the same writings named by Fung as comprising daojia, the Daodejing
foremost among them, but daojia was not a philosophical school to be understood
in the context of the other Warring States philosophical schools; it has a separate
history in ancient Chinese religion and culture. The texts of daojia were one major
source for daojiao, and it shares in the exact same line of historical development
as daojia. Bringing home this Chinese perspective even more forcefully, Ren writes:

Daojiao fully possesses its own unique nature . . . It is deeply rooted in

the ancient Chinese society, originating in accord with the religious
model of ancient Chinese culture. Therefore it has steadily flowed
through time, and has a distinctively Chinese character. Although
daojiao emerged out of blind beliefs and religious intuitions, daojiao
theory has ever been present since deep antiquity as an unprecedented
religion of deities and sages.67

Despite the fact that Ren called that ancient daojiao theory a religion (he
otherwise has a quite rigid definition of organized religion that Daoism fulfills
only with Zhang Daoling), his point is nevertheless clear. Ren is putting forth
a very powerful set of claims about Daoism that should make us consider once
again our own modern Western understandings of it. “Daoist theory,” he writes,
“has ever been present since deep antiquity . . .” and, needless to say, it was Laozi
who initially encapsulated and articulated that theory in the Daodejing. Here we
can see a strong connection among ancient Chinese thought, the Warring States
Daodejing, and the late Han Daoist religion: they all occupy the same historical
line of development, a specifically Daoist history, and it was always religious.
There is no question of a (strictly speaking) philosophical Daodejing originating in
a historical vacuum in the third century BC, and there is also no question of two
unrelated traditions of philosophy and religion, of which one (daojiao) defiantly
appropriated the name and semi-identity of the other (daojia).
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 43

I want to offer one further extended quotation from Ren followed by a

telling passage from Hu because they provide precisely the kind of historical
perspective that I adopt in my effort to locate an elusive third reading to the
Daodejing, one that is neither, strictly and formally speaking, philosophical daojia
nor religious daojiao. What I hope these passages demonstrate is that our modern
Western applications of the Daoism label (in terms of daojia versus daojiao) do not
exhaust all avenues of approach to the question of the multifaceted applications
to which various dao terms were applied, both in earlier Chinese usages as well
as modern Chinese ones. Of course, we still have to confront the question of
whether or not all of them (or even any of them) can be made to jibe with what
we in the modern West want the Daoism label to mean, while still conforming
to the linguistics of the modern Western discourse on religions. Ren presents a
very hard case against using the terms daojia and daojiao to somehow cover and
contain all that there is to Daoism, at least in its earliest periods:

The divinization of Laozi and the reforms of daojiao were some of

the important founding events of the early period of daojiao, and in
this sense we can say that daojiao was a transformation of daojia, that
it was the product of a derivation from the transformation of daojia,
and therefore the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi were made into another
important source in the production of daojiao. From this we can
see that the process of the production of Chinese daojiao had many
sources coming into formation from many different channels undergo-
ing a gradual consolidation. The groups within each sect had their
own influence, but fundamentally they had their own independent
developments which through time came to intersect, and there is no
single time period which can be spoken of as the concrete period of
its inception. It follows from this that each sect and each group of
adherents possessed no single name with which to denominate them-
selves. As the term suggests, daojiao worshipped dao; examining its
origins according to this religious term, then it either originated from
the ancient term shendao 神道 (“Spirit Daoism”), or else it originated
from Laozi’s theories of dao. But combining the terms dao 道 and jiao
教 as the name of the religion was a very late event. The Taipingjing
太平經 names the general terms dadao 大道 (“Great Daoism”), shendao,
tianshidao 天師道 (“Celestial Master Daoism”), and taipingdao 太平道
(“Great Peace Daoism”). The Zhouyi Cantongqi 周易参同契 only has
dao 道 (“Daoism”) and yaodao 要道 (“Essential Daoism”). The term
huanglaodao 黃老道 (“Huang-Lao Daoism”), which appeared at the
end of the Eastern Han, does not name a specific religious sect, but
is only the general term for the reverence paid to Huangdi 黃帝 and
44 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Laozi 老子. The religion preached by Zhang Jue 張角 was taipingdao

太平道 (“Great Peace Daoism”), and the religion preached by Zhang
Lü 張魯 was guidao 鬼道 (“Ghost Daoism”) or wudoumidao 五斗米道
(“Five Pecks of Rice Daoism”). After the Wei and Jin, the wudoumi-
dao became tianshidao. The term daojiao first appears in the Xiang’er
Commentary to the Daodejing 老子想尔注 (Laozi xiang’er zhu), and it
was only after the Southern and Northern dynasties that the term was
used more and more, but at the same time people were accustomed
to using the term daojia to label together both daojia and daojiao.68

There are a number of very important things going on in this passage. First
is the radical marginalization of the daojia/daojiao split, as if all of Daoism could
be contained in one or the other tout court; as if there were two independent
and autonomous traditions of Daoism whose relationship can be likened, accord-
ing to Anna Seidel, to that of the influence of Greek philosophy on Christian
religion.69 In place of this either/or container, what we actually find are many
Daoisms, each with its own set of characteristics particular to itself yet also related
to each other in ways that share enough in common to warrant equal inclusion
under the Daoism label. Or at least that is what those who lived inside or next
to those traditions during their historical heydays thought and wrote. Ren takes
them at their word, and this is laudable.
The following passage comes from Hu Fuchen. To be honest, I have not
been able to find very much information about him, but he is associated with
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (presumably with the Institute of World
Religions). In my estimation of his published work, his approaches to early Dao-
ism are truly groundbreaking, but I cannot speak to his positions on other facets
of Daoism in terms of world civilization.70 What Hu writes about early Daoism
differs from Ren’s presentation mainly in that instead of talking about dao terms,
as Ren does, Hu focuses on the pervasiveness of something that he calls daoxue
道學 (“the teachings of Daoism,” which I leave in transliterated form).

In introducing the history of the formation and development of daojiao,

I first want to briefly describe earlier divisions of daoxue. Although we
see the phrase daojiao in the early pre-Qin writings, it does not refer
to a religion. The daojiao label gradually took shape during debates
with the Buddhists in the period of the Northern and Southern dynas-
ties . . . Even after the daojiao label took shape, it was still one part
of the scope of daojia, and the ideas of daojia and daojiao were not
differentiated . . . From the perspective of daojia teachings, dao indeed
was the fountainhead of Chinese wisdom. Daoxue was the source of
early Chinese philosophy (諸子百家), and even Confucius, the founder
 M o d er n S c h o la r s h ip o n t he Daodejing 45

of Confucianism, was a student of Laozi. . . . Laozi was prominent for

his authoritative position in traditional Chinese culture. Daoxue started
with Fu Xi 伏羲 and Nu Wa 女娲; it coalesced around Huang Di 黃
帝; it became integrated with Laozi; it expanded to include Yang Zhu
楊朱, Zhan He 詹何, and Wei Mou 魏牟; it was elaborated by Guan
Yin 關尹, Liezi 列子, and Zhuangzi 莊子; it converged with the school
of Huang-Lao at the Jixia academy, and also the Lüshi Chunqiu 吕氏
春秋 and the Huainanzi; it branched into the yin-yang 陰陽 tradition
and the shenxian 神仙 tradition; and it evolved into the traditions of
the Legalists 法家, the Militarists 兵家, and the Political Strategists
緃橫家. The daojia schools of Guiguzi 鬼谷子 and Huangshi Gong 黃
石公 used it to strategize; Yi Yin 伊尹, Jiang Taigong 姜太公, Guan
Zhong 管仲, Zhang Liang 張良, Chen Ping 陳平, Emperor Wen of
the Han 漢文帝, Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮, Wei Zheng 魏征, Li Jing 李靖,
and Liu Bowen 劉伯温 used it to run the state; Shi Men 石門, Jie Yu
接與, Jie Ni 桀溺, Hetiao Zhangren 荷蓧丈人, Shangshan Sihao 商山
四皓, Zheng Pu 鄭朴, Yan Guang 嚴光, Sun Deng 孫登, Guo Wenju
郭文举, and Tao Qian 陶潜 among others used it to renounce the
world and live in reclusion; He Yan 何晏, Wang Bi 王弼, Xiang Xiu
向秀, Guo Xiang 郭象, and the famed Seven Worthies of the Bamboo
Grove 竹林七賢 with their pure discussions used it in the tradition
of xuanxue 玄學 (“dark learning”). In addition, astronomy, calendrics,
prophecy, divination, Five Phase theory, prognostication, medicine,
alchemy, esoterica, and arts and calculations were all transformed by
daoxue. Daoxue was rich and extensive, deep and profound, consisting
of both theory and practice, and daojiao and the xian teachings 仙學
both developed and evolved from daoxue.71

Hu has a specific content in mind in his use of the phrase daoxue, which,
if it does not explicitly and specifically refer to a pervasive cultural presence of
something that would fall under the Daoism label as we in the West use the
term, at the very least does refer to something (keeping to the law of exclusion)
that is not Confucian, or Mohist, or some ambiguous and haphazard content that
“authors scattered through history” (to use Sivin’s words quoted above) could call
upon to mean whatever they wanted it to mean. Isabelle Robinet, writing from
the French line of scholarship on Daoism, evinces a similar intuition:

We must recognize that there exist diverse sorts of Daoism, but one
cannot classify them and make divisions among them without damage,
because they interpenetrate, they borrow from each other and they
overlap; besides, there exists among them an agreement about the
46 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

ultimate goal to attain, even though the methods for reaching them
and their partial realizations conceal it; and this agreement at bottom
is seen on numerous points.72

Over and above their shared goal (which is more or less to become one
with the Dao), we might even take that which allows these “divisions” to all be
gathered in the Daoism label as a “Daoist discourse” that attains meaning and
coherency by way of “a demonstrable thematic, verbal, and intellectual cohesion”
centered on “notions of the pristine Dao not shared by any other writings from
any other tradition.”73
It is true that other early Chinese writings also employed the term dao, but
most of those uses are fairly easy to distinguish from (using Hu’s term) a daoxue
in spite of what Creel writes: “In the kaleidoscopic firmament of Daoism there
is one relatively fixed star: the term dao. But if all that is Daoist has the term
dao, not every Chinese philosophy that uses the term is Daoist, for in fact they
all do.”74 Yet when we read in the Analects 15:29 that “Humans enlarge the dao,
it is not the dao that enlarges humans,” I think most every early Chinese reader
would not confuse this dao of Confucius with the dao of Laozi described in DDJ
25 that was “completed in chaos and was born before Heaven and Earth . . . It
can be taken as the Mother of Heaven and Earth.”
Discourses on religion, early or modern, English or Chinese, are certainly
subject to their own linguistic mechanisms, limitations, and pitfalls. These dis-
courses, each on its own but exponentially more so in a world where we can not
only attain critical self-awareness of the limitations of our own metaphors but also
embrace those that come to us by way of the comparative enterprise in which
we both give and take, are also openings to the beauty of what human thinking
can do as we strive to go beyond the “metaphors we live by.”75 Such metaphors
should be taken not as closure, but as challenge.76
 3

Traditions of Reading the Daodejing

sts

Daojia, Daojiao, and Early Daoism

There should be no question of doing away with the daojia/daojiao split; they are
crucial elements to maintain in any understanding of the history of Daoism. For
this understanding, however, the historical construction of these two terms has
to be appreciated, and this will both compel and require a radical alteration in
their more or less atemporal deployments in terms of “philosophy” and “religion.”
In fact, once we are open to, and open up, the expanse of Daoist history beyond
what the two-part either/or container makes possible for designating two separate
traditions of Daoism, of which the first may not even have existed (according
to Sivin and Strickmann), then we are no longer constrained to make sense of
Daoist traditions as either “philosophical” or “religious.”
Although I have been using the terms daojia and daojiao a lot to this point,
I have only done so in reference to the ways in which other modern scholars,
Chinese and Western, have typically applied them. So at the beginning of this
chapter, I want to make clear how I use and understand them for the remainder
of this work. Instead of referring to two historically distinct traditions of Daoism,
one philosophical and the other religious, I take them to refer specifically to two
very different readings of the Daodejing: daojia designates a Confucian reading of
the text, and daojiao designates a religious Daoist reading of it. I am most inter-
ested in exploring not a third tradition of Daoism next to a philosophical one
and a religious one (although I indeed do attribute this third reading to a tradi-
tion, namely early Daoism) but a third reading of the Daodejing. The distinction
between “traditions of Daoism” and “traditions of reading the Daodejing” is central
to this project at hand.

47
48 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The daojia and daojiao labels are indispensable for understanding the primary
ways in which the Daodejing has been read throughout Chinese history, but these
readings need to be historically contextualized. Applying the two labels to mark an
essential difference in the ethereal stratospheres in which philosophy and religion
have their own separate leagues is not especially helpful in coming to terms with
Daoism of either an early or a later sort. These perennial categories had no place
in early Daoism; moreover, the opposition between religion and philosophy offers
only an extremely alien way of conceptualizing any non-Western and premodern
tradition. Rather than using daojia to mark off a philosophical Daoism in distinc-
tion to daojiao as a religious Daoism, with the whole messiness that would be
associated with giving academic definitions or even characteristics to each as such
(a notoriously difficult endeavor even when talking about Western traditions of
religion and philosophy), I want to reframe the entire approach to the ways in
which these terms might once again become useful.
The crucial first step in this is to disembarrass ourselves of identifying the
earliest Daoism, and most specifically the earliest circulations of the Daodejing,
with an originally daojia tradition of Daoist philosophy. If we can conceive the
Daodejing as something other than one among many other noble registrants in the
philosophical debates of Warring States China, as something other than a deliber-
ate philosophical complement or rebuke to the discourses of Confucianism and
Mohism, then the idea that the Daodejing might just enjoy a separate history and
a separate lineage seems eminently reasonable. These are the kinds of indications
that we Western scholars can take from the best of the modern Chinese scholars
of that history from Xu Dishan and Fu Qinjia to Qing Xitai, Ren Jiyu, and Hu
Fushen. Each of them has named this separate history in terms of something like
an ancient Chinese cultural archive that I explore in more detail below, but suf-
fice it to say for the moment that this separate history has everything to do with
the system of physical cultivation known as yangsheng.
For all intents, the modern understanding of the daojia/daojiao split began
with Fung’s 1934 work, and with Bodde’s English translation, many scholars both
Western and Eastern quickly came to embrace it, and they then proceeded to
divvy up all of Daoism into one or the other bucket (but the five modern Chinese
scholars I looked at in the last chapter resisted this urge by seeing both daojia
and daojiao as two moments of a much bigger and hoary Daoism). There are two
important points to recognize in this. First, outside of the daojia/daojiao container,
there is no other Daoism. Second, the differences that scholars injected between
daojia and daojiao are enormous; as Creel writes, “A priori it seems almost incred-
ible that Daoist philosophy, which rejected both the possibility and the desirabil-
ity of immortality, could have become linked in any way with the immortality
cult.”1
It did not take a long time for Western scholars to challenge the terms of this
two-part container, while still maintaining it for its heuristic usefulness. English-
language scholars began to poke holes into it starting with Creel, who was among
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 49

the first to question the historical appropriateness of identifying the Daodejing and
the Zhuangzi together as daojia; he identified the former with “purposive Daoism”
and the latter with “contemplative Daoism.”2 At the same time, French-language
scholars starting with Maspero also began to poke holes in it by focusing on the
continuities between daojia and daojiao. In her formidable articulation, Robinet
writes, “ ‘Religious’ Daoism is much closer than it appears to mystical meditation,
and the works belonging to ‘philosophical’ Daoism most certainly contain allusions
to physiological practices. On the other hand, the Daoist treatises, even though
they are devoted to these practices, cite more often than one would think, and
in all naturalness, the ‘philosophical’ writings.”3
In the main and for many decades following Bodde’s translation, English-
language scholars held to the daojia/daojiao split to underscore their differences,
while French-language scholars held to it to underscore their continuity; it pro-
vided the foundational point d’appui for most studies of Daoism. Recently, however,
the academic trend is to do away with the daojia/daojiao split because it is at best
only an erroneous distraction best shelved once and for all.
Scholars in the line of Sivin and Strickmann do away with the split by deny-
ing the first member, daojia: Daoism is either daojiao or not Daoism at all. Other
scholars recognize the strict limitations imposed by this split and see in Daoism
something much more that cannot be contained in the either/or container. Russell
Kirkland writes, “By the end of the twentieth century, the majority of special-
ists in the study of Daoism . . . seemed to begin to reach agreement that such
artificial bifurcations as ‘philosophical Daoism’ and ‘religious Daoism’ do not do
real justice to the facts and serve little heuristic purpose.”4 He continues, “Most
scholars who have seriously studied Daoism, both in Asia and in the West, have
finally abandoned the simplistic dichotomy of daojia and daojiao . . . A few have
begun offering new models for understanding the continuities among the ideas
and practices presented in the data of Daoist texts of various periods.”5
While I understand this trend and the ideas and sentiments behind it, I
have to object; daojia and daojiao remain indispensable terms for understanding
not the history of Daoism, but something slightly different, specifically the history
of the traditions of reading the Daodejing. So I insist on keeping these terms. I do
so because there still and undeniably remains a “philosophical” daojia reading of
the Daodejing, whose earliest sprouts are already visible with the first philosophical
commentaries to it in the Xunzi and the Han Feizi at the very end of the War-
ring States (and according to my dating of the Daodejing that means some three
hundred years after its first circulations, a very long time). That philosophical
reading, however, did not become de rigueur until Wang Bi put his fingerprints
all over it four hundred years later (altogether adding up to some seven hundred
years after the Daodejing’s first circulations, an even longer period of time).
And there is also an undeniably “religious” daojiao reading of the Daodejing
that, according to many indications, predates Wang Bi’s philosophical imprint
by about fifty years. There is every reason to believe that Zhang Daoling or his
50 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

grandson Zhang Lu 張魯 (the founders of the Celestial Masters) wrote the Xiang’er
commentary before the end of the second century CE (again, a very long time
after the first circulations of the Daodejing), and this event appears to mark the
very origin of the religious reading of the Daodejing.
Although I have just now fallen victim to the insuperable urge to label the
first reading philosophical and the second religious, this is still perilously close to
getting mired in that perennial fox trap of modern Western categories that no
early Chinese thinker ever entertained or even conceptualized. There is another
option for which I might argue, but there are a lot of caveats that go with it: this
is to name the first reading Confucian and the second reading religious Daoist.
Because religious Daoism specifically refers to an institutionalized religious orga-
nization with its own very clear identity of itself as a religious institution, I could
call this tradition of reading the Daodejing religious Daoist, keeping that separate
from non-religious Daoist (but primarily Confucian) traditions of reading it. By
this, I do not mean that other Daoist readings are not religious but, keeping in
mind (without swallowing it wholesale) Strickmann’s restriction that we should
limit our use of the term Daoism to “the Way of the Celestial Masters and the
organizations that grew out of it,”6 that tradition with its own way of reading the
Daodejing most certainly warrants its own and very separate label.
The modern deployment of the terms daojia and daojiao, from Fung onward,
derives from the misconception that there were two general kinds of Daoism, one
philosophical and the other religious. Furthermore, this daojia/daojiao container
serves only to reduce the very rich history of the many different readings of
the Daodejing (and my attention to only three traditions of them does the same
disservice, but in my defense I say that my intent in doing so is to situate one
possible early Daoism reading, and this is the most effective way that I can con-
ceive). The daojia/daojiao split also sidesteps the issue of the text’s many different
editions and their concomitant commentaries.
The two terms were never deployed in this way in traditional China, and for
a long time they were used interchangeably to refer to Daoism in general. Later,
around the time of the Tang dynasty, they came to refer explicitly and with all
self-conscious deliberateness to two different readings of the Daodejing at a time
when two primary ways of reading the text became cemented in opposition to
each other, and in fact those who established this opposition in this way were
themselves Confucian. The Confucian tradition, therefore, has its own way of
reading the Daodejing, and this is what I intend in my employment of the term
daojia; the tradition of religious Daoism for its part has its own way of reading it,
and this is what I intend in my employment of the term daojiao.
If one wants to argue that the Confucian reading is philosophical, I see
no problem with that, but that is not what I first of all intend and because of
that I will not define some perennial difference between philosophy and religion
to differentiate daojia from daojiao. The two terms, as I use them, name two
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 51

historically distinct traditions of Daodejing readings and interpretations, the first

Confucian, and the second religious Daoist. I continue to maintain this language
throughout this study.
It is difficult to argue conclusively that the original reading of the Daodejing
belonged to daojia (despite the fact that modern sinology has been making that
argument for generations) in the same way it would be difficult to argue that it
belonged to daojiao (an extremely rare argument indeed given that the Celestial
Master tradition of institutionalized Daoism did not emerge until the second cen-
tury CE). Is another reading, another history of the Daodejing possible?
In The Pristine Dao, I explored that possibility in my attempt, first of all,
to divest the Daodejing of its Confucian reading. The cogency of that reading,
indeed its sine qua non, hinges upon whether or not it was written for rulers
or, to put this more deviously, whether or not its Confucian commentators were
convincing in their persuasions that it was (and they were extremely convincing,
at least for their daojia reading and their daojia readers). There, I argued against
that bias and put forth a case that it was written for Sages-to-be, a target audi-
ence very different from rulers. Second, I offered an alternative way to consider
the religious, mythological, cosmological, and metaphysical content of the work,
and I briefly explored the possibility that the Daodejing, together with the entire
corpus of early Daoist writings, is maybe better placed, not in the northern Zhou
cultural world of early China, dominated as it was by a Confucianism avant la
lettre, but rather in the southern cultural worlds dominated by the state of Chu,
the putative homeland of early Daoism as well as its most important representa-
tives, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Huainanzi.7
If those arguments have any success, then it has to be admitted that any
Confucian reading of the work is already secondary. I say this not because I can
provide conclusive proofs for an “original” reading of the Daodejing as it must
have been received, recited or read, and practiced by its home audience at the
time of its earliest circulation. Those conclusive proofs are a virtual impossibility
because of the current absence of any solid body of corroborative evidence, but
the possibility of that kind of original reading (or recitation, as the case may be)
remains an important feature of my argument. This third reading of the Daodejing
that I attempt to uncover is neither daojia nor daojiao, and it is a reading that is
not clearly visible to the eyes of the historian. I identify this third reading with
a tradition that I call early Daoism, hidden though it is.

The Role of Commentary in the Daodejing

My central argument is that from the time of its first circulation, the Daodejing
belonged to the tradition (or movement or group; I am not overly concerned
with this specific designation because we cannot directly see and thereby gauge
it) of early Daoism committed to the physical techniques known as yangsheng. I
52 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

call this a third reading in relation to the daojia and the daojiao readings, neither
of which focuses on yangsheng. I argue this even though there are no extant
transmitted commentaries from early China that would provide a demonstration
of the particular early Daoist reading of it. The strongest external indications we
get come from the “Neiye,” the Zhuangzi, and the writings of Ge Hong.
I do not say very much about the various editions of the Daodejing because
that ground has been covered many times before,8 but it is important to understand
the role of commentary in them. Any reading of the Daodejing must first of all
account for which specific editions the reader chooses to use, and then one has to
navigate through the commentaries appended to each of them. In terms of editions
and commentaries, three stand out as the most important because of their early
dates, namely the Heshang Gong, the Xiang’er, and the Wang Bi (although at some
point the Heshang Gong edition was substituted for the Wang Bi edition, but this did
not affect the Wang Bi commentary).9 Alan Chan cites W. C. Chan’s study, which
counts some 700 Chinese commentaries, with about 350 of them still extant, on
top of another 250 Japanese commentaries, and Robinet confirms these numbers.10
Why do these various commentaries matter for any reading of the Daode-
jing? The short answer is that they serve to direct how one reads the text itself.
Robinet writes,

A book is in fact a dialogue, a relational play between the book

and the reader, the object of the reading and its subject as well as
the subject of the book. This relational play imposes a task on the
reader. The reading modifies the book and invites its recreation; it is
an unending work of remaking, trying to assure that nothing of the
original richness is lost. But the book in its own turn also modifies the
reader; its different interpretations create groups of readers and schools
of readings. In the case of the Daodejing, more than in many others,
Western readers must overcome distances of cultural background while
Chinese readers must struggle with the thought habits of a distant
historical period . . . 
The Daodejing is a particularly attractive object for commentar-
ies, because it is contradictory and abrupt and contains unintelligible
phrases such as “spirit of the valley” and “mysterious female.”11

In this study, I am looking at one particular “school of reading,” to use Robi-

net’s words, namely early Daoism, and the ways in which its participants would
have or could have read the Daodejing. Chan also provides a relevant overview
of the relation between commentary and reading for the Daodejing:

Is the Daodejing a manual of self-cultivation and government? Is it a

metaphysical treatise, or does it harbor deep mystical insights? Accord-
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 53

ing to some, the Daodejing reflects a deep mythological consciousness

at its core. The myth of “chaos,” in particular, helps shape the Daoist
understanding of the cosmos and the place of human beings in it. Yet
others see the Daodejing mainly as a work of philosophy, which gives a
metaphysical account of reality, and does not neglect the importance
of ethics, but cannot ultimately be seen as a work of mysticism. To
numerous people, moreover, the Daodejing offers essentially a philosophy
of life. The emphasis on naturalness and spontaneity translates into
a way of life characterized by simplicity, calmness and freedom from
the tyranny of desire. Many also agree that the Daodejing is above all
concerned with realizing the reign of great peace. It is an ethical and
political masterpiece intended for the ruling class, with concrete stra-
tegic suggestions aimed at remedying the moral and political turmoil
surrounding the late Zhou China. This list of alternative views of the
text is far from exhaustive, and different combinations are also possible.12

I want to focus on three main points brought out by Chan’s above com-
ments. First, they recognize the political and the philosophical as two major
components of many readings of the Daodejing. Second, they recognize another
component, the mystical, found in some readings, but I hesitate to use that word
because of its erroneous connotations, and instead I call it physical cultivation or,
more specifically, yangsheng. Third, they entirely elide the religious reading. So, in
the following pages, I want to focus on the following four components that are
decisive for most any reading of the Daodejing: the political, the philosophical,
the religious, and the physical. I do this by focusing on three readings. The first
is the daojia reading represented by the Wang Bi commentary, which prioritizes the
philosophical but includes the political, and the Heshang Gong commentary, which
includes the political but is short on the philosophical. The second is the daojiao
reading represented by the Xiang’er, which prioritizes the religious but gives short
shrift to both the philosophical and the political. The third is the early reading,
which is only partially discernable in the Heshang Gong, and focuses more on the
physical and the political.13

The Heshang Gong Commentary

It might be noticed that I place the Heshang Gong commentary in both the daojia
and the early Daoism categories. This is because this commentary gives more or
less equal space to political rulership and physical cultivation, and it cannot finally
be reduced to one or the other. Robinet writes: “This ‘manual’ directs behavior
playing on two registers: ‘to regulate the self and to regulate the state’ or, in other
words: one does not govern the country without governing the self. Heshang
Gong addresses his counsels equally to the person and the prince: philosophy
54 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

and politics, the State, on one hand; morality and recipes of longevity on the
other.”14
The commentary is attributed to the legendary Daoist Sage Heshang Gong,
said to have lived during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Han dynasty (r. 202–157
BC). His legend is familiar to us from the preface supposedly composed by Ge Xuan
葛玄, who is none other than the great-uncle of Ge Hong himself. According to
this legend, Wen heard of this Sage and his profound knowledge of the Daodejing,
so he went in person to seek him out to question him about it. Upon encounter-
ing him, the emperor insisted that the Sage bow down before him, but Heshang
Gong instead rose into the air far above his head. Eventually making peace, the
Sage presented his Heshang Gong commentary to him.15 The legend is important
for initially approaching the commentary because it provides a strikingly visual
depiction of the relation between a Sage and a ruler: they are not equal, the Sage
is above the ruler, and throughout the commentary the ruler remains subordinate
to the Sage; this seems to be the main point of the legend. In other words, the
commentary most certainly includes a political component, but it is framed in the
terms of a Sage acting as the teacher of the ruler, but they are two distinct figures;
kingly Sages and sagely Kings are nowhere to be found in the commentary.
The Sage levitating above the King provides the general model of perfect
governance espoused by the tradition of Huang-Lao Daoism. This tradition, much
like the Heshang Gong commentary with which it is often identified or associated,
primarily consists of two components: physical cultivation and ideas of rulership
in which the King governs by “doing nothing.”16
Huang-Lao Daoism represents the clearest instance of Daoism as an active
political philosophy in the annals of Chinese history. It became the dominant
political ideology of the Han court during the reign of Emperor Wen, only to be
replaced by Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 CE) when he adopted Confucianism as the
official state orthodoxy and ideology. In my understanding, Huang-Lao originated
as a direct consequence of a change in status of the Daodejing: around 250 BC,
it was pushed beyond the confines of (hidden) early Daoism and became an
eminently public text in early China, where it for the first time began to experi-
ence wide popularity among the elites of early Chinese society (I return to this
phenomenon in chapter 5).
The “Huang” 黃 of Huang-Lao Daoism refers to Huangdi, who represents
the perfect King, and the “Lao” 老 refers to Laozi, who represents the perfected
Sage. In this, the Sage is the instructor of the King, but note that, according
to the legends surrounding him, when the mythic King Huangdi finally became
a Sage, his first act was to abdicate the throne and move into the mountains.17
Seidel writes:

We have seen that the image of Laozi was not that of a philosopher
or a mystic without any relation to society, but it was that of a Master
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 55

who manifests as a minister or even retires into obscurity as a function

of the quality of the government. He is the Master and the Counselor
par excellence, never a disciple, never assimilated to the Son of Heaven.
Inversely, the Yellow Emperor [Huangdi] is never a Master; the sagacity
that he comes to possess is always the result of the teachings that he
received in his role as a disciple.18

Notice the public exposure that Laozi receives as a “Master” and “Counselor”
to the King; this paints a very different picture of him compared to the supremely
anonymous and shadowy voice lurking somewhere behind the Daodejing. This
goes a long way in explaining the confluence of the physical and the political
in the commentary. As Robinet writes, “For Heshang Gong, the Daodejing is a
manual simultaneously for the art of governing and for prolonging life, and this
corresponds well to Huang-Lao tendencies.”19
Despite the fact that the legend places Heshang Gong in the reign period
of Emperor Wen in the early second century BC, the commentary itself is gener-
ally dated to the later Han period, although some scholars argue for a much later
date. Chan, nonetheless, provides compelling arguments for placing it even before
the composition of the Xiang’er commentary, which itself predates the Wang Bi
commentary by some decades.20 I agree with Chan’s dating, making the Heshang
Gong the first complete transmitted commentary to the Daodejing that we possess.
The Heshang Gong commentary is close to an early Daoist reading because
it brings a lot of focus to yangsheng as qi circulation, but it departs from a strictly
early Daoist reading by its inclusion of the political. I attribute those passages from
the Heshang Gong that directly engage the techniques and ideology of yangsheng
(and it is the only one of the three commentaries that does so) as direct reflections
of an earlier reading of the Daodejing that can be situated in an environment of
early Daoism. At some point in the late third century BC, well before the com-
position of the Heshang Gong, the Daodejing went beyond its original environment
into the public sphere, where it was embraced by the elites of the society. The
political component emphasized by the Heshang Gong, I argue, is a later injec-
tion and consequence attributable to the interests of the elites that manifested
in the Heshang Gong commentary when it was composed and began to circulate
(although the way to that was already initiated by the partial commentaries to
the Daodejing found in the Han Feizi and the Huainanzi, but these developments
concern the history of the Wang Bi commentary more than the Heshang Gong).21

The Xiang’er Commentary

Let’s move on to the Xiang’er commentary (and here I pass over the Yan Zun
commentary because it did not play a significant role on future Daodejing readings;
Robinet and Chan both attribute it to a Huang-Lao reading that was eclipsed, in
56 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

any case, by that of the Heshang Gong). The Xiang’er was likely composed toward
the end of the second century CE by Zhang Daoling or his grandson Zhang Lu,
the successive leaders of the Celestial Master community. The community lived
in the Hanzhong region in what is today modern Sichuan, where they established
their own semi-autonomy during the ravages of the civil wars that were tearing
most of the rest of China apart at the seams and that ultimately led to the fall
of the Han dynasty. These violent conflicts, generally called the Yellow Turban
revolts 黃巾之亂 (huangjin zhi luan), pitted the Han government forces against a
congeries of rebel groups who shared a commitment to the inception of a new,
Daoist theocracy that would replace the Confucian mandate of Heaven, but they
were in the end soundly defeated.22 This only served to taint Daoism as politically
dangerous, and in fact the majority of later Chinese uprisings even through to the
Qing dynasty would be motivated by such “rebel” Daoist movements.
The Celestial Masters maintained their distance far away from the civil
wars, and when Cao Cao and his military forces occupied the Hanzhong region
around 215 CE, his first order of business was to appoint Zhang Lu as a high
government official in his Wei court and disperse the community (rather than, for
example, destroying them). Interestingly, Zhang Lu’s daughter was married to Cao
Yu, one of Cao Cao’s sons. Ironically, Cao’s forced dispersal of the Han Zhong
community directly led, over the course of the next several generations, to the
spread and establishment of Celestial Master Daoism throughout large swathes of
China, including the south.23
The Celestial Masters read the Daodejing as a divine scripture revealed by
Taishang Laojun 太上老君, who was, in fact, Laozi divinized; he was the “human”
face of the Dao. It was Laojun who descended to Zhang Daoling in 142 CE on
Mount Heming and invested him with the authority to establish the Celestial
Master religion. One notable way in which he exercised this authority was by
composing the Xiang’er commentary. Robinet writes, “In truth, the Xiang’er is not
an attempt to explicate metaphysics, but before all it is a work written to indoc-
trinate the faithful. On one side, it promises ‘Life’ to those who follow the Way,
and on the other, it throws curses onto those who depart from it. It constantly
makes the distinction between the ‘true doctrine’ (the ‘true Dao’ and the ‘true
writings’) and fallacious doctrines.”24
The title Xiang’er literally means “Thinking of You,” referring to the Dao/
Laojun who thinks of his worshippers. The commentary states, “The One is the
Dao. The One is beyond Heaven and Earth. The One disperses its form as qi,
and it gathers its form as Taishang Laojun, whose permanent rule is on Mount
Kunlun” 一者道也一在天地外一散形為氣聚形為太上老君常治昆仑 (yi zhe dao
ye yi zai tiandi wai yi san xing wei qi ju xing wei Taishang Laojun chang zhi Kunlun).25
The Xiang’er itself did not have a lasting impact; the surviving text as we
have it, excavated from the Dunhuang caves, consists only of chapters 3 through
37, and it was probably copied around 500 CE. What was lasting was its style of a
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 57

specifically religious reading of the Daodejing that was adopted by institutionalized

Daoism, and the Daoist Canon contains numerous such religious commentaries.
Within what came to be the vast reach of institutionalized Daoism with its many
and various sects, the Daodejing was transmitted to novices during their ordina-
tions; it provided ordained monks and nuns with a set of precepts; it was recited
daily; it was squarely integrated into Daoist meditation; and it held an important
position in internal alchemy, among many of its other religious uses.26

The Wang Bi Commentary

This now leaves the Wang Bi commentary with its own particular reading of
the Daodejing, the third commentarial pillar representing what ultimately became
the dominant reading in both traditional and modern China that was in turn
embraced by Western scholarship. Although the roots of this reading historically
appeared with the two partial commentaries by Han Feizi (280–233 BC), “Jie
Lao” and “Yu Lao,” soon followed by the partial commentary of the Huainanzi,
“Dao Ying,” the Wang Bi commentary concretely established this daojia reading,
although it would take another four or five centuries for the Confucian literati to
finally embrace it once and for all. More than this, I venture to say the Wang Bi
commentary was instrumental in allowing the Daodejing to survive for posterity
by delivering a reading of it that was rigorously purged of any religious flavor or
application.
At the time of Wang Bi, living in the ruins of the Han dynasty, the Daodejing
was recognized as a dangerous text. This should come as no surprise because it
consistently denounces the abuses of the ruling elites, and this provided a major
incitement for the Yellow Turban revolts. Far from identifying the Dao with Tai­
shang Laojun, whose emissary Li Hong was soon expected to appear in the world
and incept the Daoist theocracy, the Dao for the Wang Bi is a strictly metaphysical
principle, not a deity to be worshipped or a force demanding religious or political
submission. In addition, this commentary offers no encouragement for any kind
of physical cultivation endowing longevity or immortality.
Born some two years after the fall of the Han dynasty, Wang Bi stands as
one of the great philosophers of world history, and his writings include much
more than his commentary on the Daodejing.27 He died at the very young age of
twenty-four. During his short life, he self-identified as a Confucian and was a true
representative of the literati class that had largely turned its back on politics and
government service. Like many other members of his class, Wang opted instead for
retirement to his family estate (itself a certain style of Confucian reclusion having
little in common with Daoism) in order to lose himself in more literary pursuits.
Wang was an important member of the movement called xuanxue 玄學
(“dark learning,” often misnamed by modern scholars as “neo-Daoism,” and
Guo Xiang郭象, another leading proponent of this movement, has provided the
58 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

s­tandard commentary to the Zhuangzi as we see it today; but these two Confu-
cian literati spearheading xuanxue, again, had nothing to do with any tradition
of Daoism). Wang forged a reading of the Daodejing that was consistent with
Confucian thought, and he did much the same for the Yijing 易經with his mag-
isterial commentary to that work. Rather than transforming society by religion
or politics through direct social and political engagement, Wang opted for the
abstract and sanitized heights of pure philosophy, and the ruler who is targeted
by his commentary is indeed what we could call maybe not a Sage-King but a
Philosopher-King.28

Three Commentaries in Comparison

The Heshang Gong, Xiang’er, and Wang Bi commentaries, likely composed in that
order of appearance, are by far the three most important commentaries to the
Daodejing ever written (and each has received an English-language translation29).
While there is certainly a lot of overlap in what these three commentaries have to
say about the contents and concepts of the Daodejing, they remain different, sepa-
rate, and highly distinct unto themselves: the Heshang Gong provides an equally
political and physical Huang-Lao reading, the Xiang’er provides a religious Daoist
reading, and the Wang Bi provides a philosophical Confucian reading.
Composed relatively close to one another in time, these commentaries
had vastly different careers. The Xiang’er was embraced by the early Celestial
Master community as its most sacred scripture, but when Cao Cao forced the
community to disperse, communal unity was rent, and the Xiang’er no longer
enjoyed its preeminent position within the ranks of the different groups and
sects of religious Daoism. The Heshang Gong from the first was the preferred
commentary for all non-Daoists (which means the greater part of all Chinese
readership), and over time it even supplanted the Xiang’er as the preferred com-
mentary for religious Daoism (but there are political reasons for this; anyway,
religious Daoists continued to produce their own commentaries to the Daodejing).
The Heshang Gong’s preeminent position was eventually challenged by the Wang
Bi commentary beginning only in the Tang dynasty, and this is where we find
not the original applications of the terms daojia and daojiao, which had been
in use since the Han dynasty if not earlier,30 but rather their dawning usages
to refer to two different readings of the Daodejing (which is very different from
how modern scholars have used these terms to refer to two separate traditions
of Daoism). Alan Chan and Rudolf Wagner have separately provided incisive
studies on the careers of these three commentaries; Wagner, focusing here on
the Wang Bi commentary, writes:

Wang Bi’s commentary circulated in Wei and during the Six Dynasties
in intellectual circles, continuing the tradition of ontological inquiry.
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 59

The text’s role was probably strongest in the south, but prominent
northern intellectuals and Buddhist monks also used and appreciated
it. It was gradually eclipsed by the Heshang Gong commentary, but
it attained equal standing with it in the Tang dynasty. Its defenders
stressed its philosophic and analytic quality.31

Wagner provides a fascinating examination of the Tang and Song dynasty

court debates as seen through the official memorials that argued for or against the
Heshang Gong and the Wang Bi to stand as the authoritative commentary. Here
I provide only a small excerpt of this story:

In 719, the famous historian, Liu Zhiji, proceeded to challenge the

authenticity of the Heshang Gong commentary in a memorial to the
Ministry of Propriety and another one directly to the throne . . . The
State Council, to whom the matter was referred, had a committee discuss
the issue. They came up with a compromise supported by Liu Zhiji.
“Heshang Gong is a fictitious appellation, there is no such person in
the historical records of the Han. Yet, his commentary has the nurture
of spirit as its principle aim and non-interference as its mainstay. His
language is easy, and his principles are encompassing . . . Wang Bi
was sophisticated and skilled at speaking about the Dark and probed
the essentials of the Way . . . With regard to these two commentaries
by Wang Bi and Heshang Gong, we now look forward to and apply
for it that students are required to act on them both.” Although the
Heshang Gong version was “most commonly circulating,” Wang Bi’s
commentary attracted very strong and prominent support, and it was
probably more widely copied as a consequence of this 719 edict. Emperor
Xuanzong had been initiated in the Daoist order in 721, and shortly
thereafter he set out to produce an imperial Daodejing commentary,
begun in 724 and finished about 733 . . . The Song dynasty again saw
a revival of interest in Wang Bi. The authority of the Heshang Gong
commentary as well as Xuanzong’s commentary had suffered from the
demise of the Tang dynasty . . . In 994, Emperor Zhenzong said to his
prime minister: “The Daodejing contains the essentials for regulating
the times. But although Tang Xuanzong’s commentaries are remarkable
in their brilliance, the commentaries by Wang Bi are simple in their
words, but profound in their meaning. They have truly grasped the
purest purport.” As a consequence he ordered blocks with the Wang
Bi commentary to be cut.32

In the Song dynasty, there finally emerged a clear bias between the Heshang
Gong and Wang Bi commentaries; the Confucian literati tradition broke en masse
60 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

for the Wang Bi with the rise of neo-Confucianism 新儒家 (xinrujia), while the
Daoist religion maintained its strong preference for the Heshang Gong, and this
remains the case even to the present age.33 The Xiang’er, on the other hand, seems
to have never become popular beyond or outside of the first few generations of
the Celestial Masters. Once the Xiang’er fell into disappearance, the Heshang Gong
and the Wang Bi took over and divvied up all other spaces, and this is precisely
where I impose for the first time the strict and clear difference between the
Confucian daojia reading of the Wang Bi and the religious Daoist daojiao reading
of the Heshang Gong.
Keeping in mind that the Heshang Gong commentary gives a strong focus
to rulers and rulership (and the government has ever been at pains to impose its
authority over religious practitioners), but also that this focus is not central to
either a religious Daoist or an early Daoist reading in itself, and finally that the
Wang Bi commentary primarily appealed to the Confucian literati, the following
passage from Chan is extremely insightful in allowing a much clearer understand-
ing of the daojia/daojiao split:

In this way, Wang Bi’s insight has thus laid the foundation of later,
including Neo-Confucian, thought. When coupled with the fact that
the Heshang Gong commentary was later appropriated by the Daoist
religion, it is easy to see how the two commentaries have come to
represent the locus of “philosophical Daoism” and “religious Daoism.”
When the Heshang Gong commentary became a part of the Daoist
religion, its political ideal was no longer relevant. When Wang Bi’s
ideas were further developed, the interaction between the commentary
and the Daodejing faded into oblivion. Indeed, it was only when the
ideas were lifted from their original context that they were able to
form elements of a philosophic system. But this subsequent development
cannot be read back into the commentaries themselves. It is, in other
words, anachronistic to oppose the two commentaries in terms of a
struggle between “philosophic Daoism” and “religious Daoism.” These
terms have value only when the Daoist religion was fully established,
and cannot be applied to Wang Bi and Heshang Gong, or to the
Daodejing itself . . . But in the final analysis, it was not until after the
Heshang Gong, Xiang’er, and Wang Bi commentaries made their mark
that the Daoist tradition fully acquired a dual identity, which led to
the development of the two forms of Daoism.34

While I essentially agree with most of what Chan writes here, I do not
accept the ascription of “philosophical Daoism” to any part of the tradition of
Daoism; what is called “philosophical Daoism” is (and Wagner also clearly holds
this position) entirely attributable to the Confucian tradition and, to a different
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 61

degree, the Chinese Buddhist tradition; that, however, raises the issue of the
development of Chan Buddhism with its very close dependence on Daoism, which
is the stuff of another story.
The Confucian daojia reading of the Daodejing takes Laozi as its original
author; it sees him as living from 604 to 531 BC; he was from the southern state
of Chu; and he spent many years as an archivist in the imperial library of the
Zhou dynasty, during which time Confucius met with him to question him about
the Dao. Growing weary of the world, Laozi decided to leave China through the
western border. Yin Xi 尹喜, the border guard, requested that he leave behind
his teachings for the benefit of the country, and Laozi agreed to give him 5,000
words; the title Wuqian wen 五千文 (literally “Five Thousand Writing”) remains
an alternate title for the Daodejing to the present.
For the religious daojiao reading of the Daodejing, on the other hand, Laozi
is one incarnation, albeit the most important, of the cosmic god Taishang Laojun,
who took on a human form to convert people and teach them how to properly
worship the Dao; The Scripture of the Inner Explanations of the Three Heavens pro-
vides a clear example of this in the following passage:

During the reigns of one thearch after another, Laozi emerged as

Master to the Kingdom, instructor of the thearchs [the text continues
by listing some twenty further incarnations of Laojun] . . . Sometimes
he transforms nine times in a single day; sometimes twenty-four times.
Through a thousand changes and ten thousand transformations, he
rises up and sinks out of sight through the generations—so many times
that they cannot all be recorded.35

The Laozi that is identified with early Daoism is a somewhat different figure
from that of the Laozi of daojia or daojiao, although this tradition shares with daojia
the understanding of him as a non-divine human man, rather than the daojiao
understanding of him as a god. Particular to early Daoism’s vision of Laozi is that
he is a master of yangsheng and its greatest teacher. In his hagiography of Laozi in
the Shenxian zhuan 神仙傳, Ge Hong 葛洪 goes to great pains to establish that
if Laozi were a divine figure, he would be worthless as a model of yangsheng, and
yangsheng, as Ge points out time and again in his writings, demands a lifelong
commitment; he writes:

Laozi was certainly particularly advanced in his attainment of the Dao

but his vital energies were not of an altogether different kind . . . If
people say that Laozi got the Dao, then people will exert themselves
to imitate him. If people say he was a numinous deity of an altogether
different kind from us, then his example is one that cannot be fol-
lowed by practice.36
62 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

This passage indirectly brings out these two most important characteristics
of Laozi for early Daoism, namely his greatness in mastering yangsheng and his
greatness in teaching it; these also are the primary characteristics of Laozi in the
story of Gengsang Chu from ZZ 23 to which I have already alluded, and Ge Hong
fully develops these motifs of Laozi as master and teacher of yangsheng throughout
the Baopuzi Neipian. The best depiction of early Daoism’s vision of Laozi comes
from Zhang Rongming’s magisterial study; but note that what he calls qigong 氣
功 is what I call yangsheng:

What Laozi has written is a concise outline of the physical train-

ing methods of ancient qigong, and it also demonstrates Laozi’s fairly
in-depth understanding of ancient qigong. Laozi understood ancient
qigong, even to the point of researching it, and this should not be
surprising. The biography of Laozi in the Shiji says that “Laozi was a
hermit. He was about 160 years old . . . he nurtured his longevity by
cultivating the Dao.” Laozi was a hermit, and hermits are consistently
and indissolubly related to the adepts who practice yangsheng and
daoyin in the mountains and forests where they “spit out the old and
take in the new,” and they practice “breathing out and breathing in,
inhaling slowly and exhaling slowly” [quoting ZZ 15]. Consequentially,
Laozi objectively possessed a prerequisite understanding of, and a total
expertise in, ancient qigong. In addition, as the founder of the school
of Daoism, Laozi heavily emphasized “the Dao of long life and lasting
vision” [quoting DDJ 59], and he consistently placed yangsheng and the
regulation of the body above the regulation of the country and the
pacification of the empire. Laozi bluntly said, “To one who loves the
body as he loves the world, the world can be entrusted.” Pursuing this,
Laozi was not only a researching explorer of qigong theory, but he was
also an adept of qigong’s physical training of the body in general. The
longevity of more than 100 years that Laozi obtained from cultivating
the Dao can serve as an inspiration.37

Zhang’s depiction of Laozi as master and teacher of yangsheng, what he calls

ancient qigong, is extremely provocative, and it is very much in line with the
ways in which Laozi is depicted in the Zhuangzi and the writings of Ge Hong.
In all of these writings, Laozi’s mastery of yangsheng is unquestioned, and this is
also Zhang’s major point, which the traditions of daojia and daojiao, in addition
to a lot of Western scholarship, do not seem to adequately take into account.
Unlike daojia, sagely rulership is peripheral to yangsheng; unlike daojiao, suc-
cess in the quest for long life is the result of a commitment to a life devoted to
yangsheng, not a gift from the gods. With respect to early Daoism, the Daode-
jing presents the quintessential teachings of a fully realized Sage, Laozi, and the
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 63

theory and practice of yangsheng is the core from which all of his other teachings
emerge.
Whether or not there actually was such a Sage named Laozi who composed
the Daodejing in one sitting or over a period of time does not affect the value of
its teachings; as Kristofer Schipper writes, “Those who wrote the Daodejing—we
do not now their names, but does that matter?—wanted to give a comprehensive
summing up of the thought which tradition attributes to the Old Master.”38 The
thought that the writers of the Daodejing so concisely summed up, I have argued
before, can in a general way be grasped through the four domains of cosmogony,
cosmology, ontology, and soteriology.39 Yangsheng, however, is the lifeblood that
flows through and connects each of these domains. This is in large part the great-
ness of the Daodejing.
I want briefly to return to the comparison of the Heshang Gong, Wang Bi,
and Xiang’er commentaries. In terms of thematic content, one of the starkest dif-
ferences between them centers on the ways that each positions the King. In the
Heshang Gong, the King is subordinated to the Sage, and the Sage acts as the
teacher of the King and a model for him to emulate. In the Wang Bi, there is
only one figure, the Sage-King or Philosopher-King, and everybody is subordinated
to him, but he is in turn subordinated to the Dao. In the Xiang’er, the ruler of
the state is hardly mentioned, and the Celestial Master community revered the
current head of the religion, beginning with Zhang Daoling, as its highest author-
ity. In fact, there are strong indications that its early community, much like the
many Daoist groups whose rebellions were ravaging the Han dynasty, looked for
an entirely new political mandate—this one Daoist, not Confucian.
Line 4 from DDJ 10 can serve as a prime example for seeing the different
readings in each of the three commentaries. The Wang Bi reads this passage as
such: “To love the people and govern the state, can it be done without knowl-
edge?” The commentary states: “To ‘govern the state’ ‘without knowledge’ is like
[what DDJ 19 calls] ‘rejecting knowledge.’ If [a ruler] ‘can do it without knowl-
edge,’ then the people will not evade him and the state will be governed.”40
This reading is entirely directed to the art of rulership as exercised by a
Sage-King; note that the term guo 國 is appropriately translated here as “state”
in the sense of the Chinese empire, a specifically political realm. The Sage-King’s
rulership naturally flows from his being one with the Dao without any acquired
knowledge; it comes from his innate or intuitive knowledge. His perfect rulership
stems from his compassionate virtue that is expressed in his love for the people,
and it results in the perfect and spontaneous government order that comes from
this harmonious state of affairs.
The Heshang Gong reads this passage as such: “To love the people and regu-
late the country, can it be done without knowledge?” The commentary states: “If
in regulating the body one loves the breath, the body will be intact. If in regulating
the country one loves the people, the country will be at peace. R­egulating the
64 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

body means to inhale and exhale vital essence and qi without letting the ears hear
this. Regulating the country means to distribute virtue and bestow grace without
letting those below know it.”41
This is arguably the most famous passage in the Heshang Gong commentary,
and it is often quoted by Chinese and Western scholars alike; it demonstrates the
powerful image of the intimate relation between the body as microcosm and the
cosmos or world as macrocosm, a way of thinking that would come to dominate
Daoist thought.42 Note that the term guo is appropriately translated here as “coun-
try” in the sense of the land of China, a much less political understanding than
that of the Wang Bi. More to the point, the commentary plays with the Chinese
term zhi 治, which can mean “to govern” as the King governs the state or “to
regulate” as the Sage regulates the breath. When discussing the King, the Heshang
Gong uses it in the sense of “to govern,” but when discussing the Sage, it uses zhi
in the sense of “to regulate”; its “zhi” is not the same. The Sage “regulates” both
his body and the country, but only the King “governs” the empire.
Of utmost importance in regulating the body to become one with the Dao
and thereby successfully regulate the country is mastering the circulation of qi
(the central practice of yangsheng), to which the Heshang Gong gives the highest
priority. The Wang Bi, on the other hand, also speaks of these physical practices,
which are so often mentioned in the Daodejing, but they are the prerogative of
the Sage-King who performs them to achieve mental clarity, the sine qua non of
perfect rulership, not physical longevity.
The Xiang’er reads this passage as such: “As you love the masses and regu-
late the country, let there be no knowledge.” The commentary states: “The lord
of the people, desiring to love the masses so as to cause their longevity and to
regulate the country so as to bring about the Great Peace, should earnestly plumb
the intentions of the Dao. In teaching the masses, he should cause them to know
the perfection of the Dao and not allow them to know of false ways or deviant
doctrines.”43
One of the striking elements in the Xiang’er is that the Dao is believed
to take two forms, as the non-embodied force of life and as the embodied deity
Laojun, the deified Laozi. In this deific form, the Dao (as Laojun) actually speaks
to people, demonstrating one of the primary departures of this commentary from
the Wang Bi and the Heshang Gong. The commentary reads this line as the direct
words of the Dao spoken to “the lord of the people” 人君 (renjun). “The lord
of the people” does not refer to the King because the Celestial Master commu-
nity did not recognize the sitting Han emperor’s legitimate authority over them,
nestled far away from the imperial reach as they were in the Hanzhong valley. It
refers rather to the religious leader of the community, Zhang Daoling and later
his grandson Zhang Lu.
The term guo here refers to the country of China, which would soon enough
become the state under the Daoist mandate (or so they believed), something more
 Tr a d it io n s o f Re a d in g t h e Daodejing 65

along the lines of a religious empire than a political one. In this institutionalized
religious sense, “knowledge” 知 (zhi) refers to “knowledge of deviant doctrines”
耶知 (ye zhi), namely the set of religious beliefs attributed by the commentary to
the other Daoist groups wreaking havoc in the rebellions of the time and from
which the Xiang’er consistently and deliberately sought to distance its own set
and system of beliefs.
Unfortunately, no early Daoist commentaries to the Daodejing have come
down to the present day. We can, however, approach what they might have
looked like if we distill out the political components of the Heshang Gong, in
which the Sage plays the role of the spiritual teacher to the governing King, and
the political components of the Wang Bi persuasion, which encourage an identi-
fication of the Sage as the King. This will leave us with a more exclusive focus
on yangsheng and the physical component of the Daodejing, creating a space with
which to put aside the political, philosophical, and religious components that
later commentaries injected into it.
In the end, we are left with three foundational yet radically different read-
ings of the Daodejing: the Confucian daojia, the religious Daoist daojiao, and the
early yangsheng Daoist.
My analysis of what is at stake in these different readings does not stop
here; I have just a few points left. Schipper mentions earlier commentaries to the
Daodejing that “were forgotten,” and although he refers primarily to the Heshang
Gong and the Xiang’er commentaries,44 there is a bit more to say about this. Actu-
ally, Robinet has something very important to say about this; she writes:

Very Daoist also, however in a different sense, the Jie Xie is a com-
mentary that has been successively attributed to Laozi and to Heshang
Gong, or to Yin Xi, the Guardian of the Pass. The commentary is lost,
but it was often cited in the works said to be from Ge Huan. We can
deduce that the name of the author, Jie Xie, was lost long ago. The
Baopuzi speaks about it: it was thus known at the start of the fourth
century CE. Yan Lingfeng published it in his collection under the name
of Ge Xuan, arguing on the one hand that “Yiwen zhi” of Song put
forward a commentary of Ge Xuan having this title, and relying on
the other part on the contents of this commentary that correspond
well to that which we know of Ge Xuan, alchemist, grand-uncle,
and master of Ge Hong, who would have lived in the third century
CE . . . The Jie Xie can be considered the inheritor of the tendencies
toward yangxing, “nurture of the vital principle,” of Heshang Gong.
Every political principle articulated by Laozi is translated by him in
terms of the government of the body and exercises to obtain “long
life.” When Laozi says the kingdom, he means the body; when he says
the people, he means the blood vessels; when he says the people are
66 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

hungry, he means it is necessary to hear that the breath is failing. This

is no longer a parallel between the body and the country as Heshang
Gong liked to do, it is a systematic and unilateral interpretation. The
“four greats” of DDJ 25 [the Dao, Heaven, Earth, and the King] are the
lungs, the heart, the liver, and the kidneys; the “ten and the hundred”
of DDJ 80 are the five viscera. The “altars of earth and grain” of DDJ
78 become respectively the hun (the masculine energy) and the po
(the feminine energy). Heaven and Earth represent the nihuan, or the
upper and lower cinnabar fields. [Robinet goes on to provide several
more pages of this commentary] . . . Of all the commentaries, the Jie
Xie is perhaps the least philosophical and most attached to “religious
Daoism,” in the sense that it systematically interprets the Daodejing
in terms of the practice of Long Life traditionally and fundamentally
in this milieu . . . Nevertheless, this interpretation of the Daodejing
made almost exclusively in terms of the practice of Long Life appears
to be extremely biased and an exception among the commentaries.45

Granted, the Jie Xie commentary is an “exception,” but it is also excep-

tional. Despite the fact that Robinet wants to identify this lost commentary with
“religious Daoism,” an ascription I am not ready or willing to accept, this is the
kind of missing commentary that gives notice that an early Daoist reading of the
Daodejing is not to be dismissed out of hand and points to the third reading that
I pursue in this study.
 4

The Daos of Laozi and Confucius

sts

Records of the Interview

Laozi, later also known as Taishang Laojun 太上老君 (“Most High Lord Lao”),
and Confucius, later known as Zhisheng Xianshi 至琞先師 (“Great Sage and
First Teacher”), stand together as the original mavericks of Chinese philosophi-
cal thought (soon enough to be joined by the latecomer Shakyamuni Buddha).1
Although there are many ways to approach the novelty of their views, at the very
least we can say that they offered up two striking visions of the Dao, leaving us
to take their visions as either oppositional or complementary: for the Analects,
the primary field of the Dao is the family and the state, whereas for the Daodejing
it is the whole of nature itself, ontologically separate from, yet sympathetically
attuned to, the human realm.
In this chapter, I hope to establish that early Confucianism offers one very
specific regime of the body, and early Daoism offers another, very different regime
(namely yangsheng). Further, I contend that each of these two regimes seems to
seamlessly follow from its own notion of the Dao, and the regimens’ separate
notions of it are already fully realized with the first circulations of the Daodejing
and the Analects. The path I take to illuminate these two notions of the Dao and
the bodily regimes following from each begins with a brief study of the records of
the famous interview(s) between Confucius and Laozi, because it opens a window
onto some of the ways in which the later Chinese tradition conceived the rela-
tionship between Confucianism and Daoism.2
In this, I am not necessarily arguing for two full-blown, self-announcing
Warring States traditions; things were much more fluid, as I hope to have shown
in the previous chapters. What I am looking into, however, are certain indications

67
68 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

that are visible from the period of the Warring States and that most certainly did
come to play a role in traditional Chinese conceptions that attempted to situate
Confucianism and Daoism in some kind of relationship to each other (oppositional
or complementary, as each and any specific case from the later traditions would
demonstrate). Doing so enables me to forge a path of access, which I pursue in
the remaining chapters of this study, into the direct engagement of the Daodejing’s
foundational core, yangsheng.
In examining the development of early Chinese philosophical thought, two
different approaches are usually adopted in Western studies. The first sees Con-
fucius as the father of that thought, being the first Chinese thinker to have set
forth a comprehensive view of the Dao that embeds it at the very center of his
ideas of normative ethical human conduct based on the relation between human
beings and a somewhat independent source of moral standards, Heaven 天 (tian).
The Daodejing, on the other hand, is read as setting forth a conception of nor-
mative human behavior based not on Heaven but on the Dao, with ziran 自然
(spontaneity) set forth as the behavioral ideal.
This approach also looks upon Laozi the man as never having existed and
therefore having nothing to do with the composition of the Daodejing; D. C.
Lau has given the classic statement on this: “In all probability Laozi was not a
historical figure at all. Once we cease to look at Laozi as a historical figure and
the Daodejing as written by him, we begin to see certain features concerning
both which point to a more reasonable view.”3 This approach additionally sees
the Daodejing as a very late text emerging some two centuries after the death of
Confucius and a generation or so after the death of Zhuangzi, and this became
a staple feature of much Western scholarship on the Daodejing following from
the work of A. C. Graham, who writes that “the most famous and frequently
translated of Chinese books had been written and circulated in Laozi’s name by
about 250 BC . . . Since the ‘Inner Chapters’ [of the Zhuangzi] show no clear
evidence of acquaintance with the Daodejing the book is conveniently treated after
Zhuangzi, although there is no positive proof that it is late.”4 Efforts to date the
first circulations of the Daodejing after Zhuangzi became a dominant trend in the
field until the excavation of the Guodian Laozi, roughly dated to the mid-fourth
century BC, at which point claims about a mid–third-century initial appearance
of the text were quickly abandoned.5
The second approach is largely reactive against the first, and it also shares
many points in common with traditional Chinese scholarship. It sees the Analects
as being put together in a process of accumulation over a period of time begin-
ning even before the death of the Master in 479 BC and continuing for some
two centuries before it became fixed around 249 BC. Further, it gently questions
the current scholarly denial of Laozi’s historical existence and tends to see the
composition (or accumulation, as the case may be) of the Daodejing as roughly
contemporaneous with that of the Analects. The following arguments of E. Bruce
Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks were foundational for this view; they write:
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 69

Warring States thought is preserved for us in some three dozen received

texts, including the Analects, all of more or less disputed date. It is
a matter of some urgency to re-examine this corpus, and to resolve
the uncertainties as far as possible . . . The drift of these opinions
[by “critical scholars”] is (1) to reject some claims associating certain
texts with early historical figures, and (2) to date those texts later than
those associations would imply, sometimes to a span of dates rather
than one single compositional date. The concept of a span of dates
differs from that of a unitary text composed at one time, and implies
a different process . . . Inconsistencies in the Analects and the Mozi
do imply an accretion process, as do those of the Daodejing. Arguing
thus, we arrive at another cutoff date . . . the Analects, the Mozi, and
(surprisingly) the Daodejing all cease being compiled in 249 BC, the
date of the Lü conquest. We infer that these cumulative texts were in
the care of groups with an ongoing advocational unity, each continually
updating its position as time passed, and ceasing when the military
situation (in 249 BC) or the political climate (in 136 BC) became
inhospitable.6

Brooks and Brooks do, however, place the original circulation of the Daode­
jing writings around the middle of the fifth century, which is even more surprising
in that they do not openly take account of the Guodian Laozi. This fifth-century
placement is, again, suspiciously close to the dates of Confucius.
In large part because of the excavation of the Guodian Laozi, it has become
highly untenable to date the first circulations of the Daodejing (in any stage of its
process of accumulation) after the Zhuangzi.7 In this, the Guodian Laozi is seen
either as a prototype of what was later to become the received edition of the
Daodejing or as a partial version of a preexisting and fuller text. With the resources
at hand, there is no way to prove this definitively one way or the other; we await
the next excavated version of the Daodejing for more informed decisions, but my
feeling is that the latter option is the better choice, particularly given the fact
that the Guodian Laozi consists of three separate versions of the writing (as I
discussed in chapter 1), each written by a different hand. Thus, there is a strong
probability that the text we now call the Daodejing was already known in some
version by the end of the sixth century BC, dates that would coincide, again,
with those of Confucius’s lifetime.
The Chinese tradition, far from denying the historical existence of Laozi,
actually posits a more revealing identity for him, namely as Lao Dan 老聃, a fifth-
century archivist employed by the Zhou dynasty. In stark contrast to the above
comments by Lau, which demonstrate the absolute conviction that there never
was a Laozi, Chen Guying ties together three points that help to contextualize
traditional China’s understanding of him (and these are the very ideas that many
contemporary Chinese scholars continue to support, as demonstrated by Chen)
70 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

that were already popular in early China, namely that there was a Laozi, that he
wrote the Daodejing, and that we can better understand both the man and his
work by attending to his various places of residence; he writes:

As to the precise time and place the original Daodejing was written,
there are a number of possibilities. Lao Dan may have written the
book while serving as an official in Zhou, present-day Luoyang. Per-
haps, as Sima Qian describes it, he penned the work as notes for a
border guard when he travelled west. Laozi may even have authored
it toward the end of his life while living in Chang’an. Whatever the
case, the fact that Laozi’s text was able to travel hundreds of miles to
Chu where Guodian is located at a time when trade between states
was difficult and dangerous shows that his ideas were broadly embraced
throughout China.8

Chen’s comments serve as a segue into the record of the interviews between
Laozi and Confucius. In them, Laozi’s residence is variously placed; the Zhuangzi
places him in the state of Song,9 the “Zengzi Wen” 曾子問 of the Liji 禮記
places him in Lü,10 and Sima Qian alternately places him in Zhou and Chu.11
The Chinese tradition, moreover, also holds to the belief that Confucius himself
was a onetime student of Laozi, and there are several versions of an interview or
interviews between them. Three records of Confucius’s interview with Laozi in
the “Zengzi Wen” have him state, “I have heard Laozi say . . .” 吾聞諸老聃曰
(wo wen zhu Lao Dan yue . . .).12 The Lüshi chunqiu writes that “Confucius studied
under Lao Dan, Meng Sukui, and Jingshu” 孔子學於老聃孟蘇夔靖叔 (Kongzi
xue yu Lao Dan Meng Sukui Jingshu).13 In Analects 7.1, Confucius himself might
also have directly named Laozi when he is recorded as saying, “I might compare
with Lao Peng” 竊比於我老彭 (qie bi yu wo Lao Peng), where Lao Peng can be
understood as referring to one person, Old Peng 老彭, or to two different people,
Laozi 老子 and Peng Zu 彭子.
Commenting on the pervasiveness of this relationship between Confucius
and Laozi (or Lao Dan) found in so many of these early writings, Graham writes,
“In Zhuangzi and elsewhere Lao Dan does, of course, talk to others besides Con-
fucius . . . What distinguishes the dialogues with Confucius from the rest is not
that they are especially numerous, but that throughout the Daoist, Confucian and
eclectic sources, the meeting itself is something more than a prop for imaginary
dialogues. It is rather an event, the one thing everybody knows about Lao Dan.”14
It is fairly easy to think that, in these records, Laozi is not anything close
to being a Daoist; his depictions represent him a staunch master of the ancient
li 禮 (the rituals), because this is how the Shiji introduces the interview in its
famous autobiography of Laozi: “Confucius travelled to Zhou to question Laozi
about the li” 孔子適周將問禮於老子 (Kongzi shi Zhou jiang wen li yu Laozi).15
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 71

Laozi responds by discussing timeliness, frugality, and deference, which are not
li as much as they are a theory about the internal attitudes important for the
proper performance of li. In the “Zengzi Wen,” on the other hand, of the four
times that Confucius mentions Lao Dan,16 he either quotes him explaining proper
li for different kinds of funerals or describes the proper li that he witnessed Laozi
performing at a funeral they attended together.
Certainly, there are good reasons for seeing this interview between Confu-
cius and Laozi as centering on li as it is presented in the Shiji and Liji and noting
that Laozi is depicted in all of these episodes as a staunch master of them.17 But
I want to look a bit more closely at the different versions of this interview in
another, non-ritual text, the Zhuangzi, which also happens to be quite a bit older
than both the Shiji and Liji.
In none of the episodes in the Zhuangzi can the interviews be said to primar-
ily concern the li; on the contrary, they all appear to be directed to discussions of
the Dao. Of the roughly ten recorded interviews between the two, none of them
has Confucius asking about the li. Two of them explicitly have Confucius answer-
ing Laozi about benevolence 仁 (ren) and righteousness 義 (yi), only to have his
ideas about them immediately shot down. In ZZ 13, Laozi sets up Confucius with
the leading question, “I should like to ask what you mean by benevolence and
righteousness” 請問何謂仁義 (qing wen he wei ren yi).18 ZZ 14 has: “Confucius
visited Lao Dan and expounded benevolence and righteousness” 孔子見聃子而
語仁義 (Kongzi jian Lao Dan er yu ren yi).19 In three of them, Confucius asks
Laozi about the Dao. In ZZ 12, Confucius asks, “There are men who govern
the Dao . . . Shall we call such men as these sages?” 有人治道 . . . 可謂聖人
乎 (you ren zhi dao . . . ke wei shengren hu).20 ZZ 14 writes: “When Confucius
had lived fifty-one years and had not yet heard the Dao, he went south to Pei
to visit Lao Dan” 孔子行年五十有一而不聞道乃南之沛見老聃 (Kongzi xing nian
wushi you yi er bu wen dao nai nan zhi jian Laodan).21 In ZZ 22, Confucius says,
“Today while you are at ease, I would dare to ask about the utmost Dao” 今日晏
閒敢問至道 (jin ri yan xian gan wen zhi dao).22 In two more passages, from ZZ 14
and 21, Confucius indirectly asks Laozi about the Dao.23 In all of the dialogues
between Confucius and Laozi as found in the Zhuangzi, Laozi always responds to
the questions of Confucius by speaking about the Dao, despite the fact that not
all of Confucius’s questions are directly asking about it. In other words, what I
am attempting to put forth is a revised understanding of the interview between
Confucius and Laozi, which is not interpreted as Laozi explaining the li to Con-
fucius, but rather as Laozi explaining the Dao to Confucius.
The reason I claim that mine is a revised reading of the interview is because I
see it as doing something other than what two previous major studies of this inter-
view, namely those of Lau and Graham, see it as doing. The argument that Lau
brings to bear is to question the traditional ascription of an actual sixth-century
BC existence to Laozi; he writes, “The interpretation of the Daodejing . . . depends
72 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

on whether we accept the traditional view that it was written by Laozi who was
an older contemporary of Confucius and so was a work of the sixth century BC,
or the view favoured by a great number of modern scholars which would place
the work in the late fourth or early third century BC.”24 He continues:

We can sum up our somewhat lengthy discussion so far of the problem

of whether Laozi was a historical figure who lived in the sixth century
BC, in this way . . . Zhuangzi who lived probably well into the third
century BC showed no knowledge of Laozi either. This is surprising
in the case of Zhuangzi for, according to the traditionalist account,
he was the successor to Laozi in the Daoist school of thought. We
have seen that it was not until the second half of the third century
BC that the story of an encounter between Laozi and Confucius
became widely known. And it is solely on this story that the tradi-
tionalist’s case for Laozi being an older contemporary of Confucius is
founded.25

For Lau, his debunking of the interview is an attempt to claim not only
that Laozi was not a sixth-century BC citizen of China, but also that he had not
existed at all and therefore could not have written the Daodejing. Graham’s argu-
ments about this interview, however, are much more biting; he is not so much
concerned with the historicity of Laozi (this is already a non sequitur) as he is
with finding a date for the Daodejing:

How did the story originate? As Daoist propaganda against Confucian-

ism or as a Confucian moral tale of the Master’s willingness to submit
himself to an insignificant teacher of the rites, of which Daoists later
took advantage? We are so habituated to thinking of Lao Dan as the
founder of Daoism that it takes an effort of the imagination to consider
the second possibility, yet there is nothing inherently improbable about
it . . . If the story was originally Confucian, Daoists would have an
easily comprehensible motive for borrowing Lao Dan as a spokesman
of their own. But if Lao Dan was from the first a Daoist, what possible
motive could Confucians have to put themselves at a disadvantage by
acknowledging him as their Master’s teacher?26

Graham goes on to argue that there is no historical basis for the interview
during the lifetime of Confucius and that the name of Laozi (Lao Dan) was
appended to the Daodejing around 250 BC, which also stands out for him as the
likely date for the composition of the text. As a previous reader of the present
work notes, “It would have been foolhardy for the authors of the Liji material
and self-subverting for the authors of the Zhuangzi to depict Lao Dan as an old-
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 73

fashioned ritualist if Lao Dan were already popularly associated with the Daodejing
at the time those texts were produced.” I entirely agree with this assessment, but,
although most of Confucius’s questions center on virtue and the li in the Zhuangzi
and the Liji, Laozi systematically subverts his questions to discourse on the Dao,
at least as far as the Zhuangzi represents this (which, again, long predates the Liji;
the interviews in the Zhuangzi came first). In other words, Graham’s study does
not affect my understanding of the fault line standing between early Confucian
and early Daoist conceptions of the Dao, at least so far as this has come to define
each tradition first of all in relation to its own particular notions of it.
Let me be clear on this point: I am not claiming that Laozi really was an
older contemporary of Confucius and that he had already single-handedly written
the Daodejing by the end of the sixth century. What I am attempting to demon-
strate is that there does seem to be some validity in attributing sole responsibility
for fashioning a novel, unique, and comprehensive understanding of the Dao to
neither Confucius nor Laozi. Instead, I want to argue that the discussions of the
Dao in both the Analects and the Daodejing should be seen as equally participating
in a heritage of thought that long predates them both.
I have spent some time looking at the records of these interviews because I
want to show that, from their earliest appearances, they demonstrate that Confu-
cius and Laozi not only took different approaches to understanding the Dao, but
also that they had different understandings of it. Although this last point will not
come as a shock to modern readers of these two texts, it is well worth exploring
because there is much to consider in coming to a better understanding of what
these two writings are attempting to stake out in their separate visions of the Dao.
Theories of a late sixth- or early fifth-century circulation of the Daode­
jing, rather than a mid–third-century one, logically lead to a reassessment of our
understanding of the earliest Chinese philosophical traditions. Entertaining these
theories also relieves Confucius of at least some of the burden of having presented
an absolutely novel and comprehensive understanding of the Dao and releases
the Daodejing from readings that see it as a sustained response to Confucius’s
thoughts about it. But this approach that I adopt is not entirely novel, and Mark
Czikszentmihalyi has previously attended to it; he writes,

Minimizing the authorship role of Kongzi [Confucius] has the effect

of pulling the rug out from under the usual narrative of what is often
called the “history of thought” of early China . . . Because the Ru
[read “Confucians”] were an academic lineage they must have had a
lineage founder, and since the only plausible founder is Kongzi, the Ru
turn out to have been an academic lineage founded by Kongzi. The
circular logic succinctly expresses the widespread assumption that the
history of thought must be understood in terms of original thinkers
and their followers.27
74 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The mechanics involved in this sort of “circular logic” concerning one pos-
sible understanding of the origins of Confucianism are not entirely disparate from
those involved with the attribution of the origins of Daoism to Laozi, and this
also is a big part of my argument that requires further exploration.
What is remarkable is that two more or less contemporaneous thinkers could
have provided comprehensive understandings of the Dao that move into such radi-
cally different areas of consideration, namely social ethics for one and cosmology
for the other. In claiming that the views of the Dao presented by Confucius and
Laozi do not represent their own immediate discovery of a new and revolutionary
linguistic notion called the Dao, I also want to argue that neither view is best
understood as a direct refutation by recharacterization of the other’s view of the
Dao. In spite of what the Zhuangzi episodes tell us about this interview—that
Confucius learned about the Dao from Laozi—I do not think Confucius’s views
owe very much to Laozi; nor, if the Daodejing really is a third-century text, does
it owe its views of the Dao to the Confucians. In this, the Chinese tradition,
from a very early period, saw that the ideas of Laozi and Confucius shared a
relationship of oppositional harmony centered on the complementarity of each
other’s views about it.
Here it is important to note once again that I am in no way arguing anything
at all concerning the historicity of Laozi, even though I have presented some pos-
sibilities for how to think about the Guodian Laozi in relation to the Analects. The
question of Laozi’s historicity has no relevance for my argument, and the same
goes for the historicity of Confucius. My intent is to question recent scholarship
on Daoism by sidestepping questions of historicity to direct my gaze more fully
at Laozi (and Confucius too, for that matter) as a kind of cultural phenomenon.
Although I am speaking about the Daodejing and the Analects, these early
texts that “record” interviews between Laozi and Confucius are not; they are
speaking about Laozi and Confucius without apology, two fully historical men who
really existed in the historical imagination of premodern China. As appropriate, I
will continue to talk about Laozi and Confucius when I adopt the “insider” view,
but I will talk about the Daodejing and the Analects when I adopt the “outsider”
view. My point, however, is that there are very real differences, already discern-
able from the first moments that their thought becomes available to the gaze of
the modern historian, between how the early Confucians and the early Daoists
conceived the Dao, and seeing this is of absolute importance in my project of
understanding the Sage of the Daodejing and the yangsheng practices that are
inseparably associated with it.

Glimpses into the Dao of Antiquity

In the general views of traditional China, Laozi and Confucius are not usually
looked upon as revolutionary thinkers independently creating from scratch the
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 75

foundational ideas of the traditions associated with them; more often, they are
believed to have been the first to have given new articulations to ancient Chinese
ideas fit for a new age. The two writings bearing their names, simultaneously circu-
lating in early China throughout their periods of accumulation, firmly established
the contours of their separate notions of the Dao which, taken together as a kind
of whole consisting of two separate parts, became the basis of the single most
important culturally foundational notion of all of East Asia, namely the Dao. This
is not so very different from the ways that other culturally foundational notions
lying at the heart of other civilizations influenced their own native cultures, on
a par with notions such as Truth to the ancient Mediterranean and God to the
ancient Near East.
Although Socrates (or Plato, as the case may be) stands out as a pioneer
in opening up startling new dimensions to the notion of aletheia with its roots
in the ancient archive associated with Homer, and Isaiah does similarly startling
things to the notion of Yahweh with its roots in the archive associated with the
Pentateuch, the independent creation of these two culturally foundational notions
cannot be attributed to either of them; they were working with and building on
what they already had at hand. What is interesting about the case of Laozi and
Confucius, with their opening up of radically new dimensions of the Dao with its
roots in their own, shared ancient archive primarily accessible through the Shijing,
is that their innovations with this foundational notion were not only virtually
simultaneous, but also so radically different (one saw the Dao in the natural world,
the other in the social).
Whether these differences are seen as antagonistic or complementary is
a moot point; the end result is that they incepted a fault line in the ancient
significations of the Dao that early Chinese thinkers, from the Warring States to
the Han and even long after, examined, explored, debated, and negotiated, and
a plethora of their written records shows them tending to one of the two general
regions opened up by Laozi and Confucius: nature versus society. Coming to terms
with this originary fault line appears to have been the driving force motivating
the ideological developments and sociological formations of the several traditions
of early China that were committed to establishing the priority of their own deci-
sion to have the Dao primarily signify one thing over another.
Interestingly, both the Analects and the Daodejing at many points attempt
to substantiate their claims of having immediate access to antiquity by highlight-
ing their supposed debt to the archives of ancient Chinese thought, and this is
particularly so in the case of the notion of the Dao. Both writings have a lot to
say about that ancient Dao, and although what they say is not exactly the same,
the Dao as a notion is in both cases represented as something having an ancient
pedigree, the direct knowledge of which is set on a much higher level of revelation
than what present knowledge can discover on its own. The Daodejing commonly
refers to that Dao as “the Dao of antiquity” 古之道 (guzhidao); DDJ 21 states,
76 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

“From the present back to antiquity, its name has never gone away” 自古及今其名
不去 (zi gu ji jin qi ming bu qu). DDJ 14 states: “Hold on to the Dao of antiquity
in order to manage the Being of the present; the ability to know the beginnings
of antiquity is called knowing the genealogy of the Dao” 執古之道以御今之有
能知古始是謂道紀 (zhi gu zhi dao yi yu jin zhi you neng zhi gu shi shi wei dao ji).
In a similar way, the Analects looks to ancient history to locate its own
understanding of the Dao. In LY 7.1, Confucius is recorded as saying: “I transmit
but I don’t create. I trust and love antiquity” 述而不作信而好古 (shu er bu zuo
xin er hao gu). LY 19.22 also records a conversation between Zigong, a disciple of
Confucius, and a certain Gongsun Chao. Gongsun Chao asks, “From whom did
Confucius receive his learning?” 仲尼焉學 (Zhong Ni yan xue). Zigong answered,

The Dao of King Wen and Wu [the founders of the ancient Zhou
dynasty] is not completely buried; it remains alive among the people.
The wise retain its essentials; the ignorant retain only a few details.
Everyone has some elements of the Dao of King Wen and King Wu.
Thus, there is no one from whom our Master could not have learned
something, and there is no one who could have been our Master’s
exclusive teacher.

These indications lead me to the conclusion that the most general ideas
held by the Analects and the Daodejing concerning the Dao are not as far apart
as we would tend to think; we should rather see them as equal participants in a
common heritage of the archive of ancient Chinese thought that long predated
both of them. Although the ancient intellectual, political, and religious environ-
ment that produced that heritage remains virtually impenetrable to the eyes of
the modern historian, we can recognize that both writings, the Analects and the
Daodejing, assertively claim that that heritage does exist and that they openly
embrace it and, moreover, that they both claim to base their teachings upon it
directly. Without delving into the ancient conditions of that common heritage,28
it can be generally described as cohering around what they fashioned into the
culturally foundational notion of the Dao.
The teachings of neither text can properly be said to represent the imme-
diate discovery of a revolutionary linguistic notion called “the Dao.” It is far
more sensible to see the term dao itself as a, if not the, major participant in the
linguistic heritage already available to both of them, which each one explored
in different directions. The genius that lies at the heart of both teachings is to
be found in the ways in which each of them successfully negotiated this central
element of that heritage in the consistent application of it in accordance with
its own vision of life and the world. In so doing, neither Laozi nor Confucius
felt the need to explain his own conception of the relation of his general theory
and vision of the Dao to his own linguistic and ideological past; in other words,
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 77

neither of them claimed to be doing history (or even etymology) in the modern
sense of the word.
In launching this extremely brief exploration of some choice regions of the
ancient archive of the Dao, I want to say just a couple of things. First, I look
especially to the Shijing 詩經 (Book of Odes) as the primary representative of
that ancient archive;29 its importance far and away leaves all other members of
it behind, and even the Analects referenced it nearly a dozen times (whereas the
Daodejing does not clearly reference anything outside itself).
Second, although many ancient uses of the term dao call for a determinative,
they rarely if ever seem to call for the upper-case D, which serves primarily to
give the concept a nominally unique intention. This comes as a direct result of
the innovations injected into the term by the Analects and the Daodejing (despite
the fact that they both also employ the term in its lower-case form, sometimes
nominally and sometimes verbally), for how else could the lines from LY 4.8, “In
the morning to hear the Dao . . .” (zhao wen dao 朝聞道), and DDJ 41, “The
best students hear the Dao . . .” (shang shi wen dao 上士聞道), be translated into
English without the determinative preceding the upper-case D? In other words,
the Analects and the Daodejing established the dao as not simply and not only
one thing among others things, but also as the one thing from which come all
sorts of other things.
Third and finally, although contemporary scholars are more or less split
between those who translate dao as “the Way” and those who keep it as “the
Dao” (and I am in the latter camp), both translations seem to elide something
essential about the basic notion of the dao itself, as Peter Boodberg already pointed
out more than half a century ago, namely that “the unspoken assumption implied
in the common translation of Dao as ‘way’ [is] that the concept is essentially a
nominal one. Dao would seem, then, to be etymologically a more dynamic concept
than we have made it translation-wise [and also transliteration-wise].”30 Dao is as
much a verb as it is a noun.
With all of this in mind, the base meaning of dao is and remains “path,”
and later uses would not erase that base meaning although they would run with
it. The Shouwen 說文 defines dao as “the dao one walks” 道所行道也 (dao suo
xing dao ye), where dao clearly refers first of all and most literally to a “path” or
other kinds of “ways” along which one travels.31 Sarah Allan provides a more
expansive range of meanings where she writes that dao “is a general category in
Chinese that encompasses waterways, roads, and various channels, all of those
paths or ‘ways,’ which one may go along, moving by water as well as on land.”32
The Shuowen writes that dao “comes from zhuo (辵). When a thing da (達),
it is called dao.”33 Here, zhuo is a radical whose base meaning is to move, and it
is typically used in the formation of characters that signify movement or passage
in one manner or another (and the da in the definition above is a good example
of this). Understood in its verbal meanings, dao is right in line with this idea of
78 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

movement or passage, but it is somewhat unusual for zhuo-words to have such a

tremendous nominal content and signification (as path, road, and so forth). The
extended meanings of the character da 達 are complex, but its basic meaning is
verbal, “to go through” or “to come through.” So when something goes or comes
through, it has both a point of origin and a destination, thereby qualifying it as
a dao, a path or road; if a path has neither a point of origin nor a destination,
leading nowhere, it cannot, in any reasonable sense, be called a path.
As a brief side note, when the character dao has the radical cun 寸 (signify-
ing “thumb”) underneath it, it becomes dao 導, with the basic meaning “to guide.”
This character appears to be a latecomer to the Chinese lexicon because there
are no examples of it in the oracle bones or the bronze inscriptions, but it seems
clear that it and several other Chinese characters constructed on or around dao
道 are further terms specifying more precise meanings culled from it. The reason
that I mention this character 導 is because it is the first character of the phrase
daoyin 導引 (“to guide and pull”), one of the primary practices of yangsheng.
So here I dip into the Shijing. The base meaning of its uses of dao is path,
which extends to include roads and waterways. In the first base meaning, it refers
to paths as something to walk on foot, as in “the path through the willow gar-
den” 楊園之道 (yang yuan zhi dao) of “Xiang Bo” 巷伯.34 In the second base
meaning, it refers to roads as something to drive by horse or cart (or to march
along, as armies do), as in “our storage carts travel these Zhou roads” 有棧之車
行彼周道 (you can zhi che xing bi Zhou dao) of “He Cao Bu Huang” 何草不黃.35
In the third base meaning, it refers to waterways (and this is the use that Allan
prioritizes) as something that one can follow along on the side by foot or float
on in a boat, as in, “I go against the current to follow him, but the waterway is
obstructed and turns to the right” 遡洄從之道阻且右 (ni hui cong zhi dao zu qie
you) of “Jian Jia” 蒹葭.36
Even in English, paths, roads, and waterways are spoken of as both nominal,
as in “the road (dao) to Rome” and verbal, as in “all roads lead (dao) to Rome,”
and both literal, as in “the road to Rome,” and metaphorical, as in “the road to
success.” Terms that are open to metaphorical exploitation, nonetheless, begin
from the literal, in this case dao as path. In the Shijing, we find the basic meaning
of dao as path or road throughout; “Xuan” 還 speaks of “the road to Nao” 峱之道
(Nao zhi dao);37 “Nan Shan” 南山 and “Zai Qu” 載驅 speak of “the road to Lü”
魯道 (Lü dao);38 “Wanqiu” 宛丘 of “the road to Wanqiu” 宛丘之道 (Wanqiu zhi
dao);39 and “Fei Feng” 匪風, “Si Mu,” 四牡, “Xiao Bian” 小弁, and “Da Dong”
大東 all speak of the “road to Zhou” 周道 (Zhou dao).40
I would not like to lose track of where this brief analysis of the ancient uses
of the term dao in the Shijing is heading: to the Analects, but even more so to
the Daodejing. With this in mind, what is most interesting are the ways in which
the Shijing describes the many daos that it mentions.
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 79

In general, I suppose that the best paths and roads are cleared, well paved,
and unobstructed. They get a person to where they want to go as easily and
smoothly as possible. Let’s take this as the norm, at least in terms of what we
normally expect from a road; “Da dong” indeed describes such a road: “The road
(dao) to Zhou is like a whetstone [used for sharpening knives], its straightness is
like that of an arrow” 周道如砥其直如矢 (Zhou dao ru di qi zhi ru shi), and thus
the lords traveled on it.41 This is what we expect from a road, but sometimes
they are not what we expect; “Xiao Bian” is on the mark when it states, “The
road to Zhou ought to be level and smooth, but it is somehow overgrown with
weeds” 踧踧道周鞫為茂草 (di di Zhou dao ju wei mao cao).42 These sorts of daos
are extremely cumbersome and very hard to follow.
The worst part of daos, whether they are paths, roads, or waterways, is
when they are obstructed. “Jian Jia” remarks on this three times: “The dao is
obstructed and long . . . the dao is obstructed and steep . . . the dao is obstructed
and turns to the right” 道阻且長 . . . 道阻且躋 . . . 道阻且右 . . . (dao zu qie
chang . . . dao zu qie ji . . . dao zu qie you).43 “Si Mu” describes its dao as “mean-
dering and slow” 倭遲 (wei chi), and “Cai Wei” 采薇 describes its dao as “slow,
slow” 遲遲 (chi chi).44 “Xiong Zhi” 雄雉 and “Mian Man” 綿蠻, finally, describe
their daos as “distant” 遠 (yuan).45
There is a lot to take from these textual instances of the Shijing’s uses of
dao (and I am not yet quite done with my analysis). Needless to say, this study
deserves a much fuller treatment than what I can here offer. This is particularly
so as it dovetails into the central visions of the Analects and the Daodejing before
going on to command its central position as a culturally foundational notion in so
many discussions, debates, meditations, and practices throughout the entire course
of premodern China. Still, a couple of points remain to be addressed. First, daos
are not simple and to be taken for granted. Second, daos demand attention, care,
and nurturing. Third, they are awesome, breathtaking, and change the world.
When a new dao is cleared or opened up, things change.
“Nan Shan” and “Zai Qu” describe the dao as “cleared” 蕩 (dang) multiple
times within their respective lines. When the Daughter of Qi 齊子 (Qi zi) trav-
eled her newly “cleared” (dang) road (dao) on her way to her newlywed husband,
it was “evening” 夕 (xi), and she was “delighted” 豈 (kai) and “sauntered and
rambled” 遊遨 (you ao) to her new home (need I point out that this image and
this phrasing are suspiciously reminiscent of the Zhuangzi?). Why was the Daughter
of Qi so “delighted”? Her path was cleared, and when a path is cleared, good
things happen. “Mian” 緜 states, “The oak trees and the yu trees were uprooted,
and the travelling road was opened. The confused Eastern Yi barbarians thereupon
disappeared” 柞棫拔矣行道兌矣混夷駾矣 (zuo yu ba yi xing dao dui yi hun yi tui
yi).46 Another example of this opening up of a dao comes from “Han Yi” 韓奕:
“Fertile, fertile is Mount Liang, it was Yu who opened it up [for cult­ivation];
80 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

great is its dao” 奕奕梁山維禹甸之有倬其道 (yi yi Liang shan wei Yu dian zhi you
zhuo qi dao).47
As dao has as its base nominal meaning “path,” its base verbal meaning is
“to open a path,” or even “to guide.” Speech, or at least certain kinds of speech,
can also open up or clear a dao, and this too is evidenced in the Shijing. It may
or may not mean something like “to say” or “to speak” (as in most translations of
DDJ 1: “The Dao that can be spoken . . .” dao ke dao), but in “Jiang You Ci” 江
有汜 it means something other and more than that, namely “to narrate, recount,
or describe,” which is not very far away from the idea of a path or journey—sto-
ries lead us away. The words used for storytelling open up a path, the path leads
us through a story, and a story, especially a good one, is indeed a journey. The
passage states, “The story concerning the deepest depths of the palace cannot be
recounted (dao). That which could be recounted (dao) are only vile words” 中
冓之言不可道也所可道也言之醜也 (zhong gou zhi yan bu ke dao ye suo ke dao
ye yan zhi chou ye).48
A path or road, once it is cleared, can be followed; it takes you from the
start to the end. As something that somebody has previously cleared, a path or
road can be followed. This brings me to another metaphorical extension of dao
employed by the Shijing: a dao is something that can be followed and that leads to
an end—in other words, a method, technique, or art of doing something that has
proved useful and leads to good things but also requires commitment, discipline,
and patience to master.
Agriculture, the art of cultivating foodstuffs, is the most important of arts
in all of human civilization, and this is precisely what “Sheng Min” 生民 targets
in the following lines about Hou Ji 后稷, the mythic founder of the Ji lineage
which eventually became the ruling line of the Zhou dynasty:49 “Hou Ji’s planting
had a dao for assisting [growth]. He cleared the thick grasses and sowed yellow
grains” 誕后稷之穡有相之道茀厥豐草種之黃茂 (dan Hou Ji zhi se you xiang zhi
dao fu jue feng cao zhong zhi huang mao).50 I should point out that Hou Ji’s mythic
dates are often given as coinciding with the mythic Xia dynasty (2000–1600 BC),
more than one thousand years before the time of Confucius and Laozi. The dao
of planting that he opened up was followed and allowed human civilization to
thrive. These kinds of daos are awesome in the fullest sense of the word; they
change things.
My final example of the Shijing’s use of the term dao comes from “Pan Shui”
泮水. Here we are in the midst of a drinking party whose participants recognize
the Prince of Lü as the one who will soon ascend the throne; it states, “May he
accord with the long dao” 順彼長道 (shun bi chang dao), where “long” 長 chang
seems to refer to long-standing, hoary, or at the least age-old ways. This is the
same kind of metaphorical extension of dao as “a way of doing something” that
Hou Ji opened up, and both of them led to good things.
I admit without hesitation that my exploration of the ancient archive of the
term dao, restricted as it is to the Shijing, leaves a lot to answer for, but further
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 81

explorations would take me very far away from my present intent, which is only to
establish the baseline understanding of the term dao as Confucius and Laozi inher-
ited, absorbed, and extended it.51 I also admit that my reading of these ancient
uses of dao is much influenced by Martin Heidegger’s thought and writing.52 On a
personal note, although I strive to engage modern historians of the Daoist religion
as much as possible in my research and study of the Daodejing, my approach has
always been philosophical, phenomenological, Eliaden, and Heideggerian.

The Fault Line

These ancient archival notions of dao in general as seen in the Shijing refer to,
nominally, a path, road, or waterway as well as a method or art; verbally, they
refer to clearing or opening up a path as well as to guide along a path; lastly, they
refer to a particular kind of saying, namely narrating, recounting, or describing.
Inheriting and absorbing these ancient significations, Confucius and Laozi used
them to refer to two very different regions of experience. The dao that they talk
about continues to include the same general significations possessing the same
ranges of meaning applied within the ancient field of the ancient archive: they are
both discussing the same general thing, namely dao, but they explore very different
regions of the total field of its signification. The immediate consequence of this
is what we might describe as the creation of a fault line that split that originally
unified field of signification in two: society for Confucius and nature for Laozi.
A few brief comments might help to give an initial indication of this fault
line. For both the Analects and the Daodejing, the Dao is something that can be
gotten or possessed; among the different ways of naming this, DDJ 23 speaks of
“uniting with the Dao” 同於道 (tong yu dao), and DDJ 16 of “being (one with)
the Dao” 乃道 (nai dao). When naming this act of becoming one with the Dao,
the Daodejing almost invariably refers to embodying the Dao physically, and this
is accomplished primarily through certain practices of cultivating the body that
are described in several parts of the text; DDJ 10, for example, writes:

In keeping the po and embracing the One—can you do it without

letting them leave?
In concentrating the qi and making it soft—can you make it like that
of an infant?
In washing and purifying the mysterious mind—can you make it
without blemish?

The Analects, on the other hand, never speaks of an individual’s possessing

or uniting with the Dao; its references are invariably directed to political states.
In LY 6.24, Confucius is recorded as saying, “With one reform the state of Qi
could attain the level of the state of Lü; with one reform the state of Lü could
attain the Dao” 齊一變至於魯魯一變至於道 (Qi yi bian zhi yu Lu Lu yi bian zhi
82 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

yu dao). More commonly, Confucius assesses the quality of a state by judging

whether it “possesses the Dao” 有道 (you dao) or “does not possess the Dao” 無
道 (wu dao); in LY 8.13, he says, “In a country that possesses the Dao, it is a
disgrace to remain poor and obscure; in a country which does not possess the
Dao, it is a disgrace to become rich and honored” 邦有道貧且賤焉恥也邦無道
富且貴焉恥也 (bang you dao pin qie jian yan chi ye bang wu dao fu qie gui yan chi
ye). Again, he says in LY 14.1, “When a state possesses the Dao, serve it. It is a
disgrace indeed to serve a state that does not possess the Dao” 邦有道穀邦無道
穀恥也 (bang you dao gu bang wu dao gu chi ye). The process of a political state’s
coming into possession of the Dao occurs through the progress of human culture
文 (wen); human culture, in turn, is established on the proper performance of
virtue or, more specifically, on one specific virtue, namely xiao 孝 (filial piety).
Although LY 1.2 records Master You and not Confucius, its import is entirely in
line with Confucius’s teachings: “The gentleman works on the root. When the
root is stable, the Dao is born. Xiao (obedience to parents) and di (respect for
elder brothers) is the root of benevolence” 君子務本本立而道生孝弟也者其為
仁之本與 (junzi wu ben ben li er dao sheng xiao di ye zhe qi qei ren zhi ben yu). Or,
as Confucius himself in LY 2.21 is recorded as saying,

The Shu(jing) [Classic of Documents] says, “Xiao and only xiao, and be
kind to your elder brothers and younger brothers, and this is acting
for the government.” This is also working for the government, why
would one need to join the government?

In sum, let me simply say that for Laozi, it is the physical body that gets
the Dao, while for Confucius, it is the body politic.
I want to touch upon, once again, the common linguistic heritage available
from the ancient Chinese archive of dao. In addition to the fact that Confucius
and Laozi openly claim to be vigorously maintaining that heritage, we can also
see other evidence for this in their consistent application of the term dao to
their concerns centering on human conduct. In other words, for both the Ana­
lects and the Daodejing, the Dao is eminently associated with the proper way to
perfect conduct, but perfect conduct can be understood in multiple ways. The
Analects emphasizes external conduct within the realm of human culture (li),
whereas the Daodejing emphasizes internal conduct in relation to the physical body
(yangsheng).
We can fruitfully contrast these different notions of conduct, and in this we
can see one of the primary significations of the “Dao of antiquity,” namely that
which guides thought and behavior. Thus, for the Analects, the state’s coming
into possession of the Dao is a spontaneous function of the well-ordered society,
and this is the natural consequence of the proper execution of filial piety within
the realm of culture. The proper execution of filial piety in culture translates in
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 83

three complementary ways: sons are obedient to their parents, wives are obedi-
ent to their husbands, and subjects are obedient to their ruler. In this way, the
state comes to possess the Dao through the proper performance of social behavior
among the individual members of society. That a state possesses the Dao first of
all means that the ruler himself exercises a strong control over society and nature
(there are no rebellions, floods, or earthquakes).
For the Daodejing, uniting with the Dao is a spontaneous consequence of
the well-ordered body in which its different vital components vigorously circulate
throughout, unimpeded by the physically damaging effects of exuberance, anger,
personal ambition, and stress, and in which breathing is deep. In this way, the
Sage obtains the Dao by properly cultivating the physical body such that its vital
components powerfully circulate throughout all of its parts. That a Sage has the
Dao first of all means that he or she regulates and preserves its various vital
components by not exhausting them in the concerns of the external world, thus
allowing them to maintain their vitality, resulting in a very long life.
A further marker of this fault line created in the “Dao of antiquity” is seen
in the ideal figures described by the Daodejing and the Analects: the Analects extols
the public King, whereas the Daodejing extols the hidden Sage.53 This contrast
holds in spite of the fact that the Analects often describes its King as sagely, and
the Daodejing sometimes describes its Sage as kingly; this difference in their ideal
figures follows naturally from the different regions of the general notion of the
Dao opened up by both writings.
In the periods of the Warring States and the early Han, the so-called Golden
Age of Chinese thought, early Chinese writers examined, explored, and con-
sciously negotiated the consequences of this original fault line in the Dao, and
their textual records demonstrably show them tending to one of the two general
regions originally pioneered by the Analects and the Daodejing. Coming to terms
with this original split appears to have been the driving force motivating the
ideological developments and sociological formations of the several traditions of
early China that were committed to establishing the priority of their own deci-
sions to have the Dao signify one thing over another.
To say, however, that some writers were concerned with understanding the
Dao in terms of human culture while others were concerned with understanding
it in terms of the human body does a gross injustice to their fertile explorations
carried out from a variety of directions, because they were all to one degree or
another striving for the power to control the signification of the notion of the
Dao in the terms of their own discourses. Otherwise, how could we account for
the complex of Daoist ideas that manifestly influenced the polemically sustained
political discourse of such writers as Han Fei the ardent Legalist and Xunzi the
ardent Confucian, both of whom had much to say about the Daodejing’s interpreta-
tion of the Dao? In this, both the Daodejing and the Analects exerted a decisive
and foundational impact upon the general parameters of the then current debates
84 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

about the Dao. As Graham writes, “The crucial question for all of them (was) not
the Western philosopher’s ‘What is the truth?’ but ‘Where is the Way [Dao]?’ ”54
Traditional Chinese writers rarely argued for a strict difference separating the
significatory fields of dao opened up by the Analects and the Daodejing, and then it
was only at their most polemical moments and with specific goals in mind. More
commonly, Confucius and Laozi were both held up as exemplary spokesmen whose
teachings together represented the full significatory power of the Dao transmitted
as the most important element of their ancient linguistic heritage. This tendency
to see the teachings of the Analects and the Daodejing as deeply complementary
has a long history in traditional China. The Lüshi chunqiu, in discussing the
different methods of ordering the state, writes that “Lao Dan esteemed pliancy,
Confucius esteemed benevolence” 老耽貴柔孔子貴仁 (Lao Dan gui rou Kongzi gui
ren).55 In the Daodejing, pliancy 柔 (rou) is a central characteristic of the Dao of
Laozi, while in the Analects, benevolence 仁 (ren) is a major component of the
Dao of Confucius.
Another interesting example of this is seen in a conversation that was
recorded between Wang Bi, our famous scholar with a definite Confucian ten-
dency, and a certain Pei Hui that occurred sometime in the third century CE.
This conversation calls upon a few parts from the Analects and the Daodejing that
I briefly present because it makes this conversation more easily understandable.
In LY 5.13, Zigong says, “We hear about the Master’s views on culture, but it is
not possible to hear his views on the ultimate nature of things and the Dao of
Heaven” 夫子之文章可得而聞也夫子之言性與天道不可得而聞也 (fu zi zhi wen
zhang ke de er wen ye fu zi zhi yan xing yu tian dao be ke de er wen ye). So Confu-
cius would discuss culture but would not, apparently, discuss the inner workings
of the Dao. Not so for the Daodejing, which in a few sections does discuss the
inner workings of the Dao, and it does this in terms of Being 有 (you) and Non-
being 無 (wu); in DDJ 1, we read: “Non-being names the beginning of Heaven
and Earth. Being names the Mother of the ten thousand living things” 無名天
地之始有名萬物之母 (wu ming tiandi zhi shi you ming wanwu zhi mu); in DDJ 40,
we read, “The ten thousand living things of the world are born from Being, and
Being is born from Non-being” 天下萬物生於有有生於無 (tianxia wanwu sheng
yu you you sheng yu wu).
Now to return to the conversation: Pei Hui asked Wang Bi, “Generally
speaking, Non-being is in fact that which forms the basis of the ten thousand
living things. The Sage [Confucius], however, was absolutely unwilling to dis-
course about it, while Laozi holds forth about it endlessly. Why is that so?” Wang
Bi answered, “The Sage embodies Non-being. Non-being, furthermore, cannot
be elaborated upon, which is why he does not speak about it. Laozi, however,
embodies Being. In that sense his constant talking about Non-being is exactly
his deficiency.”56
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 85

More recently, Zhao Jiazhuo writes about the continuity of the different
fields of signification explored by the Analects and the Daodejing as it came to be
understood by the later tradition of institutionalized Daoism (daojiao). Interest-
ingly enough, this religious understanding presents a very similar take on the
apparently decisive issue concerning the two aspects of the inner workings of the
Dao, Being and Non-being, singled out by Wang Bi (representing daojia), but this
time we see this issue looked at from the other end (representing daojiao). Zhao
writes:

It is appropriate that the Daoist religion reveres Confucius as a true

master of the highest heavens, so it should come as no surprise. Both
the Dao of the Confucians and the Dao of the Daoists are intrinsically
linked to China’s civilization; in other words, they express the highest
ideas of Chinese civilization. But when we examine their philosophi-
cal principles from the point of view of their great breadth, it can be
said that the Confucians and the Daoists form a single body, despite
the fact that much of what the Daoists talk about is that of which
Confucius himself claimed to have no knowledge.57

Two Disciplines of the Body

One reason why I find Zhao’s remarks so interesting is that he relates the issue
of the continuity of the Confucian and Daoist understandings of the Dao to the
metaphor of “a single body” 一軆 (yiti). Here I want to pursue this body meta-
phor by examining what the Daodejing and the Analects intend by the body and
demonstrate why their very different visions of it can stand as the crucial marker
that illuminates exactly what is involved with their insertion of the fault line in
the significatory field of the ancient Dao.
In Confucian discourse, the body at birth is in no way considered human;
to make it so is the work of the parents and the state. The process of becoming
human was seen as an affair that spanned one’s entire lifetime. Becoming human,
furthermore, was not something for which one could be personally responsible,
because it was unthinkable that a body could be made human in isolation from
the family and the state. In Daoist discourse, on the other hand, the various
components of the physical body were seen to be given completely at birth; these
components can be cultivated or dissipated as the case may be, but anything added
onto the body from the moment of birth ever after—for example, good judgment
or a refined taste—can work only to dissipate the body’s original constitution. The
Daoist body is already complete from the moment of birth, and any alteration to
the collection of internal components can only damage the natural constitution,
thereby destroying its initial integrity.
86 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

According to the early Daoist discourse, personal identity first and foremost
was understood to be intensely physical and thoroughly fleshly. It was understood
in a specifically spatial sense by which the physical presence of an individual
body could be located. And yet this manifest body, simultaneously understood
as the newborn body of the infant and the matured body of the adult, is never
entirely containable within the space it inhabits, precisely because it is not a
closed organism but is eminently open to the natural and cosmic worlds. More
exactly, a healthy and properly functioning body is one that is not closed off from
absorbing the vital energies of the natural and cosmic worlds, but it is closed off
from the social world of human culture, and thus its energies do not leak out
through the pursuit of position, wealth, or fame.
An impaired body, on the other hand, is one that is closed off from the
natural and cosmic worlds but not from the social world. Once a body is closed
off from the natural and cosmic worlds, its openness to the vitalizing energies
that should continuously nourish it is destroyed, and the body suffers deleterious
effects similar to a plant that has been uprooted from the soil. This results in a
psychic self-containment and the consequent formation of the notion of an objec-
tive social self that is solidified by the physical, social, and political processes of
psychic and mental reification.
According to Confucian discourse, the physical body is not the intimate
possession of the individual; it belongs first and foremost to the biological mother
and father. Stating that one’s body is the property of the biological parents maybe
does not go far enough because it ultimately is seen to be the property of the
ancestors. A person has a body in order to serve one’s parents throughout their
lives by acts of filial piety and also to serve one’s ancestors, including the biologi-
cal parents after they have passed away, by acts of sacrifice.
To carry out one’s dutiful service, the body must be maintained intact, and
thus there are stringent moral obligations demanding that an individual care for
the body that has been entrusted to him or her. Mismanaging the body by allowing
it to be damaged in one way or another has a tremendous significance for one’s
ability to properly execute one’s ritual duties to the living parents and the ances-
tral line. The first chapter of the Xiaojing 孝經, a central text of early Confucian
discourse, records Confucius as saying: “Filial piety is the root of virtue  .  .  .  Seeing
that our body, with hair and skin, is received from the father and mother, we dare
not let it be damaged or injured. This is the beginning of filial piety” 夫孝德之
本也  .  .  .  身體髮膚受之父母不敢毀傷孝之始也 (fu xiao de zhi ben ye . . . shen
ti fa pi shou zhi fu mu bu gan hui shang xiao zhi shi ye).58
LY 8.3 gives a powerful presentation of this idea in the deathbed scene of
Zengzi 曾子. We read that with his dying breath, he summoned his students and
said, “Look at my feet! Look at my hands! It is said in the Shijing: ‘Trembling and
shaking, as if peering over the edge of an abyss, as if treading on thin ice.’ But
now, my young friends, I know that I have come through safely” 啟予足啟予手
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 87

詩云戰戰兢兢如臨深淵如履薄冰而今而後吾知免夫小子 (qi yu zu qi yu shou shi

yun zhan zhan jing jing ru lin shen yuan ru fu bo shui er ling er hou wu zhi mian fu
xiao zi). Master Zeng is here celebrating the fact that he has cared for his body
such that as he is on his deathbed, he can return it to his ancestors completely
intact, like returning a rental car without having been in any kind of accident.
As these passages demonstrate, the Confucian body is seen to be closed off
from the natural and cosmic worlds but open to the ancestral line: one received
one’s body as both gift and obligation from one’s biological parents, but the par-
ents, in fact, serve only as mediators for the ancestors, the ultimate owners of
that body, to whom the body must be returned upon death. The obligations
assumed by the reception of this body are only discharged through the proper
performance of acts categorized as filial piety (xiao), one element of which was
offering sacrifice to one’s own genealogical ancestors (and another important ele-
ment was to produce sons).
There was also a deeply political component involved with the reception of
the body. In addition to belonging to one’s ancestral line, one’s body also belonged
to the ruler and the state; not surprisingly, the ruler is commonly represented in
the guise of the parent who gives one life and to whom one is obligated for just
that reason. In a fundamental way, the ruler makes life possible for his subjects:
on a mundane level, this is so because he safeguards the ritual progression of the
seasons; the proper performance of cultured, virtuous behavior; and thus the proper
means whereby human beings become human through the familial relationships.
On a more complex level, the ruler is identified with the lineage of Heaven, the
supreme moral authority of the cosmos itself, although this aspect of the ruler
recognized as father is couched in his designation as the Son of Heaven 天子
(tianzi). There is a second common designation for the ruler that is also very
telling: he is often referred to as “the father and mother of the people” 民之父
母 (min zhi fumu).59
Confucian discourse identifies the founding of kingship with the origins of
human culture and thus the ability to produce human bodies. The founding of
kingship in turn necessitated that the body of an individual be closed off from
the natural world to orient itself to one tangible center identified with the ruler
and the state lineage. The ancestral lineage thereby emerged in part as a necessary
correlate to the state lineage that gave legitimacy to the coercion involved with
putting the different familial bodies into service to the state; this move indeed
was legitimated in terms of filial piety.
The ruler in this world represents Heaven (tian), the highest source of moral
rightness, because his presence makes civilized life possible for all individuals by
safeguarding the moral and ritual means for the production of more human bod-
ies, thereby guaranteeing the progress of human culture leading eventually to the
possession of the Dao by the state. Without the ruler, human existence would
be cut off from Heaven, thus leading to the immediate breakdown of civilized
88 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

i­nstitutions, rendering human beings no longer human but merely beasts or barbar-
ians. Thus, the debts incurred by having bodily life are properly discharged only
through obedient service to the parents, ritual service to the ancestors, and loyal
service to the ruler. Indeed, LY 1.2 records Youzi 有子, a student of Confucius,
as saying:

It is rare for a man who possesses filial piety and is obedient to be

inclined to defy his superiors. A man who is not inclined to defy his
superiors will never start a rebellion. A gentleman works on the root
[that is, filial piety]. When the root is stable, the Dao is born.

In these discussions of the Confucian body, we are in essence talking about

the production of human bodies from two separate genealogical lines, namely
the ancestral and the state. The genius lying at the heart of these visions of the
Confucian body is seen in the fudging of the line that would keep them distinct.
This was accomplished primarily through the application of the state metaphor
to the biological father and the family metaphor to the political ruler, and these
moves are firmly grounded in the Confucian discussions of the achievement of
filial piety. These ideas are borne out in many sections of the Analects; a good
example comes from LY 2.20: Ji Kangzi asked,

“How can I make the people respectful, loyal, and hardworking?” The
Master responded, “Treat them with dignity, and they will be respect-
ful. Be filial and fatherly, and they will be loyal. Elevate the good and
educate the incompetent, and they will be hardworking.”

Through filial piety, the young body comes to incorporate the habits and
postures of obedience and obligation to the parents, the ancestors, and the state.
The full establishment of the bodily orders of human culture, the precise field in
which the Dao comes to be possessed, expresses the merging of these different
genealogical lines identified with the family and the state. All of this can also be
understood in Confucius’s most famous pronouncement concerning the Dao in LY
15.29: “Humans can enlarge the Dao; it is not the Dao that enlarges humans” 人
能弘道非道弘人 (ren neng hong dao fei dao hong ren).
The Daodejing radically diverges from this family metaphor and asserts that
the enjoyment of a physical body is not the result of an endowment from the
biological father and mother or from the ruler. Because the body was received
from neither the parents nor the ruler, there were in essence no obligations to
be discharged either to the ancestors or to the state. Stating that the individual
is not obligated to the ancestors and the state, however, does not translate into
a debtless condition of bodily existence whereby one could do as one pleased
with the body.
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 89

On the contrary, there is a different set of stringent obligations to carry

out, but there is no moral authority coercing their execution. They perhaps are
better named as imperatives that prescribe certain ways of attending to the body;
the coercion brought to bear for not attending to it in the manners specified is
simply the threat of an early death. DDJ 30 and 55 repeat the threat of misman-
aging the body in the prescribed ways by stating, “When living things reach their
prime, they get old. This is called ‘Not of the Dao.’ Whatever is not of the Dao
dies prematurely” 物壯則老是謂不道不道早已 (wu zhuang ze lao shi wei bu dao
bu dao zao yi). Early Daoist discourse radically negates the familial and political
metaphors by claiming time and again that one’s true parents are Heaven and
Earth, whereby reference to Heaven is denuded of all associations with the ruler
and the state. Heaven and Earth, moreover, are not considered to be the parents
of the human body alone, but of the bodies of all phenomenal beings.
DDJ 42 presents a bare-bones picture of the origins of the human body: “The
Dao gave birth to the One, the One gave birth to the Two, the Two gave birth
to the Three, and the Three gave birth to the ten thousand living things” 道生
一一生二二生三三生萬物 (dao sheng yi yi sheng er er sheng san san sheng wanwu).
We can briefly summarize this by saying that the Dao existed at the very begin-
ning of things; the One refers to the breath of the Dao, qi 氣. Qi gave birth to,
or separated into, the Two, yin 陰 and yang 陽. Yin and yang in turn give birth
to, or separated into, the Three, namely the realms of Heaven (pure yang), Earth
(pure yin), and the Human (a mix of yin and yang in the middle). These three
realms gave, and continue to give, birth to all beings that exist, namely the ten
thousand living things, including human beings. Thus, the human body at birth
consists of yin as physical form received from Earth, yang as mind or spirit received
from Heaven, and qi as breath received directly from the Dao. Together, these
comprise the vital components constituting the physical body, which are com-
pletely possessed at birth. The body does not consist of lineage blood transmitted
through biological propagation; it consists rather of the cosmic energies and matter
derived from the Dao and mediated by Heaven and Earth as father and mother.
In this way, according to the Daodejing, human beings indeed do participate
in an ancestral line, but the ultimate ancestor is not the founder of one’s blood
lineage or the ruler, but rather the Dao itself, and this is what DDJ 14 calls
“the genealogy of the Dao” 道紀 (daoji). This understanding of the Dao as the
ultimate ancestor is brought home directly in DDJ 4: “The Dao . . . is an abyss,
and seems to be the ancestor of the ten thousand living things . . . I don’t know
whose child it is. It seems to have preceded Di” 道 . . . 淵兮似萬物之宗 . . . 吾
不知誰之子象帝之先 (dao . . . yuan xi si wanwu zhi zong . . . wu bu zhi shei zhi
zi xiang di zhi xian).60
Because the body is subject to time and aging, and particularly so when the
processes of socialization kick in under the observant monitoring and regulating
of the biological and political parents, the awareness of one’s true parentage from
90 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Heaven and Earth is difficult to realize. The body thereby comes to close off its
openness to the physical revitalization available from the natural and cosmic
worlds (primarily because of the depletions of its energies in the pursuit of power,
wealth, and fame), and the vital energies of the body wither away, ultimately to
return to their sources (Heaven and Earth), resulting in bodily death. Conversely,
if a person attends to these cosmic components through the practices of yang­
sheng, they can rejuvenate and become overwhelmingly powerful within the body;
the Daodejing uses the term de 德, understood not as virtue but as circulation, to
refer to this phenomenon (I return to this in chapter 6). This circulation does
not depend on the integrity of the external physical shape, unlike the ideal body
of Confucian discourse.
The Zhuangzi gives several vivid illustrations of men who have had their
limbs amputated by the state as punishment for the various crimes they have
committed, but the text makes clear that this in no way hampers their ability to
cultivate the internal circulation of their vital energies and, thus, their possibility
of embodying the Dao.
One short passage from ZZ 5 relates that a certain Shushan Wuzhi 叔山無
趾, who had his feet chopped off, came walking on his heels to meet Confucius,
who just happened to be in town. Confucius said, “You were careless. After get-
ting into such trouble, what is the use of coming to me now?” 子不謹前既犯患
若是矣雖今來何及矣 (zi bu jin qian ji fan huan ruo shi jin lai he nai yi). Shushan
responded, “At that time, I just didn’t have the sense to care, and I lost my feet
by taking my safety for granted. But now as I come to you, that which gave
worth to my feet still exists within me, and I am deeply concerned with keeping
it whole . . . I thought of you as my Heaven and my Earth, how could I have
known that you would turn out to be like this?” 吾唯不知務而輕用吾身吾是以
亡足今吾來也猶有尊足者存吾是以務全之也 . . . 吾以夫子為天地安知夫子之
猶若是也 (wu wei bu zhi wu er qing yong wu shen wu shi yi wang zu jin wu lai ye
you you zun zu zhe cun wu shi yi wu quan zhi ye . . . wu yi wei fu zi wei tian di
an zhi fu zi zhi you ruo shi ye). Confucius, feeling regret about his callous recep-
tion of Shushan, apologized for his rudeness and invited him in for a discussion,
but Shushan left and went on to relate this interview to Laozi. Laozi remarked
that if he had had Confucius recognize life and death as a single strand, then
surely Confucius would have been able to free himself from his own fetters and
handcuffs, thus reversing entirely the commonsense perspective of bodily integrity
and physical freedom.61
The achievement of the free and unimpeded circulation of the foundational
internal components of the body (qi 氣, yin 陰, and yang 陽) was held to lead
directly to the ability of the body to embody the Dao. This occurs as these internal
components transform and merge with their ultimate ancestor, the Dao. Typically,
early Daoist texts discuss this transformation of the body and its energies in the
rhetoric of longevity 壽 (shou) or long life 長生 (changsheng), terms referring to
 Th e Dao s o f L ao zi a n d C o nf ucius 91

the transformed body’s ability to endure change and the passage of time without
letting the energies of the body disperse. For early Daoist discourse, long life
never constituted a separate and isolated soteriological goal in itself. What was
important was the maintenance of the body’s vitality, and the rejuvenation of this
vitality was recognized as being able to extend one’s life span. Only a body that
was at the height of vitality could embody the Dao; the addition of the Dao to
an already vital body was more than enough to endow a longevity that could be
counted even in centuries.
Undertaking the quest for uniting with the Dao, the body stands as the
first object of concern, and proper cultivation of its internal and foundational
components through the mastery of yangsheng was the preferred way to prepare it
for that unification. The ultimate consequence of physically embodying the Dao
was that it would render the body perpetually vital.

Laozi and Confucius Revisited

In this chapter, I have succumbed to the fairly seductive temptation of attempt-

ing to understand the complementarity of the thought of Confucius and Laozi by
examining their visions of the Dao. This has also been a temptation for traditional
Chinese thinkers for more than two thousand years, beginning with the records of
Confucius’s famous interview with Laozi. Taking the Guodian Laozi as a primary
indication that the ideas attributed to the Daodejing are much earlier than the
third-century date given by much recent scholarship, I think we are compelled to
see the Analects and the Daodejing as equal participants in a heritage of ancient
Chinese thought that neither one established tout court. Their impact on the later
traditions of Chinese religious and philosophical thought and practice cannot be
underestimated, but there is a lot of room for reassessing our understanding of
their historical and intellectual development.
I have tried to see this development by focusing on their complementary
understanding of the foundational notion of Chinese civilization, the Dao of
antiquity, and the ideological stances taken by two prominent groups, Confucians
and Daoists (although there is no real consensus in contemporary scholarship
about what these sociological categories specifically designate) in response to a
founding fault line inserted into the Dao of antiquity in the writings attributed
to Confucius and Laozi. I see these ideological stances most clearly demonstrated
through various disciplines of the body that can be understood as emerging, in
part, through the production of separate discourses that early Chinese thinkers
produced in their efforts to restore to the world a pristine Dao undisturbed by
the contingencies of time and history in the pursuit of what the early Chinese
tradition has hailed as the era of Great Peace 太平 (taiping), a term that expressed
the early Chinese hope for a utopian world that may or may not emerge from
the ravages of the Warring States.
92 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

By exploring some of the fundamental points of that original fault line in

the ancient significatory field of the ancient Dao and the bodily regimes that
Laozi and Confucius perceived as following from it, I also hope to have cleared
the way for a concentrated analysis of the Sage of the Daodejing, free from but
still from time to time in conversation with the Analects. In the chapters that
follow, I further develop many of the points of the Daodejing only touched on in
this chapter, including the contumely directed to the abuses of the ruling elite
that recognizes the brutal consequences of it for the common people; the neces-
sity of having the Sage in the world in order to make possible its salvation; and
the nuts and bolts of what it is that the Daodejing expects and demands from the
Sage. And all of this ultimately comes back to yangsheng.
 5

Early Daoism, Yangsheng, and the Daodejing

sts

The Hiddenness of Early Daoism

I have spent some in this study demonstrating the growing tendency among West-
ern sinologists to deny the existence of any kind of Daoism before the Celestial
Masters, but I have only focused on one side (albeit the most important side)
of their arguments. Those arguments question any early Daoism from a primarily
textual perspective, and they were finally decided on a textual basis: according to
Herlee G. Creel, Michel Strickmann, and Nathan Sivin, there is no relationship
strong enough between the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi to merit their inclusion
under a single Daoism label. The other side of their arguments against the exis-
tence of an early Daoism looks at the absence of any sociological evidence for
the existence of a Daoist tradition or movement in early China.
Scholars who have examined this issue rely on a fairly fluid use of such
terms as reclusion and recluses, and eremetics and hermits, in their approach to
the Chinese terms yin 隱, yinju 隱居, and yinshi 隱士. I have said above that I
tend to eschew these and other such translations in favor of a more literal one
based on the core meaning of yin as hidden, but only insofar as I apply it to
early Daoism. I can accept their translations of the terms and their cognates for
non-Daoist traditions and movements, primarily the Confucian; I do not question
their insights into that tradition, which they have contemplated and engaged far
more than I have. I only question their application of these translations, and all
of the baggage that comes with it, as they try to make the Confucian model of
reclusion map onto early Daoism. Early Daoism is different.

93
94 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Over the next many pages of the present chapter I examine the other
side of their arguments, which arise from the sociological perspective as they use
them to further buttress their claims that there was no Daoist tradition before
the Celestial Masters. I do this to open up the necessary space to discuss my own
understanding of early Daoism as hidden rather than reclusive, and I pick up this
train in short order. In the meantime, I have to speak their adopted language
of reclusion, but I want to be clear that I do not endorse it for coming to any
understanding of early Daoism.
In fact there is universal agreement among Western sinologists that a tradi-
tion of reclusive Daoism was a historical reality, but it is generally held that it did
not become an actual tradition until 465 CE. This date stands out because it marks
the year in which a group of Daoists, led by the justly renowned Gu Huan 顧歡
and including Tao Hongjing 陶弘景, the most famous Daoist of the age, as well
as several other eminent Daoist practitioners, established a specifically Daoist com-
munity in the Shan mountains. It appears that they wanted to live in mountainous
reclusion to study and practice the methods of cultivation as described in their
shared scriptural collections, most of which became the scriptures of Shangqing
Daoism. Strickmann concisely writes: “To return to the usage of the word ‘Daoist,’
with which we opened: in the case of Gu Huan and his colleagues, the common
and casual employment of the term as a designation of ascetic recluses seems for
once to coincide with our own proposed more precise meaning.”1
Note that the reason why Strickmann marks the year 465 CE as the birth of
reclusive Daoism, with its first Daoist mountain community peopled with Daoist
recluses, is simply because Gu Huan and his colleagues carried with them certain
texts that Strickmann identifies as belonging to institutionalized Daoism, in this
case Shangqing Daoism, and not because of anything particularly Daoist that they
were or were not doing. Also note that he is unwilling to label any movement
as Daoist before or outside the religious organizations started by, or stemming
from, Zhang Daoling.
With the blossoming of Daoist mountain communities from 465 CE on,
the activities of Daoist recluses indeed satisfy our expectations of what are typi-
cally recognized as perennial Daoist activities, including yangsheng with its qi
circulation, sexual practices, visualization practices, and specific forms of dietary
practices. For Strickmann, none of these activities counts as a criterion or measure
for inclusion in the Daoism label, reclusive or otherwise; what counts for him
is not any set of practices, but rather associations with any recognized tradition
of institutionalized Daoism primarily by way of textual affiliation and ordina-
tion. One can argue either for the presence of Daoism and Daoists based on his
criteria, namely the texts that they possessed, or, as I tend to do, one can argue
for the presence of Daoism and Daoists by way of certain sets of practices such
as those noted above.
Aat Vervoorn and Alan Berkowitz have written the two most substantial
and important Western-language studies on early Chinese reclusion, and their
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 95

works focus primarily on reclusion of a distinctly Confucian sort.2 The historical

records that they analyze present numerous Confucian literati who withdrew from
their official court careers to live in reclusion, often for moral and political reasons
rather than religious ones. Both of their works, moreover, are familiar with and
completely supportive of Strickmann’s claims about the nonexistence of Daoist
reclusion before the Six Dynasties period (specifically 465 CE); Berkowitz writes,
“Now for the first time the anchoritic and cenobitic aspects of reclusion seen in
other cultures are found also in China, as is the asceticism typically associated
with the view of reclusion as a renunciation of the world,”3 which stands in stark
contrast to Confucian reclusion motivated not by ascetic renunciation, but rather
by moral stances against government corruption.
Neither Vervoorn nor Berkowitz seriously entertains the possibility of a spe-
cifically Daoist reclusion before the Six Dynasties because of the absence of any
solid historical documentary evidence that could substantiate it. Both works, how-
ever, talk at length of the body of ideas found in the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi
that provided ways to understand reclusion for other, non-Daoist early Chinese
understandings of reclusion. But they both continue to claim that those ideas from
the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi were not put into practice by Daoists until Daoist
reclusion began in the 465 CE date singled out by Strickmann.
In relation to Daoist reclusion, the arguments of Vervoorn and Berkowitz
are nearly identical: they both accept that Daoist reclusion existed before the Six
Dynasties even as far back as the Warring States, but only in the “abstract,”4 as a
future possibility realized only centuries later. This to me seems a bit far-fetched,
even given the fact that substantive documentary sources presenting actual his-
torical Daoists living in something like reclusion are indeed rare and are colored
by figures more of legend than of history. On the other hand, the only substan-
tive writings that do discuss documentable early Chinese reclusion are almost
all exclusively Confucian, or at least associated with an elite sector of society,
which Daoists certainly would have eschewed—this eschewal is one of the primary
characteristics of any tradition of religious reclusion including Daoist reclusion,
the Confucian tradition of reclusion notwithstanding.
As Strickmann, Berkowitz, and Vervoorn demonstrate, early Chinese reclu-
sion was real, and the many historical records that substantiate it were thoroughly
Confucian. This reclusion was primarily motivated by acts of political or philo-
sophical protest and was mostly equated with retiring to your country estate, a far
cry from the mountainous preferences associated with early Daoism. As for this
kind of Confucian literati reclusion, Matthew Wells writes,

As Berkowitz has shown, all such descriptions tend toward tropes of

one kind or another, becoming in essence literary descriptions that
are no more objective than their authors. True hermits would prob-
ably be unknown to the general public and not subject to any record.
Indeed, whether or not anyone ever engaged in substantive reclusion
96 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

is ultimately irrelevant, for what is most important in the description

of eremeticism is the performance of reclusion and its subsequent
reception by a third-party observer such as a reader.5

But here I have to say that Wells misreads early Daoist reclusion, if he even
takes it into consideration next to its Confucian variety. Early Daoism, whether
or not we want to call it reclusive, will not be self-evident and announced to any
“third-party observer”; it remains hidden and in the shadows.
Over the next several pages, I present some of the central features of ear-
ly Daoism as a hidden tradition. Standing between the first circulations of the
Daodejing and the date of 465 CE are four main sources that provide evidence
for these central features: the Zhuangzi, the Huainanzi, the Liexian zhuan 列仙傳,
and two works of Ge Hong, namely the Baopuzi Neipian 把朴子內篇 and the
Shenxian zhuan 神仙傳. Because my inquiry at this point is exclusively focused
on the hiddenness of early Daoism as it pertains to the original environment of
the Daodejing, I do not deal here with these other works in any detail other than
to point out some indications of it from the Zhuangzi.6
Still, it is important to note that each of these four works contains the
names and stories surrounding many early Daoists pursuing yangsheng in the hid-
denness of mountains, but these are not the sort of historical records or docu-
mentary evidence that most sinologists would accept as referring to actual persons
and their actual lives. Furthermore, I myself am not arguing for the historical
existence of Gengsang Chu or anyone else named in these four works; that lies
outside any reasonable historical method. None of them is historical in the sense
that we take Confucius or any other figures named and depicted in the Confu-
cian records as historical, but altogether these four writings nonetheless provide
very solid indications—one might even say a kind of a historical or legendary
or mythic record—of early Daoist hiddenness. In the end and in spite of this,
these works leave an unmistakable sense of a hidden tradition of early Daoists,
and their numerous stories and depictions in them would make no sense if there
were not such a tradition.
As I mentioned in chapter 1, I see two strands of early Daoism, the first
centered on yangsheng and associated with the Daodejing, the second centered on
zuowang and associated with the Zhuangzi. But because the Zhuangzi, in addition
to presenting undeniable indications of its own strand of early zuowang Daoism,
also provides a good deal of information on early yangsheng Daoism, it is well
worth looking at some of those passages here. This is not to say that the Huain­
anzi, the Liexian zhuan and the works of Ge Hong do not; it is just that they are
somewhat more distanced from the original environment of the Daodejing than
the Zhuangzi, which is what I am most interested in exploring here. Given that, I
still include in this discussion a few words about what Ge Hong has to say about
early Daoist mountain hiddenness.
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 97

In its simplest formulation, early Daoism refers to a tradition of various

master-disciple lineages structured around the transmission of the bodily tech-
niques of yangsheng cultivation. The earliest textual examples of this are found in
the Zhuangzi, in which we find, for example, Liezi as disciple to Huzi as master.7
Active participants in these lineage relationships chose to adopt the hidden 隱
(yin) lifestyle to learn, master, and sometimes go on to teach these bodily tech-
niques; this is the case with Gengsang Chu, whose story I briefly discussed in
chapter 1. His story further shows that after mastering yangsheng techniques, he
then began to teach them: the text speaks of his disciples in the plural and of
one in particular, a certain Nanrong Chu 南榮趎.
This story, in addition to showing disciples becoming masters and masters
becoming teachers, also demonstrates that there was some sort of networking
among at least some of the early Daoist mountainous communities. In fact, the
Zhuangzi has several examples of masters recommending their students to other
masters, the most interesting of which is found, again, in Gengsang Chu’s story;
he says to Nanrong Chu: “My words to you are exhausted . . . Why not go south
and see Lao Dan?” 辭盡矣 . . . 子胡不南見老子 (ci jin yi . . . zi hu bu nan jian
Lao Dan).8 Nanrong Chu then walks seven days and seven nights to have an
interview with Laozi, who accepts him as his own student. The text does not
say whether or not Laozi was living in a mountain, but I think (keeping to the
terms of the story itself) he probably was.
This early Daoism was hidden. I derive this designation partly from the strong
textual indications that the preferred environment for early Daoist yangsheng cultiva-
tion was centered in mountains and forests (although this should not rule out the
presence of early Daoist yangsheng practitioners in urban areas as well), and such
mountains seem to be predominantly located in the southern mountainscapes of
early China. Gengsang Chu is explicit on this hiddenness, saying, “People who keep
their forms and life intact hide their bodies, and they do not detest remaining in
the deepest of concealments” 夫全其形生之人藏其身也不厭深眇而已矣 (fu quan
qi xing sheng zhi ren cang qi shen ye bu yan shen miao er yi yi).9
There is something of a fascinating collection of early Daoists who are
identified with mountains in the Zhuangzi, and here I simply present some of the
more prominent of them. We have already met Gengsang Chu, who moved his
residence to live on Weilei Mountain 畏壘之山. Maybe the most famous of these
mountain-dwellers, as well as the first one named in the Zhuangzi, is the legendary
and unnamed shenren 神人 (“spirit-person”)10 who resided on Gushe Mountain
姑射 and nourished himself on dew and harnessed dragons to his flying chariot.
A few lines later, it turns out that the shenren was not alone there; the mythical
sage-king Yao 堯 traveled to Gushe Mountain, where he encountered the “Four
Ones” 四子 (si zi)11 who are not directly named in this passage but who are other-
wise recognized as Wang Ni 王倪, Nie Que 齧缺, Bei Yi 被衣, and Xu You 許由,
who themselves appear several times throughout other chapters of the Zhuangzi.
98 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

ZZ 6 provides an intriguing list of certain personages who attained the

Dao; among them are Kan Pei 堪坏, who attained it and resided on the Kunlun
Mountains 崑崙, and Jian Wu 肩吾, who attained it and resided on Tai Moun-
tain 太山.12 ZZ 11 presents Guangchengzi 廣成子, who was 1,200 years old and
resided on the top of Kongtong Mountain 空同之上; Huangdi renounced the
throne to follow him there.13 ZZ 22 presents a very interesting episode about
Zhi, whose name means “Knowledge,” 知, who went on a pilgrimage to question
some Daoist Sages; he first encounters Wuweiwei 無為謂, whose name translates
into something like “No-intend No-talk” and who lived on Yinfen Mountain 隱
弅之丘 (notice the term yin in the name of this mountain); he had no idea how
to answer Zhi’s questions.14 Zhi then encountered Kuang Qu 狂屈, whose name
means something like “Wild Abandon” and who lived on Huque Mountain 狐
闋之丘; he forgot everything he had to say just when he was ready to say it.
There are many more instances of such figures in the Zhuangzi (which also
says a lot more about mountain life itself), but I think this should suffice to
demonstrate that there are very strong indications that point to the association of
early Daoism and mountains. One more figure I would like to point out, though,
is Nanbo Ziqi 南伯子綦, a figure who appears four different times in the Zhuangzi;
he first appears at the start of ZZ 2, where he shows himself a master of qi circu-
lation. He says a most interesting thing in ZZ 24, namely that he “once resided
in a mountain cave” 吾嘗居山穴之中 (wu chang ju shan que zhi zhong), where he
presumably mastered (or at least practiced) the yangsheng arts of qi circulation.15
Two elements of what appearto be the early Daoist preference for mountains
stand out. First, it seems not to have required relinquishing one’s spouses and
offspring or even renouncing one’s property (as we have seen from the story of
Gengsang Chu); it was not strictly speaking ascetic in that sense of the word, and
in fact sexual arts were an important component of yangsheng teachings. Second,
there are still other, slightly less clear indications of a three-year training period,
so early Daoist mountainous life might best be seen as a kind of training period for
the mastery of yangsheng, after the completion of which the adept might continue
to live in the mountains, or he might just as well choose to return to urban life.
Whether or not moving into the mountainous environment was a temporary
choice for periods of intensive training or a permanent life choice, the three-year
period was one, perhaps symbolic, way of talking about this.16 This is, once again,
borne out in the teachings of Gengsang Chu to Nanrong Chu: “Make your form
intact, embrace your life, and do not allow your thoughts to succumb to anxiety.
If you practice this for three years, then you can attain the state of which I have
spoken” 全汝形抱汝生無使汝思慮營營若此三年則可以及此言矣 (quan ru xing
bao ru sheng wu shi ru si lu ying ying ruo ci san nian ze ke yi ji ci yan yi).17
But there is even more to it than this. In ZZ 11, the novice Yun Jiang 雲將
has an initial interview with the master Hong Meng 鴻蒙, who at first rebuffs him.
Three years later, Yun Jiang has a second interview with him, whereupon Hong
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 99

Meng changes his assessment and accepts him as his disciple.18 If three months
can be taken as a kind of synecdoche for three years, then things open up even
more: in ZZ 11, after an initial interview with the master Guangchengzi, Huangdi
spends three months in a hut of his own construction, whereupon he renounces
his throne and enters the mountains to follow the master.19 In ZZ 14, Confucius,
after having an interview with Laozi, does not go out for three months; when he
does, he goes to Laozi again, who gives his approval and says that he, Confucius,
has found it, presumably referring to the Dao.20 Finally, in ZZ 20, Zhuangzi himself
is said to have shut himself up in his house for three months.21
The hiddenness of early Daoism is well represented in the Zhuangzi, as we
have just seen, but those writings do not speak about the existential realities of
living on a mountain. Ge Hong does, and I want to spend just a few moments
looking at what he says about mountain-dwelling. His Baopuzi Neipian and Shen­
xian zhuan name and discuss about a hundred Daoist adepts who lived in the
mountains. In addition, his writings also provide powerful indications of networks
of Daoist mountain communities throughout the major mountain areas covering
vast swathes of China, and he even devotes an entire chapter spelling out exactly
the kind of mountain-dwelling that is specifically Daoist; in fact, Baopuzi 17,
“Deng She” 登涉, is a veritable manifesto of Daoist mountain life.22
The chapter begins with a very interesting claim: “All those who compound
elixirs in cultivating the Dao, avoiding disorder to live in hiding, go into the
mountains. But if one does not know the methods of going into the mountains,
he will encounter misfortune and injury” 凡為道合藥及避亂隱居者莫不入山然
不知入山法者多遇禍害 (fan wei dao he yao ji bi luan yinju zhe mo bu ru shan ran
bu zhi ru shan fa zhe duo yu huo hai).23 The remainder of the chapter is replete
with strategies for surviving mountain life. I do not go into these strategies with
any detail in the present study, but even a brief synopsis of them shows that
Daoist mountain life was a serious business fraught with danger (but also that it
was nothing new for Daoism).24
In “Deng She,” Ge Hong discusses the proper times to enter a mountain,
the recognition of which requires that the adept take account of the specific hour,
day, month, season, and year, paying special attention to the numerous taboos
surrounding all of these times. Having entered a mountain, Ge provides instruc-
tions about paying respects to the spirits of the mountains and offering appropriate
offerings, prayers, and propitiations. He then provides strategies for dealing with
snakes, poisonous insects and other creatures, and poisonous growths; noxious
spirits (many of which are the spirits of large trees and stones) and dangerous
animals, many of which take on human appearances; and various types of weather
conditions. The survival tools that Ge condones are various medicines, pills, and
potions; different kinds of visualizations, which are partially related to the abil-
ity to use one’s qi, or breath, against noxious influences; magically empowered
daggers; mirrors that show the true appearance of demonic spirits; and various
100 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

seals to use against, for example, tigers by stamping their tracks with them. Most
important, he describes numerous amulets and talismans that serve any number
of protective functions.
What is important to note is that we are confronted here with a complete
and systematic set of ideas that clearly demonstrates a highly developed under-
standing of a specifically Daoist tradition of mountain-dwelling.

A Separate History

The Daodejing appears to assume a tradition of early Daoism without demonstra-

tion. While I cannot completely substantiate my claim for an early Daoism by
recourse to any of the historical records, the profusion of depictions of early Dao-
ists living in hiddenness, from the Zhuangzi to the Huainanzi, Liexian zhuan and
the two works of Ge Hong, has persuaded me to seriously consider this possibility.
My claim is that this movement, no matter when it came into existence, possibly
even as early as the sixth century BC, offers the possibility for an elusive third
reading of the Daodejing, next to the Confucian daojia and the religious Daoist
daojiao readings.
There is a burning question that I have not as yet directly engaged: what
is it that early Daoists were doing that would allow us to gather them together
into a single category and a separate history? My answer is that they were pursu-
ing a specifically Daoist program of physical cultivation called yangsheng, and I
specify this as the defining feature of early Daoism. It is time to look into this
much more closely.
In The Pristine Dao, I explored the possibility of a separate history of early
Daoism in terms of its discourse, and I argued that any early Chinese writing that
can be shown to share in it warrants inclusion in the early Daoist category, and
any writing that does not is excluded from it. I identified early Daoist discourse
based on the body of textual ideas that demonstrates a shared understanding of
four discursive domains, namely cosmogony, cosmology, ontology, and soteriology.25
Here I want to step away from an exclusive focus on the textual, internal contents
of early Daoist discourse and take a wider view of its possible experiential and
existential origins. I argue that the origins of Daoism, at least as this centrally
implicates the Daodejing, are intimately and originally related to yangsheng, and
that it systematically yet enigmatically anchored yangsheng cultivation to a Dao-
centered worldview constructed from those four domains. This resulted in a total
canvas of meaning for the tradition of early Daoism in which yangsheng was
believed to be effective for becoming a Sage and transforming the world.
The five modern Chinese scholars that I discussed in chapter 2 all have
something important to contribute to the conception of an early Daoist history
that is separate from all other early Chinese traditions. Of these other traditions,
by far the most important is Confucianism, simply because Western scholars have
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 101

used it to establish a baseline for understanding and placing most every other
received text from the period of the Warring States, and the Daodejing has been
dragged into that interpretative vortex. The Analects, and Confucianism more
generally, has a prehistory recognizable in the northern Zhou cultural world domi-
nated by the centrality of specific and ancient notions of ritual, and Confucius is
recorded several times in the Analects as accepting his own debt to that very same
history. Therein lie the origins of Confucianism, and the origins of Mohism are
also somewhat recognizable by that tradition’s conscious awareness and subsequent
rejection (or deliberate reinterpretation) of that history. Any modern awareness
of that ancient history, however, adds nothing to our knowledge or understand-
ing of the separate history of early Daoism and the Daodejing. They are separate.
Designating the separate history of early Daoism is a tricky business. The
very few modern scholars who have attempted to do so often fall back on the
very imprecise label of shamanism or, more precisely, ancient Chinese shamanism.
Although I have serious reservations about using this category to designate that
separate history (and the five modern Chinese scholars that I briefly examined
above as well as, most prominently, Kristofer Schipper and Catherine Despeaux,
heavily rely on that category), I am nevertheless persuaded that the earliest origins
of Daoism had very little to do with the history from which the Analects and the
Mozi took shape or with the history of ancient Chinese shamanism.26
Western sinologists, including A. C. Graham, Benjamin Schwartz, and Chad
Hansen, have typically examined the origins and development of Daoism from
within the confines of that same history that produced Confucianism and the
other schools of Warring States philosophy. More recently, some Western scholars
of Daoism tend not to recognize anything that can be called Daoism until Zhang
Daoling’s investiture in 142 CE. There are, however, other scholars of Daoism
who take the claims of its separate history seriously, and Kristofer Schipper is
undoubtedly the best representative of this approach; he writes, “It is most likely
that the tradition which produced, over a number of centuries, the aphorisms of
the Daodejing was not that of the ‘philosophers’ . . . The background of the book
of the Old Master is not with the schools of the young noblemen of feudal China,
as other ancient texts may be.”27 Schipper goes on to designate “the background
of the book of the Old Master” by that “ancient Chinese shamanism” category
but, unlike many scholars who also want to bring ancient Chinese shamanism
into the conversation, he does his best to explain what he means by it:

For the religion of the common people, from antiquity up to the

present, I often make use of the term shamanism. To some specialists,
this term may seem inadequate, and even inappropriate, to describe
a sociocultural phenomenon of such great scope, so rich, so sophis-
ticated and poetic, as Chinese popular religion. Indeed, if we had to
limit ourselves to the information furnished by classical literature, we
102 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

would be ignorant of practically everything concerning the religion of

the people. But Chinese shamanism has survived until today, admit-
tedly as a poor relation of the higher religion of Daoism, but with
sufficient vitality to be reckoned with. It should be seen, I think, as
the substratum of Daoism; it is at certain times its rival and, in modern
China, its inseparable complement. In every period Daoism has been
defined in relation to shamanism. And so we too must take Chinese
shamanism as our point of departure.28

While I embrace Schipper’s approach, which sees the origins of Daoism as

one moment in a history separate from all other early traditions of Chinese phi-
losophy, I also find the shamanism label inadequate as a characterization of it.29
I want to point out another scholar who also has adopted this approach to
the origins of Daoism, Allyn Rickett, who writes:

Neither the Daodejing nor the Zhuangzi, however, represents the begin-
ning of Daoism, which seems to have derived its original impetus from
two very distinct groups of people. The first group comprised hermits
and nature-oriented philosophers who reacted to the increasing inse-
curity and oppression following the decline in Zhou imperial power
by seeking escape from society and a return to nature . . . The second
group was made up of shamans and magicians, centered mainly in
the states of Chu, Qi, and Yan, who sought to prolong life by various
techniques, including diet, sexual restraint, breath control, and physi-
cal exercise . . . We do not know how far these techniques go back
in Chinese history . . . By the middle of the fourth century BC, the
concepts and practices of these two groups had come together, giving
rise to the general point of view and body of thought, including the
Daodejing and Zhuangzi, now known as philosophical Daoism.30

There is a lot going on in this passage that demands a bit of unpacking.

Rickett singles out two specific groups, each with its own separate history, which
came together at some point in time (“the middle of the fourth century BC”) and
resulted in the formation of early Daoism. I have no problem overlooking the fact
that he names this original Daoism “philosophical”; the important point to note
is that he, too, sees the origins of Daoism in a particular moment in a separate
history (actually, he designates two separate histories). What is more compelling
is his identifying these two histories with two separate groups. The first he calls
“hermits” who “sought escape from society.” The second he calls “shamans” who
“sought to prolong life by various techniques, including diet, sexual restraint,
breath control, and physical exercise,” but what he is describing is precisely yang­
sheng. It is not that I contend that these two groups are one and the same; it
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 103

was “the hermits” themselves who were practicing yangsheng, and I believe that
the “the shamans” had little or nothing to do with that (but Despeaux gives an
opinion very different from mine). In other words, Rickett confuses the issue by
bringing the shamans into the equation. He, like Schipper, falls back, at least
partly, on the nebulous idea of shamanism to designate Daoism’s separate history.
Ancient Chinese shamanism names a religious phenomenon that is very
different from early Daoism, and its special techniques, not to mention its sepa-
rate goals, were not the same. Shamanism was a very real and rich tradition in
ancient and early China, but it also has its own history separate from the one
at stake in the origins of Daoism. Early Daoism’s separate history is better desig-
nated as the history of yangsheng (Despeux confirms this, as I touch on below, but
she then goes on to identify the origins of yangsheng with shamanism). Isabelle
Robinet gives an excellent but brief description of the place of yangsheng for any
tradition of Daoism:

Yangsheng . . . consists of adopting a way of life ruled by physico-

mental hygienic principles. This is not specifically a Daoist art and
derives from ancient Chinese practices; Daoists adopted, developed,
and modified them by introducing the idea of the “primordial breath”
(yuanqi), by associating them with the Daoist authorities and gods,
as well as with certain more specifically religious practices, by giving
them a cosmic dimension, and by adding the idea of purification and
sublimation. Even when they seem to be eclipsed by new tendencies,
the rules of this art remain a foundation of all Daoist practices in all
areas—exorcism, therapy, liturgy, “interior alchemy”—and have never
ceased to be the subject of many treatises during all epochs.31

I want to underscore Robinet’s recognition of the centrality of yangsheng

for any tradition of Daoism, but also her recognition that the ultimate sources of
yangsheng, as an ancient Chinese practice, somehow predated the earliest forma-
tion of Daoism. That said, yangsheng, I contend, was also the motivating force
behind this tradition’s formation. And the best record we have for witnessing
the ways in which yangsheng was incorporated into a sophisticated worldview, one
centered on the pristine Dao, is indeed, the Daodejing.

Orality and the Daodejing

Yangsheng, the technical term for the specifically Daoist program of physical cul-
tivation, provides the original and core identity of early Daoism. I am confident
in saying that yangsheng cultivation techniques predate the Daodejing because that
text crystallized certain ways of conceptually situating them within a Dao-centered
vision of the world in which they are seen to be effective; it did not invent them,
104 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

nor is it a record of their discovery, much less a manual for their execution. It
is likely, however, that Daoism historically emerged as an integral tradition that
gathered together a whole host of ideas about these practices in tandem with the
first circulations of the Daodejing, because it was the first writing that systemati-
cally yet enigmatically anchored yangsheng to that Dao-centered worldview. The
Daodejing provided the kind of total canvas of signification on which traditions
are established. Schipper discusses the original composition of the Daodejing by
first questioning its attribution to Laozi, “the Old Master,” in this way:

Why then is the book attributed to the Old Master? One should not
see in this an attempt at falsification. It was very common, in classical
China, for authors and editors to sign their works with the name of
the founder of the school to which they belonged, rather than to use
their own names  .  .  .  Those who wrote the Daodejing—we do not know
their names, but does that matter?—wanted to give a comprehensive
summing up of the thought which tradition attributed to the Old
Master, but in a version purified of mythical elements and detached
from its historical context.32

It is hard to argue against Schipper that the composition of the Daodejing

was not a onetime compositional event, and I too see it as coming together over
an extended period of time; as Schipper writes, “Even if the present version of the
Daodejing was written at a relatively late date, the book is nevertheless the final
result of a long development. It contains a series of sayings and aphorisms, often
in rhyme, many of which appear in other, much older texts . . . This shows that
a good part of the Daodejing comes from an ancient oral tradition.”33 Whatever
the time frame turns out to be for this “long development,” at least in its earliest
stages what we are most likely dealing with is an original oral tradition rather
than an original textual event. But this was an oral tradition that was constructed
around specific practices because that is what the oral tradition spoke about. It is
hard to conceive that it spoke about something that had not yet existed.
Supporting Schipper’s intuition of an original oral tradition, Alan Chan
writes,

The idea of an oral tradition that preceded the writing of the Daode­
jing has gained wide acceptance in recent years; yet it is not always
clear what that entails. On the one hand, it could lend support to
W. C. Chan’s view that Laozi’s disciples kept alive the teachings of
the master orally before some later student(s) committed them to
writing. On the other hand, it could also mean that the redactor(s)
or compiler(s) had access to disparate sayings originated from and
circulated in different contexts.34
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 105

Instead of this either/or choice posed by Chan, Michael LaFargue sees the
editorial process whereby the text absorbed independent units of verse from an
oral tradition as a both/and; as he writes, it contains both “proverb-like sayings
that I call ‘polemic aphorisms’ [and] sayings belonging to several different genres,
all of which have self-cultivation as their life setting.”35
I have two immediate responses to LaFargue’s comments. First, he recognizes
that one major part of the Daodejing coheres around the sayings and ideas of self-
cultivation, and another major part consists of sayings that have no connection
to anything in particular other than a kind of general folk wisdom, or, as D. C.
Lau writes, “The Daodejing is an anthology in which are to be found passages
representing the views of various schools.”36
These ideas pose a challenge to my synthetic reading of the Daodejing;
does the Daodejing present a coherent worldview, or is it a haphazard collection
of aphorisms (next to the other group of sayings that do present a more or less
coherent view of self-cultivation)? The challenge for my synthetic reading is to
demonstrate the coherency of the text as a whole, and a few words saying that it is
or is not coherent are simply not sufficient. On this score, I rely on the discourse
of early Daoism, and in The Pristine Dao I demonstrated the overall coherency
of the Daodejing that I do not rehearse again here other than to say that I see
the synthetic reading of the work in terms of four domains, namely cosmogony,
cosmology, ontology, and soteriology.37
My second response to LaFargue’s comments is that I agree that there is a
separate body of sayings that cohere around ideas of physical self-cultivation. This
is in fact very close to my own understanding of large portions of the Daodejing,
namely that they emerge not from a milieu of philosophical debate but of physical
cultivation. In relation to this and by way of his study of the editorial develop-
ment of the Daodejing, LaFargue also posits for it a history that is separate from
all other early Chinese traditions, namely the history of physical self-cultivation,
but he does not effectively pursue this history, which I argue is precisely the his-
tory of yangsheng.
Harold Roth acknowledges the value of some components of LaFargue’s
ideas but in a slightly different way from mine; he writes, “While LaFargue’s work
is not without its problems, it has developed some important hypotheses about
the nature of the text and its origins. One of the most important (and one that
I currently share) is that the Daodejing is the product of a group or community
whose foundation was first and foremost a shared practice of ‘self-cultivation.’ ”38
Schipper seems much closer to uncovering this history where he writes,
“The whole philosophy of the book of the Old Master—and in this respect the
work is entirely different from the other classical philosophies—is borne out of the
situation of the adept of the Mysteries, and of his search for Long Life . . . The
chapters of the Daodejing refer to real body practices.”39 Schipper further specifies
this separate history in terms of “the background of the Old Master’s aphorisms,”
106 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

which he calls “the mystery-religion of ancient China.”40 This is, as I again argue,
the history not of ancient Chinese shamanism, but of yangsheng.
The Daodejing as a text came together from an original oral tradition that
had yangsheng as its exclusive prerogative, and in saying this I leave aside any
strong claims for that specific time frame (dating the Daodejing is notoriously
difficult, especially when we accept that it was a text that accumulated from an
original oral tradition). Romain Graziani has many insights into the originally
oral nature of many early Chinese self-cultivation writings that can open up our
own understanding of the Daodejing, although he speaks of such writings generally,
not of the Daodejing in particular:

If early Chinese texts were produced in radically different conditions

from those of modern times, it is not only because of the material
factor of the medium used to write, which entails its own constraints,
but because texts are never really freed from the constraints of oral-
ity. Many self-cultivation texts that we label today as philosophical
may have been only notes on lectures of the master, or instructions
for collective meditation. Even when duly composed, the general
movement of thought in these texts, their rhythm, their tempo and
temporality, develop according to the standards of oral speech. This is
a major constraint, which certainly accounts for many of the features
regarded as logical deficiencies in ancient Chinese thought. A text
often unfolds according to associations of ideas without any systematic
rigor, it eludes and resumes ideas at will instead of exposing them one
by one—all features that are typical of speech, even if in written notes
it was always possible to optimize the composition, add introductory
parts, conclusions, or transitions.41

With Graziani’s above comments in mind, there are, it seems to me, only
four possible ways to conceive of the earliest origins of the Daodejing. The first is
that it was written at something like a single sitting by a single author, but this
conception is without legs in modern scholarship. The second is that it was an
accumulated text that absorbed various accretions over time, demonstrating either
coherency or arbitrariness. The third is that it represents the textual records of
an oral tradition frozen in time. The fourth, which represents my own opinion,
is that the origins of the Daodejing come from various degrees of each of the first
three options. It is the product of an oral tradition; at the same time, it also
was built up from various layers, but these layers are not arbitrary, constrained
as they were by the limits of the oral tradition; finally, there were also editors
or redactors who consciously guided the process whereby the text grew; in other
words, the text was edited or redacted at single sittings, but these sittings were
multiple, not a onetime event.
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 107

We handcuff ourselves by looking at the earliest origins and circulations of

the Daodejing in terms of a textual transmission(s), and this is one reason why its
origins have stymied scholars for so long. Approaching a text as a text is very
different from approaching a text as a phenomenon, reflection, or distillation of
something else, namely what it is that the text is about. Certainly the Daodejing
is a text about a lot of things (cosmogony, cosmology, ontology, soteriology, and
so forth), but its core is self-cultivation (rather than philosophy or religion or
arbitrariness).
This is the point to which debate about “what the text is about” has always
come down, but even this can be reduced to the simple question: was the Daodejing
written for Kings or for Sages-to-be? If it was written for Kings (the option that
I outright reject), then Xunzi was right, and I take my hat off to Wang Bi. If it
was written for Sages-to-be, then physical cultivation is the essential core of the
book. And I also do not accept splitting Heshang Gong’s Huang-Lao difference by
saying that it is a book about both physical cultivation and perfect government.
If the origins of the Daodejing are to be understood as consisting of the three
above factors (an oral background coupled with gradual accumulations of specific
moments of composition and redaction by specific people at specific times), then
of course the required next step in grappling with the Daodejing is to delve into
that oral background, for this is where it all starts: a specific tradition of physical
cultivation called yangsheng. Let me start this exploration by returning to Graziani:

We seem to always remain in a world where language stands at the

periphery of the sage’s concern, as if the world of wisdom in China
were fundamentally non-discursive and non-dialectical, and that
seems as much the case for the period of the Warring States as for
subsequent periods. The extrinsic role of language—when it is not
rejected outright as a hindrance—is flagrant in most philosophical
texts portraying the sage, whether they be from Ru [Confucian] or
from Daoist traditions . . . In other words, language is far from being
a privileged mode of intervening in the work of self-cultivation, and
this fact should elicit a reflection on the status of self-cultivation
texts themselves. We must recognize the fact that they have lost a
significant part of their coherence once detached from the exercises
(gongfu 工夫) which accompanied them. Indeed they are at best the
fading traces and imprints of gestures and postures that conditioned
a shift toward a modified form of consciousness.42

Graziani remarks on the “fading traces and imprints of gestures and pos-
tures,” and this is in large part what I point to in speaking of “the shadow of the
Dao.” There were many different kinds of early Chinese self-cultivation practices,
physical and otherwise,43 but I am examining one kind in particular, yangsheng,
108 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

that I identify with early Daoism and that I see as the life-blood of the Daodejing.
So what is yangsheng?
I offer here an overview of yangsheng as a fully developed practice as it was
understood in the Han dynasty. I cannot claim that this exactly matches the
yangsheng at the time of the earliest circulation of the Daodejing; those kinds of
historical records are simply not available to the modern scholar at this time. On
the other hand, Mark Csikszentmihalyi writes, “Indeed, there is growing evidence
that many medical and meditative strategies known to have been practiced in the
late Han dynasty (c. 180 CE) onward existed in some form during the time that
the Daodejing was composed, raising the possibility that the text itself was based
on early medical or meditative practice.”44
These comments from Csikszentmihalyi allow some space for me to speak
of yangsheng in relation to the Daodejing. He nonetheless immediately adds the
following caveat: “The similarity between the vocabulary of the Daodejing and
early medical or meditative texts, however, does not make the Daodejing one of
those texts.”45 Donald Harper will have a lot to say about this, and I will respond
in time and as best as I can in my argument that the Daodejing’s core is physical
cultivation and not politics. With that in mind, then let’s see what we can put
together for understanding yangsheng.
As a category marker, yangsheng consists of four relatively autonomous prac-
tices of physical cultivation: qi circulation 行氣 (xingqi),46 dietetics 服飯 (fushi),47
sexual arts 房中之術 (fangzhong zhi shu),48 and daoyin 導引 (“to guide and pull,”
a kind of calisthenics).49 When the term yangsheng is used not as a category
marker but as a term for a specific practice, it refers to qi circulation. In this use,
the term yangsheng is synonymous with xingqi (“qi circulation”), qigong 氣功 (“qi
cultivation”), and tuna 吐納 (“to spit out and take in [qi]”) or, more precisely,
tugu naxin 吐古納新 (“to spit out the old and take in the new [qi]”). Yangsheng
is also closely related to daoyin, referring to specific techniques of postures and
movements, often in imitation of animals. When yangsheng is used as a general
category, daoyin is one member of the four-part system; at other times yangsheng
(as qi circulation) and daoyin (as postures and movements) are two separate cat-
egories of practice that are commonly coupled with each other.
Despite the fact that most modern scholars of early China with whom I am
familiar, both Eastern and Western and including Graziani, employ the term qigong
for this confluence of practices, I generally adopt Li Ling’s approach: “Originally
the term qigong was not widely used, and in this study I do not use the term qigong,
but I do use the terms qi circulation and daoyin, restricting the ideas I discuss
about them to their original meanings.”50 Instead of Li’s “qi circulation,” I prefer
to use the term yangsheng, as qi circulation, qigong, and yangsheng are virtually
synonymous with each other either as category markers or as specific practices.
Despeux says something similar about the relation of yangsheng to daoyin:
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 109

In antiquity, daoyin was conceived as both a therapeutic method and

a technique for maintaining life (yangsheng 養生) and augmenting
longevity. The idea of nourishing, of maintaining (yang 養), appears
as one of the key concepts of Chinese thought. According to the
schools, the emphasis was directed to the maintenance of the vital
principle (yangsheng 養生), the maintenance of the body (yangxing
養形) under which Zhuangzi classified daoyin, the maintenance of inner
nature (yangxing 養性), a term synonymous with the origin of yang­sheng,
the maintenance of one’s being (yangshen 養身), the maintenance
of aspiration (yangzhi 養志), the maintenance of the spirit (yangxin
養心), and the maintenance of the vital spirits (yangshen 養神).51

Early Daoism and Yangsheng

The terms yangsheng and daoyin are not found in the Daodejing, but the practices
that it extols and encourages are very much in line with both of them. The earli-
est textual instances of these two terms are found in the Zhuangzi to which I turn
momentarily, but the earliest epigraphical evidence for these practices is found on
what is called the “Duodecagonal Jade Tablet Inscription on Qi Circulation,” or
more simply the “Inscription on Qi Circulation” 行氣銘 (xingqi ming). Although
its date is somewhat unclear, current scholarly consensus places it roughly around
500 BC, and there is general agreement that it predates the Daodejing.52 This
means that its techniques were already in practice before the first circulation of
the Daodejing, and the inscription provides a glimpse into the yangsheng milieu
from which the Daodejing took form.
The inscription is found on a twelve-sided cylindrical jade whose use in
unclear, but it likely served as the top knob of a walking staff, a symbol of author-
ity. Li Ling provides the full text of the original inscription as well as a modern
transcription of it,53 and there are already several English-language translations,
although the language of the inscription is quite simple. Li introduces the inscrip-
tion in this way:

The techniques of inhaling and exhaling 呼吸 (huxi), and spitting

out and taking in (tuna), were in ancient times called “qi circulation”
(xingqi). Qi circulation uses the mouth and nose to make the qi of
heaven and earth flow in one’s breathing in order to regulate the body’s
physical strength and the nervous system. These techniques can be
found in the Zhuangzi, the Suwen, the Lingshu, the Nanjing, and other
writings from the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods. But of all
the excavated materials that discuss techniques of qi circulation, the
earliest example is the “Inscription on Qi Circulation.”54
110 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Given the importance of the inscription as well as its brevity, I here present
a complete translation of it.

To circulate qi:
Swallow it so that it will accumulate.
As it accumulates, it will expand.
As it expands, it will descend.
As it descends, it will stabilize.
As it stabilizes, it will consolidate.
As it consolidates, it will sprout.
As it sprouts, it will grow.
As it grows, it will return.
As it returns, it will merge with heaven.
The heavenly impulses are revealed in the rising of qi;
The earthly impulses are revealed in the descending of qi.
Go along with this and you will live.
Go against this and you will die.

The inscription provides the earliest evidence of a teaching of qi circulation

available to modern scholars, and we must recognize that it is quite remarkable in
its sophistication. It appears to be speaking about two different qis, the normal qi
of regular human breathing and a cosmic qi identified with heaven and earth or
what Daoist discourse would come to call yuanqi 元氣 (“original qi” or “pristine
qi”). The teaching directs the practitioner to becoming one with this cosmic qi,
and the result will be life, likely referring to long life.
Strikingly absent from the inscription are any mentions of the Dao, any
understanding of qi as the breath of the Dao, or any idea of becoming one with or
embodying the Dao by way of filling the body with this cosmic qi. But then these
are the sorts of ideas that the Daodejing would provide in full force by grounding
the practices of qi circulation, and yangsheng more generally, in a Dao-centered
universe in which the highest goal is to become a Sage by becoming one with
the Dao precisely by way of these practices.
The central ideas of the inscription are also found in dramatic form in the
story of Huzi 壺子 and Ji Xian 季咸 from the Zhuangzi; in that story, Huzi, a Daoist
master of qi circulation, merges his qi with the impulses from earth, then with the
impulses from heaven, ultimately finding total liberation by merging his qi with
the Dao itself.55 There is an unmistakable continuity in the ideas and teachings
of qi circulation from the jade inscription to the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and
the other writings of early Daoist discourse, prominently including the “Neiye.”
The “Inscription on Qi Circulation” is, then, a major piece of evidence for the
separate history of early Daoism.
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 111

Standing somewhere between the “Inscription on Qi Circulation” and the

Daodejing is another very important writing from this separate history, the “Neiye”
(Inward Training). Harold Roth, currently the foremost scholar of this piece, writes,
“One of the distinctive contributions of Inward Training to this discussion of Daoist
origins is that it represents the earliest extant presentation of a mystical practice
that appears in all the early sources of Daoist thought, including the Laozi, the
Zhuangzi, and the Huainanzi.”56
I am not going say a lot about the “Neiye” here, primarily because Roth
has already produced an extensive study of it that I have discussed in The Pristine
Dao. I would like to point out that in that previous work I too quickly critiqued
his use of the term “mysticism” that he uses to characterize the practices of early
Daoism.57 I have since rethought this, and if there is a mystical practice in early
Daoism, it is not present in the Daodejing; yangsheng is strictly physical, not mysti-
cal. The Zhuangzi, on the other hand, discusses several techniques that do fall in
line with the types of mystical practices to which Roth attends, such as “sitting
and forgetting” 坐忘 (zuowang) and “the fasting of the heart” 心齋 (xinzhai), but
these meditative practices are of an altogether different sort from yangsheng. I am
now convinced that both sorts of practices, yangsheng and zuowang, are uniquely
identifiable with early Daoism, but only insofar as each separately represents its
own strand that I designated in chapter 1, namely the strand of early yangsheng
Daoism associated with the Daodejing and the strand of early zuowang Daoism
associated with the Zhuangzi. Roth himself takes some steps in pointing out the
difference that had previously escaped me; he writes:

The foundational texts of the Daoist tradition were produced within

one or more closely related master-disciple lineages whose principle
focus was on learning and practicing specific techniques  .  .  .  The single
most important technique was of guiding and refining the flow of vital
energy or vital breath (qi) within the human organism. This seems
to have been accomplished in two possibly complementary ways, the
first a kind of active or moving meditation whose postures resembled
modern positions in taiji and qigong, and the second a kind of still,
sitting meditation that involved regularized natural breathing. It is this
second form, which entails the apophatic practice of removing the
normal contents of the mind to produce tranquility with a decisively
noetic character, that I have called inner cultivation.58

Although I do not believe that Roth and I are very far apart in our under-
standings of early Daoism, there is a lot more to be said about the differences
and similarities between yangsheng and zuowang as two powerful currents of early
Daoist practice in terms of two closely related but not identical strands of it. I
112 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

am not sure what this means for future considerations concerning the role that
the “Neiye” has in this, but my feeling is that it will have a lot to contribute to
our understanding of early Daoism.
The Daodejing, however, remains firmly grounded in the physicality of yang­
sheng and not the mysticism of zuowang, despite the fact that Roth, in an analysis
of a number of passages from various chapters, writes that they “provide important
testimony to the presence of mystical praxis in the Daodejing.”59 I continue to
hesitate to embrace his interpretation of the writing as a specifically mystical text.
Schipper also shares my hesitation where he writes, “Mysticism and the related
philosophy of power generally advocate freeing oneself of the physical body and
of its daily, functional contingencies. The chapters of the Daodejing, on the con-
trary, do refer to real body practices.”60 This is important to note because it gets
right to the heart of the defining practice of early yangsheng Daoism, which is as
relentlessly focused on the physical body as any religious system of cultivation
anywhere to be found.
It is also worth noting Roth’s brief remarks about the separate history of early
Daoism (which he names in terms of a “distinctive lineage”) that I am attempting
to uncover and from which the Daodejing was born, keeping my caveats about the
difference between yangsheng and mysticism in mind; he writes:

This concluding chapter offers a new definition of Warring States and

early Han Daoism derived from the present work on Inward Training
and inner cultivation practice. The chapter’s central working hypothesis
is that a distinct group of people existed who can justifiably be labeled
Daoists because they followed and recommended to others an apophatic
practice of breathing meditation aimed at the mystical realization of
the Way and its integration into their daily lives. These people also
created and transmitted a body of doctrinal texts that evolved over
time in response to the changing circumstances in which the members
of this “distinctive lineage” found themselves.61

What Roth calls a “distinctive lineage” of inner cultivation indeed points

to what I call the separate history of yangsheng, and the doctrinal texts he men-
tions that “evolved over time” from this history include, most importantly, the
Daodejing and the Zhuangzi.
But let’s focus on yangsheng now. The earliest textual instances of the term
in the entire textual history of early China are all in the Zhuangzi where it is
mentioned four times, including the following passage from ZZ 28:

It is said, “The truth of the Dao lies in the regulation of the body. Its
leftovers are used in acting for the country and the family. Its refuse
is used in governing the empire.” Like this it is clear that the accom-
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 113

plishments of emperors and kings are superfluous to the Sage because

they do not contribute to the completion of the body or yangsheng.62

Note the radically physical focus of yangsheng, together with the passage’s
reference to “the regulation of the body” 治身 (zhishen) and “the completion of
the body” 完身 (wanshen), values and concerns that are given priority over all
other competing values. The following passage from ZZ 15, in which the practices
of daoyin (yangsheng’s inseparable twin) are vividly portrayed, brings out even more
clearly the radically physical nature of yangsheng:

To breathe out and breathe in, to inhale slowly and exhale slowly, to
spit out the old and take in the new, and to practice bear-hangings
and bird-stretchings with the intent to achieve longevity—such are
the practices of daoyin adepts, those people who nourish their bodies
and hope to live as long as Peng Zu.63

The passage has been rightly celebrated in both traditional Chinese writings
and modern studies for its concise yet lively account of daoyin with its strict focus
on the regulation of the body’s circulation of qi. We also notice the prominent
emphasis on animal forms and postures, and I return to this motif below. Although
the Zhuangzi passage does not, strictly speaking, couple daoyin with yangsheng, it
does use a very closely related term, “the nurture of the body”養形 (yangxing),
a term virtually synonymous with yangsheng. Finally, we are presented with the
ultimate goal of this system of practice, longevity, in other words the preserva-
tion of the body and life for a period of time measured in centuries; Peng Zu
is well noted for his longevity. These yangsheng and daoyin practices directed to
the enhancement of qi circulation and leading to longevity are the quintessential
hallmarks of early Daoist yangsheng practice.
At roughly the same time or shortly after the completion of the Zhuangzi,
two other records of daoyin practice also enjoyed some degree of circulation. The
first, a manuscript titled Yinshu 引術, excavated from the Zhangjiashan site dated
to approximately 186 BC, describes about one hundred different daoyin move-
ments, many of them patterned on animal postures and movements.64 The second,
called the Daoyin tu 導引圖, excavated from the Mawangdui site (together with
the Mawangdui Laozi) dated to approximately 168 BC, is a chart that consists of
forty-four color illustrations of human figures performing daoyin exercises.65 Again,
it is no coincidence that many of these illustrations are patterned on the postures
and movements of animals.
These two records, together with the depictions of early adepts portrayed in
the Zhuangzi, make it rather difficult to sustain the claim that the primary practices
of early Daoism, encapsulated in the technical terms yangsheng and daoyin, were
not already fully systematized by as late as the early Han dynasty. I continue to
114 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

hold that these are the practices, whether already or not yet fully systematized,
that originally were the prerogative of early Daoism and that characterize the
milieu from which the Daodejing emerged.
I have briefly examined the kinds of historical evidences at hand that pro-
vide a glimpse into the history of yangsheng, but they are scant. Two modern
scholars in particular have tried to piece together the earliest origins of yangsheng,
and it is worth spending a little time attending to their ideas. The first is the
Chinese scholar Zhang Rongming and the second is the French scholar Catherine
Despeux, and I provide somewhat lengthy quotations from each to let their ideas
speak directly.
Zhang pushes the origins of yangsheng, which he calls by its alternative
appellation qigong, all the way back to the Neolithic age. His ideas are particu-
larly unfamiliar in modern Western scholarship but not entirely out of line with
modern Chinese scholarship, and they also provide provocative indications for
an early Daoist reading of the Daodejing:

In the long period when humans survived by hunting, the ancient

ancestors were naturally able to feel that abdominal breathing could
quickly compensate for their depleted energy and effectively allow them
to recover from their fatigues. In this way, they consciously repeated
their abdominal breathing, thereby strengthening it. Over the course of
time, abdominal breathing became established through a kind of popular
usage that allowed it to gain a fixed regularity of practice. Because
of this, modern qigong theorists recognize that this kind of abdominal
breathing most likely marks the sprouting of Chinese qigong . . . We
obviously cannot make any quick judgments about whether or not the
original qigong was started by the abdominal breathing produced by
the stop and go of physical hunting and bodily breathing, but there is
one thing that is evident and beyond doubt, which is that the origins
of ancient Chinese qigong have a deep connection with the birds and
animals that were the targets of hunting . . . “Bear-hangings and bird-
stretchings” are phrases that express the Zhuangzi’s lively and vivid
descriptions of the adepts of yangsheng who cultivated ancient qigong.
This reveals that the beginnings of original qigong are connected to the
different and unusual deportments of people who imitated the move-
ments and postures of the animals of the natural world. Clearly the
objects of their imitations were not confined only to bears and birds,
and we have glimpses of this from the Daoyin tu excavated from the
Mawangdui site. The chart depicts numerous qigong and daoyin images,
including “dragon-ascents,” “hawk-shoulderings,” and “bear-hangings,”
but other images from the chart depict forms of the monkey, other
images depict the forms of the tiger and leopard snatching their prey,
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 115

and there are others that cannot be precisely named. In sum, the
imitative movements of original qigong are for the most part patterned
on the nearly infinite variety of animals from the natural world in all
of their rich variety.66

One might argue that Zhang’s ideas are a bit too subjective to be taken
seriously in the modern academy, and indeed I agree that there is a degree of
conjecture in them. In spite of that criticism, I still find his ideas eminently rea-
sonable and persuasive at least in terms of offering one possible way to ponder
the archaic origins of yangsheng. What is not debatable in his ideas is the central
position given to animal postures and movements in yangsheng and daoyin, and
this is very much in line with mainstream Daoist thought, which gives a very
high value to the natural world and of harmonizing with nature; as DDJ 55 states
about the Sage, “Poisonous insects do not sting him, fierce beasts do not seize
him, and birds of prey do not swoop on him” 蜂蠆不螫猛獸不據攫鳥不搏 (feng
chai hui she bu shi meng shou bu ju jue niao bu bo). DDJ 50 further states that the
Sage “does not avoid rhinos and tigers walking through hills . . . The rhino has
no place to stick its horn, and the tiger has no place to put its claws” 陸行不遇
兕虎 . . . 兕無所投其角虎無所措其爪 (lu xing bu yu si hu . . . si wu suo tuo qi
jiao hu wu suo cuo qi zhua).
Despeux also pays a great deal of attention to the role of animals in the
origins of yangsheng, which she calls daoyin (and note again the extreme overlap
between the terms yangsheng, qigong, xingqi, and daoyin), but she looks to ancient
Chinese shamanism for the origins of yangsheng. A large part of her explanation
for these origins centers on specific ancient masters of qi circulation and their
shamanic characteristics, but I leave that aside for the moment.

Many of the elements related to daoyin permit us to make a connection

between this technique, the dances performed in ancient China, and
shamanism. These are: the similarities between the gymnastic move-
ments [of daoyin] and those dances, the personality of the immortals
tied into these techniques, and the conceptions of the efficacy or func-
tions of daoyin which are similar to those of the dances performed by
the shamans. In antiquity, the movements of daoyin evoked dance and
at times were a dance . . . Shamans had multiple functions, notably
those of healing by making an alliance with superior powers in order
to know the origin of a sickness and expel it. Being an intermediary
between the world of humans and the world of the spirits in which
he could travel, the shaman had an action over them, he “attracted”
(yin 引) these spirits and made them descend into him. He could
get rid of all of the evils brought on by these spirits, such as natural
disasters like droughts and also human sickness. Now, it is this same
116 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

function that consists of attracting and expelling the malefic elements,

and especially those which are found outside of the body, which are
at the origin of daoyin . . . If the body’s posture, by way of its posi-
tion in space, gets rid of the demonic exterior influences, it serves
also for eliminating the nefarious elements in the interior of the
body. It is equally clear, according to the inscriptions accompanying
the gymnastic representations of the Mawangdui Daoyin tu, that the
term yin [of daoyin], since it precedes a term designating a symptom,
has the meaning of attracting in order to then expel: the gymnastic
movements allow the expulsion of demons or pathogenic forces at the
origin of a sickness and the eradication of the evil . . . Thus, dancing
and daoyin permit one to chase off the bad influences both internal
and external, and to triumph over death; but these techniques were
also conceived as a method to circulate the dynamic elements of the
macrocosm as well as the microcosm, and to organize exterior space
as well as interior space. They were favorable for the circulation and
the drainage of the waters in the world, and the breath in the body.67

I am not able to judge which of these two explanations of the origins of

yangsheng is more correct, Rong’s or Despeux’s, but I am not committed to uncov-
ering once and for all the absolute truth of those origins. What I am interested in
is simply providing two powerful ways that allow us to conceive of those origins
that two highly respected scholars have put forth, the first Chinese, the second
Western. I also do not feel that we have to choose between them or even that
they are at odds with each other. Zhang also recognizes the influence of ancient
Chinese shamanism on his qigong, as Despeux recognizes the influence of imitating
animals on her daoyin. I suspect that the origins of yangsheng either fall somewhere
between these two pictures or else its origins lie somewhere else altogether; my
most important point in showing these two possible explanations is to highlight
the fact that yangsheng (or qigong or daoyin or xingqi) long predates the early
Han dynasty, very likely is archaic, and certainly predates the Daodejing. But the
Daodejing anchored these ancient techniques within a Dao-centered worldview
and provided a total canvas of meaning for early Daoism, a tradition that was
firmly committed to these techniques.
This brief study of the history of yangsheng would be severely incomplete
without at least a brief look at it in its fully developed form, and Ge Hong pro-
vides this. I understand that Ge Hong lived and wrote some eight hundred years
after the first circulations of the Daodejing, but I also hold to the opinion that
his writings brought the tradition of early Daoism to culmination. In them, he
gathers together all of the major tendencies and figures of early Daoism, and he
made sense of it, at least to himself, and he has also convinced me that early
Daoism was a thriving tradition long before he was writing about it. Although,
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 117

as I hold, he brought early Daoism to culmination, he also merged it with an

entirely separate tradition of practice: this is Chinese alchemy. But even he was
able to keep these two traditions somewhat separate, at least in theory.68
In Ge Hong’s writings, we witness a fully developed and systematized picture
of yangsheng never before seen in previous writings, at least so far as the trans-
mitted records demonstrate. One of his best depictions of this fully developed
yangsheng is found in the Shenxian zhuan’s biography of Peng Zu; he was said to
be 767 years old at the end of the Shang dynasty. Here is the description of his
yangsheng:

He would often shut off his qi and breathe internally. From sunrise to
noon he would sit rigidly, rub his eyes, and knead his body and limbs,
while licking his lips, swallowing his saliva, and ingesting qi several
dozen times. Only then would he rise, move about, and converse. If
there was any illness, fatigue, or discomfort in his body, he would
practice daoyin and shut off his qi so as to attack what was troubling
him. He would fix his heart by turns on each part of his body: his
face and head, his nine orifices and five viscera, his four limbs, even
his hair. He would cause his heart to abide in each location, and he
would feel his qi circulate throughout his body, starting at his nose
and mouth and reaching down to the tips of his ten fingers.69

Note the radically physical nature of Peng Zu’s yangsheng practice, with its
focus on both qi circulation and daoyin that enabled him to live for some 800
years, according to the legends. I cannot say for certain that this was how yang­
sheng was practiced in early Daoism, but at least it gives us a picture of how it
might have been (and nevertheless likely was) practiced.
To provide a clearer understanding of the fully developed system of yang­
sheng, at least in the way that Ge Hong conceived it, it is also worth briefly look-
ing at two further passages from the Baopuzi Neipian. In them, we recognize the
priority given to qi circulation, the practices most visible in the Daodejing and the
Zhuangzi, but we also notice the three other yangsheng practices, namely dietetics,
the sexual arts, and daoyin. Note that in the first passage below, Ge names only
the first three, while in the second he names all four.

Although ingesting medicines is the root of longevity, if a person at

the same time also is able to circulate qi, then the beneficial results
will be experienced even more rapidly. If a person is unable to obtain
medicines but circulates qi thoroughly according to the principles, that
person will obtain several hundred additional years; a person must,
however, also know the sexual arts for that to happen. If a person
does not know the methods of yin and yang but consistently labors at
118 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

it and depletes himself, then it will be extremely difficult to have the

energy for qi circulation.70

In the second passage, Ge names daoyin as a fourth component of yangsheng:

For anybody who practices yangsheng, you must desire to have extensive
knowledge of it, learn to embody the essentials, experience it deeply,
and be good at selecting. Being partial to the cultivation of only
one part of it is insufficient and unreliable, and being overly fond of
only one part also poses a danger to those students who exclusively
depend on those parts of it for which they have an aptitude. Those
who know the methods of Xuan [Nü] and Su [Nü]71 claim that only
the sexual arts can enable a person to go beyond the world. Those
who only understand “the dao of spitting out and taking in [qi]” 吐納
之道 (tuna zhi dao) claim that only qi circulation can enable a person
to extend the years of his life. Those who know “the rules of bending
and stretching” 屈伸之法 (qushen zhi fa) claim that only daoyin can
enable a person to retard old age. Those who know medicinal recipes
草木之方 (caomu zhi fang) claim that only the ingestion of medicines
can enable a person to be without exhaustion. If a person studies the
Dao without success, it is entirely due to such partialities.72

In this passage, Ge Hong lays out the total system of yangsheng practice
consisting of qi circulation, dietetics, the sexual arts, and daoyin. He criticizes
those who follow the system of yangsheng but who do so only partially; for Ge,
the achievement of long life requires mastery of all four parts equally. Through-
out the Baopuzi, he continuously insists on the necessity of finding an excellent
and well-qualified master in order to correctly master them, and he also remarks,
unsurprisingly, that this sort of master can only be found living in the mountains.
My point in discussing these passages is to show how Ge Hong places yang­
sheng at the very center of early Daoist practice and also to demonstrate the fully
developed systematization that he brought to yangsheng—the same yangsheng lying
at the heart of the Zhuangzi, the Yinshu, and the Daoyin tu. This is the same
yangsheng that was for the first time concisely summarized in the Daodejing and
also the same yangsheng that was depicted in the “Neiye” and the “Inscription on
Qi Circulation.” Finally, it is the same yangsheng that predates all of these writ-
ings that Zhang (although he calls it qigong) and Despeux (although she calls it
daoyin) endeavored to locate from even more archaic times.
If any or all of this is reasonable, then what we have here is the separate
history that Schipper identifies as “the mystery-religion of ancient China.”73 This
is the separate Chinese history of yangsheng that is inextricable from the first
circulations of the Daodejing and the history of early Daoism.
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 119

Two Master Traditions and a Third

Early Daoism appears first of all as a mountainous master-disciple tradition coher-

ing around yangsheng practices of physical cultivation that were believed to lead
to longevity. These practices predated the first circulations of the Daodejing, which
was something different from a text as we understand that term; it was originally
an oral phenomenon. This yangsheng tradition of early Daoism continued to be
transmitted through the ages, not as an unchanging and standardized way of life,
but as a way of life nonetheless, one that centered first of all on an existential
choice between adopting the Daoist lifestyle or not.
One primary mark of the changing nature of Daoism throughout the genera-
tions of early China is seen in that tradition’s changing labels for its highest ideal
of the perfected human being. Although the Daodejing consistently designates its
vision of the perfected human by the label of “Sage” 聖人 (shengren), this term
soon gave way in later Daoist writings to different labels as other non-Daoist
early traditions of Chinese discourse appropriated it for themselves, given that it
was never the original and exclusive possession of early Daoism to begin with.
Post-Daodejing early Daoist writings adopted other labels to designate their ideal
figure, but this did not alter or impact the ultimate goal of early Daoist practice,
longevity, or the path leading to it.
What I believe happened is that, from the time postdating the first circu-
lations of the Daodejing, the Sage label was no longer sufficient to exclusively
designate early Daoism’s ideal figure in the context and contest of early Chinese
philosophical debate; it looked for separation by recourse to other labels.
We find in the historical records of early China several other religious move-
ments and traditions that were very close to but not the same as early Daoism, and
there was a lot of back and forth between them. Understanding these other move-
ments and their interactions with early Daoism is important for better approaching
the environment from which emerged the first circulations of the Daodejing, the
future history of yangsheng, and the destiny of Daoism.
This portion of my study begins with an exploration of some of the other
labels adopted by early Daoism to designate their vision of the perfected human
in their interactions with these other religious movements or traditions of early
China. Ultimately, the preferred term used in Daoist writings after the Daodejing
to label its ideal figure was xian 仙. I want to further contextualize early Daoism
through a brief examination of this term and maybe also say something more
about yangsheng. But it should be noted that the term xian is nowhere to be
found in the Daodejing.
The term xian was fluid and evolved over the ages from its earliest recorded
usages. In addition to its verbal meanings, which cohere around the act of ascend-
ing, its nominal meanings refer to a divine being, a recluse living on a mountain, a
human who has ascended, and an alchemist, but it is most often taken to refer to,
120 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

and standardly translated into English as, an immortal. Robert Campany, however,
translates xian as “transcendent” and writes:

This term is often translated as “immortal,” but, strictly speaking, the

texts promised neither a once-and-for-all immortality nor an escape
from time and change into an eternal stasis, as can be seen from the
fact that there were distinct degrees or levels of xian-hood . . . In
translating xian as “transcendent(s)” when it denotes one or more
transformed persons, as “transcendence” when it names their exalted
status, as “transcend” when it names what they do, I do not mean to
suggest an absolute metaphysical difference between xian and lesser
beings but rather to capture the essential fact about xian as portrayed
in texts and images that they have ascended to links in the chain
higher than those occupied by even the best human beings.74

I harbor several hesitations with Campany’s translation. First of all, he

applies his translation of xian in reference primarily to the writings of Ge Hong,
and Ge Hong speaks of multiple varieties of xian, including one type that ascends
to the celestial bureaucracy (tianxian天仙) and one type that ascends into the
mountains (dixian 地仙); “transcendence” does not cover both types. Second,
in the historical evolution of the term (in which I am most interested at the
moment), it also denoted beings and actions earlier and other than “transcen-
dence.” Finally, “transcendence/transcendent” carries a too heavy implication with
Western metaphysics in spite of Campany’s caveat, as Zhang Ji explains,

The term “transcendence” promotes the motif of departure to a tran-

scendental realm where a person has been transfigured into a divine
being  .  .  .  In Campany’s “transcendent” the motif of “ascending” is simi-
lar to the biblical imagery of the transfiguration of Christ  .  .  .  Although
Campany accepts that there is no transcendence without the body
in Daoism, this term still implies the departure of the “dead” to an
otherworldly eternity, just like the Christian saints in the eternal
presence of God.75

My reasons for keeping xian in its transliterated and untranslated form takes
cognizance of the changing references to which this term applied; it was fluid and
evolved over time, with no single designation written in stone.
There are three different characters for the term xian: the earliest form is
僊 (a “human” radical next to “go, move”); the rarest form is 仚 (a human on
top of a mountain); and the common form is 仙 (a human next to a mountain).
The Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字, an early second-century CE dictionary, defines xian
僊 nominally as well as verbally as “[one who has] longevity and xian goes away”
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 121

長生僊去 (changsheng xianqu), where “xian goes away” denotes an act of ascension,
but whether to a mountain or to the sky is not clear.76 It also defines another
closely associated term, zhen 眞, as “a xianren who has transformed the body and
ascended into the heavens” 僊人變形而登天也 (xianren bian xing er deng tian ye).77
The earliest textual instance of the term xian is found in Shijing “Bin zhi
chu yan” (賓之初筵): when the guests have gotten drunk, then they “continu-
ously dance and caper about” 屢舞僊僊 (lü wu xian xian), and Bernhard Karlgren
translates xian as “to caper about, dance.”75 Note the relation of this verbal usage
of xian with intoxication, where xian most likely refers to the jumping up of their
dancing, which itself is a form of ascension. ZZ 11, like “Bin zhi chu yan,” also
uses the term as a compound; here we find a Sage in a conversation in which
he suddenly says: “I dancingly, dancingly will get up and go back now” 僊僊乎
歸矣 (xian xian hu gui yi).76 ZZ 12 uses the term in the sense of ascension, where
we find another Sage who says, “After a thousand years, when the Sage tires of
the world, he leaves it and ascends among the xian. He mounts the white clouds
and goes to the place of the gods” 千歲厭世去而上僊乘彼白雲至於帝鄉 (qiansui
yanshi qu er shang xian cheng bi baiyun zhi yu di xiang).80
Early Daoist discourse uses a complex of terms to describe physically and
spiritually advanced beings, including xian, shengren 聖人 (“Sage person” or “Sage;”
this is the Daodejing’s preferred term), shenren 神人 (“spirit person”), zhiren 至人
(“arrived person,” rarely used), and zhenren 真人 (“authentic person”; this is the
Zhuangzi’s preferred term); over time, xian would become early Daoism’s preferred
term. ZZ 1 says, “The zhiren is without self, the shenren is without worldly merit,
the shengren is without name” 至人無己神人無功聖人無名 (zhiren wuji shenren
wugong shengren wuming).81 The passage then describes a shenren whose skin is
white like snow, whose manner is like a virgin, who does not eat grain (a sure
mark of the yangsheng regime), but who gets nourishment from dew and who
mounts dragons to course throughout the lands. When the Liezi later takes up
this same story, it will add that “the xian and the sheng [sages] come to serve (the
shenren) as ministers” 仙聖為之臣 (xian sheng wei zhi chen).82
The Zhuangzi’s shenren shares in many of the hallmarks of the xian, includ-
ing ascension and the avoidance of grains. Nonetheless, the text’s descriptions
of the zhenren are most numerous, and the most striking is found in ZZ 6: “The
ancient zhenren . . . ascended heights without fear, entered water without drown-
ing, and passed through fire without burning . . . The breathing of the zhenren
comes from their heels” 古之真人 . . . 登高不慄入水不濡入火不熱  .  .  .  真人之
息以踵 (gu zhi zhenren . . . deng gao bu li ru shui bu ru ru huo bu re . . . zhenren
zhi xi yi zhong).83
The Chuci 楚辭, an anthology of verses first put together in the period of
the Warring States, further develops the imagery of xian. In “Yuan You” 遠遊,
we read that the poet “honored the marvelous de 德 (“vitality,” “power”) of the
zhenren, and coveted those of the past who had ascended to xian” 貴真人之休德
122 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

兮美往世之登仙 (gui zhenren zhi xiude xi mei wangshi zhe deng xian).84 Wang Yi
王逸, the great Han dynasty commentator to the Chuci, comments on this line:
“zhen is also written as zhi [as in zhiren 至人] . . . xian is also written as xian” 真
一作至 . . . 仙一作僊 (zhen yi zuo zhi . . . xian yi zuo xian).85 “Shou Zhi” 守志
also connects zhenren with xianren: “The zhenren roam and soar [in the sky]” 真
人翺翔 (zhenren ao xiang), and Wang Yi’s gloss to this line is “the zhen is a xian”
真仙人也 (zhen xianren ye).86 Finally, “Ai Shi Ming” 哀時命 identifies itself with
early Daoism by giving a depiction of two of the tradition’s most popular xian,
Chi Song 赤松 and Wang Qiao 王喬, playing the zither when the poet, who is
undertaking an otherworldly journey, says, “I thought of my long life and becoming
a xian” 念我長生而久僊兮 (nian wo changsheng er jiu xian xi).87
This brief examination of the term xian has shown it to fall under the
umbrella of early Daoism, and some of the significant motifs associated with it
to this point are the longevity that comes as the consequence of a perfected and
transformed body, the ability to ascend or soar to either mountainous regions or
paradisiacal lands, and the rejection of normal foods for taking nourishment from
natural products like dew; motifs that are not yet but soon will be associated
with xian are alchemy and immortality.88 This image of the xian, however, takes
a dramatic turn with the historical appearance of Zou Yan 鄒衍 (305–240 BC)
and the fangshi 方士 tradition.89
Zou Yan certainly had no direct participation in anything close to an early
tradition of Daoism so far as the historical records go, but his legacy would be
made to intimately converge with it. He is most remarkable for his development
of the theories of the Five Phases 五行 (wuxing) and is typically cited as the
founder of the fangshi, but, as Kenneth DeWoskin notes, “His ultimate relation to
the fangshi who emerged centuries later is extremely unclear.”90 Hu Fuchen writes,

There also appeared the tradition of yin and yang whose leading expo-
nent was the fangshi Zou Yan from the state of Qi. He expounded the
theories of yin and yang and the Five Phases, which were applied to the
study of political geography, and he composed over one hundred pian
of writings. Zou Yan and his disciples were active in Qi, Yan, Zhao,
Wei, and other states, where they were also venerated. He predicted
celestial phenomena, added to ancient knowledge, studied the methods
and arts of divine xian, and composed the “method of duplicating dao
and extending life”; he was respected as a living immortal.91

The Shiji presents the first textual history of any relation between Zou Yan
and the fangshi:

From the time of King Wei and King Xuan of Qi, the disciples of
Master Zou discussed and wrote about the succession cycle of the Five
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 123

Virtues from beginning to end. People from Qi submitted this theory

to the Qin Emperor, and the First Emperor adopted it . . . While Zou
Yan had become outstanding to the feudal lords for his theory of the
master cycle of the succession of yin and yang, the fangshi from the
coasts of Yan and Qi transmitted his arts without understanding them.
Since that time, a host of these students [of Zou Yan] too numerous
to mention have appeared with weird and unrealistic theories who
illicitly flatter and deceive [rulers].92

From the time of the Shiji on, there are ample records that portray many
historical fangshi; still, it is important to understand what they did and why they
did it.93 The “Yiwenzhi” 藝文志 section of the Hanshu 漢書 provides the most
immediate division of the fangshi into two more or less separate groups, namely
shushu 數術 (“numbers and techniques”) and fangji 方技 (“recipes and methods”).94
Here I am more interested in the fangji because it is with this group that
we find attention given to longevity and immortality and the strong indications
of their relations with early Daoism. But the fangji already had a certain identity,
one that has not been securely clarified in modern studies: they are sometimes
grouped together without distinction under the fangshi label;95 sometimes they are
gathered under the Daoism label;96 but more often they are categorized under a
different label that does not highlight their identify as either Daoist or fangshi,
namely as “the xian-cult” or “the cult of immortality.”97 What is not questioned
by many modern scholars is that this tradition (whether we call it fangshi, Dao-
ism, or the cult of immortality) did at some point merge with a tradition of early
Daoism or, as other scholars might say, that when Daoism (using Strickmann’s
origin point with Zhang Daoling in 142 CE) did finally blossom, it absorbed the
practices and ideology of the xian.
My opinion is that early Daoism, emerging in full bloom in tandem with
the earliest circulations of the Daodejing, is what we might call a master tradition,
and the fangshi, with Zou Yan as its eminent founder, was entirely separate yet
also worthy of being called a master tradition (and note that to this point in the
records we have no indication of any kind of early Chinese alchemy; that will
arise later). The ideology of the xian was one core element of early Daoism; in the
Daodejing’s minimalist language, I find it utterly unsurprising that it does not use
the term xian, and it rigidly holds to its exclusive focus on the Sage (shengren).
At the same time, I also find it utterly unsurprising that the Zhuangzi and
Chuci, writings anything but minimalist, rely heavily on the term xian and its
cognates. That certain fangshi sects (the fangji) assimilated Daoist notions of
yangsheng, while other sects (the shushu) did not, opened the way to a decisive
addition to that early Daoist tradition. One hallmark of early Daoism is that it
was predominantly hidden (which is why we have so few records of individual
practitioners); one hallmark of the fangshi tradition is that it was eminently public
124 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

(which is why we have so many records of individual practitioners). The fangji

lineage, with its categorical emphasis on the xian, I suggest, was a hybrid tradi-
tion that was neither exclusively Daoist nor exclusively fangshi (and Ge Hong’s
outstanding achievement, centuries later, is that he brought them together in a
seemingly seamless whole).
Another compelling and complicating factor in the attempt to trace these
early Chinese traditions and lineages and to locate their possible ties to an early
Daoist tradition is the host of recently excavated early Chinese texts, primar-
ily from (to date) three major sites, Baoshan, Zhangjiashan, and Mawangdui.98
These texts provide the outlines of yet another tradition of physical cultivation
intimately related to early Daoism, the fangshi, and the fangji, but which stand
out for their appeal to the elite segments of early Chinese culture; Donald Harper
calls this the “tradition of macrobiotic hygiene,” and he writes:

Ideas of health and longevity in the Mawangdui medical manuscripts

appear to represent a tradition of macrobiotic hygiene that was older
than the xian cult, which became prominent in the late third century
BC. Cross-fertilization between macrobiotic hygiene and the xian cult
is well documented in Former Han sources, hence their fusion in the
bibliographic classification [“Yiwenzhi”].99

Note that Harper places this hybrid tradition under the wider rubric of
fangshi: “The chief attribute of fangshi is the possession of fang—specifically the
books that contain both their knowledge and their techniques. I adopt the term
‘fang-literature’ to refer to all literature produced in the milieu of the specialists
in natural philosophy and occult knowledge,” and this includes the writings of
what he calls the medical tradition of macrobiotic hygiene.100 I have to point out
though that he too does not attend to the fangji label; this is the wild card group.
According to Harper, here we see two traditions in action, the first being
the fangshi and the second the xian cult (but I do not accept this latter label,
which somehow intends to point to a post-Daodejing early Daoism; I come back
to this), with segments of both coming together in a process of “cross-fertilization”
in the formation of a third hybrid tradition that Harper calls a “medical tradition
of macrobiotic hygiene.”
But I think there is no need to coin new labels because this is in fact the
fangji tradition announced most loudly by the “Yiwenzhi.” The fang element of
the fangji tradition centers on their use of what Harper called “fang-literature”
while the xian element centers on what they did, namely practice (and master?)
yangsheng, which Harper otherwise places in a medical tradition; as he writes:
“All of the material on macrobiotic hygiene belongs to a medical tradition of
yangsheng.”101 These materials are, however, squarely in line with the types of
writings classified as fangji in the “Yiwenzhi.” As for this yangsheng component that
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 125

he identifies with “a xian cult,” Harper vociferously rejects the ascription of the
Daoism label to it, referring it instead to an ancient medical tradition: “In short,
efforts to understand the development of ideas concerning macrobiotic hygiene
and the xian cult are not well served by a too easy use of the label Daoist.”102
Mark Csikszentmihàlyi questions Harper’s use of these labels for reasons
that I tend to agree with: “Applying labels like macrobiotic, medical, or sexual
techniques to practices whose explicit goal is altering personal physiology implies
a teleology that may obscure the different ends to which the practice was put
in ancient China,” with their primary end being the achievement of longev-
ity.103 These practices already come with their own label, yangsheng, and I remain
strongly inclined to attribute their origin and development to early Daoism and
its ideal of longevity rather than to medicine, given that these practices were
embraced, after a time, by the elites.
It is important to keep in mind that originally the tradition of fangshi, origi-
nating with Zou Yan’s theories of yin and yang and the Five Phases, had absolutely
nothing to do with yangsheng, longevity or immortality, or xian and zhenren and
shengren. Although theories of yin and yang had an important role in early Daoist
discourse, they were never employed in the political realm (which at the time
was one of the great appeals of Zou Yan’s theories); their primary application was
in theories of cosmogony and cosmology, not politics.
Further, the early Daoist writings present notions of yangsheng that are
clearly present in the “Neiye,” the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and various other
Warring States writings that somehow elided the secretive master-disciple rela-
tionship and were brought into the public domain. Then segments of these two
master traditions (early Daoism and fangshi) merged in the formation of a third
tradition, fangji, characterized by their possession and production of what Harper
calls “fang-literature” as well as by their practice of yangsheng. While members
of early Daoism had all along been called xian (and also zhenren, shenren, and,
importantly for the Daodejing, shengren), members of fangji also came to be called
xian, but there remained differences between the xian of early Daoism and the
xian of the fangji.
Harper’s notion of cross-fertilization is appropriate, but I think he errs in his
ideas about who and what was cross-fertilized. DeWoskin, writing much earlier,
shares my own understanding on this point: “In the intellectual background of
fangshi, the most obscure tradition is that of pharmaceutical and hygienic medi-
cine. This group of fangshi is in the immortal (xian) tradition. They are described
as reclusive and adamantly reluctant to enter the emperor’s service.”104
Here, though, I hesitate to accept DeWoskin’s claim that these fangshi were
reclusive. Again we are confronted with extremely divergent views by modern
scholars. Henri Maspero writes that the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi represented “a
branch of [early Daoism], a small circle with mystical and philosophical tenden-
cies; they were educated scholars who transformed the sect’s often coarse teachings
126 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

into philosophy.”105 Schipper places himself in this line of thinking: “The whole
philosophy of the book of the Old Master is borne out of the situation of the
adept of the Mysteries, and of his search for Long Life . . . The chapters of the
Daodejing refer to real body practices.”106
Harper, however, hesitates to employ the Daoism label for the excavated
texts representing what he calls the macrobiotic tradition of physicians and elites,
and I have no disagreement with him on this level, but I believe that he goes
too far when he writes: “The scholarly convention is to treat the complex of
ideas associated with macrobiotic hygiene and the belief in xian as aspects of a
belief system loosely called Daoist . . . The Daodejing [with the Zhuangzi] is an
equally unlikely point of origin for ideas about longevity and immortality.”107
But he confirms my own point: that the tradition of the xian has not securely
clarified in modern studies: “The Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan macrobiotic texts
describe a kind of baseline macrobiotic hygiene for the elite that focuses on care
of the body, not on the more philosophical and mystical programs of the “Neiye,”
Zhuangzi, or Daodejing. In addition, the texts’ goal of long life is not identical to
the xian-cult of immortality and transcendence. The formation of the xian cult
in the third and second centuries BC remains unclear.”108
Harper’s views go against those of, for example, Maspero and Schipper; for
them, the Daodejing distills the already existent regime of yangsheng practices into
a “philosophical” format; for Harper, however, the Daodejing originally existed as a
text of political philosophy, and the injection of yangsheng ideology into it came
only later (possibly additions from the fangji tradition?); Harper writes:

Although the bellows analogy [Daodejing 5: “The space between

Heaven and Earth, is it not like a bellows?”] is firmly associated with
the Daodejing in received literature, I suspect just the opposite may
have occurred; the analogy originated in literature like Yinshu, whence
it found its way into the Daodejing text. I cannot definitively prove
priority for the bellows analogy in the medical literature of macrobi-
otic hygiene; Daodejing was already circulating in the third century
BC, and Yinshu is certainly a younger text. But numerous examples
of cultivation techniques in Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui medical
texts—often couched in esoteric and metaphoric language—reveal
a rich macrobiotic lore that was not derived from a so-called Daoist
philosophical tradition. In the case of the bellows analogy, might not
the elaboration of a physiological bellows in macrobiotic hygiene have
preceded Daodejing?109

Harper’s work has advanced the modern study of early Chinese religions
beyond compare, but I have to note that the mental gymnastics involved in these
sorts of defenses against the use of the Daoism label are awkward at best. On the
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 127

other hand, there is no conclusive evidence one way or another that the origins of
the Daodejing were motivated by a particular kind of (Daoist?) political philosophy
or a particular kind of (hidden?) program of physical cultivation; this raises the
perennial question of the Daodejing: was it written for Kings or for Sages-to-be?
If we take the Daodejing as an accumulated text—in other words, that some
parts are earlier and other parts later, with other parts later still (who really
knows?)—then we can be persuaded by Harper’s arguments that the earliest lay-
ers were concerned with certain philosophical or political ideas, and ideas about
physical cultivation were later additions. Or we can be persuaded that the earliest
parts were about physical cultivation, and the political and philosophical parts
were themselves later additions.
Personally, even taking account of the many received versions of the Daode­
jing, I simply do not see any of its parts concerned with the political, by which I
specifically refer to bureaucratic position in governmental structures, with all due
respect to Foucault, the political commentaries by Xunzi, Huainanzi, Heshang
Gong, and Wang Bi notwithstanding. But then it is entirely possible that I am
missing something really important in my reading—maybe that elephant really
is in the room. My inability to see the political in the Daodejing is most likely a
consequence of the synthetic reading of the text that I adopt.
Roth takes a more reasoned approach than I do, and he sees three general
categories or distinctive layers of ideas, in more or less chronological order of
addition, in early Daoist writings including the Daodejing: the first is cosmology,
the second is self-cultivation, and the third is politics.110 His most forceful yet
succinct statement on this, and note that his position is the opposite of Harper’s,
is the following:

My hypothesis on the origins of Daoism is that it began as a lineage

of masters and disciples that practiced and transmitted a unique form
of guided breathing meditation involving this regular circulation of
vital breath. Political and social concerns and naturalist techniques
and philosophy represented later developments.111

This argument remains up for grabs, but I hope to add some weight to Roth’s
side of it because mine builds on his before leaving his behind.
I maintain that the political component simply is not there in the text
of the Daodejing, even as we read it today, and that Xunzi, Huainanzi, Heshang
Gong, and Wang Bi only found that political component by injecting it into the
text, and none of them has ever been accused of editing, redacting, adding to, or
altering the version of it that they had at hand. What each of them did, however,
was to atomize and isolate certain passages (the exact opposite of what a synthetic
reading calls for) and interpret them as speaking to the King. This is the power
of hermeneutics when it is exercised by very smart people with political agendas,
128 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

and let us not forget that Huainanzi, the uncle of Emperor Wu of the Han, was
executed for exactly that. Here then is an instance of the political that is more
in keeping with Foucault.
I want to return to what I refer to as two master traditions, early Daoism and
the fangshi, with the fangji as a hybrid third; each of them separately staked claims
to the xian label. Even though it is an eminently hidden tradition, early Daoism
presents a dearth of biographies that depict their adherents, and their xian tend
to be mythological and legendary. As an eminently public tradition, the fangshi
present a glut of biographies that depict their adherents, and their xian tend to
be historical (as witnessed by many of the historical records including the Shiji).
At some point, to use Harper’s phrase, these traditions “cross-fertilized,” giving
birth to a third tradition, the fangji (as witnessed, again, by the Shiji, but even
more importantly by the “Yiwen zhi”). How did that third tradition, the fangji,
come into cross-fertilized being?
I have gone to great lengths to provide a picture of something that I call
early Daoism, and I find that locating the first circulations of the Daodejing in
such an environment makes good sense. On the other hand, I have given only a
very brief outline of the origins of the fangshi, but that poses far less of a challenge
because they were public from the start. Although I have no way to document
this, it is also clear that at some point the Daodejing, both as a text and as a
phenomenon, went public, meaning that it was recognized and embraced by a
non-hidden and literate, even elite, segment of early Chinese society. When it
went public, however and whenever that happened, it, together with the yangsheng
practices that were an essential part of its circulation, had a tremendous effect
on that non-hidden and literate segment of society. People were excited by the
possibilities it offered, and longevity was at the top of the list (they were, after
all, elites; why would they want to die?).
The ideas and practices that are expressed and encouraged in the Daodejing
could be loosely connected with some areas of the fangshi tradition, but they
could not be entirely identified with it, because yangsheng was already stamped by
early Daoism. My opinion is that certain members (or participants or segments or
portions, call this what you will) of the fangshi tradition came to embrace those
yangsheng practices, and they also had a good business sense; those who took
control of these practices became what Harper calls “the physicians.” I (together
with Sima Qian and a few select others) call them the fangji.
I won’t apologize for the abstract nature of what I am attempting to describe,
but I call upon a handful of ideas put forth by Harper, who is also working in the
dark in his efforts to make sense of this new wave caused by the elite’s reception
of these practices. The primary difference between his understanding of this new
wave and mine is that I affirm an early tradition of Daoism in which I situate
yangsheng and he does not; Harper writes, “The Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan
macrobiotic hygiene texts provide a remarkably full record of a tradition of mac-
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 129

robiotic hygiene which by all appearances was taught to the elite by physicians
in the third and second centuries BC.”112 “Macrobiotic hygiene was a drawing
card for physicians by the third century BC . . . It is clear from the Mawangdui
medical manuscripts that the elite readership was perhaps equally influential in
shaping the contents of medical literature; they also participated in its disper-
sion.”113 And, finally: “I assume that the hygienic practices [yangsheng] in Li fils’
[the Mawangdui tomb occupant] manuscripts were customary rather than excep-
tional among people of his class.”114
Basing myself on Harper’s arguments, it is my claim that somewhere between
the third and second centuries BC, the Daodejing went public, and it was escorted
into the public spotlight by the fangji who were attracted to the yangsheng practices
that surrounded it on all sides. My rough date accords with Harper’s dates, which I
am happy to accept. A. C. Graham also sees something very important happening
around 250 BC (as do Bruce Brooks and Taeko Brooks), namely the ascription
Laozi’s name as author to the Daodejing. But I am confident that Graham’s date
does not mark the first circulations of the Daodejing as he would like so much
as it marks the public reception of the writing itself, girded by its attribution to
Laozi as author. Thus Laozi, virtually unrecognized before 250 BC, became one
of the two most famous figures of early China, next to Confucius himself. And
then he became divinized in the Han. The date of 250 BC marked a momentous
and tremendous development in Chinese civilization.
The fangji got their fang from the fangshi tradition and their xian from early
Daoism, and thus it comes as no surprise that their way, or dao, directly expresses
this. My quotation above from Shiji 28 left out an important phrase, which I pres-
ent here: “Song Wuji, Zhengbo Qiao, Chong Shang, and lastly Xianmen Gao, all
of whom were from Yan, practiced fangxiandao” 宋毋忌正伯僑充尚羨門高最後
皆燕人為方仙道 (Song Wuji Zhenbo Qiao Chong Song Ximen Gao zuihou jie Yan
ren wei fangxiandao).115
This passage presents the earliest recorded use of these three terms put
together, namely fang 方, xian 仙, and dao 道, to mark the dao of this hybrid
tradition of the fangji, and it has received scant scholarly attention; in fact, I
am aware of no Western-language study that has explored it to any extent. Yet
fangxiandao remains a central key in understanding the movements of these very
important faces of early Chinese religion hovering around all sides of the Daodejing
beginning around 250 BC and the public elite’s stance toward early Daoism. I
have neither the tools nor the space to pursue these ideas in the present work,
but this does not hold me back from suggesting that this is the probable path that
brought the Daodejing to Xunzi at the Jixia Academy and motivated his politically
oriented partial commentary to it near the end of the Warring States. I further
suggest that it was this public reception of the Daodejing, originally existing in the
form of an oral phenomenon for already quite some time before 250 BC, at least
three hundred years, with some degree of textual representation as demonstrated
130 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

by the Guodian Laozi, in an environment of mountainous Daoism, that directly

led to the formation of Huang-Lao Daoism, which in turn became the dominant
political ideology in the first many decades of the Han dynasty.
The great contemporary Chinese scholar of early Daoism, Hu Fuchen, writes:
“At the end of the Warring States, the shenxian 神仙 (“divine xian”) tradition
merged with the traditions of yin and yang and fangshu in the formation of fangxi­
andao.”116 He situates the shenxian tradition as one part of his encompassing under-
standing of Daoism, but I would narrow that to refer specifically to what I call
early Daoism; what he calls “the traditions of yin and yang and fangshu” I take
to refer to the fangshi tradition; and he also does not explicitly refer fangxiandao
to the fangji, as I do. These three caveats are only orientational, not crucial, for
understanding his following claims:

Fangxiandao appropriated the theories both of “long life and lasting

vision” [DDJ 59] from the shenxian tradition, and Zou Yan’s fangshi
theories. Its adherents spread and manufactured teachings about the
shenxian, they studied each of the shenxian methods and arts, and in
the society of the time they formed their own professional group that
relied on the shenxian arts and methods to earn their living. Fangxi­
andao flourished during the Qin and Han Dynasties . . . The activi-
ties of fangxiandao adherents in the Qin and Han included spreading
and producing shenxian theories of longevity without death; fangshi
religious activities [fangshi were public, unlike the adherents of early
Daoism] of preaching about the dao, accepting students, and compos-
ing writings; and practicing and developing the shenxian methods and
arts that were passed down from the ancient shamanic and scribal
culture. The ancient Chinese myths known during this time can be
divided into the Western cycles centered on Kunlun, and the Eastern
cycles centered on the xian islands. Fangxiandao changed these ancient
myths into myths about the xian, and they regarded Xiwangmu from
the Western cycles and Huangdi from the Eastern cycles as shenxian.
They revered fangshi of the fangxiandao, including Anqi Sheng, Xian-
men Gao, Heshang Wenren, and Taishan Laofu, as well as Dongfang
Shuo (Emperor Wu’s favorite official), as xian. They also developed
the cultivation methods leading the fangshi to become xian. All of
the fangshi of fangxiandao enjoyed the orthodoxy that comes from a
teacher to student transmission, and they had mutual networks of
recommendation for their novices.117

Hu hits on many of the characteristic hallmarks of fangxiandao, and his

descriptions of it go further than any other modern study of which I am aware,
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 131

and the fact that he names the adherents of this fangxiandao as fangshi is not
necessarily problematic. We have to name them as either fangshi or Daoists or
else come up with a new term for them because they were not, strictly speaking,
purely one or the other, but they certainly were not reclusive (and I do not accept
Harper’s physician label for them; that is just misleading). Simply and frankly
stated, these are the fangji.
Hu does not, however, use fangxiandao as a term without distinction but in
fact highlights it in terms of regional specialties; and if the practices that suddenly
went public are not all yangsheng (see his naming of zuowang, Zhuangzi’s “to sit
and forget,” which I do not include in the yangsheng rubric), I would argue that
they are all still Daoist:

In the Warring States, the primary features of fangxiandao in the

states of Yan and Qi were the ingestion of xian herbs and the refine-
ment of cinnabar and “the yellow and white” taught by Anqi Sheng
and Xianmen Gao. Fangxiandao in the areas of Qin and Jin offered
the teachings of the arts of the bedroom and sexual intercourse, and
believed that the mutual exchanges between a man and a woman could
increase the body’s qi, help to maintain a youthful appearance, and
extend one’s lifespan; they revered Peng Zu, Rong Chenggong, Xuan
Nü, and Su Nü. In the regions of the southern states of Jing, Chu,
Wu, Yue, Ba, and Shu, the fangshi taught the arts of qi circulation,
daoyin, tuna, and mingxiang [“mental stillness”]; they revered Wangzi
Qiao and Chi Songzi. During the Qin and Han, these three traditions
of arts and methods gradually merged together, and their adherents
came to revere Huangdi as their ancestral teacher . . . The alchemical
arts of the “yellow and white,” the combining of male and female qi,
and qi circulation and zuowang, were the three main pillars of Chinese
shenxian teachings.118

Although Hu’s distinctions are a bit fast and loose (as Gil Raz notes), I still
find them extremely informative, and I expect that further research will help to
clarify these types of regional distinctions. Raz, targeting Hu, writes:

Several scholars have tried to map regional traditions among fangshi

based on hagiographies and notices in traditional sources. Such mappings
of regional distinctions were constructed by methodologies which ignore
considerations of historical developments, agendas of the source materi-
als, and changes in popularity of specific practices at certain periods.
If we consider these variables while tracing how certain practices are
emphasized or ignored in the historical d­evelopments of hagiographies,
132 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

we would realize that these records reveal less about the individual
practitioners than about the changing popularity of practices, as well
as about proclivities of the authors or compilers of the narratives.119

I find Raz’s point well taken, but Hu’s work at the very least allows us a
starting point from which to make sense of all of the ins and outs of the very fluid
landscape of early Chinese religion, including early Daoism, and also including
the Daodejing. The next section of this chapter pursues this.

Yangsheng and the Daodejing

As I have noted several times, I am aware of no early Chinese transmitted com-

mentary to the Daodejing that directly presents an early Daoist reading of it,
although there are many indications that there were more than a few of them.
They remain in the shadows of history, either because they were never written
(which would be a consequence of yangsheng masters demonstrating their commit-
ment to pursue their own practice rather than to write about it), or, as Schipper
suggests, such commentaries were simply “not retained.” Indirectly referring to this
separate history while noting the absence of such commentaries, he also writes,
“From among all the glosses [read: commentaries] to the Daodejing—and there are
several hundred—the official culture of China has retained only the ‘philosophi-
cal’ ones. This, as we have seen, is by no means the more ancient tradition.”120
In the progress of this study to this point, I find it irresistible to note how far
we have come from efforts that would try to fit the circle into the square. By
this I mean that the now stale debates about whether the origins of Daoism
are more concerned with religion daojiao or philosophy daojia, or the even more
stale debates about whether or not there was anything before the second century
CE that could be called Daoism (in other words, all such debates from which
this work launched), have been left far behind. Not only do we find ourselves
mired (happily, I hope) in the nitty-gritty of intellectual, religious, and, if I may,
specific Daoist history, but it is also far more interesting and challenging than
the thunderbolt claims of the postmodern approach that, in the end, bark much
more loudly than they bite.
We can get a glimpse of what this type of early Daoist reading of the Daode­
jing, one grounded in yangsheng, might have looked like when we consider more
modern commentaries to it that have been written by contemporary taijiquan and
qigong masters, whose commentaries are grounded in their contemporary practice
and theory that are intimately related to yangsheng.121 It is difficult to overlook
the startling continuity of yangsheng and daoyin practices such as found in the
Daoyin tu with modern taijiquan; further, the early daoyin postures and movements
in imitation of animals are readily seen in daoyin’s more modern manifestation
as taijiquan. As an example of this, we can look at the most popular form of
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 133

modern taijiquan, the Yang style, and take note of the strong presence of animal
forms and postures in it, which include “White Crane Spreads Its Wings,” “Snake
Creeps Down,” and “The Golden Pheasant Stands on Left Leg.”122 Schipper also
recognizes this historical continuity between early daoyin and modern taijiquan
where he writes:

Guiding the energies (daoyin) is not alone stimulated through concen-

tration and massage but through physical exercises as well. One of the
earliest forms of moving daoyin was the Dance of the Five Animals
in which certain stereotyped gestures of the tiger, the bear, the deer,
the monkey and the owl are initiated. Among the manuscripts of the
second century BC discovered at the site of Mawangdui there is a
richly illustrated text [Yinshu] on different exercises of this and other
types. Intended to develop suppleness and relaxation and to improve
circulation, these exercises [daoyin] were the origin of today’s Daoist
gymnastics, of which taijiquan (“boxing of the Highest Ultimate”) is
an example. This wonderful method of harmony and well-being is a
martial art for the defense of the inner world. The slow, supple dance
of taijiquan performed with no apparent effort, is for everybody an
excellent initiation into the very essentials of Daoism . . . this form
of “boxing” is a rhythmical expression which guides the breathing and
which, through daily practice, conditions one for the Keeping of the
One [shouyi, a yangsheng practice for embodying the Dao].123

Coming as it does from one of the best modern Chinese scholars of early
Chinese history, Li Ling also recognizes and discusses the continuity of ancient
yangsheng with modern qigong. His perspective is a bit more cynical than Schipper,
but it is well worth noting:

In recent years, Chinese society has experienced a surge of “qigong

fever.” The qigong that people talk about these days, which incorporates
a vast amount of ideas, not only encompasses ancient “qi circulation”
and daoyin (and their numerous related techniques connected like
branches to flowers that are mostly misunderstood by people today),
is a fusion of traditional medical arts, Confucianism, Buddhism,
and Daoism. It is related to the martial arts techniques of attacking
and defending as well as to magical arts. It even assimilated related
techniques from foreign countries, including Hindu yoga, and it has
absorbed ideas and terminology from modern science. Strictly speak-
ing, however, the ideas that people currently have about the term
qigong are not quite the same ideas as those from ancient qigong, even
including its original vocabulary. It was only during the 1950’s, when
134 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Liu Guizhen (1920–1982) at Mount Tang and at the Beidai River,

both in Hebei, established qigong healing centers, that qigong began
to flourish everywhere.124

The history of yangsheng is not only very old but, as both Schipper and Li
point out, it is still alive and well today. Keeping in mind this total trajectory of
the history of yangsheng and returning to the earliest moments of it, I am pro-
posing that the tradition of early Daoism was either already in existence at the
time of the first circulation of the Daodejing or that it was born immediately with
and as a direct consequence of it. Because the Daodejing was originally an oral
phenomenon intended by and for adepts and novices, or masters and disciples,
rather than an originally written text, it was largely rhymed and remains not too
difficult to recite even as we have it today (but this does not take away from
the many IPS structures visible in the received text; in fact, the IPS structures
are more conducive to recitation than to reading). At some point, however, the
Daodejing went public, and it gained a ferocious popularity among the elites in
early China beginning around the year 250 BC. As Schipper writes, “The text of
the Daodejing is, in itself, not very difficult. The vocabulary and syntax are even
rather simple, although the style is extremely concise. The Daodejing is apparently
intended for the general reader.”125
Schipper’s comments are not in conflict with my claim that the text was
not only not written for the King, but that it was written for Sages-to-be. All
indications point to an extremely close relationship of the text to the practices
and techniques of yangsheng and daoyin, which were originally the exclusive pos-
sessions of early Daoism. But then the Daodejing went public, with momentous
and tremendous consequences for Chinese civilization. And, despite the fact that
no early Daoist commentaries have been transmitted through history, I propose
that the original reading of the Daodejing was the sole possession of this tradition
and that it fundamentally differs from any Confucian daojia or religious Daoist
daojiao reading.
It might be useful here to present a few passages of the Daodejing in which
yangsheng is most clearly demonstrated, but I keep this section very brief. The
most important of these passages is also the most enigmatic and abstruse, and it
is found in DDJ 10.

In keeping the po and embracing the One—can you do it without

letting them leave?
In concentrating the qi and making it soft—can you make it like that
of an infant?
In washing and purifying the profound mind—can you make it spotless?
In loving the people and ordering the state—can you do it non-
intentionally?
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 135

In opening and closing the Gateway of Heaven—can you play the

part of the hen?
In understanding all within the four reaches—can you do it without
using knowledge?

This passage provides extremely provocative indications of some early Daoist

yangsheng practices. It focuses on the cultivation of qi, the body, and the spirit,
three physical components that are inextricably intertwined in the early Daoist
understanding of the human being and the human body. The first line, “In keeping
the po and embracing the One” 載營魄抱一 (zai ying po bao yi), refers to the po,
one of the two energies or “souls” that Daoist discourse couples with the hun 魂;
po is the name for the bodily yin energy or corporeal soul, and hun is the name
for the mental yang energy or ethereal soul. The second line, “In concentrating
your qi and making it soft” 專氣致柔 (zhuan qi zhi rou), refers to the qi as breath.
The third line, “In washing and purifying the profound mirror” 滌除玄覽 (xi chu
xuan lan), refers to the mind or consciousness. Yangsheng practice, as reflected in
these lines, is the cultivation of the entire person: qi, body, and mind or spirit.
Although the names of these practices (together with various others referred
to throughout the chapters of the Daodejing)—for example “embracing the One”
baoyi and “concentrating qi” zhuan qi—are also found in the later practices of
institutionalized Daoism, existing materials from before the Han are extremely
meager and shed very little light on their specifics. What we can say about these
practices, though, is that the composer of these portions of the Daodejing had
something definite in mind and most likely was not making them up on the spot,
which means to say that these practices likely were taken seriously, performed,
and transmitted from masters to disciples: they had a specific content, hidden
though it is within the oral origins of the text. Such passages make it extremely
difficult to argue that there were no people who practiced and performed them.
I call them early Daoists.
DDJ 24 explores yangsheng in a more direct manner:

One who stands high is not stable.

One who strives does not move forward.
One who displays himself is not bright.
One who asserts himself is not prominent.
One who brags does not achieve merit.
One who praises himself does not live long.

In this passage, the first section of each line presents a series of physical
movements and attitudes that are unhealthy and cause early death, namely “stand-
ing high” 企 (qi), “striving” 跨(kua), “displaying oneself” 自見 (zijian), “asserting
oneself” 自是 (zishi), “bragging” 自伐 (zifa), and “praising oneself” 自矜 (zijin).
136 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Each of them has a deleterious physical consequence because they all cause the
internal physical energies, primarily qi, to become unbalanced, creating obstacles
and difficulties in the body’s total systems of physical circulation. Each of these
movements and attitudes brings a person to breathe with undue energy, which
makes the breath gasp and grow ever shallower. The second section of each line
describes the body of the Sage who is in complete harmony with his inner circu-
lation, and thus he is “stable” 立 (li), “moves forward” 行 (xing), and is “bright”
明 (ming), “prominent” 彰 (zhang), “meritorious” 功 (gong), and “lives long” 長
(chang). The ultimate goal of yangsheng, physical longevity, is fully present here
as it is in other sections of the Daodejing; it certainly did not enter later Daoism
from the outside.
The last instance of yangsheng that I present at this point is from DDJ 26.

The heavy is the root of Tranquility is the lord of

the light. agitation.

That is why the Sage

does not leave the laden and remains calm and composed
army cart though the march though there are magnificent
lasts the entire day, sights.

How can the lord of ten thousand war chariots treat
his own body more lightly than the empire?

Being light, he loses the root. Being agitated, he loses the lord.

One of the most striking features of this passage, as found in so many others
in the Daodejing, is its radically physical orientation that is relentlessly directed to
the actual body. To say that “the heavy is the root of the light” 重為輕根 (zhong
wei qing gen) does not refer (even if there also are multiple other significations) to
the center of the physical body is to go against the formidable tradition of qigong,
gongfu, and taiji readings of this passage. Later Daoism will call the center of the
body the Cinnabar Field 丹田 (dantian) located three inches below the navel.
In the reading at hand, “the laden army cart” 輜重 (zi zhong) directly refers to
this center; notice the duplication of zhong from the first line. The “agitation” 躁
(zao) referred to in the bottom-right column refers to one’s breath and circula-
tion; if they are harmonized, they remain “calm and composed” 燕處超然 (yan
chu chao ran), which is conducive for longevity, but if they are not harmonized,
they become agitated, which leads to death. If one is in harmony with the breath
and body, then even if one confronts “magnificent sights” 榮觀 (rong guan), the
 Ea r l y Dao is m, Yangsheng, a n d t he Daodejing 137

bodily systems of circulation will be maintained without blockages. The interpre-

tation that locates one essential meaning of this chapter in terms of yangsheng is
reinforced by the central column, according to the IPS structure, which associates
the body of the Sage with his army, that is, the energies of the body.126
 6

The Sage and the World

sts

Early Chinese Archetypes:

The Sage, the King, and the General

Archetypes play important roles in the origin and development of the various sorts
of cultural traditions, including philosophical, political, religious, and military.
Each of these four kinds of traditions possess its own specific kinds of archetypes,
the most typical being, respectively, the Philosopher, the King, the Saint or Sage,
and the General. My use of the term “archetype” does not completely coincide
with that of Carl Jung because archetypes, in my opinion, are neither universal
nor eternal; they are rather local and evolving. By local, I mean that archetypes
are shared only among groups, whether these are small groups like tribes or associa-
tions or big ones like nations or cultures. By evolving, I mean that they provide
the images and associations for current and later members of a group to alter,
augment, or transform.
Like Jung, I believe that archetypes are things of power and that they move
people emotionally, intellectually, morally, and behaviorally. Most importantly,
archetypes provide models for human thought that allow for metaphorical per-
sonifications of many of the central and defining notions of the various cultural
traditions. Through my researches into early China, I have come to see three
early archetypes that stand out for their clarity, popularity, and persistence; these
are the King 王 (wang), the Sage 聖人 (shengren), and the General 將 (jiang).1
These three archetypes have a particular affinity, one might even say home,
in their own specific traditions, but this did not stop members of other traditions
from pronouncing on them, sometimes with praise and sometimes with contempt.
It is sometimes even possible to track the birth of new or variant traditions by

139
140 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

following the growth to independence of their own archetypes often parented by

the commingling of two or more separate and preexisting ones from other tradi-
tions as they come into conversation with each other.2
These three early Chinese archetypes have their home in specific texts: the
King is at home in the Analects, the Sage in the Daodejing, and the General in
the Bingfa 兵法 (Art of War) attributed to Sunzi 孫子. Speaking about this in
terms of traditions, the King is at home in Confucianism, the Sage in Daoism,
and the General in Militarism. Among the various traditions of early China, the
only one of truly dominant proportions not listed here is Legalism, best represented
by the Han Feizi, and one can virtually track the origins of Legalism by looking
at the growth to independence of its major archetype, the King-Sage-General,
a kind of hybrid offspring of the three earlier archetypes. Confucianism, as well,
had a second important archetype also appearing in the Analects, the Gentleman
君子 (junzi), but this had a secondary position of importance in that only the
Confucians discussed it in any detail.
The Analects typically describes its King by reference to mythic figures who
were the first to establish Chinese civilization and whom Confucius considered
to be perfect rulers. The most important of them are unquestionably Yao, Shun,
and Yu, and Confucius talks about them a lot: he mentions Yao three times in
LY 6.30, 8.20, and 14.42; Shun five times in LY 6.30, 8.18, 8.20, 14.42, and 15.5;
and Yu two times in LY 8.18 and 8.21.
The most telling of these passages that explain Confucius’s near idolization
of them include LY 8.18: “How sublime were Shun and Yu: they had dominion
over the entire empire, but they were not attached to it” 巍巍乎舜禹之有天下
也而不與焉 (wei wei hu Shun Yu zhi you tianxia ye er bu yu yan); LY 15.5: “Shun
was certainly one of those who knew how to govern by inactivity. How did he
do it? He sat reverently on the throne, facing south, and that was all” 無為而治
者其舜也與夫何為哉恭己正南面而已矣 (wuwei er zhi zhe qi Shun ye yu fu he wei
zai gong ji zheng nanmian er yi yi); and LY 8.21: “In Yu, I find no flaw. He drank
and ate frugally, but displayed utmost devotion in his offerings to the ghosts and
spirits; he wore coarse cloth, but his liturgical vestments were magnificent; his
dwelling was modest, but he spent his energy in draining floodwaters. In Yu, I
find no flaw” 禹吾無間然矣菲飲食而致孝乎鬼神惡衣服而致美乎黻冕卑宮室而
盡力乎溝洫禹吾無間然矣 (Yu wu wu jian ran yi fei yin shi er zhi xiao hu gui shen
e yifu er zhi mei hu fu mian bei gong shi er jinlin hu gou xu Yu wu wu jian ran yi).
In addition to revering these ancient Kings, the Analects also looks forward
to a future King; LY 13.12, for example, has Confucius say, “If a King were to
arise, benevolence would prevail within a single generation” 如有王者必世而後
仁 (ru you wang zhe bi shi er hou ren).
On the other hand, Confucius, with great respect, mentions the Sage four
times in LY 6.30, 7.26, 7.34, and 16.8. I discuss the first two of these momentarily,
but in LY 7.34 he says that he would never dare to compare himself to a Sage,
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 141

and in LY 16.8 he says that “a gentleman fears the will of Heaven, he fears great
men, and he fears the words of a Sage” 君子有三畏畏天命畏大人畏聖人之言
(junzi you san wei wei tian ming wei da ren wei shengren zhi yan). The Analects does
not, however, mention the General, and this is likely because of Confucius’s belief
that if there were a King on the throne, the power of his virtuous rule would
eliminate the need for any exercise of sanctioned state violence.
The Daodejing is replete with descriptions of the Sage, but here I remark
only on two prominent ways that it presents him. The first is by reference to the
mythic past, “in antiquity” 古 (gu); DDJ 15 stands as the only chapter that is
entirely devoted to this form of presentation; the first three of its fifteen lines say,
“In antiquity, one who excelled at acting with the Dao was subtle and mysterious,
profound and penetrating, so deep that he could not be recognized” 古之善為士
者微妙玄通深不可識 (gu zhi shan wei shi zhe miao ao xuan tong shen bu ke shi).
The second is by way of presenting the actual words of the Sage introduced by
the phrase “The words of the Sage say . . .” 聖人云 (shengren yun . . .), as in DDJ
57 and 78. In fact, the latter might be just the sort of thing that the Confucian
gentleman holds in fear: “The words of the Sage say: ‘Only he who takes upon
himself the disgraces of the state is called the lord of altars of earth and grain.
Only he who takes upon himself the misfortunes of the state is called the King
of the empire’ ” 聖人云受國之垢是謂社稷主受國不祥是謂天下王 (shengren yun
ai guo zhi gou shi wei she ji zhu ai guo bu xiang shi wei tianxia wang). Note here
that the Sage speaks of the King as somebody other than himself; I reiterate here
once again, the Sage is not a King; they are different archetypes.
Although the Daodejing mentions the King half a dozen times, for the most
part he is an unremarkable figure in a position of political leadership and is usu-
ally coupled with princes or dukes, as in the phrase hou wang 侯王, seen in DDJ
32, 37, 39, and 42. The text does, however, make one particular reference to the
King in DDJ 78 quoted above, and this passage is the most powerful statement
in the entire text concerning the role of the King. Putting those lines in the
direct words of the Sage, the Daodejing thereby allows the Sage to present his
own vision of the highest value and function of the King, effectively working to
subordinate the King to the Sage, as if the text deliberately underlines the fact
that the Sage is not a King. The King is “to take upon himself the disgraces (and)
misfortunes of the state.” These words deeply resonate with DDJ 5, in which we
read about the “straw dog” 芻狗 (chugou) or scapegoat who either is sacrificed or
sacrifices himself for the evils (self-interest, injustice, tyranny, and warfare) that
create obstacles to the potent power of the Dao in its circulations throughout the
world and its ability to endow and sustain life. Because the King, of all human
beings, has the greatest opportunity to ruin life through his own pursuit of fame
and wealth, he is thereby the most responsible for those evils.
Finally, the Daodejing, in a tone of great solemnity, also mentions the Gen-
eral in four chapters, DDJ 30, 31, 68, and 69, as well as in the last two lines of
142 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

DDJ 48 and the first three lines of DDJ 57. These four chapters and two passages
devoted to the General are easy to recognize because the Sage is not in any way
identifiable with him, in the same way that the Sage is not in any way identifi-
able with the King. The tone of solemnity is due to the text’s great respect for
life and abhorrence of violent death, particularly death caused by war. Notice,
however, that despite the fact that the Daodejing places its highest values on the
nurture of life, DDJ 30 still can accept war “when one has no choice” 不得已
(bu de yi) in order to protect innocent life.
While the General and the Sage have their separate homes (the first in
Militarism and the second in Daoism), this is not to say that the General is not
concerned with the Dao (and the same goes for the King), but the General shares
more in common with the Sage than with the King. As DDJ 30 states: “One
who uses the Dao to assist the ruler will not use soldiers to impose his might
over the empire . . . The good [General] achieves his result, and that is all” 以
道佐人主者不以兵強天下 . . . 善[將]有果而已 (yi dao zuo ren zhu zhe bu yi bing
qiang tianxia . . . shan [jiang] you guo er yi).
The Analects makes reference only to the King and the Sage but not to
the General (for reasons pointed out above), while the Daodejing makes reference
to the Sage, the King, and the General. The Bingfa, for its part, makes continu-
ous reference to the General, but it makes no direct reference to the Sage, and,
although it talks about the ruler 君 (jun), it does not make reference to the King
(wang). The reasons for these absences are not impossible to figure out. First of
all, the absence of direct references to the Sage can be explained by the fact that
the General already embodies many of the qualities of the Sage; in essence, the
General subsumes the Sage in his own person. Indeed, the resemblances between
the Sage of the Daodejing and the General of the Bingfa are so close that doing
justice to them demands its own study; here I only point out a small number of
them.
First is the theme of non-competing, which the Daodejing presents through
the metaphor of water because, as it states, water is very much like the Dao. The
qualities of water, in their resemblance to the Dao, also describe the nature of
the Sage; thus, DDJ 8 states that “Water excels at benefiting the ten thousand
living things while not competing against them . . . It is only because it does not
compete, that there is no resentment” 水善利萬物而不爭 . . . 夫唯不爭故無尤
(shui shan li wanwu er bu zheng . . . fu wei bu zheng gu wu you). DDJ 78 continues
this motif of the non-competing nature of water: “Nothing in the world is more
pliant and supple than water, but for attacking the hard and rigid, nothing can
surpass it” 天下莫柔弱於水而攻堅強者莫之能勝 (tianxia mo rou ruo yu shui er
zheng jian qiang zhe mo zhi neng sheng).
The General is, like the Sage, also a master of the pliancy of water, and we
vividly see this in two sections in particular. BF 6 states: “Army formations can
be likened to water. Just as the formation of water avoids high ground and rushes
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 143

downward, so army formations avoid the enemy’s strong points and strike where
he is weak” 夫兵形象水水之形避高而趨下兵之形避實而擊虛 (fu bing xing xiang
shui shui zhi xing bi gao er qu xia bing zhi xing bi shi er ji xu). BF 3 focuses on the
General’s mastery of the art of non-competing: “The expert in using the military
subdues the enemy’s troops without going into battle, captures the enemy’s walled
cities without laying a siege to them, and crushes the enemy’s state without a
protracted war” 故善用兵者屈人之兵而非戰也拔人之城而非攻也毀人之國而非
久也 (gu shan yong bing zhe qu ren zhi bing er fei zhen ye ba ren zhi cheng er fei gong
ye hui ren zhi guo er fei jiu ye).
A second resemblance between the General and the Sage is that they are
unfathomable. In DDJ 70, the Sage says: “My words are easy to know and easy to
carry out, yet no one in the world can know them or carry them out. My words
have an ancestor, my project has a lord. Because nobody knows them, nobody
knows me” 吾言甚易知甚易行天下莫能知莫能行言有宗事有君夫唯無知是以
不我知 (wu yan shen yi zhi shen yi xing tianxia mo neng zhi mo neng xing yan you
zong shi you zong fu wei wu zhi shi yi bu wo zhi). In BF 6, the General says: “The
multitudes are unable to understand how I gain victory through formations even
though they are displayed in front of them. Everyone knows the formations that
have won victory for me, yet nobody understands how I established the winning
formations” 因形而措勝于眾眾不能知人皆知我所以勝之形而莫知吾所以制勝
之形 (yin xing er cuo sheng yu zhong zhong bu neng zhi ren jie zhi wo suo yi sheng
zhi xing er mo zhi wu suo yi zhi sheng zhi xing).
Other resemblances between the General and the Sage that I do not detail
here include a shared foresight that comes from their oneness with nature as well
as from their oneness with the Dao. I do not mean to erase the radical differences
between these two figures: the General works for the well-being of the world
through military means while the Sage works for the well-being of the world by
other, non-military means (which I explore in the next section of this chapter).
Because the General in the Bingfa subsumes so many of the qualities of the Sage,
there is no need to also bring the Sage into its discussions.
The Bingfa also does not talk about the King, but it talks at great length
about the ruler (jun). As we have seen from the Analects, Confucius never men-
tions the General, and this is because once there is a King on the throne, there is
no need for him; peace is pervasive throughout the empire, and the King in this
sense makes the General obsolete. What is at stake for the Bingfa, then, is essen-
tially the need for the continued presence as well as the benefits of the General
in the world. This is the main reason, so it would appear, that the Bingfa talks
about rulers but not the King. So it should come as no surprise that the General
is systematically given superiority over the ruler in much the same way that the
Daodejing systematically gives superiority to the Sage over the King.
There is a harmonious relationship between the General and the ruler, but
it can easily fall apart, and when it does it is inevitably the fault of the ruler.
144 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

BF 7 and 8 speak of “the General receiving his orders from the ruler” 將受命
於君 (jiang shou ming yu jun), but these orders only pertain to “assembling the
armies and mobilizing the population” 合軍聚眾 (he jun ji zhong). In the best-case
scenario, as BF 12 and 13 both state, this relationship can be described as that
between “the farsighted ruler and the superior General” 明君賢將 (ming jun xian
jiang), where “the farsighted ruler thinks the situation through carefully and the
good General exploits it fully” 明主慮之良將修之 (ming zhu chu zhi liang jiang
xiu zhi). Note that here the text substitutes “good” 良 (liang) for “superior” 賢
(xian) to describe the General.
This ideally harmonious relationship can easily sour when the ruler tries to
interfere with the General in the field, and this is the point when the General
exercises his superiority over the ruler. BF 3 enumerates “the three ways in which
the ruler can bring grief to his army” 軍之所以患于君者三 (jun zhi suo yi huan
yu jun zhe san); these are when the ruler orders a mistimed advance, interferes
with the administration of the army, and interferes with military assignments. It
finally states that “the side on which the General is able and the ruler does not
interfere will take the victory” 將能而君不御者勝 (jiang neng er jun bu yu zhe
sheng). BF 8 goes so far as to say that there are “commands from the ruler not
to be obeyed” 君命有所不受 (jun ming you suo bu shou).
The superiority of the General over the ruler ultimately verges on something
close to a cosmic justification; BF 1 states, “War is the great project of state. It
is the field on which life and death is determined, and the road [dao] that leads
to either survival or ruin” 兵者國之大事死生之地存亡之道 (bing zhe guo zhi da
shi si sheng zhi di cun wang zhi dao), and BF 2 gives the final statement on this:
“Thus the General who understands war is the final judge of people’s lives, and
lord over the security of the state and the families” 故知兵之將民之司命國家安
危之主也 (gu zhi bing zhi jiang min zhi siming guo jia an wei zhi zhu ye).
I have endeavored to highlight only a handful of important themes concern-
ing these three archetypes for two main reasons. First, I want to show the general
parameters of the archetype of the Sage by way of contrast to the King and the
General, because I hope that will allow the Sage to be seen in a much clearer light
by way of the contrasts and complementarities he shares with the King and the
General. Note that each of them is given a central, one might even say cosmic,
position for the well-being of the world within each of their home traditions.
Second, I want to show that the King is not always taken as the highest
source of order and well-being for the world, even and especially so for early
Chinese writings. Although the King is the supreme figure in the vision of the
Analects, the Daodejing reserves that position for the Sage while the Bingfa reserves
it for the General. In other words, not everybody in early China felt the need to
give his or her absolute fidelity to the King, despite what the Analects as well as
the majority of Warring States texts from the Confucians, the Mohists, and the
Legalists would have us believe.
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 145

In the remainder of this chapter, I intend to discuss the archetype of the

Sage as it is presented in the Daodejing, but first I would like to look briefly at
the two mentions of the Sage in the Analects that I have put off until now. In
the first, found in LY 6. 30, Zigong 子貢 asks Confucius the following question:
“What would you say of a man who showered the people with blessings and
brought relief to the multitudes? Could he be called benevolent?” 如有博施於
民而能濟眾何如可謂仁乎 (ru you bo shi yu min er neng ji zhong he ru ke wei ren
hu). Confucius then responds: “What has this to do with benevolence? This is
certainly a Sage! In this, even Yao and Shun would be found deficient” 何事於仁
必也聖乎堯舜其猶病諸 (he shi yu ren bi ye sheng hu Yao Shun qi you bing zhe). In
the second, found in LY 7.26, Confucius said: “I could never hope to meet a Sage”
聖人吾不得而見之矣 (shengren wu bu de er jian zhi yi). I want to remark on these
two passages because they say a lot, in a preliminary way, about the Daoist Sage.
First, according to these passages, the Sage is one who brings terrific benefits
by “showering the people with blessings” 博施於民 (bo shi yu min). The specific
kinds of blessings are not given in either of these passages, but we can well imag-
ine them having to do with what is arguably the highest value of early Chinese
civilization, harmony 和 (he), both social and natural.3
Second, the Sage is seen to have or undertake a kind of project, namely
“bringing relief to the multitudes” 濟眾 (ji zhong). This use of the term ji, primar-
ily meaning to aid, relieve, or save, is applied to all people universally; in other
words, the effect of the aid of the Sage has something of a cosmic flavor. We are
not positively and explicitly told from what the Sage aids or saves the multitudes,
but I would posit that it points to the opposite of that highest value mentioned, in
this case the absence or dissipation of harmony that results in chaos 亂 (luan). A
further consequence of this would be the idea that harmony existed more fully in
the past and that in recent ages that harmony has bit by bit undergone a process
of dismantling that might, according to the Analects, be saved or restored by the
cosmic influence of the Sage.
Third, Confucius makes it clear that the Sage is not the same as the King;
in fact, he explicitly compares the Sage with the King, and the King comes up
short in this comparison: “In this, even Yao and Shun would be found deficient”
堯舜其猶病諸 (Yao Shun qi you bing zhu). Note here the anonymity of the Sage,
who remains nameless and the recognizability of the King, examplars of which
are designated by the names Yao and Shun (in addition to Yu).
This raises the fourth point: that Sages are hard to find; Confucius says, “I
could never hope to meet a Sage” 聖人我不得而見之矣 (shengren wo bu de er
jian zhi yi). The reason for this is either because Sages existed more commonly
in the past and now there are none or because they are eminently hidden figures
and are not publicly displayed or exposed.
These are important points that deserve further comment as I move into a
more direct engagement with the early Daoist Sage because, in his many presen-
146 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

tations throughout the Daodejing, he embodies all of these points mentioned in

the Analects. In brief, the Sage brings benefit to the people; he completes a great
project; he is not a King; and he is hidden.
I would like to say a few more words about these four points because they
do, in a surprisingly precise way, demonstrate what I might even name as the
four primary elements of the Daoist Sage. The first two are positive in that they
show what a Sage does, and the last two are negative in that they show what a
Sage is not. As for these last two primary elements, I do not spend much time
exploring them in the present work; I have presented my arguments elsewhere
showing that the Sage is not a King and also that the Sage is hidden.4 For the
present work, I explore the ways in which the Daodejing takes the first two pri-
mary elements very seriously, namely that the Sage brings benefits and that the
Sage undertakes a great project. I analyze and discuss what these benefits are in
the next section of this chapter, and I analyze and discuss the great project in
subsequent chapters. By doing so, I hope to bring out from that most influential
of early Chinese works, the Daodejing, what an early Daoist Sage is and what
an early Sage does.

The Benefits of the Sage

The Sage is consistently described in the Daodejing as one who does not per-
form intentional acts for his own benefit; rather, his actions are all directed to
the benefit of the people. This idea comes out clearly in DDJ 81, the very last
chapter of the text.

The Sage does not accumulate.

Because he acts for other people, he has more for himself.
Because he gives to other people, he has even more for himself.
The Dao of Heaven is to benefit and not injure;
The Dao of the Sage is to act for others and not compete.

The Daodejing goes so far as to dignify these activities by identifying them

with a specific Dao, “the Dao of the Sage” 聖人之道 (shengren zhi dao), on par
with “the Dao of Heaven” 天之道 (tian zhi dao). By gathering together each of
these activities within a single Dao, the Daodejing introduces an essential element
in the nature and character of the Sage that resides at the core of this archetype:
he lives and acts for other people.
But this does not answer the question of exactly what benefits the Sage
provides. The simplest answer is found in DDJ 3, which states that the Sage
“fills their bellies” 實其腹 (shi qi fu), and DDJ 12, which states that he “acts for
the bellies” 為腹 (wei fu) of the common people. In a literal reading, this means
that the Sage benefits the people by giving them food to eat, but a more liberal
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 147

reading of this passage would have it mean that the Sage benefits the people by
allowing them to experience a more harmonious life that could be devoted to
the essential matters of existence, namely food but also shelter, clothing, and the
production of basic goods. Here is DDJ 3 in its entirety:

Not exalting the worthy makes Not valuing hard to obtain

people not compete. goods makes people not
become thieves.

Not displaying what is desirable brings the
hearts of the people not to be confused.

The regulating of the Sage is to

empty their minds and and weaken their ambition
fill their bellies, and strengthen their
bones.

He constantly brings the people to be

without knowledge and without desires.

He brings those with knowledge not to dare to act.

Acting non-intentionally, nothing is not regulated.

The term “desirable” 可欲 (keyu) found in the third line simultaneously
refers to “exalting the worthy” 尚賢 (shang xian) and “valuing hard to obtain
goods” 貴難得之貨 (gui nande zhi huo); by not displaying these, the people will
not be confused; in other words, the people will not compete against each other,
nor will there be thieves. The fourth line mentions the “regulating of the Sage”
聖人之治 (shengren zhi zhi); this, however, does not refer to any kind of govern-
ment policy because the Sage does not hold a government position; it refers to
the specific mechanism whereby he comes to provide benefits to the people. This
mechanism is given a rough kind of explanation in other chapters that I discuss
shortly, but for the moment, we can think of it as a kind of power of influence
or efficacy that works primarily on the psychic level of people, including their
emotions, mind, and spirit.
The Sage first of all calms people. Thus, the text says that the Sage “empties
their minds and fills their bellies; he weakens their ambitions and strengthens
their bones” 虛其心實其腹弱其志強其骨 (xu qi xin shi qi fu ruo qi zhi qiang qi
gu). By way of this psychic efficacy emitted by the Sage, the minds and ambitions
of people are calmed such that they scheme neither to find ways to compete
148 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

against others nor to steal from them. They have the calmness necessary to focus
on their bellies and their bones; these are the aspects of life on which harmony
stands or falls. Because the Sage does not “exalt” (shang), “value” (gui), or “dis-
play” (jian) worthy people or rare objects, his influence in the world brings the
people back to what is most important: life itself. In the same way, the efficacy
of the Sage brings the people to reduce the knowledge of how to compete and
do away with their desire to possess things even to the degree that there are no
longer any thieves.
The ideas found in DDJ 12 are not dissimilar to those in DDJ 3, but it
offers a slightly different perspective.

The five colors cause the eyes to go blind.

The five tones cause the ears to go deaf.
The five flavors cause the palate to go bland.
Racing horses and hunting cause the mind to go mad.
Goods that are hard to obtain pose an obstacles to one’s travels.
For this reason, the Sage is for the stomach and not for the eyes.
He rejects that [what is for the eyes] and takes this [what is for the
stomach].

Many chapters of the Daodejing follow the structure of this one, which is
to say that a first section of however many lines directly pursues a single theme;
lines are tightly interwoven with each other and are often left without a strong
conclusion. Then a second section follows, typically with such phrases as “For this
reason” 故 (gu) or “Therefore” 是以 (shiyi), but there is at first glance no obvi-
ous connection with the theme or content of the first section. Almost invariably,
the topic of the final section is the Sage (or, less often, the Dao), so we might
think that, in that final section, the Sage (or the Dao) is presented as the ideal
person (or entity) who either actually or ideally enacts or embodies the concepts
of the first section. Sometimes, however, it is virtually impossible to imagine any
connection between them (and DDJ 10 is a good example of that). In DDJ 12,
however, the relation is fairly obvious.
The first section discusses the consequences of not controlling oneself in
the encounter with things that can carry a person away from himself or herself.
The first five lines describe the consequences of the knowledge and desire at issue
in DDJ 3. The mention of the three separate “fives” refers to the total spectrum
of possible sensory stimuli ushering in a state of sensory overload brought on
by uncontrolled activity motivated by knowledge and desire. Notice that all of
these things are outside the self (things seen, music heard, food tasted, exciting
events, and precious objects), and when one’s center of attention is not the inner
body but rather the things of the external world, it directly causes the depletion
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 149

of one’s internal life energies, which should be maintained and vitalized. When
they are not, the body exhausts: blindness, deafness, tastelessness, overwhelmed
mind, and fatigue ensue.
The invariable focus of the Daodejing is directed to the radical physicality
of existence, and the final section of this chapter presents the Sage as one who
concentrates on the internal body: he directs himself to the stomach, otherwise
known in later Daoists texts as the “Cinnabar Field” 丹田 (dantian), while direct-
ing himself away from the attractions of the external world. This is why the Sage
acts to reduce and do away with of knowledge of and desire for external attrac-
tions: “The Sage is for the stomach and not for the eyes. He rejects that and
takes this” 為 腹不為目故去彼取此 (wei fu bu wei mu gu qu bi qu ci).
DDJ 49 continues with a very much related type of benefit brought by the
Sage to the people: he augments their goodness and trustworthiness.

The Sage has no constant mind.

He takes the mind of the common people as his mind.

“Those who are good I treat Those who are not good I also
good. treat good.

In doing so I attain goodness.

Those who are trustworthy Those who are not trustworthy
I trust. I also trust.

In doing so I get their trust.”

When the Sage is present in the world he is absorbed in it,

He merges his mind with the world.
The common people all fix their eyes and ears on him,
And the Sage treats them all as his children.

This chapter expresses the saving influences of the Sage and gives a pre-
cise depiction of how he goes about saving and transforming people. It shares
a deep resonance with DDJ 3, which states that “he empties their minds and
fills their bellies, and weakens their ambitions and strengthens their bones,” but
here, in DDJ 49, the Sage treats all people as good and they become good; he
treats all people as trustworthy and they become trustworthy. He is able to do
this because of his intense empathy for them and because of his commitment
to spreading the life-giving and life-enhancing potency of the Dao. The Sage
augments the go­odness and trustworthiness of the people by treating them with
150 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

goodness and trust and nothing more. He can do this, first, because he has reduced
his k­nowledge and desire such that he acts only for others and never for his own
benefit in terms of power, fame, or wealth; and second, because he has replaced
his own mind with the mind of the people, and this is the supreme mark of his
empathy.
The Sage has total empathy with the people surrounding him; he under-
stands their fears and joys, their grief and happiness. He also understands that
the most effective way to have people positively respond to each other and their
situations is through the harmony that gently coaxes the reduction of knowledge,
ambition, and desire, but that also gently coaxes the augmentation of goodness and
trustworthiness. The Sage can do this because he takes the mind of the common
people as his own, and this notion of the Sage’s empathy provides an entryway
into seeing the specific mechanism whereby he exercises his efficacy.
The Sage merges with the world and takes the mind of the people as his
own; because of this, his efficacy works from the inside out.5 He does not inten-
tionally act in a self-conscious way either by promulgating political policy or
legislation or by performing miracles of spectacular exhibition; his methods of
returning the people to harmony are much more subtle and non-intrusive. One
might say that his efficacy derives from modeling goodness; indeed, DDJ 22 and
28 specifically refer to him as “the model of the world” 天下式 (tianxia shi). The
people, however, are never depicted as returning to harmony by actively and
intentionally emulating the Sage; he is a model of goodness, not a model for it
(here I thank Clifford Geertz for the distinction).
The Daodejing depicts the common people as returning to harmony almost
without knowing that they are doing so; DDJ 17 shows the people saying, “We
are so naturally” 我自然 (wo ziran). Still, the Sage consciously realizes his value
for the people, and he also consciously understands the mechanism whereby he
benefits them. This is explicitly given in the direct words of the Sage in DDJ
43: “From this I know the benefit of non-intentionality. Few in the world can
realize the teachings without words and the benefits of non-intentionality” 吾
是以知無為之有益不言之教無為之益天下希及之 (wu shiyi zhi wuwei zhi you yi
tianxia xi nai zhi).
The Sage directly says that his “non-intentionality” 無爲 (wuwei) brings
“benefit” 益 (yi). The performance of non-intentional activity is, in this passage,
virtually named as “the teachings without words” 不言之教 (buyan zhi jiao).
Again, it is important to emphasize that the Sage does not set a model of behav-
ior for other people to emulate, at least not first of all. His non-intentionality
is much more active, and it is able to produce results directly on the people.
Turning back briefly to DDJ 3, it states: “He brings those with knowledge not
to dare to act; acting non-intentionally, nothing is not regulated.” The most
powerful presentation of the benefits brought by the Sage to the people, however,
is given in DDJ 57.
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 151

That is why the Sage says:

“I act non-intentionally, and the people spontaneously transform.
I love tranquility, and the people spontaneously align.
I am without intentional projects, and the people spontaneously flourish.
I am without intentional desire, and the people spontaneously are
made simple.”

Arguably the most important line in this passage is the first: “I act non-
intentionally, and the people spontaneously transform” 我無為而民自化 (wo
wuwei er min zi hua). This line states that through the efficacy released by the
non-intentional activity of the Sage, the people spontaneously, that is without
conscious intention or knowledge of their actually doing so, “transform” 化 (hua).
What kind of transformation is this? It is the transformation into harmony.
The mechanisms of the benefits enumerated in the following lines, namely
“loving tranquility” 好靜 (ai jing), being “without projects” 無事 (wu shi), and
being “without desires” 無欲 (wu yu), are secondary aspects of non-intentionality.
The results of these non-intentionalities also are given as further demonstrations
of the transformation of the people, namely that they “align” 正 (zheng), “flour-
ish” 富 (fu), and are made “simple” 樸 (pu). These, then, are the specific benefits
of the Sage. By “aligning,” the people harmonize with the spontaneous course of
nature and reduce their dependence on culture. By “flourishing,” the people have
their material needs provided for, and they can live at peace without the threat
of famine, poverty, or tyranny. By being “made simple,” the people have reduced
their knowledge, which motivates competition, and their desires, which motivate
greed and discontent. I continue to return and refer to these four benefits of the
Sage throughout the remainder of this study; they are central to everything the
Daodejing has to say about the benefits (yi) of the Sage.
In this section, I have examined the first aspect of the archetype of the
early and hidden Daoist Sage of the Daodejing, namely that he provides benefits
to the common people. I have demonstrated that these benefits are themselves
non-material in any direct or specific way; the benefits work on the psychic being
of humans in terms of emotions, mind, and spirit. Further, they have nothing to
do with government activity; they are not provided or enforced by government
arms; and the benefits are for the most part targeted to the common people, not
the court or the elites of society. Finally, the specific mechanism whereby the
Sage provides these benefits to the people is the non-intentionality (wuwei) of
his activity; it is not reducible to a science.

Qi: The Stuff of Life

The ultimate value of the benefits (yi) brought to the people by the Sage does
not relate to wealth or specific objects of high exchange value, which is the more
152 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

typical meaning of yi as “wealth” or “prosperity” maintained by Confucius and

Mozi. LY 11.7 states, “The head of the Ji clan was richer than the Duke of Zhou,
yet [Ran] Qiu continued to collect taxes for him, adding to his wealth (yi)” 季
氏富於周公而求也為之聚斂而附益之 (Ji shi fu yu Zhou Gong er Qiu ye wei zhi
ju lian er fu yi zhi). Mozi 1.3.7 states, “If all of one’s friends love benevolence
and righteousness, and they are honest, circumspect, and law-abiding, then one’s
family will daily become more prosperous (yi)” 其友皆好仁義淳謹畏令則家日益
(qi you jie hao ren yi chun jin wei ling ze jia ri yi).
Next to these uses of the term yi, the yi (benefits) of the Sage concern
rather a return to a total way of life by the common people that is in complete
accord with physical, social, political, and spiritual harmony. That this is a return
presupposes a current physical, social, political, and spiritual environment that is
in some way deficient in which the common people do not presently enjoy those
benefits. It makes sense to think of two related aspects involved with them, one
that is backward looking and one that is forward looking. The former suggests that
the reception of those benefits is a kind of return to a state in which they were
previously enjoyed, while the latter points to a future transformation. In other
words, by returning to a state known in the past, a transformation is effected that
will raise the people’s current state to new heights in the future. To conceive
this more clearly, it might be useful to briefly present the model of two separate
harmonies, which I call first order and second order.
The first-order harmony refers to the environment of the cosmological
unfolding of the pristine Dao in the coming-to-be of the present world; DDJ 42
succinctly presents this in the lines “Dao gave birth to the One, the One gave
birth to the Two, the Two gave birth to the Three, and the Three gave birth to
the ten thousand living things.” Subsequent to the formation of the world and
with the advent of human civilization, the first-order harmony was disrupted,
threatening the Dao with becoming shut off from the world. The second-order
harmony, incepted by the Sage, is soteriological, and it will bring about a renewed
harmony surpassing the first-order harmony by reuniting the Dao with an expe-
rienced humanity and a developed world.6
Both harmonies, separated from each other by the ever-current period of
disruption, are able to subsist only because they are the truest expression of the
pristine Dao in the world. In saying this, I am reminded of that most characteristic
commitment that separates Daoism, in both its early and later or institutionalized
forms, from all other religious and philosophical traditions. This is that Daoism is
more committed to the nurturance of life, and by this I mean the nurturance of
the rawness of physical, biological life, to a degree that is certainly not surpassed
by any other world tradition. This is, in fact, the most basic and non-technical
meaning of yangsheng.
To be more specific, the Daodejing attributes the pristine Dao’s most powerful,
awesome, constant, and marvelous benefit to its fundamental activity of spontane-
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 153

ously endowing life to all things that live. One of the Daodejing’s most constant
refrains is that the Dao gives birth to all things 道生之 (dao sheng zhi), and I think
we need to take this verb sheng literally precisely in the sense of giving birth: the
Dao itself is the immediate source of the life and existence of all things. There are
not very many scholarly writings that attend to these kinds of claims made by the
Daodejing, which to me is striking because this is the ultimate claim made by the
Daodejing. Zhang Guangbao, however, is one scholar who does explore this insight:

The “communion of the Dao and life” 生道合一 is a fundamental

piece that Daoists must observe when developing the theory of the
Dao . . . The Dao revealed itself through human life and its manifes-
tation was the human act of realizing and comprehending the Dao.
The “communion of the Dao and life” could be found not only on
the spiritual level, but also on the corporeal . . . The link between
the realization of the Dao and longevity was the basis of philosophi-
cal Daoism’s theories. As one of the important Daoist philosophers,
Wenzi has formulated this link with the phrase: “life is the Dao.” This
opinion, shared by all pre-Qin Daoist philosophers, presented concisely
the Daoist emphasis on life.7

I suggest that things are a bit more complicated than what Zhang’s com-
ments indicate. To say that “the Dao is life” refers to human life, of course, but
also to the life of all things and, ultimately, to phenomenal existence itself. To
better understand the relation between the Dao and life, a couple of other terms
need to be brought into discussion, namely qi 氣and de 德. And the Sage is always
hovering amid the Dao, de, and qi. Only by attending to this fuller conception of
the mechanisms and processes of life expressed by the Daodejing can we hope to
get a firmer handle on how the text understands the deficient and fractured state
of the world, the cause of which is directly attributable to a destructive human
knowledge that necessitates the salvific activity of the Sage.
With respect to the Daodejing, to say that qi is the stuff of the Dao and de is
its localization in any living thing are two relatively non-controversial statements,
but they need to be explored in the context of the Daodejing’s fullest conception
of life and harmony. Over the course of the next several pages, I provide a brief
study of de and qi together with a targeted survey of some of the major Western
scholarly views on them. Most of these views come from the works of historians
of early Chinese philosophy in general rather than of early Daoism in particular,
but they all have important things to say about these two terms.
I cannot provide an in-depth analysis of all of these works, particularly
because what they say is not all that different, and many of them ask the same
kinds of questions and provide the same kinds of answers: Is qi more on the side
of the matter or energy? It is material in the sense that it consists of the (virtually
154 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

molecular) building blocks from which all things attain substance and materiality,
but it is also energetic in the sense that it is the dynamic force of movement
by which all things are animated; Benjamin Schwartz, for example, succinctly
writes: “Yet one may nevertheless agree that qi comes to have properties of both
energy and matter . . .”8 As for de, is it more on the side of charisma and power
or virtue, with the physical attraction that virtue exerts? Chad Hansen writes,
“Our linguistic and behavioral mastery, the entire repertoire of skills, is our de-
virtuosity. Translators are, accordingly, torn between virtue and power in translat-
ing the term.”9 These are, in my mind, relatively uninteresting questions for me
to explore because so many modern scholars have already done this groundwork;
I simply attempt to climb on top of their shoulders. What I offer is a somewhat
iconoclastic and possibly jarring way of interpreting them as they are deployed
throughout the Daodejing.
Let me announce right off the bat where I will be taking this brief foray into
these terms: qi is the stuff of life for all things that exist. Because each thing that
has life only continues to have life because it is alive, then being alive precisely
means that that thing has its own active and functioning systems of circulation,
and this is de. For the most part, these are internal systems of circulation (diges-
tive, respiratory, limbic, and so forth) enclosed or encased by the outer skin, but
some are also external, as circulation also refers to, for example, atmospheric
circulations.
The stuff that circulates within each system, whether one takes this as
energy or matter, is qi, which has multiple levels of signification: externally it
can refer to air and internally it can refer to breath. For the Daodejing, qi and
de have concretely physical references, whereas other non-Daoist early Chinese
writings typically moralize them (and Western scholars usually follow their lead
in their studies of the two terms).
I am not claiming that those other early Chinese writings are wrong (or the
modern Western studies that follow their lead); the Daodejing simply uses these
terms differently. But I need to qualify this because sometimes its uses conform
to those other early Chinese writings, but other times they do not; it is entirely
contextual. Nonetheless, to force all uses of qi and de in the Daodejing to con-
form to mainstream early Chinese uses of them only serves to compromise our
understanding of the text.
Briefly, qi as both the material and energetic presence of the Dao in the
world is the basic elemental stuff that makes up all things, including rocks, riv-
ers, air, and bodies. As Paul Unschuld writes, qi “included related ideas and phe-
nomena such as ‘that which fills the body,’ ‘that which means life,’ ‘breath,’ and
‘vapors’ in general, such as clouds in the sky, or even ‘wind.’ ”10 The term qi is
not found in the oracle bones or bronze inscriptions or even in the Shijing, which
leads Donald Harper to write, “The graph qi 氣 may have had earlier associations
with food and breath, from which the idea of ‘stuff’ in nature arose. By the fourth
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 155

century BC the word was already a fixture in discourse on nature; barring new
evidence, the question of etymological derivation is moot.”11
The locus classicus for all discussions of qi is found in the Zuozhuan, which
states, “Heaven has six qi. The six qi are yin, yang, wind, rain, darkness, and light”
天有六氣六氣曰陰陽風雨晦明也 (tian you liu qi liu qi yue yin yang feng yu hui
ming ye).12 Schwartz comments on this passage by saying, “It is by no means clear
that the six qi are conceived of as one pervasive stuff/energy,” and he is right
that it is not clear, but I might nonetheless say that it does seem that qi here is
used to name a pervasive stuff, namely atmospheric phenomena.13 Schwartz also
draws attention to a later passage from the Zuozhuan in which a certain physician
rebukes a certain duke for his sexual excesses that cause his qi not “to be properly
regulated and to circulate freely.”14
In the Zuozhuan we already see qi as something that circulates, both in the
atmosphere as well as in the individual body, where physical health (and, later,
longevity) is at stake. Harper writes, “It is not clear whether qi was initially a word
for atmospheric vapors (clouds, steam, etc.) that was generalized to encompass
the source of human vitality and everything else; or whether qi was a term for
the life-sustaining stuff received from food, drink and air or breath, which was
extended to the natural world.”15
The associations of qi with life (whereby all things exist as configurations of
qi) and water (especially as this relates to the atmospheric circulations of moisture)
have not been entirely overlooked by modern scholars. Or, as Roger Ames writes,
“The world, then, is the efficient cause of itself. It is resolutely dynamic, autogen-
erative, self-organizing, and in a real sense, alive. This one world is constituted as
a sea of qi—psychophysical energy that disposes itself in various concentrations,
configurations, and perturbations.”16
Sarah Allan, although she continues to read qi as a fixture of the philosophi-
cal discourse of the Warring States that emphasizes its moral content (“as the vital
energy of the mind/heart, it is that which controls our thoughts and emotions,
the sources of our moral sensibilities”17), nonetheless intuits its basis in water:
“The primary model for the concept of qi is water in the form of vapor, but water
vapor may disperse, liquefy as water, or solidify as ice. Thus qi encompasses not
simply vapor but all the various forms that vapor may take including the liquid
and the solid.”18 She continues: “In the natural world, it is literally the cycle of
water that runs down in streams, rises as mist, falls as rain, and gives life to the
plants. As human breath, it is that which gives us our vitality.”19
I want to push this relationship between qi and water just a bit further
because I believe that this is one of the keys to understanding the Daodejing as
something other than a Warring States writing of political philosophy. What is
at stake is a reading of it that expresses the fundamental ideology of physical
cultivation, namely yangsheng, which is directed to three different but related
transformations: of the body, of the state, and of the world. And this reading
156 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

strives to allow such terms as qi and de to have the necessary space to refer to
anything but moral markers of an ethically normative way of life in the world;
this reading of the Daodejing takes early Daoism seriously. To read the terms qi and
de as having radically physical referents is fundamental for this approach: qi has
to do with the systems of circulation of the actual body, and de has to do with
the vitality that comes with the power of circulation; neither use even remotely
concerns morality. John Lagerwey writes:

In China, it is the breath [qi] tout court that counts: in the tohu-
bohu—which the Chinese call hundun, Humpty-Dumpty—of origins,
the breath circulates, at first without form, chaotic, then, after long
cycles of gestation, taking form, or rather settling. The pure and light
breaths arise to form heaven, while the agitated and heavy breaths
descend to form earth. Soon, the universe—a universe called tiandi,
Heaven and Earth—comes to exist. But in this universe, the breath
continues to circulate, especially in the form of water: the clouds rise
above the mountains—they spit into the mouth of grottoes—and the
rain falls. The rain falls and insinuates itself underground to form
underground rivers. Thus underground, the breath circulates in the
form of water—water which vivifies and fecundates—in a vast network
of veins before coming up to the surface to irrigate the fields or form
clouds. As for the image of water, humans belong at the same time to
heaven and earth and circulate between the two: the head is round
like heaven, and the feet are flat like earth . . . Like this, the essential
trait of the breath is that it circulates. Not surprising, however, is that
the salvific act par excellence is to make circulate.20

My point in giving this quotation is to point out the importance of circula-

tion, a circulation that is located and found both in the external world of atmo-
spheric phenomena and in the internal world of the individual body. If we speak
of this in terms of either atmospheric cycles (and Allan writes, “Clouds and rain
form a cycle of ever renewed water”21) or rhythmic systems of circulation within
the internal body, what circulates is qi, and this has nothing to do with ethics;
further, the power of these cycles and systems of circulation are understood, at
least in the Daodejing if not in all of the early Daoist writings, as radically physical.
There is almost no difference between the Dao and qi in terms of both what
they are and what counts for life. When DDJ 42 states that the Dao gave birth
to the One as qi, then qi is best understood as something like the breath of the
Dao, and this is entirely in line with Lagerwey’s translation of it as “breath” (Fr.
“souffle”). Indeed, in several instances the Daodejing uses the term “One” 一 (yi) to
refer simultaneously to both the Dao and qi; for example, DDJ 14 states, “One—its
top is not encompassed, its bottom is not perceived. Boundless, boundless!” 一
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 157

其上不皦其下不昧繩繩 (yi qi shang bu jiao qi xia bu mei sheng sheng). Allan is

in agreement with this where she writes, “The term ‘one’ takes on a particular
importance in certain Warring States texts. One, yi 一, is a numeral, and this
provides a range of abstract meanings, including both the single and the indivis-
ible whole . . . In Daoist texts, yi, ‘one,’ is often used interchangeably with dao.”22
The Daodejing sometimes identifies the Dao and qi, and while this identifi-
cation is not systematic, neither is it thoughtless. I point this out to shed more
light on the three-way relationship between the Dao as the source of life, qi as
the stuff of life, and de as the circulation of qi within any existing body.

De: Circulation Is Not Always Virtuous

The notion of de is one of the more dynamic terms to be found in early Chinese
writings, and it possesses a wide array of meanings that developed, changed, and
accumulated over time. It often is understood to refer to virtue, but more in the
sense of the Latin virtus, as many scholars note. I realize that my translation of de
as “rhythmic systems of circulation” will come as a surprise to many readers who
place this term squarely at the heart of Chinese moral philosophy, even as they
cut a little slack for the Daodejing to use it in just a slightly different way. A. C.
Graham’s comments on de have exerted the greatest influence on how modern
Western scholars read the term:

De, which has often been translated as “virtue” (to be understood as in

“The virtue of cyanide is to poison” rather than in “Virtue is its own
reward”), had been traditionally used of the power, whether benign
or baleful, to move others without exerting physical force. Confucius
uses it in this sense of the charisma of Zhou which won it universal
allegiance, but moralizes and widens the concept, so that it becomes
the capacity to act according to and bring others to the Way. The
two concepts [Dao and de] are interdependent, as later in Daodejing a
person’s de is his potentiality to act according to the Dao.23

The Shijing uses the term de roughly seventy times, where it means virtue
in virtually every instance. Some of its common compounds include the phrase
deyin 德音, used twelve times, where it means “virtuous reputation”; lingde 令德,
used four times, where it means “excellent virtue”; and dexing 德行, used five
times, where it means “virtuous behavior.” Allan provides several cogent remarks
on the term’s ancient uses in the bronze inscriptions, and she comments on the
hereditary nature of its transmission within a lineage: “These inscriptions also
speak of the ‘perfect de’ or its ‘corrective power’ (zhengde 正德) transmitted to
the worshipper from his ancestor, from which we know that de was hereditary
and particular to the family or clan.”24
158 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Allan explains that the root metaphor of de is that of a seed transmitted

through the family (this is a component of the term that I do not necessarily dis-
agree with but that I also do not want to overemphasize), and she writes that it is
that which “gives people their particular forms” and “their physical appearance.”25
I would like to keep these ideas about the relationship of de with the physical
form in mind because they help to explain the ways in which the Daodejing uses
the term in the meaning of circulation.
In many of these ancient uses, de is something that only certain people
possess, especially rulers, and it shows itself in the ruler’s interactions within an
extended field of social and political relationships such that people desire to par-
ticipate in them; this appears to be exactly what Graham means when he writes
that de is “the power to move others without exerting physical force.”
David Nivison provides an eloquent analysis of the ancient Chinese uses of
this term, and he discusses two components of it. The first is the way in which
it is exercised by one who possesses it, namely through being dutiful with the
rituals, but also through restraint, generosity, lack of force, humility, and non-
assertiveness. The second is the effect of its exercise, which he calls “moral force”:
“the source of the concept seems to be what we might call gratitude credit—a
compulsion felt by the benefited person to respond favorably to the benefactor, felt
so strongly that it seems to be a psychic power emanating from the benefactor.”26
Here, de is an internal force that is exercised on and influences other people as
well as the world at large.
Building on Nivison’s work, Yuri Pines provides a complementary historical
analysis of the term, and he designates three central aspects of it.27 The first he
calls mana or charisma, referring to the magical power of influence and attraction;
the second is grace or kindness; and the third is adherence to ritual norms. Note
the loose correspondence between the two components named by Nivison (in
which the first includes both duty to ritual and five kinds of attitude in behavior)
and the three aspects named by Pines. In other words, both see in de an element
of magical influence or charisma, ritual conscientiousness, and grace in action.
An approximate but solid definition for the ancient uses of de is charismatic
leadership in terms of an energetic excitement that comes from within a person
wielding political authority and that is projected onto those who come into the
field of its orbit. Confucius gives a provocative statement that illustrates this idea
in LY 16.1: “If distant peoples are not submissive, all the influences of culture
and de are to be cultivated to attract them to be so. After they have been so
attracted, they must be made to feel secure” 遠人不服則修文德以來之既來之則
安之 (yuan ren bu fu ze xiu zhi wen de yi lai zhi ji lai zhi ze an zhi). In this passage,
notice the confluence of “culture” 文 (wen) and de and their shared quality of
attraction when and if the influences of culture and de are correctly exercised.
Neither culture nor de in this use are grounded in morality as such, and what is
paramount is simply their political effect to attract and cause submission.
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 159

In still other passages, Confucius continues to emphasize the charismatic

nature of de in the arena of political leadership; LY 2.1 states: “He who rules by
de is like the North star, which remains unmoving in its place while all the other
stars pay it tribute” 為政以德譬如北辰居其所而眾星共之 (wei zheng yi de pi ru bei
zhen ju qi suo er zhong xing gong zhi). The ruler exerts a charismatic influence on
those around him solely because of his moral charisma; LY 15.5, although it does
not directly mention de, further demonstrates the idea that the ruler best exerts
this charisma simply by doing nothing: “Was it not Shun who effected proper
order by wuwei? What did he do? He simply assumed a deferential posture while
facing south” 無為而治者其舜也與夫何為哉恭己正南面而已矣 (wuwei er zhi zhi
qi Shun ye yu fu he wei zai gong ji zheng nan mian er yi yi).
Despite these and other such passages from the Analects that continue to
maintain a strong association between a politically charismatic de and the ruler,
both it and the Daodejing separately injected several radical innovations into the
ancient uses of de, and David Hall and Roger Ames have recognized and com-
mented on this:

The focus of the Daoists’ discussions [of de] is predominately a cos-

mological account of the cyclical processes of existence where de is
regarded as categorical: the presencing of a particular. In the Analects,
on the other hand, de would seem to be specifically social and moral
in its applications: the extent to which, through patterns of deference,
the influence of the particular takes on normative force.28

The great innovation of the Analects concerning de as charismatic moral

leadership was its identification of it in persons other than rulers, exemplified by
LY 12.19: “The de of a gentleman is the wind, and the de of the common people
is the grass. Under the wind, the grass must bend” 君子之德風小人之德草草上之
風必偃 (junzi zhi de feng xiao ren zhi de cao cao shang zhi feng bi yan). In LY 12.10,
Confucius further invests de with a moral content that can apply to anybody:
when Zizhang 子張 asks how to “exalt de” 崇德 (chong de), Confucius responds,
“To put loyalty and trust above everything else, and follow righteousness: this is
how one exalts de” 主忠信徙義崇德也 (zhi zhong xin cong yi chong de ye).
In the Analects, Confucius never makes any direct connection between the
Dao and de; his great innovation was to assert the relationship between de and
human morality expressed in the behavior of not just the ruler, but also the gentle-
man as well as any other person on the path to virtue. On the other hand, the
great innovation of the Daodejing is seen in its powerful assertions concerning the
intimate relationship between the Dao and de, assertions so powerful that these
two terms ultimately came to serve as the title of the writing.
If my understanding of de as it applies to the Daodejing as “rhythmic systems
of circulation” might jar some readers, then part of the reason is that modern
160 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

scholars of early Chinese thought have been accustomed to understand it as pri-

marily referring to “moral power,” which is entirely in keeping with the Analects
and other non-Daoist writings from early China. Starting from the ancient mean-
ings of de as political charisma, ritual morality, and wuwei behavior, both the
Analects and the Daodejing developed the notion in their own respective ways:
the former emphasizes its moral aspects, the latter its physical ones. If we are
to take seriously the indications provided by Hall and Ames concerning their
different areas of focus on de (morality for the Analects and cosmology for the
Daodejing), then we must be open to pursuing the nature of the physicality relent-
lessly intended by the Daodejing’s uses of de.
This is not to say that each and every one of its employments of de system-
atically calls upon the physicality informing many of its own very different uses
of the term. It also employs it in the sense of human virtue or moral force, but it
does so only to mark a difference in its two separate uses, the first in terms of a
morality that is artificial and inauthentic, the second in terms of a physicality that
is natural and authentic. The Daodejing frames both uses in the context of each
one’s relationship to the Dao, where authentic de as rhythmic systems of circulation
is close to the Dao, and inauthentic de as artificial human morality is far from it.
The Daodejing explores the consequences of de as moral force and makes
the claim that the spread and development of morality in itself is not a mark of
high human cultural achievement, as it is for the Analects; rather, morality itself
is the negative consequence of humanity’s separation from the pristine Dao. The
first two lines of DDJ 38 express this in a cryptic way, and their cryptic nature
is due to the “printed” format that does not on the surface distinguish between
the two separate meanings of de; literally, these lines read: “Highest de is not de,
therefore it has de. Lowest de does not displace de, therefore it does not have de”
上德不德是以有德下德不失德是以無德 (shang de bu de shiyi you de xia de bu shi
de shiyi wu de). This passage marks a difference between two separate des: one is
“highest” 上 (shang) and the other is “lowest” 下 (xia), and we can grasp their
differences more clearly by applying scare quotes and explanatory brackets: “High-
est de [natural systems of circulation] is not ‘de’ [artificial morality], therefore it is
de [authentic de]. Lowest de [artificial morality] never displaces ‘de’ [inauthentic
de], therefore it is not de [authentic de].”
The following lines of DDJ 38 establish a genealogy of morals in which
successive stages are marked by human efforts to apply stopgap responses to ever-
deteriorating existential situations. In these lines, by “non-intentional” 無爲 (wu
wei), I mean that an action is not premeditated but is done spontaneously; by
“intentional” 為之 (wei zhi), I mean that an action is premeditated. By “without
purpose” 無以爲 (wuyiwei), I mean that an action is not done for any particular
end, for instance, benefit or gain; and by “with purpose” 有以爲 (youyiwei), I
mean that an action is performed for a particular end. Thus, the first line of the
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 161

following passage refers to spontaneous actions done for their own sake, the sec-
ond to spontaneous actions done for some end, the third to premeditated actions
done for their own sake, the fourth to premeditated actions done for some end,
and the fifth line refers to compelling others to perform premeditated actions for
the sake of moral conformity.

Highest de is non-intentional, and is done without purpose.

Lowest de is non-intentional, and is done with purpose.
Highest benevolence is intentional, and is done without purpose.
Highest righteousness is intentional, and is done with purpose.
Highest ritual comportment is intentional, and when someone does
not conform to it, then others angrily roll up their sleeves and
force them.

The difference between the highest de and lowest de in these first two lines
is that the first de as physical circulation is natural, authentic, and spontaneous,
while the second de as virtue is artificial and inauthentic. “Benevolence” 仁 (ren),
“righteousness” 義 (yi), and “ritual comportment” 禮 (li) are three of the central
virtues of the Confucian tradition, but here the Daodejing shows them as already
derivative and corrupt forms of authentic and spontaneous de to which humans
have recourse throughout the gradual process of becoming separated from the Dao.
The next lines of DDJ 38 pursue this to a further degree.

For this reason, when the Dao is displaced, then there is de.
When de is displaced, then there is benevolence.
When benevolence is displaced, then there is righteousness.
When righteousness is displaced, then there is ritual comportment.
As for ritual comportment, it is the thin edge of loyalty and trust, and
the beginning of disorder.

The first lines employ de as “moral force,” but notice that they draw a clear
separation between it and benevolence (ren), a term that is, unlike de, systemati-
cally taken to refer to highest morality in ways that could be said to approach the
level of an absolute, at least so far as Confucian discourse employed the term.29
In other words, this passage is drawing a clear distinction between de as a state
describing a physical environment of harmony, whether internal or external, and
benevolence as a state describing individual moral excellence.
What the entirety of DDJ 38 describes is the first-order harmony in which
the Dao and de enjoyed unimpeded circulation, its fall into a period characterized
by the deployment of artificial virtues, and its further fall that ultimately gives way
to a tyranny of conformity to social norms. As the last lines of the passage state,
162 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

when people do not conform to ritual behavior understood as socially sanctioned

conventional norms, then others will force them to comply with them. For early
Daoism, nothing could be worse than this situation.
DDJ 38 sets the stage for the Sage’s project, namely the inception of the
second-order harmony in a world in which the spontaneous life-giving processes
of the Dao have been displaced. Implicated in this is the erosion of authentic
de and the spread of systems of virtue that compel conformity, like the de of the
gentleman that spreads over the de of the common people.
The comparison between these two passages from the Analects, LY 12.19
and 12.10, and DDJ 38 shows that they are all directly focused on de and its rela-
tion to virtue. Where LY 12.19 speaks of de as it is exercised by the gentleman,
DDJ 38 situates de in a complex genealogy of morals. Where LY 12.10 speaks
of the “exaltation of de” (chong de) as the glorious result of accumulated acts of
“loyalty” 忠 (zhong) and “trust” 信 (xin) undertaken by following “righteousness”
義 (yi), DDJ 38 describes an authentic de close to the Dao and an inauthentic
de implicated with this same “loyalty” (zhong) and “trust” (xin).
As human beings displace the original first-order harmony in which the Dao
and de circulate without impediment, various moral principles emerge as stopgap
measures: first benevolence, then righteousness, then ritual comportment with its
loyalty and trust. In this genealogy, authentic de is separate from and higher than
all other moral principles; it is close to the Dao but far from morality; and it is
pre-moral in its pristine state before the human discovery or invention of moral
principles. Because this point has been overlooked or misconstrued for so long in
the scholarly literature on the Daodejing, let me repeat: for the Daodejing, de in
every instance is not systematically synonymous with morality.
DDJ 38 situates authentic de in the first-order harmony before humans
started to disseminate moral principles; these same ideas are also notably found
in DDJ 18 and 19. The Daodejing as a whole establishes a novel relationship, not
between de and morality as seen in the Analects, but between de and the Dao.
The Daodejing does not associate de with any moral or political leadership
attributes based on charisma, but there is a different kind of charisma in it none-
theless: the charisma of brute existence within each thing that exists, the charisma
of life itself. In this sense, then, I agree with the claim of many Western scholars
that de is the localization of the Dao within any living thing, but, unlike virtue,
it is a life force that can be either accumulated or exhausted. As Nivison writes,

In the full flower of philosophical Daoism the notion of de is given

studied metaphysical statement. What had been the de of the king
now becomes, one might say, the character of Dao itself, as the center
of gravity of all nature: the Dao allows and enables everything to be
what it is; it claims no credit, does no pushing, and all is ordered.
De now becomes a concept standing in a certain contrast to Dao: it
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 163

is said to be the “localization” of the Dao in a particular thing; but

it retains its Dao-character—it enables that thing to be what it is,
alive, intelligent, causally interconnected with other things, as the case
may be.30

Nivison recognizes that the Daodejing employs a different signification of

de, one not dominated by ideas of virtue, but he does not pursue the further
consequences of this, namely its radical implication with the brute physicality
of all living things in terms of systems of circulation. Many of the Daodejing’s
employments of the term are most closely identified with circulation, and this
is very, very close to that ancient and foundational meaning of de as the charis-
matic attraction that brings the separate parts of a total entity into a harmonious
relationship, whether this is a country 國 (guo) or a body 體 (ti), two things that
Daoists are notorious for conflating.31
One might see a contradiction between the Daodejing’s understanding of
the Dao as the source of life and de as its localization: “If the Dao pervades the
world and endows life to each thing, how then could it differ from de?” I hesi-
tate to entertain metaphysical arguments that would give only a transcendent
position to the Dao outside of and beyond the world and a strictly ontological
presence to de as its worldly manifestation. In relation to the Dao, to speak of
de only as that which nurtures life, as if it were something phenomenologically
different only in the manner of its ontological modality, would certainly be an
insupportable contradiction. So I think it sufficient simply to say that de is the
localization of the Dao in anything that exists. I think it even not too far off to
describe de as the localized movement of the Dao specific to each existing thing,
and this would then turn out to be very close in meaning, as I have suggested,
to rhythmic systems of circulation.
As the Dao gives birth to all things, each living thing receives substantial-
ity and animation as various configurations and concentrations of qi, becoming
thereby a self-subsistent thing in the world—this rock, tree, or river and that
infant, adult, or elder. Being self-subsistent to a greater or lesser degree in rela-
tion to all other things, each living thing develops and maintains its existence
because of de that manifests in its rhythmic systems of circulation through which
qi moves as breath, blood, acids, and so forth. As such, de is the localization of
the rhythmic systems of circulation specific to each living thing that is also in a
circulatory relationship with all other living things. Hall and Ames speak of this
relationship between the Dao and de in the following:

Across the corpus of pre-Qin literature, de seems to have a fundamen-

tal cosmological significance from which its other connotations are
derived. In the Daoist literature, it denotes the arising of the particular
as a focus of potency in the process of existence. As a total field this
164 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

dynamic process is called Dao; the individuated existents in this field,

its various foci, are called de.32

By “potency,” they mean that each individuated thing “achieves its own
intrinsic excellence.”33 I take this “intrinsic excellence” in a subtly different sense
to mean that each living thing comes to develop and sustain its own life processes
by way of its rhythmic systems of circulation. In short, all living things take
birth from the Dao by receiving material and energetic qi, the “stuff” of life, and
they come to growth and maturity by developing and maintaining their internal
rhythmic systems of circulation, in other words, their de.
Because so many non-Daoist early Chinese writings identify de with moral-
ity, it seems almost outrageous to entertain the idea that the Daodejing might be
referring to something else entirely in its textual deployment of the term. But this
is my argument. When the Shuowen jiezi defines de as “arising” 升 (sheng),34 its
first connotation is of seedlings that stretch upward from underneath the topmost
level of the soil to reach into the life-giving rays of the sun. Although Sarah Allan
mentions the association of de with burgeoning plant life coming into growth,
she does very little with the idea, and she only passingly mentions Ames and
his very brief statement that “de has an association with plant growth.”35 This is
indeed Mencius’s primary understanding of de that he associates with the “four
sprouts” 四端 (si duan) of virtue, and the plant life imagery is not accidental; but
he has already moralized de, or at least continued to exploit those moral areas of
the term developed by Confucius.36
While I do not want to take this plant imagery too far in speaking of de,
I would like to point out that the reason why plant seedlings come up from the
ground to literally see the light of day is that their own internal circulation pushes
them toward that. The rhythmic circulatory system of seedlings is filled with qi
in the form of chlorophyll, energizing their growth into plants by driving ever
onward the fullest development of their circulatory systems. The stuff of plants
is all qi; the power of the circulation is their de; working in tandem, qi and de
are the two primary components comprising the life-engine of all living things.
When Allan writes that de is “conventionally translated as ‘virtue’ in Confu-
cian texts; in Daoist texts, it is sometimes translated as ‘inner power’ or ‘poten-
cy,’ ”37 I would like to ask, the “inner power” or “potency” of what? If this power
or potency is a moral compulsion “to act according to the Dao” (as Graham says),
then I feel compelled to point out that the Daodejing categorically rejects that
understanding of de because circulation in not virtuous.
At this point I should delve into an examination of jing 精 (“vitality”) and
xue 血 (“blood”) and examine the many early Chinese writings that state that
bodily qi is generated from jing, but, if this train of thinking does not postdate the
Daodejing, it at least seems to play no role in it.38 Given this, I limit myself to a
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 165

few choice comments by Zhang Guangbao, who provides insight on the notion
of jingqi; note also the emphasis on circulation in this quotation.

Jing has two meanings: as the source of human life, it has physical
meaning; at the same time, it comes from outside of and is indepen-
dent of the human body . . . Only through jingqi or the original qi,
does the Dao give birth to all things. In Daoist philosophers’ works,
jing or jingqi were considered a wonderful existence. They believed
jingqi existed in everything and was the source of vitality. Ancient
Daoist philosophers believed jingqi was the basis of life. Maintaining
its circulation was the precondition for health.39

De in Action

In the final section of this chapter, I explore a select few sections of the Daode-
jing that demonstrate its identification of de with radically physical and rhythmic
systems of bodily circulation. The first is from DDJ 55:

One who contains the fullness of de can be compared to a newborn

infant.
Wasps and scorpions, snakes and vipers do not sting him.
Birds of prey and fierce beasts do not seize him.
His bones are supple and his sinews are pliant, yet his grasp is firm.
He does not yet know the union of male and female, yet his penis
is erect.
This is the height of vitality.
He can shout all day, yet he never becomes hoarse.
This is the height of harmony.

The very first thing to notice about this passage is that “the fullness of de”
德之厚 (de zhi hou) is “contained” 舍 (she) in a physical body. In this sense, de
is an inner power that all living things possess but in different degrees: it can be
full or depleted, maturing or deteriorating. The second thing to notice is that the
“fullness of de” is most perfectly contained in the physical body of an infant 赤
子 (chizi). This is well worth marking: one who exemplarily contains de is not a
gentleman, a king, or even any adult, but a newborn infant. Morality is certainly
not a quality attributed to an infant; it is, rather, a quality that one comes to
possess with the acquisition of a moral reasoning faculty long after infancy is left
behind. The passage then briefly remarks on the harmony that comes as a result
of the fullness of de, such that the infant poses no threat to wild animals, and
therefore wild animals pose no threat to the infant.
166 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The passage then moves on to describe the nature of the infant’s body that
allows it to contain the fullness of de: “his bones are supple and his sinews are
pliant” 骨弱筋柔 (gu ruo jin rou). This is to say that there are no blockages, either
of a physical kind like a clogged artery or of a psychic kind like tension or anxiety
that causes shortness of breath, and this allows the circulation within the infant’s
body to coarse powerfully throughout, which in turn endows an almost superhu-
man strength: “his grasp is firm” 握固 (wo gu). This is a remarkable strength
that the Daodejing recognizes, and it is not a tremendous exaggeration either, as
anyone who has ever had his or her finger held by an infant can attest; further,
the infant’s skeletal structure is so pliant that his bones can hardly break.
The passage proceeds to remark on the powerful circulation of the infant: he
marks the height of physical vitality because constantly his “penis is erect” 脧作
(zui zuo) and he has the circulatory strength to “shout all day yet never become
hoarse” 終日號而不嗄 (zhongri hao er bu sha), two further points to which most
parents also can attest. In sum, DDJ 55 directly identifies “the fullness of de” with
the powerful circulation contained in the infant’s body, and it further designates
two primary components of it, “vitality” 精 (jing) and “harmony” 和 (he).
The Daodejing’s valorization and idealization of the body of the infant as
that which most purely exemplifies the fullness of de is in startling contrast to all
other ideas and images associated and identified with de found in other non-Daoist
early Chinese writings. To the best of my knowledge, none of them entertains
the possibility of the newborn possessing de, precisely because infants are never
recognized as possessing either morality or charisma.
It is difficult to imagine any image that so powerfully contradicts under-
standings of de as morality and charisma yet at the same time so clearly grounds
de in a radical physicality. In DDJ 55, one might take the fullness of de to mean
something like strength: the infant exerts a strength that repels insects and animals
that would attack it; its grasp is firm; its penis erect; and it inexhaustibly shouts;
these are characteristics easily attributed to a manly warrior. But the strength
of the infant, the result of his powerful de, has nothing to do with steroid-like
muscles; it is entirely due to the strength of his rhythmic systems of circulation.
This is made clear by the explanations of the infant’s de: “his bones are soft and
his sinews pliant.” His “essence” (jing) circulates by way of his rhythmic systems
of circulation, and his “harmony” (he, referring to the perfection of his rhythmic
systems) is at the pinnacle of perfection.
DDJ 42 helps to explain this harmony: “The ten thousand living things carry
yin on their backs and wrap their arms around yang. Through the blending of qi
they arrive at a state of harmony” 萬物負陰而抱陽沖氣以為和 (wanwu fu yin er
bao yang chong qi yi wei he). This passage cryptically depicts the birth event of the
newborn infant typically emerging with his face up, thus having earthly yin under
his back and heavenly yang above his chest. “The blending of qi” 沖氣 (chong qi)
describes the harmonious functioning of all of his pristine systems of circulation.
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 167

Although the history of Daodejing interpretation tends to spiritualize or mor-

alize the text, it is important to pursue the radical physicality of its understanding
of de. In the eyes of the text, the fullness of the presence and power of de is best
exemplified in the body of an infant; conversely, the depletion of de is exemplified
by old, worn-out bodies that have weak and hardened systems of circulation in
which vitality and qi circulate at very low levels. DDJ 76, although not explicitly
mentioning de, is continuous with DDJ 55 and discusses the consequences of a
de that is depleted or exhausted: hardened bones, cooled vitality, and the loss of
circulatory harmony, all of which lead directly to physical death.

When people are

born, they are pliant and and dead, they are hard and
supple, rigid.

When the ten thousand living things and grasses and trees are

alive, they are pliant and and dead, they are dry and
tender, brittle.

That is why

the pliant and supple are and the hard and rigid are
companions of life, companions of death.

If a soldier is rigid,
he will be killed.

If a tree is rigid, it
will break.

This is why

pliancy and softness and hardness and rigidity
occupy the superior occupy the inferior
position, position.

This chapter begins by portraying the infant’s body using the exact terms of
DDJ 55: “pliant” 柔 (rou) and “supple” 弱 (ruo), which in DDJ 55 described his
sinews and bones. His body and circulatory systems are fresh, hot, and filled with
the juices of life. DDJ 77 further applies these qualities to the bodies of plants,
which, like human bodies, are also “supple” (ruo) and “tender” 脆 (cui) when
168 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

they are young and fresh. Like the infant’s, their circulation is unobstructed and
filled with the vigor of new life.
Opposed to the newborn infant and young plants are old bodies that are
“hard” 堅 (jian) and “rigid” 強 (qiang) and aged plants that are “dry” 枯 (ku) and
“brittle” 槁 (gao). These attributes speak to the depletion of vitality and the drying
up of the juices of life that circulate throughout the body, due to the weakening
of their rhythmic systems of circulation and the consequent loss of harmony. With
the fullness of de a body has a powerful circulation, and this is life; without the
fullness of de a body has a depleted circulation, and this leads to death. Nowhere
is this ever a question of morality for the Daodejing.
The body of the newborn infant manifests the perfection of harmony, and
those who maintain or recover this harmony are counted among the “companions
of life” 生之徒 (sheng zhi tu). The potency of life exemplified by that which is
newborn is seen in the free flow of vitality without obstruction, driven by the
powerful systems of circulation on which existence depends. Death, on the other
hand, is caused by the obstruction, depletion, or exhaustion of the vitality of
the rhythmic circulatory systems in the body; those who suffer this are counted
among the “companions of death” 死之徒 (si zhi tu). To think in modern terms,
we might note that a common cause of death is clots that hinder the free flow of
blood in the arterial system. The text encourages the reader to regain that physi-
cal perfection of the newborn through physical cultivation (yangsheng), whereby
a person can avoid early death or decrepitude and attain long life in this very
body. Everything needed for life is right here, right now.
The image of the infant in the Daodejing simultaneously functions to por-
tray the exemplification of de in the newborn as well as the measure of physical
perfection of the Sage’s body, transformed by its (re-)union with the Dao. The
process of the Sage’s transformation is the path of yangsheng with its focus on qi
circulation; here I point out some passages from the Daodejing that provide sum-
marized indications of it that rely on the image of the newborn infant.
DDJ 10 states: “In concentrating your qi, can you make it like that of the
infant?” 專氣致柔能嬰兒乎 (zhuan qi zhi rou neng yinger hu). DDJ 28 directly
relates the body of the infant and the body of the Sage precisely by way of de:
“His constant de does not scatter and he returns to the state of the infant” 常
德不離復歸於嬰兒 (chang de bu li gui yu yinger). Other sections of the Daodejing
describe the body, simultaneously referring to the infant and the Sage, as a con-
tinuing source of rejuvenating energy; DDJ 45 states: “Great completion seems
incomplete . . . Great fullness seems empty . . . Great straightness seems to be
bent” 大成若缺 . . . 大盈若沖 . . . 大直若屈 (da cheng ruo que . . . da ying ruo
chong . . . da zhi ruo qu). Directly calling on the image of the newborn infant from
DDJ 42 (“The ten thousand living things carry yin on their backs and embrace
yang. Through the blending of the qi they arrive at a state of harmony”), DDJ
5, finally, rounds off this discussion of the pristine body of the infant and the
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 169

transformed body of the Sage by situating both of them in a mimetic relationship

to the earthly yin below and the heavenly yang above with the qi that powerfully
courses in between: “The space between Heaven and Earth, is it not like a bellows?
It is empty yet never depleted. Move it and more always comes out. Multiplying
words leads to frequent exhaustion. That is not as good as protecting the center”
天地之間其猶橐籥乎虛而不屈動而愈出多言數窮不如守中 (tian di zhi jian qi you
tuo yue hu xu er bu qu dong er bu chu duo yan shu qiong bu ru shou zhong).
Donald Harper has a lot to say about this bellows analogy, and he points
out its importance for what he calls the tradition of macrobiotic hygiene where it
refers to a precise technique described in the Yinshu; here is Harper’s translation:
“Close the dark cavity, open the winding gate; shut the five depots, penetrate the
nine apertures. Benefit opening and shutting in the skin’s webbed pattern—this is
the way to benefit the body.”40 Examining the relation between the two bellows
passages from DDJ 5 and Yinshu, he writes,

The Daodejing does not appear to correlate the bellows bag and tube
with the physiology of the body itself, nor does it indicate how such
a physiological bellows might be activated through cultivation tech-
niques. In contrast, the Yinshu passage concludes the bellows analogy
with a precise technique. I am convinced that the technique mimics
a bellows.41

I have already demonstrated the differences in the ways that Harper and
I approach the Daodejing, so I do not go over that again here. Nonetheless, I
would not be surprised to discover one day (based on some as-yet unexcavated
text that would illuminate this question) that the Daodejing’s bellows analogy does
in fact refer to a specific yangsheng technique. Either way, this does not affect the
cosmological reading of the bellows analogy from DDJ 5 because it explains the
basic structure of the world within which all yangsheng techniques have applica-
tion and efficacy.
The Daodejing gives little attention to de as moral charisma and even less
to its potential for rulers. It does not reject or contradict other early non-Daoist
Chinese meanings; it simply develops and exploits new layers of signification
not attended to by those other writings. The Daodejing typically employs de as
an internal mechanism within each living thing that provides for its life under-
stood in reference to rhythmic systems of circulation. In this sense, there is a
fluid continuum of relational functionality between the Dao as the ultimate yet
immediate source of life, qi as the stuff of life, and de as the localization of the
circulatory processes of life in any living thing. Thus I concur with the large
number of scholars who describe de as the localization of the Dao, but most of
those descriptions then go on to explain this in moral terms, whereas I argue that
the Daodejing employs de in its most radically physical connotations.
170 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The most powerful presentation of the relationship between the Dao and
de comes from DDJ 51:

The Dao gives birth to them De nurtures them and

and substance forms them. circumstances complete
them.

For this reason none among the ten thousand living things does not

venerate the Dao and honor de.

As for this

veneration of the Dao: and honoring of de:

Nobody orders it, it is constantly spontaneous.

This is why

The Dao gives birth to them and de raises them.

They are given birth but It grows them and rears them.
not possessed.

They are acted for but not It fosters them and nurses them.
put into service.

They are grown but not put It nurtures them and shelters them.
under command.

This is called Profound de.

The interlocking parallel style of DDJ 51 allows me to demonstrate clearly

the proper relationship between the Dao (on the left-side column) and de (on the
right) in the generation and growth of living things. The first section reads as a
celebration of life: things are born from the Dao and nurtured by de, and, because
these processes of generation are spontaneous, living things enjoy the simple expres-
sion of life by “venerating the Dao and honoring de” 尊道而貴德 (zun dao er gui
de). The second section looks with more detail into the internal mechanisms and
processes of the growth of living things, and it entirely attributes the force of their
flourishing to the power of de, or more specifically “Profound de” 玄德 (xuan de).
DDJ 51 is deeply self-reflexive and interreferential both to itself and to a
select few passages in other sections of the text. It first of all establishes a rela-
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 171

tionship of complementarity between the Dao and de. In two separate instances,
it asserts that all life directly comes from the Dao, and this is expressed in terms
of birth: “The Dao gives birth to them” 道生之 (dao sheng zhi). Having received
existence by birth from the Dao, then “de raises them” 德畜之 (de xu zhi), and
the terms describing this nurturance also are derived from predominantly biologi-
cal actions associated with mother care: “growing” 長 (zhang), “rearing” 育 (yu),
“fostering” 亭 (ting), “nursing” 毒 (du), “nurturing” 養 (yang), and “sheltering”
覆 (fu). Like this, de comes across as something that all bodies receive from the
Dao, and that is the dynamic force of growth. In other words, de is an internal
circulatory force that “nurtures” (yang) all things, like a kind of battery, and a
rechargeable one at that. One might be tempted to identify it with the heart or
heart rate, except that de is never identified with any particular bodily organ; it
is the energy of life that pervades the entire organism.
Confucian discourse (which includes the bronze inscriptions), on the other
hand, does tend to localize de, specifically in the mind, as Sarah Allan writes:
“De was already an important concept in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions which
speak of ‘clarifying the mind/heart and revealing the de’; thus we know that the
mind/heart was the receptacle of the de.”42 For early Daoist discourse and the
Daodejing, de is, rather, the rhythmic energy that propels the various circulatory
systems of the body, which is then mobilized by the heart, lungs, and the other
internal organs to energize the separate individual circulatory systems throughout
the entire body.
A central idea of DDJ 51 is that all beings in a natural state are instinctively
and by nature driven to value that most characteristic quality of the Dao, life,
and to value it spontaneously, continuously, and non-intentionally: “None among
the ten thousand living things does not venerate the Dao and honor de. As for
this veneration of the Dao and honoring of de, nobody orders it, it is constantly
spontaneous” 萬物莫不尊道而貴德道之尊德之貴夫莫之命常自然 (wanwu mo
bu zun dao er gui de dao zhi zun de zhi gui fu mo zhi ling chang zi ran).
We can phrase this idea much more succinctly: for the Daodejing, life in
itself and in all of its forms is sacred simply by virtue of the fact that life, the
life of any and all things, simply is. This natural veneration of life for life is not
compelled by any authority, whether natural, political, or religious. DDJ 10 brings
out this idea: “[The Dao] gives birth to them and [de] raises them. They are born
but are not possessed; they are acted on but not put into service; they are grown
but are not put under command. This is called Profound de” 生之畜之生而不有
為而不恃長而不宰是謂玄德 (sheng zhi xu zhi sheng er bu you wei er bu shi chang
er bu zai shi wei xuan de). Note the relationship between this passage from DDJ 10
and DDJ 51: both speak of “Profound de” (xuan de), providing further indication
of the self-reflexive interrelationality of the Daodejing as a whole, which continues
to stand at the base of my synthetic reading of it.
These and other such passages describe the spontaneous mechanisms of life,
from the cosmogonic beginnings to the present and, conceivably, into the future.
172 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Life is sacred, and life comes from the Dao. DDJ 41 names this mysterious life-
giving quality of the Dao: “The Dao is hidden and nameless. But this Dao is good
at providing and good at completing” 道隱無名夫唯道善貸且成 (dao yin wu ming
fu wei dao shan dai qie cheng). The mystery of the Dao is seen in its “hiddenness”
隱 (yin) and “namelessness” 無名 (wuming), at least so far as this refers to its
most mysterious and sacred activity, endowing life, an activity that consists first
of all in “providing” 貸 (dai) for the birth of all living things and “completing”
成 (cheng) the existences of all living things.
The succinctness of DDJ 41 gives way to the fullest description of the Dao
pursuing its mechanisms of life in DDJ 34; note how it ends by including the
Sage as yet another agent of life:

The Great Dao pervades everything, it can go left and right.

The ten thousand living things depend on it for their birth, but it
does not speak.
This merit completed, it does not go on to possess them.
Clothing and nurturing the ten thousand living things, it does not
act as their master.
Constantly non-desiring, it can be named among the small.
When the ten thousand living things return to it without it acting as
their master, it can be named among the great.
[The Sage] never takes himself as being great.
Therefore he is able to complete the great.

The first section of DDJ 34 begins with a further presentation of the pow-
erful and potent life-giving activities of the pristine Dao. The text names “the
Great Dao” 大道 (dadao), or what I otherwise call the pristine Dao, as the source
for the existence of all living things. The great mystery of the Dao resides in
the processes of life itself, which is where we find the Dao’s “merit” 功 (gong).
The Dao as the life source for all things is “pervasive” 氾 (fan), present every-
where; it brings all living things to life and provides everything necessary for
their continuation and flourishing: it “clothes and nurtures the ten thousand
living things” 衣養萬物 (yi yang wanwu); without the presence and potency of
the Dao, all things would die.
Together with DDJ 51 and DDJ 10, DDJ 34 makes it clear that there is
nothing more awesome in the world than the Dao because it stands as the sin-
gularly unique source of all life. Given that, the Dao does not announce itself;
it is devoid of any sense of self. Different from creator deities, the Dao does not
then go on to demand or command anything from those living beings born from
it: “It does not speak . . . it does not possess them . . . it does not act as their
master” 不辭 . . . 不有 . . . 不為主 (bu ci . . . bu you . . . bu wei zhu). This
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e Wo rl d 173

makes an interesting comparison with such creator deities as Yahweh and Allah,
who vociferously announce themselves to the humans that they have created. In
so doing, such gods command beings to act in certain ways and not others while
also demanding their own veneration. The Dao, on the other hand, does not
speak, but endows all life all the same.
The final lines of DDJ 34 introduce the Sage as the one who assists the
Dao in allowing life to come forth and thereby complete the merit: “[The Sage]
never takes himself as being great. Therefore he is able to complete the great”
以其終不自為大故能成其大 (yi qi zhong bu zi wei da gu neng cheng qi da). What
the text intends by “the great” 大 (da) is the great project of the Dao, namely
saving the world (I return to this topic in the next chapter).
I conclude this chapter with a brief recap of the major points that I have
attempted to establish in it. First of all, the natural state of the world is one in
which the Dao freely pervades it in all of its parts, including especially newborn
bodies. The result of this pervasion of the Dao is that all things that live come
into existence from their birth from the Dao; maybe the image of sparks flying
off a Fourth of July sparkler is not far off target, with each spark (which we
might conceive of as both matter and energy, in other words qi) representing the
bursting forth of each new life, and this sparkler, if we imagine it as possessing
powerful de, never burns out.
Starting immediately from their moment of birthed existence, things con-
tinue to live by virtue of the qi within them circulated by de, the continuing life
force of the Dao. Like the body of the newborn infant, the transformed body of
the Sage embodies the Dao and possesses the fullness of de; to have one is to
have the other. The Sage has a concentrated possession of the Dao and de, and
because of his physical presence in the world that makes the Dao so fully pres-
ent by way of his body, he participates in the life-nurturing care identified with
“Profound de.” Life is born from the Dao and flourishes in its de, and, as we read
in so many passages in the Daodejing, all life returns back to the Dao, continuing
the powerful cycles of sacred life.
Because the Sage embodies the fullness of de, he is capable of magnificent
and wondrous things. Embodying the Dao in his physical body, the Dao is made
actually present in the world in a vigorous and vital way, thereby bringing about
a renewal of its life-giving forces. This is without question the highest and most
defining characteristic of the benefits of the Sage: he directly participates in the
processes of the renewal of life, understood in both its natural and social mean-
ings. The Sage is able to do this because of the mechanisms of wuwei, or non-
intentional activity, an activity always directed to the benefit of the life of all
living things.
 7

The Sage and the Project

sts

The Death-World

The Daodejing structures history in terms of three general periods. I designate them
as, first, a first-order harmony that came into existence during the cosmological
unfolding of the world in which all living things were in harmony with nature.
This first-order harmony is extremely delicate and eminently liable to disruption
and displacement. Second, a long-standing period in which the harmony between
living beings and nature breaks down, witnessed by the world’s long history of
warfare, tyranny, economic injustice, and social inequality. Third, a future period
that can go in one of two ways: either into a second-order harmony that offers the
promise of a renewal of the harmony between living beings and nature in which
those terrible things no longer exist, or into a death-world in which life will cease.
The Daodejing situates its own time and place in the second period between
the first- and second-order harmonies. Indeed, the world depicted in the text is
quickly losing its connection with the Dao: humans are dying in great numbers
by unnatural causes, and all social order is on the brink of chaos, threatening
a fall into the death-world. The Sage has a decisive role in this: either he will
successfully incept the second-order harmony and bring salvation to the world;
or he will not, and the world and all of its living beings will cease to exist. The
Daodejing can be read as a clarion call for the Sage to appear.
There is a powerful religious vision at the heart of the Daodejing, although
not religious in an institutionalized sense. One thing that religion often tells you
is what to do and what not to do, but the Daodejing is not a religious text in
that sense. On the other hand, like most religious texts, the Daodejing provides

175
176 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

its readers with a way of making sense of the world: it tells us where the world
came from; it describes the ways in which the world together with humanity is
in need of salvation; it describes the primary agent of the salvational process (in
its case, the Sage); it encourages us to set our sights on becoming one of those
agents; and it offsets an apocalyptic vision of the end of the world if there are
none of those agents against a vision of the world soteriologically transformed
into harmony by the Sage.
The Daodejing is religious most importantly because it presents the cosmic
drama of the world and all living beings in it, from its origins to the present into
one of two possible futures: apocalypse or salvation. The primary character in
this drama is the Sage, and his powers of salvation reside entirely in the power
of the Dao. The villains of this cosmic drama are the ruling elite, depicted in
the Daodejing in all of their brutality and ruthlessness. During the first centuries
of the Daodejing’s circulation, virtually all of China fell under the strict political
control of those ruling elite: they actually lived in the real world of real history and
were not imaginary villains in the cosmic drama. They were directly responsible
for the millions of unnecessary deaths of what the Daodejing calls “the common
people” 民 (min): death primarily in the form of warfare as each ruler continually
mobilized his army to either take land or defend it. The disharmonious environ-
ment of early China inhabited and depicted by the Daodejing is vividly depicted
in this passage by Mark Lewis:

Although no precise figures are available, a seventh-century army would

not have far exceeded 10,000 men, and even the greatly expanded
chariot armies of the third quarter of the sixth century would have
had only about 50,000 soldiers. Warring States texts, however, record
armies as large as 600,000 men, and although the figures are not
absolutely reliable, an approximate ten-fold increase in the size of
armies in the field seems plausible. This massive increase meant that
any state or lineage that hoped to survive had to recruit soldiers from
an ever larger base, and this could be achieved only by continuing
the process of socially extending military service to the lower levels
of the population and geographically extending it to wider ranges of
the hinterland.1

But let’s return to the Daodejing. The unfolding of its cosmic drama is found-
ed on a pristine origin, where harmony reigned unimpeded by way of the free
circulation of the Dao. The Daodejing founds its cosmic drama on a vision of an
originary harmony because that vision provides an explanatory mechanism that
allows us to situate those discrete moments of otherwise inexplicable harmony
that we all from time to time experience—that feeling that makes us want to say,
“It is good.” This feeling seems to be what the Daodejing calls “contentment” 足
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 177

(zu), a term used largely as a descriptive for the Sage who resides in a constant
state of internal harmony with the Dao, and his harmony is not different from
that original first-order harmony of the world.
Seen in this way, the claim of an original harmony made by the Daodejing
carries two assumptions: first, harmony is a natural phenomenon, the model and
standard for the way of the world and not an anomaly or aberration; and second,
those moments of harmony that we from time to time experience in the present
world partake of that originary harmony of the beginnings.
The important consequence of these claims is that the present state of the
world, which does not have a very high degree of harmony and which is most
vividly characterized by the prevalence of early death, is not in any understanding
the way things should be. The present disharmony, definable in part as the absence
of the free circulation of the Dao, is the aberration, one for which human beings
are responsible. And this is one mark of the dangerous nature of the Daodejing: it
calls for us to say “No” to the way things are and accept the challenge to fix them.
Few things are sacred in the Daodejing; it once calls the world a sacred vessel,
and it also celebrates life. Government authority, institutional aristocracy—these
are not only not sacred, but they also fuel the breakdown of the harmony of the
world, and not in any ideological way. The Daodejing never attacks any single
ideology; what it condemns are the actual practices of the ruling elite, and it
consistently attends to the most devastating of these practices, including severe
taxation, land annexation, unjust laws that benefit only the ruling elite, incessant
warfare, and moral hypocrisy. The Daodejing laments the misfortunes of the com-
mon people that are attributable to these practices; it a dangerous text: it calls
for the Sage to get involved with the way things are.
Government is not inherently bad, but in actual practice it causes more
suffering than any other worldly force. If we call this the status quo, we do not
have to accept it as the way things should be because the state of the world not
fully in possession of harmony is neither the standard nor the norm; it is the
aberration. The Sage accepts the challenge to change the way things are, and,
in the end, the Daodejing is a text for Sages-to-be, not for Kings.
The world is threatened with ruination on many fronts, the most horrific
reducible to war: it causes the highest number of deaths in the shortest amount
of time, and its effects are felt for generations. There is an interesting philosophi-
cal question at stake in the Daodejing’s depictions of the Sage: is it reasonable
to expect that war will ever go away once and for all from human history? The
Sage represents that hope; as DDJ 37 says,

Were princes and kings able to preserve (the Dao),

The ten thousand living things would spontaneously transform.
Having transformed, were their desires to act up,
I would subdue them with nameless simplicity.
178 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The Daodejing does not say that war will go away once and for all; it does
say that a Sage is capable of calming and reducing the self-interests of those who
pursue it.
A second threat to the harmony of the world, on only a slightly lesser level
than war, is political and economic injustice. The Daodejing also often laments the
plight of the common people who are its victims. It does not plea for any type
of socialism, but it does recognize that the wealth of the ruling elite is generated
from the common people and that all too often the self-interest of those ruling
elite get the better of them, causing ravage to the life of the common people.
The Sage takes responsibility for the hardships of the common people; as DDJ
49 says, “The Sage has no constant mind. He takes the mind of the common
people as his mind” 聖人無常心以百姓心為心 (shengren wu chang xin yi bai xing
zhi xin wei xin).
Furthermore, this social ethic of taking responsibility for the hardships of
the common people has been a driving force for Daoists throughout history; the
tradition is replete with stories of those Daoists who built or repaired the bridges
and roads on which the common people depended; they are often seen providing
medical care with no demand for payment; and they are good at feeding people,
either by way of assisting in the growth of crops or giving food directly.2 In later,
institutionalized Daoism, this was often done under the auspices of gaining merit,
without which one could never hope to make any progress on the Daoist path.
But there it is, permanently inserted into page after page of the Daodejing: the
Sage does many things great and small.
In spite of the depraved and deficient state of the present world and the pos-
sibility of its ultimate ruination, the Daodejing remains an eminently hopeful work.
But the Daodejing is also a dangerous text because it does not remain silent or turn
away from those sufferings that are unnecessary aberrations. The Buddhist notion
of dukkha claims that suffering is an essential aspect of existence—that suffering
is a necessary element of worldly existence, the norm and the standard. But the
view of the Daodejing could not be further from this, based as it is on an original
harmony that can be not only retrieved but also experienced at new heights.
The Daodejing situates the world within a cosmic drama and hopes for its
transformation. Cosmic dramas coupled with a vision of a transformed world are
present in other writings of early China, most notably in the Analects. Much
like the Daodejing, it also finds a more harmonious world in the shadows of the
past, but unlike the Daodejing, its version of the earlier history of the world only
goes as far back as the origins of human civilization and not the origins of the
cosmos as such.3
The Analects begins history only with the appearance of the ancient Kings
Yao, Shun, and Yu. They were culture heroes in the truest sense in that they
brought civilization to humanity through the deployment of ritual norms 禮 (li)
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 179

across all sectors of social existence. For the Analects, the present state of the
world is defective and deficient precisely because people no longer carry out those
correct ritual norms. That text is replete with characters who make a travesty of
the rituals, and one of the most compelling is the head of the Ji family, who used
eight rows of dancers in one of his ceremonies, a ritual prerogative traditionally
reserved only for emperors, to which Confucius said, “If people can tolerate this,
what is it they could not tolerate” 是可忍也孰不可忍也 (shi ke ren ye shu bu ke
ren ye).
There is a real difference between the dramatic structures of the Analects
and the Daodejing. In the latter, the Sage alone appears as the only major char-
acter, and the ruling elite remain anonymous. In the former, there is a much
wider variety of characters, including the King 王 (wang), the gentleman 君子
(junzi), the prince 子 (zi), and the student 士 (shi), to name only a few. These
characters are, for the most part, judged by Confucius according to the standards
of ritual morality, and virtually all of them are found deficient save for the Kings
of the distant past (namely Yao, Shun, and Yu). Given this present state of the
world, Confucius yearned for its radical transformation under the rule of a future
King who would restore correct ritual and thereby perfect civilization. Note that
in the earlier years of his life, Confucius thought Heaven had appointed that
role to him.4
A further striking difference between the cosmic dramas of the Analects and
the Daodejing is the manner by which the world will transform into the ideal,
if it ever will. For the Analects, it will be through “virtuous government” 爲政
以德 (wei zheng yi de) under the King; for the Daodejing, it will be through the
“salvation” 救 (jiu) of the Sage.
These two visions of world transformation were in competition with each
other from the beginning of the Han until the Confucian reforms of the Song
dynasty (when the Confucian political order became firmly and permanently
established), lasting up to the final breaths of the Qing in the early twentieth
century. The tension between these two visions was dramatized many times in
Chinese history. Among them, there was Han Wudi’s support of the Confucian
way as espoused by Dong Zhongshu and the concomitant execution of the most
famous spokesman of Daoism at the time, Huainanzi, Wudi’s uncle.5 Then there
were the Yellow Turban uprisings in the Eastern Han, in which rebel Daoist move-
ments hoped to do away with the Confucian Mandate of Heaven and permanently
install their own mandate authorized under the auspices and authority of Lord Li
(who is either the divinized Laozi known as Laojun or his emissary Li Hong).6
Continuing throughout the period of disunion up to the Tang dynasty, the weight
of this Daoist vision is demonstrated even with the founding emperor of the Tang
dynasty, who claimed direct descent from Laojun to provide legitimacy for his
assumption of emperorship over all of China.7 Anthony Yu summarizes this well:
180 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Historical Daoism, in the self-understanding of the believing commu-

nity, did not originate in late Han, but its beginning as an “organized
religion,” so designated by scholarship, was associated at the time with
political unrest and popular uprisings. The military revolt in which the
Celestial Master (142 AD) and Yellow Turban (182 AD) movements
were involved would for this reason set the teeth of the central state
on edge for much of the duration of Chinese history, including even
the present regime. Still, the incipient or explicit conflict that Daoism
poses for official state culture has to do much more with alternative
interpretations of political authority, social organization, ritual forms,
ritual functions concerning healing, exorcism, and related activities,
and the relations of individual to group or community.8

But let’s go back to the Daodejing now. It claims that the world is in dire and
immediate need of salvation because its relationship with the life-giving forces of
the Dao is on the verge of collapse. This raises a possible contradiction: on the
one hand, the Dao is pervasive in existence; on the other hand, the Daodejing
also talks about what is “not of the Dao” 不道 (budao), what is “without the Dao”
無道 (wudao), and what is “not the Dao” 非道 (feidao). If the world comes from
and is infused with the Dao, how then could it be without the Dao?
But this is precisely the point and the problem: the movements of the Dao
in the world are impeded, and these impediments are growing to such propor-
tions that they threaten the Dao with a total lockout. This would spell the utter
end of the ongoing cycles of life in the world, resulting in a literal death-world.9
DDJ 30 says: “When living things reach their prime they get old: this is called
Not of the Dao. Whatever is not of the Dao dies prematurely” 物壯則老是謂不
道不道早已 (wu zhuang ze lao shi wei bu dao bu dao zao yi). We could read this
claim as a general description of generic life: whatever lives must die, except for
the adjective “prematurely” 早 (zao).
This is not just a question of individual things being “not of the Dao”;
the world itself can also be shut off from it, as is described in DDJ 46: “When
the world has the Dao, walking horses are used in the fields. When the world
is without the Dao, war horses are reared on the borders” 天下有道卻走馬以糞
天下無道戎馬生於郊 (tianxia you dao que zou ma yi fen tianxia wu dao rong ma
sheng yu jiao). The world comes to be “without the Dao” (wudao) because of a
malignant accumulation of things “not of the Dao” (budao), and this locking off
of the Dao spreads like a contagious disease.
Note that the horses mentioned in this passage are the same horses: when
the Dao has free access in the world and the cycles of life are in harmony, people
are able to go on peacefully with their own lives, thus employing their horses
in agriculture. But when the world is without the Dao, these same farmers get
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 181

conscripted into the armies, and the field horses are transferred to the battle
lines, typically the borders between states fighting for possession of the country
under siege, and the horses are employed in driving the war chariots. When the
world is without the Dao, the result is warfare, destruction, and premature death.
This state of life “not of the Dao” and “without the Dao” as articulated
in DDJ 30 and DDJ 45 directly raises the specter of the death-world. Visions of
the death-world are woven into many chapters of the Daodejing, and in them the
death-world is primarily characterized by actual and pervasive death, caused most
immediately by war. It is no accident that we call the centuries predating the
unification of China “the Warring States” no matter how much we might tend
to romanticize the designation of this historical period in which the Daodejing
circulated. DDJ 74 raises the central issue of the death-world: “If the people are
not afraid of death, how could they be frightened by the threat of death?” 民不
畏死奈何以死懼之 (min bu wei si nai he yi si ju zhi).
The deaths resulting from the constancy of war perpetuates in further death:
the deaths of human beings on the battlefields give way to the untold number of
deaths caused by the famines, diseases, and other horrors for human existence as
the inevitable consequence of war’s aftermath, when the farmers are permanently
absent from their agricultural fields. Therefore, no additional threats posed by the
rulers could make the common people value life any less, focused as they were
on basic survival.
These ideas are driven home in many sections of the Daodejing, but two
passages stand out for their vivid depictions of the death-world. DDJ 30 states:
“Where troops are stationed, only thorns and brambles will grow. In the wake of
a great army, there will inevitably be a year of famine” 師之所處荊棘生焉大軍之
後必有凶年 (shi zhi suo chu jing ji sheng yan da jun zhi hou bi you xiong nian). DDJ
31 states: “When multitudes of people are killed, stand before them in grief and
sorrow. When victorious in battle, observe the rites of mourning” 殺人之衆以哀悲
泣之戰勝以喪禮處之 (sha ren zhi zhong yi ai bei qi zhi zhen sheng yi sang li chu zhi).
The Daodejing does not rest content with these few indications of the death-
world. DDJ 39 provides a stunning and disturbing vision of the final apocalypse.
The first section depicts the first-order harmony of the world and the life-endowing
potency of the Dao, which gives life to Heaven, Earth, spirits, valleys, the ten
thousand living things including human beings, as well as the ability of princes
and kings to be standards. Each acquires their particular state and flourish because
of their natural and spontaneous reception of the Dao, called “the One.” The
second section depicts the apocalypse that will come to pass if each was to lose
the presence of the Dao in their existence: Heaven would “tear apart” 裂 (lie),
Earth would “shatter” 發 (fa), spirits would “exhaust” 歇 (xie), valleys would “dry
up” 竭 (jie), the ten thousand living things would “perish” 滅 (mie), and princes
and kings would “topple” 蹶 (jue).
182 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Of those in the past that attained the One—

Heaven attained the One and became clear.
Earth attained the One and became stable.
Spirits attained the One and became divine.
Valleys attained the One and became full.
The ten thousand living things attained the One and came to be born.
Princes and kings attained the One and became the standards for
the empire.
It is the One that brought them to this.

If Heaven were without that by which it is made clear, it will tear apart.
If Earth were without that by which it is made stable, it will shatter.
If spirits were without that by which they are made divine, they will
exhaust.
If valleys were without that by which they are made full, they will
dry up.
If the ten thousand living things were without that by which they
came to be born, they will perish.
If princes and kings were without this standard by which they are
ennobled and made high, they will fall.

Modern scholarship on the Daodejing has, for the most part, missed the
radical and disturbing nature of DDJ 39. It literally depicts the total apocalyp-
tic destruction of the world and all living things, and it attributes this total
destruction to the inability of the Dao to carry out its life-giving processes. This
apocalyptic vision was not, however, lost on religious Daoism; the early Celestial
Master writings, beginning with the Xiang’er, are replete with such visions, but
upstanding Daoists would survive the destruction and become the “seed people”
種民 (zhongmin) of the new earth.10 The world, as encountered in the Daodejing,
is in dire need of salvation.
The Daodejing presents an intriguing etiology for the fractured and deficient
state of the world. To get a better orientation to this etiology, I would like briefly
to recap some of the major points of the benefits brought by the Sage that I dis-
cussed in chapter 6. DDJ 81 states that the Sage “acts for” 為 (wei) and “gives
to” 與 (yu) the people; DDJ 3 states that he “empties their minds and fills their
bellies. He weakens their ambitions, and strengthens their bones” 虛其心實其腹
弱其志強其骨 (xu qi xin shi qi fu ruo qi zhi qiang qi gu). DDJ 57 enumerates the
benefits that the Sage brings to the people: they “transform” 化 (hua), “align” 正
(zheng), “flourish” 富 (fu), and are made “simple” 樸 (pu).
This also means that at present the common people are not transformed,
are not aligned, do not flourish, and are not simple. Of these points, the most
important is that they are not simple; indeed, the Daodejing continuously targets
those who are not simple and puts the burden of cause for the deficient and
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 183

fractured state of the world squarely on their shoulders. These culprits are distin-
guished by their primary characteristics that I examine in some detail in the next
chapter: they study; through study they gain knowledge, though they exercise it
inappropriately; and they deliberately and consciously reject the Dao.
The world of the present is fractured and deficient; the life-giving processes
of the Dao have been impeded primarily by the wrongful application of knowledge
in the hands of the ruling elite, opening the door to oppression, contention, and
warfare. Left to itself, this will result in a death-world in which both the world
and all humankind will experience an apocalyptic destruction of a degree hard
to imagine. The present state of existence marks the near-total breakdown of the
world’s harmony; it remains the responsibility of the Sage to incept the salvation
of the second-order harmony.
Edward Slingerland is one of the few modern Western scholars to have
picked up these indications of a magnificent project undertaken by the Sage,
although his analysis of it differs from mine in some ways, a few of which I can
state here. First, he speaks of a state of “fallenness” that necessitates “a soteriologi-
cal method by which the individual and then the rest of humanity can be brought
back into harmony with the universe,” whereas I speak of these two states as a
first- and second-order harmony.11 His focus is a bit more general than mine in
that he does not systematically emphasize the Daodejing’s specific uses of the terms
for this soteriology. I hope to show in the following section that the Daodejing
employs a very specific set of terms that explains and depicts the inception of
this second-order harmony, all of which cohere around the idea of “a project.”

Projects

The term shi 事 is one of the most dynamic terms in all of the Daodejing, and it
appears twenty-one times throughout its eighty-one chapters, both verbally and
nominally. Verbally, shi means “to serve,” as in DDJ 61, “to serve others” 事人
(shi ren), and as in DDJ 59, “to serve Heaven” 事天 (shi tian). Nominally, shi
means “project.” Two key terms are often associated with projects, “completion” 成
(cheng) and “merit” 功 (gong), but other uses include that of DDJ 23 and 64, “to
take up the project” 從事 (congshi); DDJ 17, “to fulfill the project” 遂事 (suishi);
DDJ 2, “to carry out the project” 處事 (chushi); DDJ 52, “to add to their project”
濟其事 (ji qi shi); and DDJ 64, “to ruin the project” 敗事 (baishi).
The term shi is used in three different senses with three different agents: the
common people are associated with common projects, the General is associated
with military projects, and the Sage is associated with the great project. Common
projects and military projects are simply called shi, and we are given a few choice
samples of such projects in the text: building projects and military marches.
Earlier in this study, I argued that the General is at home in the Militarist
tradition and not in early Daoism despite the fact that there are a select few pas-
sages and chapters in the Daodejing that are devoted to him; they are, however,
184 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

anomalous. To fill out my discussion of the notion of projects in the Daodejing,

however, I find it necessary to revisit them once again, as this will bring more
clarity to the Sage’s project by way of contrast.
Military projects include conquest, as in DDJ 48 (which is also given in
DDJ 57 with a slight difference in wording): “To take control of the world, one
must constantly practice non-intentional projects” 取天下常以無事 (qu tianxia
chang yi wu shi). Other military projects include those for stabilizing the state,
as in DDJ 30: “One who uses the Dao to assist the ruler will not use soldiers to
impose his might over the world. His project is vastly different” 以道佐人主者
不以兵強天下其事好還 (yi dao zuo ren zhu zhe bu yi bing qiang tianxia qi shi hao
yuan), where the project of “using soldiers” 以兵 (yi bing) is presented as dia-
metrically opposed to the project of “using the Dao” 以道 (yi dao). This passage
is illuminating because it draws a radical distinction between military projects in
the world and the sacred project of the world; for this latter project, the Sage is
the exclusive agent.
Although the project of the Sage is sometimes referred to simply as shi, it
has a higher pedigree that is announced by a continuum of various other titles.
DDJ 63 calls it by its fullest titles, “the great project of the world” 天下大事
(tianxia dashi) and “the difficult project of the world” 天下難事 (tianxia nanshi),
or simply “the great” 大 (da). This “great project” strictly and in every case refers
to the project of incepting the second-order harmony.
When the Sage completes a project, “merit” (gong) is spontaneously acquired,
and this is referred to as a “completion” (cheng). The term “merit” is used seven
times in the text, and interestingly it is coupled with the term “completion” four
times, as in DDJ 2, 17, 34, and 77; it is coupled with the closely related term
“to fulfill” 遂 (sui) in one other instance, in DDJ 9. In these seven instances of
the use of the term “merit,” four directly refer to the Sage, as in DDJ 2: “He
completes the merit but doesn’t remain in it” 功成而不居 (gong cheng er bu ju);
DDJ 17: “The merit is completed and the project is fulfilled” 功成事遂 (gong cheng
shi sui); DDJ 22: “He does not battle against himself and thus he has merit” 不自
伐故有功 (bu zi fa gu you gong); and DDJ 77: “He completes the merit but does
not claim credit” 功成而不處 (gong cheng er bu chu).
The final instances are from DDJ 34, which refers directly to the Dao: “This
merit completed, it does not go on to possess them” 功成而不有 (gong cheng er bu
you); from DDJ 9, which refers to the acquisition of merit as the Dao of Heaven,
in DDJ 9: “The merit completed, the body retired: this is the Dao of Heaven”
功遂身退天之道也 (gong sui shen tui tian zhi dao ye); and finally from DDJ 24,
which refers to the failure of acquiring merit by one who is not with the Dao:
“One who brags does not achieve merit” 自伐者無功 (zi fa zhe wu gong), which
is the opposite of the claim made in DDJ 22 above.
This brings me to the Daodejing’s last use of the term “project,” namely in the
phrase wushi 無事, which is found two times in the text (excluding two other uses
of wushi that pertain to the General, which I do not deal with). The first is found
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 185

in DDJ 57, and it is put in the words of the Sage: “I act non-intentionally . . . I
am without intentional projects . . . I am without intentional desire . . .” 我無
爲  .  .  .  我無事  .  .  .  我無欲 (wo wuwei . . . wo wushi . . . wo wuyu). The second
passage is found in DDJ 63: “Act non-intentionally; serve the non-intentional
project; taste the tasteless” 為無爲事無事味無味 (wei wuwei shi wushi wei wuwei).
Each of these two passages demonstrates a participation in the rhetoric of
non-intentionality found throughout the text, which centers on a particular kind
of a grammatical wu-construction that is not unique to the Daodejing, but it does
seem to utilize it more than other Chinese writings. My inspiration for this insight
into the wu-construction was fortified by Roger Ames and David Hall: “Daoism
expresses its deferential activity through what we are calling the wu-forms.”12
Wu is often translated as “non-X,” as in the common translation of wuwei
as “non-action” and wuyu as “non-desire.” These translations seem to miss the
point of what the Daodejing is saying, namely that the modification of an action
by the placement of wu in front of it does not negate the action; it simply
lodges it as being non-intentional in the sense that the Dao, or any agent who is
one with the Dao, does not intend any particular intentional performance of it.
This is precisely the sense of spontaneity 自然 (ziran) that characterizes the non-
intentional actions of the Dao (including the movements of nature and weather
patterns) as well as the Sage.
The use of the designation wushi means that the great project can only be
carried out through non-intentional activity, and I think it is safe to understand
wushi as a kind of shorthand for wuwei zhi shi, as DDJ 2 writes: “The Sage car-
ries out the non-intentionally acted upon project” 聖人處無爲之事 (shengren chu
wuwei zhi shi), as clunky as this reads in English. Non-intentional activity per-
formed spontaneously by the Sage is the modus operandi for carrying out the great
project of the world, and this is also emphasized in DDJ 47: “The Sage . . . com-
pletes without intending” 聖人 . . . 不為而成 (shengren . . . buwei er cheng). The
reason for this is explained in DDJ 29: “The world is a sacred vessel; it cannot
be intentionally acted upon and it cannot be held. One who intentionally acts
on it destroys it, and one who holds it displaces it” 天下神器不可為也為者敗之
執者失之 (tianxia shen qi bu ke wei ye wei zhe bai zhi zhi zhe shi zhi).
It might be argued that my claim that the Sage undertakes a soteriologi-
cal project leading to the inception of the second-order harmony is based on a
serious misreading of the text, because it demands a stretch of the imagination
to understand the Sage undertaking a non-intentional project, especially when
coupled with another claim I am making about the Sage, that he is not a King. At
the very least, as this argument would go, the Sage, by acting non-intentionally,
could assist in the correction of other common human projects without that itself
being his project. Yet the text explicitly states that “the Sage carries out the non-
intentionally acted upon project,” and this project is anything but one project
alongside others; indeed, it is explicitly called “the great project of the world”
(tianxia dashi). Reading wuwei consistently as “non-intentionality” then means
186 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

that the Sage acts in accord with the Dao without intending any particular act
and also that any action of the Sage is done without any particular purpose; this
wuwei activity is an example of exactly what DDJ 38 calls “highest de” (shang de).13
Another way to state this seeming contradiction is to say that the Sage is
one with the Dao, but this oneness is radically physical, not simply mental or
spiritual. On this point, Slingerland writes about the “non-self-consciousness” of
the Sage: “It is important to realize that wuwei properly refers not to what is actu-
ally happening (or not happening) in the realm of observable action but rather
to the state of mind of the actor.”14 The state of mind he describes, however, is
different from actual embodiment; the Sage literally embodies the Dao. Further,
all of the pure actions of the Dao are reducible to one single action: continuing
life. In sum, the non-intentional project of the Sage, guided by his embodiment of
the Dao, is to bring salvation to the world by incepting the second-order harmony,
whereby the life-giving movements of the Dao can be released.
To equate or confuse the Sage with the King would entail that the benefits
he brings to the people are provided by the tools of government. Granted, it is in
some ways easier for us to imagine that this great project is the duty of the King,
namely to bring political order to the empire that is on the verge of turning into
a death-world. If, however, we do away with the identification of the Sage with
the King, it certainly does not mean that we thereby also have to do away with
“the great project of the world,” although we have to understand it as having
more to do with a cosmic vision of salvation than with a political vision of good
order. Some key elements of this cosmic vision include the absence of war, the
common people living out their natural life spans, and the reduction of insidious
knowledge; we do not typically refer this to government policy or enforcement.
But before examining this second-order harmony, I want to return to what the
text says about specific projects.
DDJ 64 provides excellent indications of its understanding of projects. The
first lines of it read:

While it is secure, it is While there are no signs of

easy to maintain. danger, it is easy to
take precautions.

While a threat is starting, While (the threat) is minute,

it is easy to snap. it is easy to disperse.

(The Sage)

acts on (threats) before and manages (threats) before

they manifest, they cause chaos.
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 187

These lines compel a deeper consideration about projects: one should first of
all cultivate an attitude of care, like the love of an artist for the painting or the
love of a parent for the child (my inspiration for the terminology of the structure
of care is indebted to Heidegger more so than to Plato). This attitude of care is
directed to the safety of the project because it needs protecting from potential
threats or anything that can create obstacles for its future success. The following
lines of DDJ 64 gives three examples of specific projects:

A tree so big that it takes both arms to encircle

starts from a tiny shoot.
A nine-story terrace starts from a basket of dirt.
A thousand mile march starts from under your feet.

He who intentionally acts on it He who holds onto it after

after it has come into existence it has reached its full
ruins it. growth loses it.

It is not difficult to see the building of a terrace in terms of a project because

it requires a great deal of planning and organization, and many things can go
wrong: the workers might go on strike or the owner might run out of capital.
Nor is it difficult to see the march of an army in terms of a project, because
it too requires a great deal of logistical planning, and the army will need
provisions and an acceptable place to lodge at every step. It is, however, almost
counterintuitive to see the birth, life, and growth of a tree as a project, namely
because there is no apparent agent assuming responsibility for its planning and
organization, yet it remains on a level of equivalence with the building and the
march in terms of its being a project, at least according to this passage. Many
things can go wrong in the life of a tree: the soil might erode, it might become
diseased, or it might parch. The examples of strikes, miscalculated provisions,
and soil erosion constitute the sorts of threats mentioned in the first lines of
DDJ 64, against which one must take precautions for the completion of any
project.
It could make sense to think of a tree as a project of the Dao, but this does
not seem to be what the text is saying; anyway, it is very strange to think of the
Dao as having a project. What the Dao does have (or, we might say, what the
Dao is), on the other hand, is the fountainhead of life for all living things, and
the case of the tree is just one example of the awesome life-endowing power of
the Dao. The project of the Sage in this instance is to allow that tree to come
to fruition. In other words, the activity of the Dao is to provide ongoing and
continuous life to the world, and the project of the Sage is to nurture that awe-
some power non-intentionally to keep it from going to ruin amid the ravages of
188 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

the death-world. In a certain sense, the Sage does not act for any specific tree
intentionally; rather, he works for all trees, indeed for all things that live, by
allowing the power of the Dao to flow through each of his actions, which thereby
allows the Dao to act for any specific tree or thing or being.
The next lines of DDJ 64 are given in the following:

This is why the Sage

Acts non-intentionally, Does not hold it,

and thus he does not ruin it. and thus he does not lose it.

When people take up their projects, they

always ruin things when they are about to be completed.

(The Sage) carefully considers eventual outcomes as the

extreme development of small beginnings, and thus he does
not ruin the project.

Here for the first time in this study of the Daodejing I introduce the direct
association of the Sage with a project, but this passage provides no further indica-
tion as to its nature other than to state that he neither acts on it intentionally nor
holds onto it. The next lines associate the common people with common projects,
and we have already seen examples of these: building and marching. But the pas-
sage points out that the reason so many common projects end in ruin is because
people act on them intentionally and hold onto them, which means that they have
not taken proper precautions because they have not cultivated the right attitude of
care. If we situate this idea with other passages from the Daodejing, it is not difficult
to see why this happens: people become set in their ways, driven by desire, pride,
and an inability to change and adapt themselves and their projects to changing
circumstances. The Sage, however, maintains his attitude of care and is constantly
able to adapt himself and his project to changing circumstances.
These ideas concerning threats and care are given more clarity in DDJ 63.
The beginning of the chapter was quoted above, but then it goes on to state:

Plan for eventual difficulties Act on what will be

while things are simple. eventually great while it is
minute.

The difficult project of the The great project of the

world inevitably arises from world inevitably arises from
the simple. the minute.
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 189

This why the Sage

never intentionally acts on

the great [project],
therefore he can complete the
great [project].

DDJ 63, together with DDJ 64, is entirely devoted to the structure of care
assumed by the Sage as he lovingly takes up “the non-intentional project” (wuwei
zhi shi) of the Dao, which specifically signifies “the great project of the world”
(tianxia dashi), otherwise simply called “the great [project]” 大 (da).
These passages give concrete articulations of how it is that the Sage goes
about pursuing and completing this project: “Therefore the Sage never intention-
ally acts on the great [project], therefore he can complete the great [project]”
是以聖人終不為大故能成其大 (shiyi shengren zhong bu wei da gu neng cheng qi
da). To undertake this project is to act non-intentionally; acting thus, the Sage
“tastes the tasteless,” which is simply another way of saying that he is one with
the Dao; DDJ 35 also uses this same phrase in a slightly different context but
one that still is about the Dao: “Music and delicacies attract traveling customers,
but words of the Dao are insipid and tasteless” 樂與餌過客止道之出口淡乎其
無味 (yue yu er guo ke zhi dao zhi chu kou tan hu qi wu wei). More precisely, this
great project directly refers to the second-order harmony of the world, a renewed
harmony that will bring salvation to the world and all of its living inhabitants,
who will be saved from the progressively more catastrophic loss of the presence
of the Dao and its decreasing ability to give birth to and sustain life.
This indeed responds to the central and single most pressing issue of the
Daodejing.

The Great Project of the World

To this point, the specific content of the “great project of the world” has yet to
be presented. We already know that it is qualitatively different from the com-
mon projects of the common people; that this project is carried out only by
the Sage; and that completing this great project results in merit. The project is
simply the inception of the second-order harmony in which the sacred processes
of the ongoing birth, existence, and natural death of all things can be released
from the confines of the death-world. This is the great mystery of the Daodejing,
namely life itself.
In many passages, the Daodejing indirectly examines the role of the Dao
in “the great project of the world” (tianxia da shi) and DDJ 9 provides one such
instance; it states, “The merit completed, the body retired: this is the Dao of
190 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Heaven” 功成身退天之道 (gong cheng shen tui tian zhi dao). “The Dao of Heaven”
is best understood as referring to the Dao’s mysterious processes of continual and
continued existence, and the term “merit” (gong) immediately identifies this Dao
with the great project. So we might now ask, what exactly is this “merit”? It
is nothing other than the successful coming-into-existence of any living thing.
Each of the uncountable existences of all living things in the world, from the
first origins of life to all living things in the present as well as the life of things
to come, simply adds to the merit of the total life-world system of the pristine
Dao; as DDJ 29 states: “The world is a sacred vessel.”
The second phrase in this passage, “the body retired” 身退 (shen tui), at
first glance strikes one as counterintuitive, for what does the body have to do
with the project? Here, then, we should read “the body” (shen) as referring to the
body of the Sage: having incepted the project of the second-order harmony, he
neither remains with nor lingers on it because to do so would ruin it, as DDJ 64
states: “He who intentionally acts on it after it has come into existence ruins it,
he who holds onto it after it has reached its full growth loses it.”
The Dao of Heaven is a centrally important concept for the Daodejing’s
presentation of the first- and second-harmonies of the world. In this, the Dao of
Heaven is a shorthand way for speaking of the Dao of Heaven and Earth; in other
words, it refers to the Dao of the natural world.15 DDJ 73, 79, and 81 also explic-
itly name the Dao of Heaven, but its most powerful exposition comes in DDJ 77:

Is not the Dao of Heaven like the drawing of a bow?

It presses down the high It pushes up the low and

and reduces the excessive. adds to the deficient.

The Dao of Heaven

reduces the excessive and increases the deficient.

Here, the Dao of Heaven (tian zhi dao) refers to the process of life that bal-
ances life to maintain the smooth flow of continued and continual life: “reducing
the excessive (and) increasing the deficient” 損有餘而補不足 (sun you yu er bu bu
zu) refers to the non-intentional activity of the Dao as it ensures the project of
life; “the excessive” 餘 (yu) and “deficient” 不足 (buzhu) are precisely the threats
and dangers posed to life that are managed by the Dao.
An example of this can be seen in the case of bears and salmon: as the
bears eat up the salmon, they increase and the salmon decrease. With the decrease
of salmon and the increase of bears, the balance of life is threatened, but at the
extreme things turn around: the salmon are now few and the bears many and there
is less salmon for the bears to eat, and they start to decrease, thus allowing the
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 191

salmon in their turn to increase. In this way the cycle of decrease and increase,
in other words the Dao of Heaven and Earth, is kept in natural balance. That
the Dao is non-intentional in this means that it takes no sides, either for the
bears or for the salmon, and the natural balance is maintained; as DDJ 73 states,

The Dao of Heaven does not compete, yet it is good at winning.

It does not speak, yet it is good at being followed.
It does not summon, yet others spontaneously come.
It is at ease, yet it is good at taking precautions.
Heaven’s net is vast, vast, yet nothing slips through.

The immediately following lines of DDJ 77 present “the Dao of Humans”

人之道 (ren zhi dao) in direct juxtaposition to “the Dao of Heaven,” and note
that there is an explicit value judgment at play here: the Dao of Heaven is valued
above the Dao of the Human, which goes against everything the Daodejing has
to say about life:

The Dao of the Human is not the same: it

reduces the deficient by supplementing the

excessive.

The project of life in its natural balance is interrupted only by intentional

human activity concerned with human projects (construction, state ceremonies,
and warfare, for example). For the Dao of the Human, the most immediate refer-
ence of the phrase “reduces the deficient” 損不足 (sun bu zu) is to the common
people, whose already meager treasure is taken from them by the ruling elite by,
among other ways, excessive taxation, levies, and conscriptions: the poor get
poorer. At the same time, the most immediate reference of the phrase “supple-
ments the excessive” 奉有餘 (feng you yu) is to the ruling elite whose treasure
accumulates with each new tax season: the rich get richer.
The Dao of Heaven, on the other hand, is just the opposite because it
“presses down the high and pushes up the low” 高者抑之下者舉之 (gao zhe yi zhi
xia zhe ju zhi). In the first-order harmony, this refers in turn to the bears or the
salmon, depending on where the natural balance is at any given time, but it also
refers to the ruling elite in the present, who when they are excessive get pushed
down, and the common people, who when they are deficient get pushed up; as
DDJ 79 says, “The Dao of Heaven has no favorites; it constantly sides with good
people” 天道無親常與善人 (tian dao wu qin chang yu shan ren).
The loss of the first-order harmony changes the balance of the Dao of
Heaven in tandem with the shutting out of the Dao in the world as the realm of
human civilization separates more and more from the realm of nature. The balance
192 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

of both the natural and social worlds is thrown off-kilter, and if this situation is left
unchecked, the death-world comes to replace the life-world, threatening to destroy
the ongoing processes of life to result in the apocalyptic devastation depicted in
DDJ 39. This vision is entirely in keeping with the Daodejing’s outrage against
the ruling elite, who decimate the lives and livelihoods of the common people.
On a side note, a major reason for the Daodejing’s ability to stay current
throughout the successive periods of Chinese history is that it is so open to
multiple readings. DDJ 77 in particular contains a central idea pertaining to
yangsheng: “to reduce the excessive” energies of the body and “increase the defi-
cient” energies of the body. One who cannot manage this lives a life in service
to the external world of fame and wealth, where his or her activities “reduce the
[already] deficient” energies of the body and “supplement the [already] excessive”
energies. This is a sure path to early death.
The Dao, because of the artificial machinations of human beings, becomes
more and more shut off from the world, and its ability to carry out the project of
life is seriously compromised: life suffers and struggles. The next move in DDJ 77
is to introduce the Sage as the one who is capable of incepting the great project
of the second-order harmony:

Who is able to

reduce the excessive by way of supplementing the world?

Only one who possesses the Dao.

For this reason the Sage takes action but does not linger on it.
He completes the merit but claims no credit for it.
Like this is his desire not to make a display of his worthiness.

The Sage is “the one who possesses the Dao” 有道者 (you dao zhe), and he
takes its place in carrying out the project of life. This is not simply the project of
reinstating the natural balance; rather, it is the inception of a higher-level balance,
the second-order harmony. More exactly, we can say that the Sage makes the Dao
directly present in the world by his embodying it, bypassing the obstacles and
threats posed by worldly human beings and their projects. The Sage “takes action”
為 (wei) by assisting in the processes of life; he is a kind of midwife. By being able
to carry out this project, he opens up viable pathways for the continued coming-
into-existence of life, and thus he now “completes the merit” 功成 (gong cheng).
DDJ 81 makes the final reference to the Dao of Heaven, and it makes very
clear, by way of its sequence, the identification of the Dao of Heaven with the
first-order harmony and the Dao of the Sage 聖人之道 (shengren zhi dao) with
the inception of the second-order harmony: “The Dao of Heaven is to benefit
and not injure. The Dao of the Sage is to act for others and not compete” 天之
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 193

道利而不害聖人之道為而不爭 (tian zhi dao li er bu hai shengren zhi dao wei er bu

zheng). But note that it holds back from making the much more compelling claim
about the relationship between the life-giving activities of the Dao and the Sage
that is found in DDJ 2, in which the Sage assumes responsibility for the dissipat-
ing ability of the Dao to endow life in the death-world; in a sense, he takes the
place of the Dao in carrying out the processes of life.

For this reason the Sage

carries out the non- and moves in wordless

intentional project, teachings.

The ten thousand living things come to life,

but he doesn’t speak.

He gives birth to them He acts for them but

but doesn’t possess them. doesn’t make them
dependent.

He completes the merit but doesn’t remain in it.

It is only because he does not remain in it, that it
therefore never gets displaced.

This passage directly portrays the Sage taking up the great project: inserting
himself into the void left vacant by the absence of the Dao’s free flow in the
world, he assumes for himself (albeit non-intentionally) the responsibility for
the continuation of life: he now “gives birth to” 生 (sheng) and “acts for” (wei)
all living things, thereby completing the project of life by allowing things to
live and die naturally.
The ability of the Sage to take the place of the Dao is not only the most
awesome of his benefits announced by the Daodejing; it is also an absolute require-
ment if life is to claw out of the death-world and progress into the second-order
harmony. DDJ 17 reiterates these ideas and also reveals some indications of the
completed project (ever futural) by giving voice to the words of the common
people: “When the merit is completed and the project fulfilled, the common
people will say, ‘We are so naturally’ ” 功成事遂百姓皆謂我自然 (gong cheng shi
sui bai xing jie wo zi ran).
The relationship between the Sage and the Dao is, in DDJ 70, given in the
direct words of the Sage himself: “My words have an ancestor. My project has
a lord” 言有宗事有君 (yan you zong shi you jun). The Sage directly announces
his submission to and acceptance of the Dao and its project; as DDJ 23 states:
“Therefore, one who takes up the project with the Dao is committed to the
Dao  .  .  .  [and] the Dao happily receives one who is committed to the Dao  .  .  .” 故
194 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

從事於道者同於道 . . . 道亦樂得之 (gu cong shi yu dao zhe tong yu dao . . . dao

yi le de zhi).
DDJ 67, spoken entirely in the words of the Sage, culminates many of
these major ideas, but I give only the opening lines of it. It presents something
very close to a paean to the Dao, worthy of an in-depth study in its own right:

The whole world says that the greatness of my Dao cannot compare
to anything.
But it is only because it is so great that it cannot be compared to
anything.
Were it comparable to anything, it would have become small long ago.

Salvation

In bringing this chapter to a close, I want finally to introduce one last key term of
the Daodejing that completes this exploration of the Sage, the Dao, and the great
project; this is jiu 救, which means, verbally, “to save” or, nominally, “salvation.”
This term signifies the precise results of the project of the Sage, and it is used four
times. This is a very interesting term; “to save” something or someone means that
it is saved from an already threatened or threatening position. In the Daodejing,
the term jiu comes to mean something very close in meaning to “saving something
or someone in order that it may continue to live.” Conversely, the opposite of jiu
is bujiu 不救, “to not be saved,” which effectively comes to mean “to die prema-
turely.” The term jiu functions as a key element in the Daodejing’s understanding
of the great project of the world, and its textual deployments invariably situate
its necessity after the first-order harmony has already fallen into desuetude when
beings are in need of salvation to continue to live.
I want first to briefly look at the single use of the term bujiu, which is
found in DDJ 52:

Block up the holes and close the doors, and to the end of one’s life
the body will not exhaust.
Open the holes and add to the projects, and to the end of one’s life
the body will never be saved.

These lines unmistakably situate the significance of salvation exactly at the

juncture of life and death; indeed, this is the only reason to exercise salvation: to
save living things from death by allowing them to continue to exist and flourish.
The first line refers to the Sage as one who has cultivated his physical body and
united the Dao: “Block up the holes and close the doors” 塞其兌閉其門 (sai qi dui
bi qi men) falls within the orbit of the Daodejing’s ideas of yangsheng: as a person
progresses through the cultivation sequences, the body closes itself off from the
 Th e Sag e a n d t h e P r oje ct 195

deleterious effects of the human world (the stresses, illnesses, and fatigues that
follow from actively participating in the seductive happenings of the world of
power and wealth) and seals up its life-sustaining components (yin, yang, and qi)
so they do not get used up or leak out. Thus the Sage lives a life of longevity
without “exhausting” 勤 (qin) his internal components of life.
On the other hand, one who “opens the holes” 開其兌 (kai qi men) by
participating in the human world and “adds to the projects” 濟其事 (ji qi shi),
referring to common projects and not the great project of the world, will exhaust
his or her internal components, and thus “the body will never be saved” 終身
不救 (zhong shen bujiu), meaning that he or she will die prematurely without
completing his or her given life span. This passage squarely situates salvation as
directly pertaining to the question of life versus death in a world of premature
death under the threat of apocalyptic destruction.
Of the three remaining instances of the term jiu in the Daodejing, the Sage
is the agent of salvation in two of them, and Heaven is the agent in one. DDJ
27 states:

That is why the Sage is constantly good at saving people and never
rejects anyone.
He is constantly good with saving things and never rejects anything
useful.
This is called Actualized Brightness.

In this passage, the “saving” (jiu) of the Sage is not a dramatic and world-
wrenching event; it is not a second coming and has nothing whatsoever to do
with a creator god’s judgment of personal morality or a being’s fulfillment of any
set of divine commands. This saving is a much quieter process that is carried
out locally, on whatever or whoever is immediately at hand. Here, “salvation” is
opposed to “rejection” 棄 (qi): the Sage saves by not rejecting, for to be rejected
means to be left to perish. Saving both people 人 (ren) and things 物 (wu) is
what the Sage is “good at” 善 (shan), and this is called “Actualized Brightness”
襲明 (xi ming) (more on this in the next chapter).
DDJ 49 depicts the actual mechanics of the Sage’s acts of saving:

When the Sage is present in the world he is absorbed in it.

He merges his mind with the world.
The common people all fix their eyes and ears on him,
And the Sage treats them all as his children.

These lines underscore once again the structure of care adopted by the
Sage, and they fill out the ideas of DDJ 27 by showing that to save someone or
something means to be treated with “goodness” (shan), a term that represents
196 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

what could be argued to be the single ultimate value put forth by the Daodejing.
Goodness is virtually synonymous with the continuation of life itself, but the
study of this term as it is used in the Daodejing (thirty-five times, a remarkably
high number for such a short text) is the material for another study.
DDJ 49 presents the salvational processes of the Sage with more clarity and
precision than any other chapter; it shows how the Sage goes about fulfilling the
great project of the world whereby he saves people and things through the four
benefits named in DDJ 57: “transformation” (hua), “alignment” (zheng), “flourish-
ment” (fu), and “simplicity” (pu). Through the deepest kind of empathy wherein
the Sage “merges his mind with the empire” 為天下渾其心 (wei tianxia hun qi xin),
he succors the people and “treats them all as his children” 皆孩之 (jie hai zhi).
As I show in the following chapter, this ability to benefit the people is
itself grounded in the non-intentional activity of the Sage, which is the natural
consequence of the type of knowledge that he possesses; this is the knowledge
of yangsheng.
 8

The Sage and Bad Knowledge

sts

A Confucian Study Break

Throughout the course of this study, I have endeavored to offer a sustained exami-
nation of the Sage as he is revealed in page after page of the Daodejing. He is
the central pivot around which all the other ideas of the text orbit. To further
approach and examine the defining features of the Sage of the Daodejing, I have
had and continue to have recourse to the Analects to show how these two texts
talk a lot about identical terms and ideas but in very different ways that, with
proper analysis, can directly inform our understanding of the early Daoist Sage,
who he is, what he does and how he does it, and why he does what he does. For
that proper analysis, I have found it helpful to cull out some of the extreme dis-
symmetries found in the deployment, valuation, and signification of many of the
terms and ideas shared by both texts. By doing so, I hope to demonstrate once
and for all that the Daodejing demands to be read on its own terms, and this fact
must be digested: it is pursuing a kind of imaginatively religious and politically
radical project that is very different from anything that could be associated with
the Analects.
One central idea shared by both texts is that of “knowledge” 知 (zhi). In
this and the next chapter, my point of focus is the relationship that the Sage has
with knowledge, particularly how he acquires it and how he exercises it. In terms
of knowledge acquisition, “study” 學 (xue) is a central component, so I begin with
a brief exploration of the ways in which it is differently valued in the Analects and
the Daodejing, and this will shed much light on our understanding of the Sage.

197
198 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The Daodejing does not mention study often; the term occurs four times
in three separate chapters. Study is not something that is looked upon kindly in
these four uses; each occurrence evinces a definite tone of disdain. “Study” (xue)
in the Chinese tradition both early and late signifies much more than book study;
it denotes an existential commitment accepted by any student who takes on the
responsibilities entailed by study for allowing oneself to be transformed by immer-
sion in the matter of what one studies. This transformation is primarily, at least
according to the Analects, moral and physical, and it also leads to knowledge.
Study morally transforms because its content primarily concerns morality.
Study physically transforms because its successful completion renders one able to
correctly embody behavior dictated by the requirements of ritual comportment
禮 (li) as indicated by LY 1.1: “To study something and then put it into practice
at the right time: is this not a joy?” 學而時習之不亦說乎 (xue er shi xi zhi bu yi
yue hu). Study leads to knowledge, but this is “knowing how” much more than
“knowing that.” In LY 7.7, Confucius famously claimed that he would accept
anybody as a student as long as he was committed: “From those who only had to
offer for his tuition a bundle of dried meat on up, I never denied my teaching to
anyone who sought it” 自行束脩以上吾未嘗無誨焉 (zi xing shu xiu yi shang wu
wei chang wu hui yan), but the possibility of undertaking a program of study was
a privilege not commonly afforded the common people.
LY 16.9 states: “Those who have innate knowledge are the highest; next
are those who acquire knowledge through study; next are those who study only
in times of difficulty; lowest are those who go through times of difficulty and do
not study anything” 生而知之者上也學而知之者次也困而學之又其次也困而不
學民斯為下矣 (sheng er zhi zhi zhe shang ye xue er zhi zhi zhe ci ye kun er xue zhi
you qi ci ye kun er bu xue min si wei xia yi).
In this passage, the Analects posits four classes of people in relation to
knowledge and study. The first class refers to sages who represent a very exclusive
group and are very rarely found living in the world. The third and fourth classes
are not said to acquire knowledge at all, despite the fact that the third class
attempts to study. This kind of study seems to be a different kind altogether from
that attributed to the second class, whose program of study is directed specifically
to the acquisition of knowledge. This is precisely the knowledge of “knowing
how” to perform correct ritual (li), heralded as the highest goal of the Confucian
program of study.1
In two related passages, Confucius laments the degeneration of study in the
present age (and several other passages from the Analects directly connect this
degeneration to the decline of ritual). In LY 14.24, he says, “In the old days,
people studied to improve themselves. These days they study only in order to
impress others” 古之學者為己今之學者為人 (gu zhi xue zhe wei ji jin zhi xue zhe
wei ren), and in LY 8.12 he says, “It is rare to find a person who will study for
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 199

three years without giving a thought to an official salary” 三年學不至於穀不易

得也 (san nian xue bu zhi yu gu bu yi de ye).
Confucius in LY 15.31 directly opposes “study” (xue) and “contemplation”
思 (si): “Once I spent an entire day without food and an entire night without
sleep in an attempt to contemplate. I gained nothing. It is not as good as study”
吾嘗終日不食終夜不寢以思無益不如學也 (wu chang zhong ri bu shi zhong ye bu
qin yi si wu yi bu ru xue ye).
Three main points to be taken from these passages are, first, that study is
an essential component in the process of moral self-cultivation and the acquisi-
tion of knowledge leading to the correct performance of ritual; second, that at
present there is a strong tendency for the goals of study to target career develop-
ment instead of moral and physical cultivation; and third, that study is opposed
to contemplation.
The Daodejing shares the same understanding of “study” that informs the
Analects on precisely these points but it gives it a different valuation. DDJ 20
states, “Break off study and there will be no anxieties” 絕學無憂 (jue xue bu you).
These are the “anxieties” 憂 (you) created by the stressful exertions to master and
embody the moral and physical attitudes dictated by any program of study oriented
by the prescriptions of ritual. The pressure to master and embody these attitudes
comes from the belief evinced many times in the Analects that the supremely good
civilization depends on the correct performance of ritual; LY 4.13, for example,
states, “To be able to run the state through ritual and deference is everything. To
be unable to run the state by ritual and deference, then what’s the use of ritual?”
能以禮讓為國乎何有不能以禮讓為國如禮何 (neng yi li rang wei guo hu he you
bu neng yi li rang wei guo ru li he).
Let’s consider again Confucius’s statement that “contemplation is not as
good as study” 思不如學 (si bu ru xue). For his part, Laozi (I use his name here
only for the symmetry of this brief aside; I am not attributing authorship to him)
says in DDJ 41: “When the best student hears about the Dao, he practices it dili-
gently. When the average student hears about the Dao, he retains some things but
forgets others. When the worst student hears about the Dao, he loudly ridicules it”
上士聞道勤而行之中士聞道若存若亡下士聞道大笑之 (shang shi wen dao qin er
xing zhi zhong shi wen dao ruo cun ruo wang xia shi wen dao da xiao zhi). It almost
feels that Laozi’s comments are a direct rejoinder to Confucius, although, if there
is any back and forth occurring between the two passages, it is hard to discern
which is the volley and which is the rejoinder.
Nonetheless, Confucius posits two ways of approaching cultivation: “study”
(which for him remains a decidedly physical cultivation centering on the many
choreographed movements and performances of ritual comportment) or “con-
templation” (which is decidedly non-physical). Laozi posits a third approach to
cultivation: “practice” 行 (xing), an activity very different from both study and
200 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

contemplation, for which Confucius does not seem to account. In this sense, xing
means “to practice” but also “to move in” or “to flow with.” Here we can leave
contemplation aside, as this is the kind of activity that would soon enough find
its home in the strand of early zuowang Daoism associated with the Zhuangzi and,
later, Chan Buddhism.
“Study” is an activity that primarily focuses on mastering an already existent
set of ritual movements: a choreography of movements. “Practice,” in the sense
that Laozi uses the term, does not possess a preestablished repertoire; DDJ 2, for
example, states that the Sage “practices the wordless teaching” 行不言之教 (xing
bu yan zhi jiao). The comparison between these passages from the Analects and
the Daodejing exemplifies the difference between the intentional and deliberative
activity targeted by “study” directed to ritual comportment and the spontaneous
and non-intentional activity targeted by “practice” with reference to yangsheng.
The Daodejing strictly opposes the pursuit of study grounded in ritual perfor-
mance with spontaneity and the pursuit of the Dao (and I suggest that Confucius
also strictly opposed them under the terms of his own valuation when he praised
study and condemned contemplation). DDJ 48 states:

Those who pursue study increase daily; those who pursue the Dao
decrease daily.
They decrease and decrease until they reach a point where they act
non-intentionally.
They act non-intentionally and nothing is left undone.

In this passage, “to pursue study” 為學 (wei xue) specifically refers to one’s
commitment to ritual study, and what is “increased” 益 (yi) is the body’s accumu-
lated capacity to perform correct ritual. This entails a physical mastery attained
through a very different kind of physical cultivation from that of yangsheng because
it is focused on the body’s external movements rather than its internal energies.
The pursuit of study, then, is the primary method or vehicle whereby one fully
adopts the attitudes of intentional activity 有爲 (youwei), a process that invari-
ably begins with the child’s growth into moral maturity, initiating the loss of the
original harmony of the newborn infant famously celebrated by the Daodejing.
Another word for this course that begins the process of depleting the inborn vital
energies of the natural body is socialization.
“To pursue the Dao” 為道 (wei dao), on the other hand, is an exactly
opposite pursuit in which the focus is on the internal energies of the body. To do
so is to undertake a radically different lifestyle; one “decreases” 損 (sun) in the
sense of returning back to the body rather than displaying oneself to the outside
world. To adopt this commitment to the Dao is to shed one’s amenability to
the seductions of fame and wealth and reverse the process of socialization with
its plethora of accumulated behaviors and comportments, the object of “study.”
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 201

Shedding these accumulations, one “decreases” and reverts to non-intentional

activity 無爲 (wuwei).
The final use of the term for study is in DDJ 64: “The Sage studies non-
study in order to redress the misfortunes of the masses” 學不學復衆人之所過 (xue
bu xue fu zhong ren zhi suo huo). To “study non-study” 學不學 (xue bu xue) is to
reject the project of ritual study, and this is itself the process of social decondition-
ing in which the learned forms and habits of ritual comportment are gradually
relinquished. Shedding them, the Sage restores his own pristine spontaneity, his
natural inborn identity, and this has a deep influence on the world around him:
“By doing so, he restores the spontaneity of the ten thousand living things, but
he does not dare to do so intentionally” 以輔萬物之自然而不敢為 (yi bu wanwu
zhi ziran er bu gan wei).
DDJ 64 makes the indirect claim that the cause of “the misfortunes of
the masses” lies in the program of study itself. This is the program undertaken
exclusively by members of the ruling elite to acquire knowledge that they then
exercise for the purpose of their own self-interest at the direct expense of the
common people. This is where the Sage comes in.

Knowledge and Yangsheng Sequences

Throughout the Daodejing, the term zhi 知 is used in very striking ways; it is one
of the most loaded terms in all of the short text. “Knowledge” is closely related
to a second term, “cleverness” 智 (zhi), which is also used with some frequency,
and I do not make a great distinction between them. As with many Chinese
terms, the character zhi has both a nominal meaning, “knowledge,” and a verbal
meaning, “to know.” There are two sides to knowledge, each posited, directly and
indirectly, at opposite poles from each other in relation to its positive power to
cause extreme benefit or its negative power to cause extreme danger.
The Daodejing invests knowledge with a superlative degree of agency; to
know something is to effect a radical change in oneself, others, or the world,
either for the better or for the worse. A clear example of the negative side of
knowledge that presents extreme danger both to those who exercise it and to
those on whom it is exercised is given in the direct words of the Sage in the
first lines of DDJ 53:

“If I reduced the knowledge of the people and had them proceed
along the great Dao,
The only thing I would fear is interfering with them.
The Great Dao is very level, but the people delight in bypaths.”

The Sage understands the inherent dangers of knowledge, and he exerts

his influence on the people to reduce it, thereby increasing and augmenting their
202 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

harmony with the Dao. “To interfere” 施 (shi) with them as he reduces their
knowledge would be to act intentionally in the world. This represents a second-
ary danger for the Sage, namely that he will become embroiled in politics and
its sordid details, which can offer at best only a limited set of benefits to the
common people.
In other sections, the Daodejing describes the power of knowledge to effect
a radical change for the good; DDJ 28 states:

To know the cock yet preserve the hen is to be the canyon of the world.
Being the canyon of the world, his constant de does not scatter and
he returns to the state of an infant.

To know whiteness yet preserve blackness is to be the model of the

world.
Being the model of the world, his constant de does not deviate and
he returns to the unlimited.

To know glory yet preserve disgrace is to be the valley of the world.

Being the valley of the world, his constant de is sufficient and he
returns to simplicity.

This passage exemplifies the power of knowledge to effect radical change; it

is employed as an active, causal state or event, very close in meaning to embodi-
ment. “Knowing” (zhi) “the cock” 雄 (xiong) or maleness, “whiteness” 白 (bai), and
“glory” 筞 (rong) while at the same time preserving their opposites, namely “the
hen” 雌 (ci) or femaleness, “blackness” 黑 (hei), and “disgrace” 辱 (ru), does not
describe a mental state, as we might at first assume, but rather a physical state of
being. More precisely, to come to know these three marks the achievement of a
higher state of embodiment of the rhythms of the Dao along the path of yangsheng
cultivation. These three sets of images (cock/hen, white/black, glory/disgrace) all
coincide with the values of yang and yin as the two primary manifestations of qi
relentlessly targeted by yangsheng. “Knowledge” in these three couplets directly
pertains to the knowledge of the body’s energies (yin and yang) in their fullest
display of circulation as “constant de” 常德 (chang de).
This passage presents the rhythms of the Dao and embodied de through a
series of mimetic images that reflect one fundamental process of the Dao, namely
giving birth to all things by way of the constant interplay of Being 有 (you) and
Non-being 無 (wu). DDJ 40, for example, states: “The ten thousand living things
of the world are born from Being. Being is born from Non-being” 天下萬物生於
有有生於無 (tianxia wanwu sheng yu you you sheng yu wu).
That the rhythms of the Dao can be understood in terms of the constant
interactions of Being and Non-being is made clear by DDJ 11, which describes
the Non-being inside a vase that makes the vase a vase instead of, say, a brick or
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 203

a bowling pin, and the Non-being of a window and a door that makes the room
a room and not, for example, a sealed box. However, DDJ 28 is not speaking to
the physics of phenomena; it is rather directed to the cultivation of the body and
the achievement of a higher state of integration with the rhythms of the Dao
marked by knowledge: the Sage knows (zhi) the cock from the fertile ground of
the hen, he knows whiteness from the fertile ground of blackness, and he knows
glory from the fertile ground of disgrace. This knowledge manifests in his deeper
degree of physical being within and for the world, namely as a “canyon” 蹊 (xi),
“model” 忒 (shi), and “valley” 谷 (gu), images that speak to the capacity of the
Sage to serve as a matrix around which all things gravitate.
The final phrases of each couplet are almost redundant, speaking as they do
to the total physical system of the body of the Sage described by his de: it is “not
scattered” 不離 (buli), “not deviated” 不忒 (bute), and “sufficient” 足 (zu), causing
him to be like “an infant” 嬰兒 (yinger), “unlimited” 無極 (wuji), and “simple”
朴 (pu). In other words, the body of the Sage is one with the Dao (the ultimate
goal of yangsheng), the result of his successful attainments of the ascending stages
of the yangsheng path of cultivation.
DDJ 16 pursues this exploration of knowledge by coupling it with other
verbs of transformative power. This passage, the first section of which is given in
the direct words of the Sage, situates the events of knowledge acquisition within
a sequence of cultivation practices leading to an embodiment of the Dao:

“I extend emptiness to the limit and preserve tranquility in the center:

The ten thousand living things come bursting forth and by this I see
their return.
Everything flourishes and flourishes, and each again returns to its root.”

Returning to the root is called tranquility.

Being tranquil is to return to fate.
Returning to fate is to be constant.
Knowing constancy is to be bright.
Not knowing constancy is to act blindly for disaster.

Knowing constancy is to be inclusive.

Inclusiveness leads to impartiality.
Impartiality leads to be kingliness.
Kingliness leads to Heaven.
Heaven leads to the Dao.
The Dao leads to long life, such that the body will never decay.

Leaving aside for the moment the probable referents for each step in this
yangsheng sequence, the first section of this chapter situates the Sage at the center
of the phenomenal world from which things are seen to live and die within the
204 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

rhythms of the Dao. Harmonizing with this rhythm, the Sage establishes himself
at the “root” 根 (gen) as the source and center of life and death, thereby ­initiating
the sequential yangsheng path that will ultimately take him to the place or moment
in which he fully embodies the Dao.
DDJ 16 is mostly structured by a sequence of yangsheng attainments in
which A leads to B, B leads to C, and so forth, but note the break in this flow
where two significant lines step back to attend specifically to “knowledge,” after
which the sequence is resumed. They state: “Knowing constancy is to be bright.
Not knowing constancy is to act blindly for disaster” 知常曰明不知常妄作凶
(zhi chang yue ming bu zhi chang an zuo xiong). Why is the flow of this sequence
broken exactly here? I believe it is because the passage is highlighting the specific
relation between “knowledge” (zhi) and “brightness” 明 (ming).
The Daodejing harbors a complex thread of interlocking claims concerning
the relation of knowledge, brightness, and longevity. The proper exploration of
this centrally important thread begins with DDJ 59, which presents a separate
yangsheng sequence that culminates in the attainment of “long life” 長生 (chang
sheng), despite the fact that it only indirectly mentions “knowledge” in the phrase
“nobody knows its limit” 莫知其極 (mo zhi qi ji) and does not specifically men-
tion “brightness.” It states:

In regulating the people and serving Heaven, nothing compares with

being sparing. Being sparing is to submit early [to the Dao].
Submitting early is to accumulate de repeatedly.
Accumulating de repeatedly, there is nothing that cannot be overcome.
When there is nothing that cannot be overcome, nobody knows
where it will end.
When nobody knows where it will end, then the state can be possessed.
And when the Mother of the state is possessed, one is long and lasting.
This is called having deep roots and a solid base.
This is the Dao of long life and lasting vision.

This yangsheng sequence begins with living “sparingly” 嗇 (se). This spare-
ness refers not to financial frugality, but to the bodily energies expended in the
common projects of the world directed to power, fame, and wealth. Being sparing
with them, they can remain vital in the body’s systems of circulation, and the
passage speaks of this in terms of “repeatedly accumulating de” 重積德 (chong ji
de), where de becomes in a sense supercharged.
This yangsheng sequence directs one backward, and this is in keeping with
the reversions and reversals espoused throughout the Daodejing, until one possesses
the state and then the Mother of the state. The sequence tellingly does not end
not with “the state” 國 (guo), something a ruler might hope to possess, but with
“the Mother of the state” 國之母 (guo zhi mu), where the “Mother” 母 (mu) is a
key term consistently used to refer to the Dao itself, as seen in DDJ 1, 20, 25, and
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 205

52. This yangsheng sequence is structured on a movement of reversion because to

unite with the Dao in its image of the Mother is to return to the womb; as the
Sage says in DDJ 20: “I alone am different from other people: I value drawing
sustenance from the Mother” 我獨異於人而貴食母 (wo du yi yu ren er gui shi mu).
The yangsheng sequence of DDJ 59 culminates in the attainment of “the Dao
of long life and lasting vision” 長生久視之道 (changsheng jiushi zhi dao). Variations
of this phrase centering on the terms “long” 長 (chang) and “lasting” 久 (jiu) in
the sense of “long life” 長生 (changsheng) and “lasting vision” 久視 (jiushi) are
found in other sections of the text, including DDJ 44, which states: “It is possible
to be long and lasting” 可以長久 (keyi chang jiu), where “long and lasting” is a
short-hand for “long life and lasting vision” (chang sheng jiu shi). Additionally,
DDJ 7 states that “Heaven is long and Earth is lasting” 天長地久 (tian chang di
jiu), a most powerful image of the longevity of the Sage that is directly related to
the longevity of Heaven and Earth by way of the shared rhetoric of “long” (life)
and “lasting” (vision). Longevity is not an idea foreign to the Daodejing, and it
is intimately related to the goals of yangsheng.
While the yangsheng sequence of DDJ 59 does not specifically mention
“brightness,” it remains as a major implication of “lasting vision.” It is to this
notion that I now turn.

Brightness and Yangsheng Sequences

The term ming 明 might best be left untranslated in the Daodejing. Translators
often take it to mean “enlightenment,” but this connotes either a philosophic
commitment to rationality or a spiritual state beyond desire; in the context of
the Daodejing, neither of these connotations comes close to the mark. Ming has a
limited range of meanings that cohere around brightness and making bright, with
a further set of connotations having to do with understanding and foreknowledge.
In its most basic meaning, ming is simply “to brighten” or “illuminate” some-
thing by an external light source like the sun or a torch; in this respect, DDJ
41 applies brightness to the Dao itself: “The bright Dao appears dark” 明道若
昧 (ming dao ruo mei). It can also mean to illuminate something by an internal
source such as the mind, as in illuminating a problem; in this respect, DDJ 33
associates brightness with self-knowledge: “To know yourself is to be bright” 自
知者明 (zi zhi zhe ming).
The Daodejing uses ming in several ways that extend from these basic mean-
ings, most importantly in the context of yangsheng sequences as demonstrated
already by DDJ 16. DDJ 55 reiterates that sequence with only a slight alteration:

Knowing harmony is to be constant.

Knowing constancy is to be bright.
To add on to life is inauspicious.
For the heart to manipulate qi is aggression.
206 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Compare the first line of this passage, “Knowing harmony is to be constant”

(zhi he yue chang) with its apposite line in DDJ 16, “Returning to fate is to be
constant” 復命曰常 (fu ming yue chang); their similarity demonstrates the integrity
of the Daodejing’s inter-referential understanding of yangsheng sequences.
In DDJ 55’s yangsheng sequence, “knowing” stands as a place marker through
which the Sage passes: “knowing” physical “harmony” (zhi he), he progresses to
“knowing constancy” (zhi chang) and then to “brightness” (ming). As in DDJ 16, “to
be bright” (ming) represents a specific stage of attainment following from “knowing
constancy.” Also as in DDJ 16, a danger is recognized with this attainment; for
DDJ 16, it lies in “acting blindly for disaster” 忘作凶 (wang zuo xiong), whereas
here it lies in the “inauspiciousness” 祥 (xiang) of adding on to life. Both of these
dangers point to the seductions of exercising intentional, goal-driven activity.
These dangers are inherent in the attainment of “brightness” (ming), where
“being bright” endows an understanding or foreknowledge that allows the Sage a
privileged insight into how things and situations can be “manipulated” 使 (shi)
in order to achieve a sought-after end. “To be bright” designates a stage in the
progress of a Sage, or more precisely a Sage-to-be, when he is confronted with
the seduction or temptation to exercise his “brightness,” which the Daodejing
elsewhere identifies with “foreknowledge” 前識 (qianshi), in the world for gain of
either a private or public sort. “Being bright” is a direct result of the attainment
of knowledge, and it is in this knowledge that is found the possibility for causing
dramatic effects on oneself, others, and the world for either good or bad.
Brightness, the result of knowledge, signifies a non-transformative ability to
illuminate facts or details of the world that the Sage can, through the exercise
of knowledge, choose to act on or not. The dangers inherent in the attainment
of brightness arise from the seduction of exercising knowledge through deliber-
ate, intentional activity carried out in the world. “Acting blindly for disaster”
(wang zuo xiong), “adding onto life” 益生 (yi sheng), and “manipulating qi” 使氣
(shi qi) are anything but the non-intentional activity 無爲 (wuwei) constantly
advocated by the Daodejing, despite the fact that the motive to perform these
actions certainly would originate from a desire to assist in the accumulation of
benefits (“acting blindly”), the processes of the Dao (“adding onto life”), and the
deliberate handling of the bodily energies (“manipulating qi”).
The final three lines of DDJ 55 cap its yangsheng sequence: “As soon as
things reach their prime they begin to age. This is called ‘Not of the Dao.’ What-
ever is not of the Dao dies prematurely” 物壯則老謂之不道不道早已 (wu zhuang
ze lao wei zhi bu dao zao yi). Compare this to the final line of DDJ 16, which
caps its own sequence: “The Dao leads to long life, such that the body will never
decay” 道能久沒身不殆 (dao neng jiu mo sheng bu dai). Embodying the Dao as
the final stage in the sequence, the body does “not decay” 不殆 (bu dai): another
clear reference to long life. In DDJ 55, on the other hand, to act intentionally
is not to be one with the Dao and this inexorably leads to premature death. But
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 207

the passage universalizes this claim; what is at stake in being separated from the
Dao is not simply the early death of the individual body, but also the premature
death of the life-world leading to the death-world.
One who achieves brightness must somehow restrain the impulses to exercise
his acquired knowledge and overcome the temptation to intentionally assist; DDJ
38 indirectly describes this:

Foresight is the flower of the Dao, but also the beginning of ignorance.
For this reason the Great Man dwells in the thick but not in the thin.
He dwells in the fruit but not in the flower.
For this reason, he rejects that and takes this.

“The Great Man” 大丈夫 (da zhangfu) refers to one who is on the yang-
sheng path leading to union with the Dao but has not yet attained full oneness
with it, in other words the Sage-to-be. “Foresight” 前識 (qianshi) is synonymous
with “brightness” (ming), and the cultivation of “ignorance” 愚 (yu) is the proper
response for the Sage-to-be who experiences the seduction of deliberate activity
in the world. The “flower” 華 (hua) refers to the showy, external, and glamorous
appearance of things, that which could seduce the Sage-to-be to exert himself
in the deliberate manipulation of things and situations, while the “fruit” 實 (shi)
refers to the deep center lying at the core of the rhythms of the Dao to which
the Sage-to-be holds by restraining himself against acting upon the “flower.” Thus,
the Sage-to-be “rejects” 去 (qu) deliberative, intentional activity on the flower
and “takes” 取 (qu) or adopts the non-intentional activity that allows him to
remain in the center, the “fruit.”
The term zhi止 (“restraint”) is found many times throughout the Daodejing; its
basic meaning is “to stop,” “limit,” or “halt in a place or state,” but its uses in the
text commonly refer to “stopping oneself from continuing to do something harm-
ful” or “restraining oneself.” DDJ 32 speaks of the necessity to impose restraint in
the face of something seductive and addictive, in this case regulations and names:

With the beginning of regulations, there are names.

Once names are there, one must also know to stop.
Knowing to stop in this way keeps one from danger.

This passage repeats the phrase zhi zhi 知止 (“to know to stop” or “knowing
restraint”), and it presents another application of the knowledge of the Sage, but it
is not exactly clear what it is that the Sage stops; it could be the proliferation of
names, or possibly the intentional activity directed by or oriented to names. What
is clear is that by not knowing restraint, the Sage will find himself “endangered”
殆 (dai) in a web of troubles. In this sense, the Sage exercises knowledge through
restraint, or, we could say, restraint itself is the proper exercise of knowledge.
208 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Although this “restraining” might appear to contradict the idea of non-intentional

activity, knowledge itself is something acquired through socialization; it is, as DDJ
55 states, “added on to life.” Even the Sage has to keep up his guard in order not
to fall into the trappings of knowledge and power.
The yangsheng sequence in DDJ 52 further emphasizes the dangers inherent
in the achievement of brightness and the necessity of restraining the attendant
urge to act intentionally on things or situations in the world. Note also the
prominent position that it gives to “brightness” and “constancy.”

Block up the holes and close the doors, and to the end of one’s life
the body will never be exhausted.
Open the holes and add to the projects, and to the end of one’s life
the body will never be saved.
To perceive smallness is to be bright.
To preserve pliancy is to be strong.
Using the light to return to brightness, the body will experience no
disaster.
This is to accord with the Constant.

The phrase, “Block up the holes and close the doors” 塞其兑閉其門 (sai qi
dui bi qi men), refers to the yangsheng practice of sealing up the body to maintain
and augment its vital energies (yin, yang, and qi). The increased energy that
results as a consequence is the source from which the temptation to act on the
world arises, and this is implicated with the achievement of brightness. The Sage
internally contains and preserves the bodily energies instead of exerting them
without; to close them off means that he is impervious to the seductions of fame
and wealth (DDJ 44), racing horses (DDJ 12), and beautiful words and beautiful
deeds (DDJ 62). Further, this passage encourages him to “perceive the small” 見
小 (jian xiao), in other words not to become fascinated with the big in terms of
what he could achieve in and for the world.
The next line states, “To preserve pliancy is to be strong” 守柔曰強 (shou rou
yue qiang). Pliancy overcomes brute strength in the same way that non-intentional
activity is more powerful than deliberate, intentional activity. The apparent con-
tradiction of pliancy 柔 (rou), a central component of non-intentional activity,
being more powerful than strength 強 (qiang) is asserted several times in the
Daodejing; DDJ 36, for example, states, “Pliancy overcomes hardness, suppleness
overcomes strength” 柔弱勝剛強 (rou ruo sheng gang qiang), and DDJ 43 states:
“The most pliant things in the world plow through the hardest things in the
world . . . From this I know the benefit of non-intentionality” 天下之至柔馳騁
天下之至堅  .  .  .  吾是以知無為之有益 (tianxia zhi zhi rou chi cheng tianxia zhi zhi
zhi jian . . . wu shiyi zhi wuwei zhi you yi).
The “brightness” named in this passage from DDJ 52 refers to the transfor-
mation of the Sage’s body that contains, harnesses, and concentrates the bodily
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 209

vitalities; this is the heart of yangsheng. This transformation results in a heightened

state of actual power (“brightness”), which is tempered by his not deliberately
throwing himself into great projects intentionally motivated and by holding to
non-intentional ways of inhabiting the world.
The yangsheng sequence of DDJ 56 directly mirrors that of DDJ 52 with two
differences. First, instead of “brightness” (ming), it uses a slightly different term,
guang 光 (a term that DDJ 52 also employs), meaning “light.” Second, it drives
home the radically physical focus of yangsheng by speaking about “blunting his
sharpness and dissolving his knots” 挫其銳解其紛 (cuo qi rui jie qi fen), where
“sharpness” 銳 (rui) and “knots” 紛 (fen) refer to potential threats and debilita-
tions of the body; it states:

He blocks up his holes and closes his doors.

He blunts his sharpness and dissolves his knots.
He harmonizes with the light and joins in the dust.
This is called the Profound Union.

Here I have to remark that the yangsheng sequences in which the Daode-
jing systematically embeds “brightness” (ming) and “light” (guang) are so striking
that it is remarkable that they have received so little scholarly comment. This
brings me to the yangsheng sequence in DDJ 22, arguably the most fascinating of
them all. I present it in two sections. The first section can easily be taken as an
instruction series for applied yangsheng practice, and it is exactly in keeping with
the teachings and practices of modern qigong, gongfu, taiji, and traditional Chinese
medicine. The first term of each line designates a specific movement, and the
second term designates the beneficial result to be gained from it for the vitalized
circulation of the body’s qi. The physical results that come from these practices,
including calmness, tranquility, and a generally enhanced strength and presence,
are the same goals typically advertised by modern-day taiji. Many of the terms
found in DDJ 22, it should be noted, are also employed throughout the Daodejing
to describe the Sage, some of which I have already analyzed in this study.

Bending leads to intactness.

Twisting leads straightness.
Emptying leads to fullness.
Exhausting leads to renewal.
Reducing leads to attaining.
Excess leads to delusion.

For this reason the Sage holds to the One and is the model for the
empire.
He does not show himself and thus he is bright.
He does not affirm himself and thus he is prominent.
210 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

He does not battle against himself and thus he has merit.

He does not praise himself and thus he is long lasting.
It is only because he does not compete that nobody can compete
with him.
The words of the ancient saying, “Bending results in intactness,” are
not empty.
Thus truly intact, he returns to it.

The yangsheng sequence of the first section is squarely centered in the physi-
cal body; completing the sequence, the body realizes its ultimate potential in the
terms of an “intactness” 全 (quan) that contains without loss its foundational
vitalities intact; a “straightness” 正 (zheng) through which those vitalities circu-
late without impediment; a “fullness” 盈 (ying) of the body replete with those
vitalities augmented by the unimpeded circulation; a “renewal” 新 (xin) of those
vitalities because the body’s intactness has rejuvenated and reinvigorated them;
and an “attaining” 得 (de) that refers to the body’s accumulation of power as a
result of all of the preceding.
The sequence in the passage breaks at this point, because with the accumu-
lation of power there simultaneously arises the threat of the “excess” 多 (duo) of
it, potentially leading to the “delusion” 或 (huo) of wanting to actively exercise
that power through intentional activity in the world in order to fix it. So the
text then states that the Sage, “for this reason” 是以 (shi yi), restrains this urge
to exercise his brightness, and this keeps him from “showing himself” 自見 (zi
jian) in intentional activity on and in the world.
Correctly managing his “brightness” through restraint, the Sage harmonizes
with the Dao: he “holds to the One” 抱一 (bao yi). The passage then proceeds
to depict the behavioral models that characterize the Sage: he “does not show
himself” (bu zi jian), “does not affirm himself” 不自是 (bu zi shi), “does not battle
against himself” 不自伐 (bu zi fa), “does not praise himself” 不自矜 (bu zi jin),
and “does not compete” 不争 (bu zheng).
The Sage could do the opposite, but then he would lose the Dao. Although
he possesses accumulated power by way of his knowledge and brightness, he
restrains it and is “bright.” Being bright, the Sage becomes truly effective in the
world but in non-intentional ways: he is “prominent” 彰 (zhang), “has merit” 有
功 (you gong), “is long lasting” 長 (chang), and “nobody can compete with him”
莫能與之争 (mo neng yu zhi zheng).
The movement of DDJ 22 begins with certain yangsheng practices that
lead to the Dao; next are presented certain behavioral models describing how he
restrains the exercises of power; then the Sage is effective (where this “effective-
ness” refers to “the great project”), and his body achieves long life and is uncon-
querable. The final two lines describe his physical state as one of “intactness” 全
(quan), referring to the condition of his transformed body.
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 211

DDJ 36 presents another yangsheng sequence closely related to those already

discussed, where we find another deployment of “brightness” (ming):

In order to shrink it, you must stretch it.

In order to soften it, you must harden it.
In order to abolish it, you must make it flourish.
In order to take from it, you must give to it.
This is called Subtle Brightness.

“Subtle Brightness” 微明 (weiming) appears as an additional designation for

the restraint placed on the Sage’s exercise of power and knowledge (but note that
the remarkable terms such as “Subtle Brightness” found throughout the ­Daodejing
certainly had to have been invested with technical applications in early yangsheng
Daoism). Are these restraints grounded in intentional activity? Here one is easily
reminded of Herlee Creel’s remarks about the “purposive Daoism” that he associ-
ates with the Daodejing: who would restrain the deliberate exercise of the power
acquired by uniting with the Dao to satisfy the desire to control others?2
Whatever it is that the phrase “Subtle Brightness” refers to, it should be
read together with a passage from DDJ 27:

The Sage is constantly good at saving people and never rejects anyone.
He is constantly good with saving things and never rejects anything
useful.
This is called Actualized Brightness.

This passage describes the proper way for the Sage to wield the power that
he holds in his hands: he exercises it for the benefit of other people and “saves”
救 (jiu) them, and this too is designated as a function of “brightness” (ming), here
designated as “Actualized Brightness” 襲明 (xi ming), a term seemingly not far
removed from “Subtle Brightness” (wei ming).

Knowledge Is a Sickness

The Daodejing presents various yangsheng sequences, and we might ask whether
they are different and unrelated sequences or the same sequence seen from differ-
ent angles. I opt for the latter view. Nonetheless, it is clear that in them “knowl-
edge” (zhi) and “brightness” (ming) are consistently situated together. “Brightness”
is employed most strikingly to either mark a stage in them or designate their
result, depending on the passage. Marking a stage, “brightness” endows insight
concerning the consequences of giving in to the seduction of exercising power in
the world. Designating the result, “brightness” describes the restraint placed on
the exercise of power that allows for an effective presence in the world in which
212 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

the Sage is capable of saving people and things—what the text otherwise calls
“the great project of the world.”
The successive acquisition of different levels of knowledge marks the Sage’s
mastery of one stage after another in the yangsheng sequences, ultimately result-
ing in his embodying the Dao. In other words, knowledge and brightness possess
the possibility of tremendously dangerous or tremendously wonderful ramifications
that can work for either bad or good. The dangers of brightness, which I explored
above, involve the potential threat that the Sage will not restrain himself, but
rather will work deliberately and intentionally on the world; as DDJ 29 puts it:
“I see that one who desires to take the world by intentionally acting on it will
never obtain it . . . One who intentionally acts on it destroys it” 將欲取天下而
為之吾見其不得已 . . . 為者敗之 (jiang yu qu tianxia er wei zhi wu jian qi bu de
yi . . . wei zhe bai zhi).
In the context of the Daodejing, the acquisition of brightness together with
or by way of the acquisition of knowledge provides the opportunity to accomplish
great good in the world or great bad. The dangers that attend the acquisition of
knowledge are similar to those of brightness, but these dangers refer more specifi-
cally to actual ramifications in the real world.
Here I resume the discussion of knowledge, in particular the negative uses of
knowledge and the responsibility it carries for the growing depravity, deficiency, and
fracturedness of the world in the present. The Daodejing attributes bad knowledge,
or the improper exercise of it, with the primary responsibility for its present state.
DDJ 71 claims that the improper exercise of knowledge is dangerous on a
physical level, indeed it is specifically designated as a sickness 病 (bing). In Eng-
lish translations of this chapter, the term bing is invariably translated as “flaw” or
“defect,” and translators take this as referring to a “flaw” in one’s moral stance
in the world. Translating bing in this way, however, overlooks the fact that what
DDJ 71 is discussing has nothing whatsoever to do with morality.
The term bing (“sickness”) as used in DDJ 71 centers on the role of knowl-
edge in the Daodejing’s assessment of the present state of the world and the role
of the Sage to save it:

To know not to make use of knowledge is best.

Not to know how to make use of knowledge is a sickness.
Only by recognizing the sickness as a sickness can one be without
sickness.
Therefore, the Sage not being sick is due to his recognizing that sick-
ness as a sickness.
This is why he is not sick.

DDJ 71 exemplifies the Daodejing’s understanding of knowledge as a two-edged

sword. The first line describes the positive use of knowledge, which lies in not suc-
cumbing to its seductions and temptations through intentional action: “to know not
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 213

to make use of knowledge” 知不知 (zhi buzhi). The second line describes the nega-
tive use of knowledge, which lies in the reckless, deliberate, and intentional exercise
of it in the world. In neither line does the Daodejing outright denounce knowledge,
only the improper use of it. The Daodejing has a sophisticated understanding of the
potential consequences of the exercise of knowledge for good or bad.
The passage states that the improper exercise of knowledge is a “sickness.”
It is sickness because it is addicting to the one who so exercises it, contagious
to those who are also seduced into taking up its improper exercise, and ravaging
both to those who improperly exercise it and to those who are the targets and
victims of its improper exercise. It is ravaging to one who exercises it because it
inevitably leads to intentional activity directed to fame, gain, and other forms of
accumulation, and this intentional activity in turn leads to early death by exhaus-
tion, depletion, and senility. It is ravaging to those who are its targets and victims
because that which is accumulated by those who exercise knowledge improperly
comes straight from the common people and their livelihoods.
In these ways, the improper exercise of knowledge is a sickness because it
is addictive, contagious, and ravaging. The Sage understands the improper use of
knowledge as a sickness and does not participate in it; therefore, he is not sick.
The Sage is able to maintain his health in this way because he knows how to
stop; this is due to his mastery of brightness.
In the eyes of the Daodejing, knowledge in and of itself is neutral; its sick-
ness lies only in the deliberate and intentional exercise of it. This is a sickness of
the mind that poisons the self, society, and the world at large. DDJ 2 sees this as
originating in the mental formulations of artificial distinctions: “When everyone
in the world knows the beautiful as beautiful, ugliness comes into being. When
everyone knows the good, then the not good comes into being” 天下皆知美之
為美斯惡已皆知善之為善斯不善已 (tianxia jie zhi mei zhi wei mei si e yi jie zhi
shan zhi wei shan si bu shan yi).
The point of this passage is not to claim that things in the world are either
beautiful or ugly, either good or not good; rather, it claims that these distinctions
are not part of the natural world but are created in the human mind by way of
knowledge, then projected out onto the things of the world. The end result of
knowing “the beautiful” 美 (mei) and “the good” 善 (shan) is that “the ugly” 惡
(e) and “the not good” 不善 (bu shan) come into being; before this knowledge,
nothing was either ugly or not good, and this change marks a radical turning
point that centrally contributes to the breakdown of the harmony of the world.
When something is known as beautiful in distinction to something known as
ugly, it is only a small step to allowing oneself to have desire for the former and
aversion for the latter. Having the desire for it, knowledge is further exercised in
formulating intentions to take possession of it.
The addictive and contagious nature of the sickness of improperly exercising
knowledge is further developed in DDJ 20; notice this passage’s recalling of the
relation between knowledge and study discussed earlier in this chapter:
214 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Break off study and there will be no anxieties.

How great is the difference between agreement and rejection?
What is the difference between goodness and ugliness?
One who is feared by others must also because of this fear them.
Unrestrained, it will never come to an end.

Study is the primary vehicle in the production and reception of knowledge,

which is equated with basic distinctions; this passage also brings in a further set
of mentally produced artificial distinctions of the mind, “agreement” 唯 (wei) and
“rejection” 阿 (e). Whether it is the knowledge-based distinctions of acceptance
and rejection or goodness and ugliness, the passage underscores their superfluity
in relation to the true nature of things—these sorts of distinctions are a part of
integral reality outside the human mind, but the human mind affects the world
by the application of them onto the things and phenomena within it. “How great
is the difference . . .” 相去幾何 (xiang qu ji he) and “What is the difference . . .”
相去何若 (xiang qu ruo he) are rhetorical questions that point out that the “differ-
ence” 相去 (xiangqu) lies in the mind that creates and supports these distinctions
in the first place.
Further, “the person who is feared by others” 人之所畏 (ren zhi suo wei) is
so feared because he has accumulated too much; his power, wealth, and ambitions
are dangerous to those who do not have them because they have few defenses
to protect themselves against them. These same possessions, on the other hand,
tempt the desires of others who do not possess them to take them for themselves,
and thus that person must constantly be wary of the intentions of others. The
danger associated with wealth is that others will eventually take it; the danger
associated with fame or power is that it will eventually lead to ruin.
This idea—that having too much or standing in front of others is danger-
ous—is prevalent throughout the text; DDJ 9, for example, states: “One who
fills the hall with gold and jade cannot protect them. One who in arrogance has
wealth and honor brings disaster upon himself” 金玉滿堂莫之能守富貴而驕自
遺其咎 (jin yu man tang mo zhi neng shou fu gui er jiao zi yi qi jiu).
The final line of DDJ 20 states, “Unrestrained, it will never come to an
end” 荒兮其未央哉 (huang xi qi wei yang zai), and it points out the addictive and
contagious nature of the proliferation of these distinctions disseminated through-
out the world, claiming that the deficient state of the present world is primarily
due to the spread of knowledge distinctions.
The improper exercise of knowledge is an addiction because it seduces one
into more and more improper exercises of it, leading to the proliferation of desire.
In a key passage, DDJ 46 states:

No crime is greater than having excessive desires.

No disaster is greater than not knowing how to be satisfied.
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 215

No misfortune is greater than the desire to possess.

That is why the contentment of one who knows contentment provides
constant contentment.

Knowledge leads to desire, and desire proliferates. Giving in to them, the

consequence is ravagement for oneself and others, or what the text calls “crime”
罪 (zui), “disaster” 禍 (huo), and “misfortune” 咎 (jiu). While the first three
lines of this passage underscore the dangers of desires, the final line points to the
positive use of knowledge that can restrain the proliferation, and this involves
“contentment” 足 (zu). Contentment is the product of an exercise of knowledge
that works on itself to restrain itself; as the passage literally states, “To know
contentment” 知足 (zhi zu) leads to “constant contentment” 常足 (chang zu).
DDJ 44 pursues its discussion on two of the three ravagements named above,
namely “disaster” (huo) and “misfortune” (jiu), which are the inevitable conse-
quences of being seduced into pursuing wealth and fame. The danger posed by
this pursuit is that it pulls the body’s vital energies outside and away from itself
and into the world. Comparing the value of wealth and power with the value of
the body and health, the former comes up lacking:

Which is more dear: Which is worth more:

Fame or your body? Your body or goods?

Gaining (fame or goods) or losing (the body):

which causes more sickness?

This is why

craving (for fame) leads to and hoarding (goods) leads to

great expenditure great loss.

Knowing contentment (with Knowing restraint (with

fame) leads to no danger. goods) leads to no loss.

In this way, it is possible to be

long and lasting.

The first part of this passage squarely targets the negative consequences of
the improper exercise of knowledge driven by excessive desires. For the most part,
the text equates excessive desires with the effort to gain fame (or power) and the
effort to accumulate wealth, both of which only become objects of desire because
of the machinations of knowledge pursuing “the beautiful” (mei) and “the good”
216 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

(shan) named in DDJ 2. The ultimate consequence of exercising knowledge driven

by desire for power and wealth is “sickness” (bing), to be read in its radically literal
meaning as pertaining to the health of the physical body.
Craving and hoarding, according to DDJ 44, result in “great expenditure”
大費 (da fei) and “heavy loss” 厚亡 (hou wang). In keeping with the Daodejing’s
constant focus on radical physicality, these two phrases are best read as referring
to the vital energies of the physical body: committing oneself to the pursuit of
fame demands “great expenditures” of them, while expending them in the quest
to amass wealth leads to a “great loss” of them.
The final sections of DDJ 44 give a picture of the Sage who is not seduced
by wealth and fame and thus does not deplete his body’s vital energies in the
their pursuit. Note here once again the exercise of knowledge against itself, an
exercise that necessitates restraint against giving into desire, with the result that
the Sage is no longer victim to them and can “know contentment” (zhi zu) and
“know restraint” (zhi zhi). DDJ 33 says something very interesting about this:
“To know contentment is to be rich” 知足者富 (zhi zu zhe fu), but this is not a
material wealth; it refers to the richness of the body’s vital energies, which is a
very different way to be rich.
Thus, knowing contentment and restraint with his body, the Sage rejects
the external seductions of material wealth, and his body suffers neither danger
nor loss: it is “long and lasting” 長久 (chang jiu), which is shorthand for “long life
and lasting vision.” All of this again underscores the radically physical orienta-
tion of the Daodejing to the issues of knowledge, desire, sickness, and health and
gives a further demonstration that ideas about physical longevity are anything
but foreign to the Daodejing.
In a series of thematically related passages, the Daodejing continues to depict
the ravagements of the improper use of knowledge driven by the desire for wealth
and power, where knowledge is principally identified with the ruling elite who
have the leisure and wealth to pursue it. The improper exercise of knowledge is,
as the Daodejing continuously claims, directed to the accumulation of wealth and
power. Thus it is fairly easy to understand that the improper exercise of knowl-
edge will be manifest in ways intended to benefit the ruling elite at the expense
of the common people.
DDJ 53 roundly condemns the ruling elite’s improper exercise of their
knowledge:

When the courts are spotless, the fields are full of weeds and the
granaries are completely empty.
Their clothing is patterned and embroidered and they carry sharp
swords on their sides.
They are gorged with drink and food and they have a wealth of pos-
sessions and goods.
This is called thievery and aggrandizement, and is not the Dao.
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 217

This passage describes the world of power and politics in which the ruling elite are
so out of touch with the lives of the common people that they give no thought
whatsoever to their real hardships. The ruling elite, instead of helping the com-
mon people, are on the contrary consumed with satiating their own thirst for
power and wealth, and the massive expenditures needed to subsidize all of this
are directly supplied by the common people through heavy taxation.
Their magnificent courts and dwellings are built with lavishness and extrava-
gance, but they are paid for with the blood of the people, and the people starve.
They are ostentatious with their designer clothing and hard-to-attain possessions,
and they eat gourmet food every day, all, again, at the expense of the common
people. The Daodejing calls this mechanism whereby the ruling elite luxuriously
live at the expense of the common people “thievery and aggrandizement” 盜夸
(dao kua), and the total environment created through this social and economic
injustice is one in which the Dao, the harmonious force of well-being and the
flourishing of life, does not flow.
DDJ 53 provides the harshest political critique of the injustices of the rul-
ing elite. These injustices are grounded in their exercise of knowledge that the
Daodejing thoroughly condemns and that the Sage attempts to reduce, as we read
in the first line of this chapter: “If I reduced the knowledge of the people and had
them proceed along the great Dao, the only thing I would fear is interfering with
them. The Great Dao is very level, but the people delight in bypaths” (op. cit.).
The ultimate consequence of the negative knowledge that is driven by self-interest
and personal ambition is that it will result in the inception the death-world.
DDJ 57 names some of the ways this negative knowledge manifests itself,
presenting another biting critique of the ruling elite (consistently referred to as
ren 人) and their deployment of knowledge in the world at the expense of the
common people (consistently referred to as min 民) who are their subjects:

The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world, the poorer
will be the people.
The more sharp weapons the people possess, the more muddled will
be the state.
The more craftiness and cleverness the people possess, the more
depraved will be their behavior.
The more legal matters are made prominent, the more will be robbers
and thieves.

This passage actively paints a picture of the ruling elite aggressively exercis-
ing knowledge with the intent to augment their power and wealth through the
imposition of various controls imposed on the common people. The addictive
nature of these exercises of knowledge is denoted by the term duo 多, meaning
“the more” or “more and more.” “Taboos and prohibitions” 忌諱 (jihui), among
other things, often refer to the restrictions placed on public wilderness lands that
218 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

the common people used for catching game but that the ruling elite wanted to
keep well stocked for their own hunting expeditions, thereby depriving the com-
mon people of an important source of food. “Sharp weapons” 利器 (liqi) refer to
military buildups and conscriptions as the ruling elite planned their expeditions of
conquest to enlarge their states. “Craftiness and cleverness” 伎巧 (jiqiao) generally
refer to the various exercises of knowledge by the ruling elite with the intent
to accumulate wealth at the expense of neighboring states, often by breaking
interstate treatises. “Legal matters” 法令 (faling), finally, refer to the promulgation
of internal laws and tax codes meant to allow the ruling elite to increase their
income at the expense of the common people. This contagion of knowledge and
desire goes on “more and more,” with the negative consequences named in the
second part of each of these lines.
These are simply some of the various, yet most powerful, ways in which
the ruling elite, through the exercise of their knowledge, control and ruin the
lives of the common people, who know well enough how to live in the world
without such hardships. The bad done to those exercising this kind of knowledge
is revealed in their moral depravity, and the bad consequences this has on the
common people are revealed by their mass poverty, confused military relations
with other states, and a skyrocketing crime rate, issues that correlate highly with
the three ravagements of “crime (zui) . . . disaster (huo) . . . (and) misfortune
(jiu)” enumerated in DDJ 46.
DDJ 75 more clearly fleshes out the mechanisms whereby the improper
exercise of knowledge brings about these ravagements:

The people do not eat their own harvests because their superiors eat
their grain tax to excess . . . 
The people are difficult to manage because their superiors pursue their
own agendas . . . 
The people trivialize death because their superiors are consumed with
their own pursuit of pleasure . . . 
Those who do not act only for the purpose of their own pleasure are
nobler to those who value their own pleasure.”

In this passage, “the superiors” 上 (shang) refer to the ruling elite (ren).
In terms of the three ravagements, the “crime” lies in their taxing beyond any
justifiable measure the common people (min), taking the products of their labor,
which they need to stay alive, and using that treasure to finance their pursuit of
power and pleasure. The “misfortune” lies in the social chaos that results from the
extreme hardships caused by this disproportionate taxation, thus threatening the
total well-being of the state. And the “disaster” lies in the wanton deaths of the
common people that ultimately result from all of this. In each case presented in
this passage, knowledge is improperly exercised by the “superiors” over the com-
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 219

mon people. These political injustices leave the common people with nowhere
to turn for succor, and this explains why the Sage is needed.
The total environment depicted in this and similar passages from the Daode-
jing displays the general parameters of the death-world, which manifest the three
ravagements to such a degree that there is little room for the flourishing and
prosperity of life; DDJ 53 calls this “not of the Dao” 非道也哉 (fei dao ye zai). In
the previous chapter, I examined the apocalyptic consequence this will have for
the world and all life as found in DDJ 39, which I briefly state once more here:

If Heaven were without that by which it is made clear, it would tear

apart.
If Earth were without that by which it is made stable, it would
shatter . . . 
If the ten thousand living things were without that by which they
came to be born, they would perish.

The improper exercise of knowledge marks the beginning point of a com-

plete ruination of human life and the world itself, and the apocalypse marks the
final ending point; this is concretely identified with the loss of the Dao that makes
Heaven clear, Earth stable, and that also gives birth to the ten thousand living
things. The loss of the Dao, in the eyes of the Daodejing, is not a vague measure
for an abstract trend that happens of its own accord; rather, the loss of the Dao
is due to the active, deliberate, and conscious choices of those who improperly
exercise knowledge. The two key terms used in the text to designate these active,
deliberate, and conscious choices are fei 廢, meaning “rejection” or “to reject,”
and shi 失, meaning “displacement” or “to displace.”
These two terms, rejection and displacement, are conspicuously used only
in relation to what those who improperly exercise knowledge do specifically in
relation to the Dao. These rejections and displacements are active because there
is a direct correlation between them and the consequent degree of the loss or
diminution of the Dao in the world; they are deliberate because they stem from
the intentional activity motivated by knowledge; and they are conscious because
they are done from commitments that result from existential choices (for example,
the choice between wealth and power versus the body highlighted in DDJ 44).
The temptation to give in to a bad set of life commitments, namely wealth and
power, is due to the seduction that wealth and power exercise over those who
pursue knowledge.
Encountering the choice to adopt this commitment to wealth and power is
the key existential moment in the life of those with knowledge (including even
the Sage). One of the oppositions that the Daodejing goes to pains to establish is
that between those who are able to restrain the temptations to act directly on the
world, and those who bring about crime, misfortune, and disaster by giving in to
220 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

these temptations. DDJ 48 gives a succinct example of this: “Those who pursue
study increase daily. Those who pursue the Dao decrease daily.”
This existential opposition between choosing the Dao on the one hand
or wealth and power on the other is succinctly nutshelled in the relation of
the government to the people in DDJ 58: “When the government is drowsy,
drowsy, the people are generous, generous. When the government is alert, alert,
the people are contentious, contentious” 其政悶悶其民淳淳其政察察其民缺缺
(qi zheng men men qi min chun chun qi zheng cha cha qi min que que). Here we see
kinds, or moments, of government; in the first, it is “drowsy, drowsy” 悶悶 (men-
men): it does not employ bad knowledge but rather employs a kind of laissez-faire
approach. Under such a government, the common people are “generous, gener-
ous” 醇醇 (chunchun) and get along just fine, sharing their livelihoods among
each other rather than having them wrenched away by those ruling elite. In the
second, the government is “alert, alert” 察察 (chacha): it exercises knowledge in
the world resulting in the proliferation of prohibitions and laws, as recognized by
DDJ 57. As a result, the people become “contentious, contentious” 缺缺 (queque)
solely because they now have to use their wits simply to stay alive in the face of
such exercises of knowledge and power in the hands of the ruling elite.
This passage doubles each of these terms (menmen, chunchun, chacha, and
queque) to drive home its point. It then states, “The confusion of the people has
been ongoing for a very long time” 人之迷其日固久 (ren zhi mi qi ri gu jiu) pre-
cisely because “alert” (cha) government in the hands of the ruling elite constantly
produces changing prohibitions and laws fueled by their own self-interests.
DDJ 23 presents the most striking passage concerning the existential choice.
Notoriously difficult to translate into readable English, the idea at its core is not
difficult to recognize:

Therefore, one who takes up the project with the Dao is committed
to the Dao.
One who [takes up the project with] de is committed to de.
One who [takes up projects] with displacement is committed to
displacement.

The Dao happily receives one who is committed to the Dao.

De also happily receives one who is committed to de.
Displacement also happily receives one who is committed to displacement.

Here the term tong 同 has the general meaning of “to agree with,” “to be
on the side of,” and “to be one with,” and to translate it in this passage as “to
commit to,” as in “being committed to the Dao” 同於道 (tong yu dao), shares in
all of these meanings but also brings out the deeply existential ramifications to
which the passage points.
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 221

DDJ 23 lays out the existential choice that confronts every person living
in the world created and sustained by the Dao: either to living in accord with
it by “taking up the project with the Dao” 從事於道 (cong shi yu dao) (a direct
reference to the great project of the world) and thereby assume responsibility for
the world’s salvation (and the following line substitutes de for the Dao, marking
a duplication of that project) or to living in disaccord with it, “committing to
displacement” 同於失 (tong yu shi) from it, ostensibly through artifice, self-interest,
and intentionality. To live in this way is to cause that great project to get displaced
and ruined, thereby assisting in the breakdown of the Dao’s life-giving presence
in the world, leading to the inception of the death-world.
In DDJ 67, the Sage speaks directly of his own existential life-choice com-
mitment; he is conscious of his decision and fully aware of the bad consequences
were he to give in to the temptation to act directly on the world:

“I have three treasures that I hold to and embrace:

The first is compassion;
The second is frugality;
The third is not daring to put myself at the forefront of the world.

Because of my compassion, I am able to be courageous;

Because of my frugality, I am able to be generous;
Because of my not daring to put myself at the forefront of the world,
I can complete the growth of vessels.

If I would abandon this compassion and yet strive to be courageous,

If I would abandon this frugality and yet strive to be generous,
If I would abandon this staying behind and yet strive to the fore,
Then I would die.”

The degree to which the loss of Dao in the world as the consequence of that
active, deliberate, and conscious existential choice for power and wealth is due to
“rejection” (fei) and “displacement” (shi) can be measured by the prevalence of
artificial virtues; DDJ 18 brusquely states as much: “When the great Dao is rejected,
there is benevolence and righteousness. When knowledge and wisdom appear, there
is great hypocrisy” 大道廢有仁義智慧出有大偽 (da dao fei you ren yi zhi hui chu
you da wei). Note how this passage correlates the rejection of the Dao with the
improper exercise of knowledge that leads to crime, misfortune, and disaster.
The progression of DDJ 38 is centrally structured around the notion of
“displacement” (shi); it applies the term in five consecutive lines, but as I have
already examined that chapter, I do not do so again here. There is one final use
of the term “displacement” (shi) found in DDJ 29 that deserves a brief examina-
tion; it states:
222 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

“I see that one who desires to take the world by intentionally acting
on it will never obtain it.
The world is a sacred vessel: it cannot be intentionally acted upon
and it cannot be held.
One who intentionally acts on it destroys it, and one who holds it
displaces it.”

This is arguably the most deeply religious passage of the Daodejing in its
entirety; it designates the world as a “sacred vessel” 神器 (shenqi), and one is hard
put to find such strong rhetoric of the sacred in any other part of the text. The
world is “sacred” 神 (shen) because it is the direct offspring of the Dao, and it is
sacred as well because it is the place where life exists. Life in the world represents
the single-highest value in all of Daoism.
To interfere with life by attempting to “take the world” 取天下 (qu tianxia)
is to lead oneself to disaster; to attempt to “intentionally act” 為 (wei) on it or
deliberately “hold” 執 (zhi) it is to cause an obstacle to the free flowing of the
Dao. One who approaches the world in this way displaces the Dao through the
improper exercise of knowledge directed to self-benefit and the satisfaction of
desires.
The Sage, however, possesses good knowledge, and I examine this in the
final chapter.

The Question of Early Daoism Revisited

In earlier chapters of this work, I have discussed the kinds of indications that
have led me to consider the possibility of a hidden Chinese tradition of early
Daoism, and I expect that some readers of this work have been waiting for more
sociological or historical demonstrations than I have been able to provide. Such
records that I would have liked to have relied on would be expected to come from
the periods of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States, or the Qin and
Han dynasties, but those that we have at hand simply do not provide the kinds
of direct evidence that we would like, nor, if such a tradition existed, do they
provide descriptions of how such hidden Daoists practiced yangsheng and what it
meant for them. But we do have the Daodejing, and it remains our richest source
for exploring the possibilities of such a tradition.
The existence of a tradition of yangsheng is not questioned by modern schol-
arship; what it does question are the kinds of sociological and historical issues
concerning when and how yangsheng originated and developed and who its original
practitioners were. I surmise that it came from an early Chinese movement that
started to become something that we can call early Daoist only with the first
circulations of the Daodejing, and there are some scholars who will accept this
and others who will not.
 Th e Sag e a n d Ba d K n ow l e dge 223

My primary goal with this work has not been to delve into the sociology or
the history of such demonstrations; what I have argued is that the Daodejing does
not fit neatly into any reading that could be called “philosophical” or “religious,”
and I have explored a third reading based on a synthetic approach to the text
that reads it from the inside out, not from the outside in.
What I have decided in my explorations of the Daodejing is that it is a
complex, self-reflexive, and inter-referential work that concentrates on the dao of
transforming a typical person into a Sage-to-be and then into a Sage.
In the final and very brief chapter that closes this study, I focus on the Sage
directly or, more particularly, on the knowledge of the Sage.
 9

The Sage and Good Knowledge

sts

The Second-Order Harmony

The Sage embodies the Dao as the result of his successful yangsheng cultivation;
thus he is able to benefit all beings because wherever he goes, he manifests the
Dao. He has assumed responsibility for the great project of the world, and the
core component of his actions and influence is that he is able to cause the ruling
elite to reduce their knowledge and desire. This reduction of knowledge is the
first step in the inception of the second-order harmony, when the death-world
transforms once again into a life-world and the common people are released from
the hardships of a world dominated by tyranny, war, and oppression.
DDJ 65 maps the transition from the impending death-world to the flourish-
ing life-world of the second-order harmony:

Those in antiquity who were good at the Dao

did not use it to brighten the but used it to keep people

people, ignorant.

The reason why people are difficult to rule is

because their cleverness increases.

Relying on cleverness to Not relying on cleverness to

rule the state is thievery of rule the state is the bliss of
the state. the state.

225
226 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

One who knows these two [thievery and bliss]

Also knows the model relevance.
Constantly to be able to know this model
relevance is called Profound de.
Profound de is deep and far-reaching.
It provides things a way of returning.
Having achieved this, the Great Accord arrives.

A central theme that this passage explores is the negative consequences of

knowledge or cleverness. Before the rise of such knowledge, ancient Sages, “those
who were good at the Dao” 善為道者 (shan wei dao zhe), exerted their influence
to keep people from proliferating their knowledge: they kept the people “ignorant”
愚 (yu), and this line powerfully echoes DDJ 3: “In his regulating, the Sage
empties their minds  .  .  .  He constantly brings the people to be without knowledge
and without desires” 是以聖人之治虛其心 . . . 常使民無知無欲 (shiyi shengren
zhi zhi xu qi xin . . . chang shi min wu zhi wu yu). When the common people are
forced to rely on cleverness to survive the toils of life under the ruling elite,
they are “difficult to regulate” 難治 (nan zhi). When the ruling elite use their
own cleverness, they devise ways to increase their own wealth and power at the
expense of the common people, and this is “thievery” 賊 (zei); all of this, however,
is in direct opposition to not using cleverness, in which case there is “bliss” 福
(fu). The bliss of the state leads to what the passage calls “the Great Accord” 大
順 (da shun), a term not otherwise found in the text but certainly a keyword for
the second-order harmony.
The “Great Accord” seems to describe the accord between the common
people (min) and the ruling elite (ren) rather than a harmony between humanity
and the natural world in general; this phrase indeed sounds somewhat political.
DDJ 72 also offers another key term for the second-order harmony, “the Great
Authority” 大威 (da wei), which also speaks of the coming together of the com-
mon people and the ruling elite: “When the common people are not in terror
of the authority of those in power, then will arrive the Great Authority” 民
不畏威則大威至 (min bu wei wei ze da wei zhi). This image provides another
scintillating glimpse of the second-order harmony, which is always lying in the
future.
DDJ 32 and 37 both explore the effective ability of the Sage to restrain the
exercise of the self-interested knowledge of the ruling elite, and both chapters
also make clear the relation of this restraint for the inception of the second-order
harmony, revealing a powerful vision of what the world would be like if rulers did
not act for themselves. DDJ 32 states:

The Dao is constantly without name.

In its simplicity it is small, yet the world does not dare to put it into
its service.
 Th e Sag e a n d Go o d Kn ow l e dge 227

Were princes and kings able to preserve it,

Then the ten thousand living things would spontaneously submit,
And Heaven and Earth would come together and release sweet dew.
It would naturally fall equally on all things, without a single person
ordering it.

Here the phrase “princes and kings” 王侯 (wang hou) directly refers to the
ruling elite, and we get a brief glimpse of what the world would be like if they
committed to the Dao rather than to power and wealth: it would undergo a
fundamental transformation in harmony in which the Dao would enjoy complete
freedom to bring forth life without interference.
DDJ 37 closely resembles DDJ 32; the most immediate difference is that
DDJ 37 is given in the direct words of the Sage (as evidenced by the use of the
first-person pronoun), in which he explains how he provides for the well-being
of humans, namely by subduing their self-interested desires through his influence
on them, which compels simplicity:

“The Dao is constantly non-intentional yet nothing is left undone.

Were princes and kings able to preserve it, the ten thousand living
things would spontaneously transform.
Having transformed, were their desires to act up, I would subdue them
with nameless simplicity.
Nameless simplicity is to be non-desiring.
By being non-desiring they are tranquil, and the world spontaneously
aligns.”

The first lines of both chapters use almost the exact words, showing that
these two visions of a transformed world have a lot in common. DDJ 32 has “The
Dao is constantly without name” 道常無名 (dao chang wu ming), and DDJ 32
has “The Dao is constantly non-intentional” 道常無爲 (dao chang wu wei). DDJ
37 has “If princes and kings were able to preserve it, all beings would spontane-
ously submit” 王侯若能守萬物將自賓 (wang hou ruo neng shou wanwu jiang zi
bin), while DDJ 32 has “If princes and kings were able to preserve it, all beings
would spontaneously transform” 王侯若能守萬物將自化 (wang hou ruo neng shou
wanwu jiang zi hua).
That the Dao is “without name” (wuming) signifies that it is the highest,
most supreme source of life; that the Dao is “non-intentional” (wuwei) signifies
how it constantly endows life. That all beings would “submit” (bin) does not
mean that their submission is presented to kings and princes, but rather to the
Dao in its capacity as the source of all life in the same way that all beings would
“transform” (hua) not as the result of good leadership, but rather as a result of
rulers curbing their exercises of knowledge and allowing life to proceed on its
own without interference from them.
228 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Although many other chapters of the Daodejing present negative examples

of bad rulers who, for example, brutally over-tax the people (DDJ 75) and make
the lives of the common people a living hell of suffering and death, DDJ 32 and
37 give no indication that rulers should do anything other than “preserve” 守
(shou) the Dao by simply overseeing that things remain harmonious. All beings,
“the ten thousand living things,” could thereby submit themselves to the Dao
(not to the King) and, as DDJ 51 states, thereby “venerate the Dao and honor
de” 尊道而貴德 (zun dao er gui de). Exactly like “the sweet dew [that] would
naturally fall equally on all things, without a single person ordering it” 降甘露
民莫之令而自均 (qiang gan lu min mo zhi ling er zi jun), so with this veneration
and honoring: “Nobody orders it, it is constantly spontaneous” 莫之命常自然 (fu
mo zhi ling chang zi ran).
Nowhere in the Daodejing are rulers said to be venerated or honored; these
and other such acts of submission are solely directed to the Dao. On the other
hand, good kings are consistently encouraged to submit themselves and not to
receive submission; DDJ 39 and DDJ 42 both say that the best kings call them-
selves by the following titles: “The Lonely One” 孤 (gu), “The Orphaned One”
寡 (gua), and “The Needy One” 不穀 (bugu, literally “no grain’). DDJ 66 fur-
thers this idea: “The reason why rivers and oceans are able to be the kings of
the hundred rivulets is that they are good at taking the lowest position” 江海所
以能為百谷王者以其善下之 (jiang hai suo yi neng wei bai gu wang zhe yi qi shan
xia zhi). Only when rulers are able to commit to the Dao and reject self-interest,
acting in submission to the Dao, can they then assist in the preservation of the
presence and power of the Dao.
DDJ 32 and DDJ 37 present a cosmic vision of the second-order harmony; in
fact, these two chapters should be considered the absolute climax of the text as a
whole. The Dao remains “without name” (wuming) in this second-order harmony
described by both chapters, yet it constitutes the true source of the supremely har-
monious world because it constantly endows life and maintains its balance. To put
it this way, though, would be to overlook the role of the Sage in bringing about
this second-order harmony because, as DDJ 2 and DDJ 23 have already made clear,
the Sage assumes responsibility for the great project of the world and actively works
to incept the second-order harmony. DDJ 37, on the other hand, demonstrates the
Sage’s on-going role in this new world as he actively, yet non-intentionally, assists
in the maintenance of it: “The ten thousand living things . . . having transformed,
were their desires to act up, I would subdue them with nameless simplicity.” The
Sage exerts his influence of simplicity on the desires and knowledge of people.
With the inception of the second-order harmony, the displacements of the
Dao come to an end, and life enjoys a harmony of the three realms of Heaven,
the Human, and Earth; as DDJ 32 says, “Heaven and Earth would come together
and release sweet dew” 天地相合以將甘露 (tian di qiang he yi qiang gan lu). This
image carries a definite flavor of a total cosmic harmony, which is encapsulated by
 Th e Sag e a n d Go o d Kn ow l e dge 229

the powerful and provocative symbol of the “sweet dew” (gan lu), falling “naturally
and equally” 自均 (zi jun) on all things.
DDJ 37 continues this image of the cosmic harmony with its last line: “The
world spontaneously aligns” 天下自正 (tianxia zi zheng); that the world spontane-
ously aligns means that the Dao powerfully circulates without obstacle through
Heaven with its planets, stars, and clouds, through Earth with its rivers, canyons,
and produce, and through and around the realm of the Human with its actual
human bodies and their actual human projects.
The centrality of the Sage in the inception of the second-order harmony is
nowhere more clearly displayed than in the benefits that he brings to the world
and to all beings. If we recall the benefits of the Sage as they were presented
in DDJ 57, then we can see that there is an almost perfect congruence of them
with the vision of the second-order harmony. The benefits of the Sage as given in
DDJ 57 are “transformation” (hua), “alignment” (zheng), “flourishment” (fu), and
“simplicity” (pu). DDJ 37 directly names three of them: “the ten thousand living
things would spontaneously transformation,” the Sage would “subdue (desires)
with nameless simplicity,” and “the world spontaneously aligns.” DDJ 37 does not
directly mention flourishment, but this idea is indirectly given with the image of
“the sweet dew (that) naturally falls equally on all things.”

Yangsheng and the Knowledge of the Sage

At the end of this exploration of knowledge, there is an interesting question that

continues to linger: what is the knowledge of the Sage? I have already discussed
this in part by showing how the Daodejing encourages the use of knowledge against
itself to achieve the necessary restraint that can keep one from intentionally act-
ing on and in the world, but those ideas are more applicable to the Sage-to-be
rather than the Sage. As for the Sage, the Daodejing speaks of three different yet
related kinds of knowledge: esoteric knowledge, hidden knowledge, and mysteri-
ous knowledge.
The esoteric knowledge of the Sage refers to a practical knowledge of a
specific esoteric teaching or tradition that he has mastered. This teaching is eso-
teric because it is “a teaching without words” 不言之教 (bu yan zhi jiao), and it
is deeply implicated with non-intentionality. DDJ 43 states:

The most pliant things in the That which has no

world run through the substance enters that which
hardest things in the world. has no gap.

From this I know the benefit of non-intentionality.

Few in the world realize the teachings without words
and the benefits of non-intentionality.
230 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

That the Sage’s knowledge in this case is the knowledge of a specific teach-
ing leads me to believe that this “teaching without words” is the teaching of
yangsheng, the mysterious path of physical cultivation residing at the heart of
early Daoism that “few in the world realize” 天下希及之 (tianxia xi ji zhi). This
passage, like so many of the others in the Daodejing that provide specific ideas
concerning the central insights of, and are directly applied in, gongfu, qigong,
taiji, and traditional Chinese medicine, describes certain ways in which things
and beings, by being one with the Dao and embodying its qualities, are able to
overcome other things that at first sight are bigger, harder, and stronger. Further,
like any path of cultivation, this is a teaching that the Sage practices and masters;
as DDJ 2 says, “The Sage carries out the non-intentional project and moves in
the teaching without words” 聖人處無為之事行不言之教 (shengren chu wuwei
zhi shi xing bu yan zhi jiao).
That yangsheng, “the teaching without words,” is a tradition that was already
in existence before the first circulation of the Daodejing is made clear in many
sections of the book, although the appearance of the Daodejing certainly caused the
tradition of yangsheng to undergo a tremendous change in its own self-identity as
hidden. Two passages in particular reveal concrete indications of the preexistence
of a fairly sophisticated tradition of teachings that the Daodejing builds upon. In
DDJ 41, the Sage says, “I have these sayings: The bright Dao appears dark. The
advancing Dao seems to retreat.” 建言有之明道若昧進道若退 (jian yan you zhi
ming dao ruo mei jin dao ruo tui). These lines are followed by a dozen further lines
of “wordless teachings.” DDJ 42 presents the preexistence of this tradition even
more forcefully: “What others teach, I also teach: ‘Those who are violent and
brutal will not have a natural death.’ I take this as the father of my teachings”
人之所教我亦教之強梁者不得其死吾將以為教父 (ren zhi suo jiao wo yi jiao zhi
qiang liang zhe bu de qi si wu jiang yi wei jiao fu).
Like many other esoteric teachings or traditions, yangsheng cannot be learned
by independent study; what is required is a master who can bodily teach the
student, and this is exactly the case with modern taiji and qigong; the movements
described in DDJ 22, for example, are much more intricate than they appear, as
any practitioner of taiji can attest: “Bending leads to intactness, twisting leads to
straightness” 曲則全枉則直 (qu ze quan wang ze zhi). The Daodejing in some ways
can be read as a summary of yangsheng teachings placed within a Dao-centered
view of the world in which those teachings come alive; in other words, the
Daodejing gives a general outline of “the teaching without words,” but without
a master, a person will never be able to correctly practice and master yangsheng.
The Sage directly says as much in DDJ 70: “My words are easy to know
and easy to practice, yet no one in the world can know them or practice
them . . . Because nobody knows them, nobody knows me” 吾言甚易知甚易
行天下莫能知莫能行  .  .  .  夫唯無知是以不我知 (wu yan shen yi zhi shen yi xing
tianxia mo neng zhi mo neng xing . . . fu wei wu zhi shiyi bu wo zhi). Yangsheng is
 Th e Sag e a n d Go o d Kn ow l e dge 231

the primary teaching of early Daoism, and it is “a teaching without words” in

two senses: first, it is the valued possession of this hidden tradition and not to be
bandied about; second, the teaching of yangsheng is not amenable to independent
study, but it must be learned from a master and embodied.
DDJ 56 targets both senses of this: “One who knows does not speak; one
who speaks does not know. He blocks up his holes and closes his doors. He blunts
his sharpness and dissolves his knots. He harmonizes with the light and joins in
the dust. This is called the Profound Union.
The first line captures the esoteric and hidden nature of yangsheng, while
the succeeding lines give a powerful and vivid taste of its actual practice in the
summarizing form which we have come to expect from the Daodejing. The final
lines of DDJ 56 provide a kind of spotlight for the Sage who has mastered yang-
sheng and achieved union with the Dao:

This is why others are unable to get close to him and yet unable to
get distant from him.
Others are unable to benefit him and yet unable to injure him.
Others are unable to honor him and yet unable to disgrace him.
For this reason he is the treasure of the world.

The second kind of knowledge possessed by the Sage would appear to be

derived directly from his mastery of yangsheng: this is the knowledge of himself.
Although this knowledge is not spelled out in any detail, there are good argu-
ments to make that it is not of a psychological kind, but rather is an intimate
knowledge of the body and its systems of circulation. DDJ 72 states, “The Sage
knows himself but does not display himself” 聖人自知不自見 (shengren zi zhi bu
zi jian). DDJ 33 also announces the self-knowledge of the Sage, and it powerfully
grounds this knowledge in yangsheng:

To know others is to be clever. To know yourself is to be bright.

To conquer others is to be forceful. To conquer yourself is to be strong.
To powerfully enact is to have your will. To know contentment is to be rich.

To not lose your place is to last long.

To die but not perish is to have long life.

In this passage, the left column sets forth three outwardly directed activities,
while the right sets forth inwardly directed ones. At first glance, the actions of
the left column might appear to be laudable, but in the wider context of the total
body of ideas in the Daodejing these outwardly directed actions are systematically
devalued and rejected. This is so because they direct a person outside of him or
herself and into the world to the detriment of the body. The actions on the right
232 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

column, on the other hand, are constantly extolled. “To know yourself is to be
bright” 自知者明 (zi zhi zhe ming) relates this self-knowledge to brightness and
longevity, two fundamental components of yangsheng that have been explored
throughout this study.
Considering again the existential choice of committing to the Dao or reject-
ing it, the right side column presents the actions of the Sage who unites with
the Dao within his very body by understanding his internal and physical self. He
possesses a “contentment” 足 (zu) that rejects the outwardly directed orientation
requiring intentional action applied to the world and the beings in it. The final
center column depicts the Sage as knowing the boundaries between the internal
physical self and the outside world and he never crosses the line; thus, because
he shares in the power of the Dao and de that circulates unimpeded throughout
his body, he attains longevity.
The third knowledge of the Sage I call mysterious, and it is the high-
est knowledge that follows from the mastery of yangsheng and the concomitant
knowledge of the self: this is the knowledge of internal reality on a cosmic scale,
as presented in DDJ 47:

Know the world without leaving the door.

See the Dao of Heaven without peering through the window.
The farther one goes, the less one knows.
For this reason the Sage knows without going, names without seeing,
and completes without intending.

Although many modern readers of the Daodejing have been tempted to see
in these lines a kind of mysticism, a sort of celestial vision that follows from a
person’s becoming one with the Dao, this reading is mostly limited to Western
interpreters who seek to designate the Daodejing as a mystical treatise. I would
argue, on the contrary, that these lines are not in any sense confessing to a kind
of mysticism; they describe, rather, the radically physical nature of the Sage’s
embodiment of the Dao. “The door” 戶 (hu) and “the window” 牖 (you) refer to
the holes in the body (eyes, ears, and so forth) through which the vital energies
of the body leak out and deplete when one commits to power and wealth, but
this is precisely what the Sage rejects, and therefore he can incept the second-
order harmony and also achieve longevity.
There are many other chapters throughout the Daodejing that resonate with
this idea of focusing one’s energies and attentions on the internal cultivation of
the body because it is only by doing so that one can eventually unite with and
embody the Dao. The Sage’s embodiment of the Dao is, in fact, the single-most
essential quality that sets him apart from all other people, making him, in the
words of DDJ 56, “the treasure of the world” 天下貴 (tianxia gui). The final line
of DDJ 70 provides a vivid and startling image of the difference between the
 Th e Sag e a n d Go o d Kn ow l e dge 233

external and internal reality of the Sage: “The Sage wears coarse cloth, but inside
he embraces jade” 聖人被褐懷玉 (shengren bei he huai yu).
Alongside these three kinds of knowledge, the Daodejing, also and ironically,
announces the Sage’s cultivated ignorance. DDJ 38 states: “Foresight is the flower
of the Dao, but also the beginning of ignorance” 前識者道之華而愚之始 (qianshi
zhe dao zhi hua er yu zhi shi). Here the term “ignorance” 愚 (yu) is set forth as an
ideal state of mind as well as a state of being in which knowledge is thoroughly
restrained together with all of its concomitant dangers; the term “ignorance” (yu)
is also used to describe the Sage in DDJ 20.
I present DDJ 20 in its entirety because, in addition to providing a picture
of the Sage who spontaneously restrains himself at every moment, it also gives
a lifelike snapshot of the existential actuality of the life of a Sage in his own
words. The seven sets of duplicated adjectives, namely “joyous, joyous” 熙熙 (xixi),
“aimless, aimless” 儽儽 (leilei), “turbid, turbid” 純 純 (chunchun), “bright, bright”
昭昭 (zhaozhao), “dark, dark” 昏昏 (zhaozhao), “discriminate, discriminate” 察察
(hunhun), and “muddled, muddled” 悶悶 (menmen), give this chapter the feel of
a verse or a song, sung in the voice of the Sage. The tone at first glance is close
to a lament or a dirge as we feel the separateness of the Sage set apart from the
joys of human sociability, but actually I would argue that this a celebratory song
in which the Sage portrays his deepest sense of satisfaction with, and belonging
to, the Mother, otherwise known as the pristine Dao.

“The people are joyous, joyous, as if feasting at the tailao sacrifice, as

if climbing a terrace in spring.
But I am distanced and placid, without expression, like a child who
has not yet smiled.
Aimless, aimless, as if having nowhere to return.
The people all have a surplus, I alone seem to have lost everything.
My mind is ignorant, so turbid, turbid.
The simple folk are bright, bright, I alone remain dark, dark.
The simple folk are discriminate, discriminate, I alone am muddled,
muddled.
Calm, like the sea; drifting, as if nowhere to stop.
The people all have their reasons for acting.
I alone am ignorant and rustic.
I alone am different from other people: I value drawing sustenance
from the Mother.”
 Appendix

The Daodejing

sts

1
Daos can lead, but these Names can name, but these
are not constant daos. are not constant names.

Non-being names the Being names the Mother of

beginning of Heaven and the ten thousand living
Earth. things.

For this reason:

Hold to the standpoint of Hold to the standpoint of

Non-being with the intent Being with the intent to
to witness its mysteries. witness its manifestations.

These two together emerge.

They have different names yet they are called the same.
That which is even more profound than the profound:
The gateway of the many and the mysteries.

2
When everyone in the world knows the beautiful as beautiful, ugliness comes
into being.
When everyone knows the good, then the not good comes to be.

235
236 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Being and Non-being give birth to each other.

Difficult and simple complete each other.
Long and short form each other.
High and low fill out each other.
Tone and voice harmonize each other.
Front and back follow each other.

For this reason the Sage

carries out the and moves in wordless

non-intentional project, teachings.

The ten thousand living things come to life,

but he doesn’t speak.

He gives birth to them He acts for them but doesn’t

but doesn’t possess them. make them dependent.

He completes the merit but does not remain in it.

It is only because he does not remain in it, that it
therefore never gets displaced.

3
Not exalting the worthy makes Not valuing hard to obtain
people not compete. goods makes people not
become thieves.

Not displaying what is desirable brings the

hearts of the people not to be confused.

The regulating of the Sage is to

empty their minds and fill and weaken their ambitions and
their bellies, strengthen their bones.

He constantly brings the people to be

without knowledge and without desires.

He brings those with knowledge not to dare to act.

Acting non-intentionally, nothing is not in order.
 Th e Daodejing 237

4
The Dao is empty, but in being used it never drains.
It is an abyss, the ancestor of the ten thousand living things.

It blunts their sharpness.

It untangles their confusions.
It merges with their brightness.
It unites with them in the dust.
It is immersed but constantly persists.
I don’t know whose child it is.
It seems to have preceded Di.1

5
Heaven and Earth are not benevolent.
They regard the thousand living things as straw dogs.
The Sage is not benevolent.
He regards the common people as straw dogs.

The space between Heaven and Earth, is it not like a bellows?

It is empty yet inexhaustible.
When it is active, more always comes out.

Multiplying words leads to frequent exhaustion.

That is not as good as protecting the center.

6
The valley spirit never dies;
She is called the Mysterious Female.
The Gateway of the Mysterious Female
Is called the root of Heaven and Earth.
Obscure, obscure, it seems to exist.
In being used, it is never exhausted.

7
Heaven is long. Earth is lasting.

The reason why

Heaven is long and Earth is lasting

is that they do not live for themselves.

This is why they are able to be
238 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

long and lasting.

Because of this, the Sage

marginalizes his body and disregards his body yet

but his body is first, his body lasts.

Is it not because he has no self-interest that he is

able to realize his self-interest?

8
The highest excellence is like water.
Water excels at benefiting the ten thousand living things while not c­ompeting
against them.
It dwells in places the masses of people abhor.
That is why water is close to the Dao.

Its excellence in the place lies in the land;

Its excellence in the heart lies in its depth;
Its excellence in giving lies in benevolence;
Its excellence in words lies in sincerity;
Its excellence in governing lies in regulating;
Its excellence in projects lies in its capability;
Its excellence in action lies in its timeliness.

It is only because it does not compete, that there is no resentment.

9
Maintaining and Polishing and sharpening
accumulating (wealth) is not (fame), it won’t last for long.
as good as stopping.

One who fills the halls with gold One who in arrogance has
and jade cannot protect them. wealth and honor brings
disaster upon himself.

The merit completed, the body retired:

This is the Dao of Heaven.

10
In keeping the po2 and embracing the One—can you do it without letting them
leave?
 Th e Daodejing 239

In concentrating the qi and making it soft—can you make it like that of an infant?
In washing and purifying the profound mind—can you make it spotless?
In loving the people and ordering the state—can you do it non-intentionally?
In opening and closing the Gateway of Heaven—can you play the part of the
hen? 3
In understanding all within the four reaches—can you do it without using
knowledge?

[The Dao] gives birth to them and [de] raises them.

They are given birth but not possessed.
They are acted on but not put into service.
They are grown but not put under command.
This is called Profound de.

11
Thirty spokes unite in one hub, but the use of the carriage lies precisely in its
Non-being [at the center of the hub].
Clay is kneaded to make a vessel, but the use of the vessel lies precisely in its
Non-being [inside the vessel).
Doors and windows are cut out to make a room, but the use of the room lies
precisely in its Non-being [of the doors and windows].

For this reason, the service of a thing lies in its Being,

But its use lies in its Non-being.

12
The five colors cause the eyes to go blind.
The five tones cause the ears to go deaf.
The five flavors cause the palate to go bland.
Racing horses and hunting cause the mind to go mad.
Goods that are hard to obtain pose obstacles to one’s travels.

For this reason, the Sage is for the stomach and not for the eyes.
Therefore, he rejects that [what is for the eyes] and takes this [what is for the
stomach].

13
Treat favor and disgrace with alarm. Treat great distress as you do
your own body.

hat does “Treat favor and disgrace

W What does “Treat great distress as
with alarm” mean? It means that you do your own body” mean?
for bestowed favor and disgrace, It means that the reason I suffer
240 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

if you get them, be alarmed, great disaster is because I have

if you lose them be alarmed. a body. If I had no body, what
This is what I mean when I say disasters could there be?
“Treat favor and disgrace with alarm.”

Therefore, the world can be entrusted to one who values his body as much as
the world.
The world can be turned over to one who loves his body as much as the world.

14
Looked at but do not seen, it is called invisible.
Listened for but not heard, it is called inaudible.
Touched but not felt, it is called intangible.

These three cannot be exhaustively analyzed.

They merge together as the One.

Its top is not encompassed.

Its bottom is not perceived.
Boundless, boundless, it cannot be named.
It returns again to the state of non-substantiality.

This is called the formless form.

This is called the non-substantial image.
This is called the subtle and indistinct.

In front you will not see its head.

In back you will not see behind it.

Hold on to the Dao of antiquity in order to manage the Being of the present.
The ability to know the beginnings of antiquity is called [knowing] the genealogy
of the Dao.

15
In antiquity, one who excelled at acting with the Dao
Was subtle and mysterious, profound and penetrating,
So deep that he could not be recognized.

It is only because he cannot be recognized that if I were forced to describe him

I’d say:
“Hesitant, like crossing a river in winter.
Ponderous, like wary of neighbors on all four sides.
Solemn, like a guest.
 Th e Daodejing 241

Fading, like melting ice.

Genuine, like simplicity.
Undifferentiated, like muddy water.
Vacant, like a valley.”

Who but he could be undifferentiated and, settling, become clear?

Who but he could be calm and, stirring, come to life?

He who preserves the Dao does not desire to be full.

Because he is not full, he is capable of covering [all things] and repeatedly
completing them.

16
“I extend emptiness to the limit and preserve tranquility in the center.
The ten thousand living things come bursting forth and by this I see their return.
Everything flourishes and flourishes, and each again returns to its root.”

Returning to the root is called tranquility.

Being tranquil is to return to fate.4
Returning to fate is to be constant.
Knowing constancy is to be bright.
Not knowing constancy is to act blindly for disaster.

Knowing constancy is to be inclusive.

Inclusiveness leads to impartiality.
Impartiality leads to be kingliness.
Kingliness leads to Heaven.
Heaven leads to the Dao.
The Dao leads to long life, such that the body will never decay.

17
The existence of the supremely high is not known.
Below them are those who are loved and praised.
Below them are those who are feared.
Below them, there are those who are loathed.
When trust [above] is insufficient, there will be no trust [below].

Reticent is his respect for speaking.

When the merit is completed and the project fulfilled, the common people will
say, “We are so naturally.”
242 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

18
When the great Dao is rejected, there is benevolence and righteousness.
When knowledge and wisdom appear, there is great hypocrisy.
When the six relations are not in harmony, there is filial piety and paternal love.
And when the country and its families are in disruption and chaos, then there
are loyal ministers.

19
Eliminate sagehood and reject intelligence,
Then the people will benefit one hundred times over.
Eliminate benevolence and reject righteousness,
Then the people will return to filial piety and paternal love.
Eliminate craftiness and reject profit,
Then there will be no robbers and thieves.

These three sayings are not complete as a text, so I append this:

“Manifest plainness and embrace simplicity;
Lessen self-interest and reduce desires.”

20
Break off study and there will be no anxieties.
How great is the difference between agreement and rejection?
What is the difference between goodness and ugliness?

One who is feared by others must also because of this fear them.
Unrestrained, it will never come to an end!

“The people are joyous, joyous, as if feasting at the tailao sacrifice,5 as if

climbing a terrace in spring.
But I am distanced and placid, without expression, like a child who has not yet
smiled.
Aimless, aimless, as if having nowhere to return.

The people all have a surplus,

But I alone seem to have lost everything.
My mind is ignorant, so turbid, turbid.
The simple folk are bright, bright.
I alone remain dark, dark.
The simple folk are discriminate, discriminate.
I alone am muddled, muddled.
Calm, like the sea; drifting, as if nowhere to stop.
The people all have their reasons for acting.
 Th e Daodejing 243

I alone am ignorant and rustic.

I alone am different from other people:
I value drawing sustenance from the Mother.”

21
Being filled with great de is the only means to follow the Dao.
As a thing, the Dao is vague and diffuse.
It is vague and diffuse, but inside it there are images.
It is diffuse and vague, but inside it there are entities.
It is obscure and dark, but inside it there are vitalities.
These vitalities are utterly perfect, and inside them there is trust.

From the present back to antiquity, its name has never gone away.
By means of it I see the beginning of the multitudes.

How do I know this feature of the beginning of the multitudes?

By this.

22
Bending leads to intactness.
Twisting leads to straightness.
Emptying leads to fullness.
Exhausting leads to renewal.
Reducing leads to attaining.
Excess leads to delusion.

For this reason the Sage holds to the One and is the model for the empire.
He does not show himself and thus he is bright.
He does not affirm himself and thus he is prominent.
He does not battle against himself and thus he has merit.
He does not praise himself and thus he is long lasting.

It is only because he does not compete that nobody can compete with him.
The words of the ancient saying, “Bending leads to intactness,” are not empty.
Thus truly intact, he returns to it [the One].

23
The words of nature are subtle.
Gusting winds do not last the whole morning.
Down pouring rains do not last the whole day.
Who produces these things?
Heaven and Earth.
244 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

If even Heaven and Earth cannot make these last long, how much less can
humans?

Therefore, one who takes up the project with the Dao is committed to the Dao.
One who [takes up the project with] de is committed to de.
One who [takes up projects] with displacement is committed to displacement.

The Dao happily receives one who is committed to the Dao.

De also happily receives one who is committed to de.
Displacement also happily receives one who is committed to displacement.

When trust [above] is insufficient, there will be no trust [below].

24
One who stands high is not stable.
One who strives does not move forward.
One who displays himself is not bright.
One who asserts himself is not prominent.
One who brags does not achieve merit.
One who praises himself does not live long.

With regard to the Dao, these are all called “Leftover food” and “Redundant
action.”
Others will loathe him.
Therefore, one who has the Dao does not participate in these ways.

25
There is a thing completed in chaos that was born before Heaven and Earth.
Empty and still, it stands on its own and does not change.
It moves in cycles and is never threatened.
It can be taken as the Mother of Heaven and Earth.
I do not know its name; I call it the Dao.
Were I forced to make up a name for it, it would be “the Great.”

That it is “the Great” means that it penetrates.

Penetrating means that it is far away.
Being far away means that it returns.

The Dao is great.

Heaven is great.
Earth is great.
And the King is also great.
 Th e Daodejing 245

In the center of the realm these are four greats, and the King occupies one place
among them.

Humans are modeled on Earth.

Earth is modeled on Heaven.
Heaven is modeled on the Dao.
And the Dao is modeled on what is so of itself.

26
The heavy is the root Tranquility is the lord
of the light. of agitation.

That is why the Sage

does not leave the laden and remains calm and composed
army cart though the though there are
march lasts the entire day, magnificent sights.

How can the lord of ten thousand war chariots treat

his own body more lightly than the empire?

Being light, he loses the root. Being agitated, he loses the lord.

27
The good traveler leaves no tracks or footprints.
The good speaker does not mention flaws.
The good calculator does not use tallies or chips.
The good locker of doors does not use bolts or bars, yet the door cannot be opened.
The good tier of knots does not use ropes or cords, yet his knots cannot be undone.

The Sage is

constantly good at saving and constantly good at saving

people and rejects nobody, things and rejects nothing.

This is called Actualized Brightness.

Therefore,

Good people are the teachers Not-good people are the

of those who are not good. raw material for good people.
246 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

But the Sage

does not honor the and does not love the

teachers, raw material.

Even one who has knowledge would be in error to do that.

This is called Essential Sublimity.

28
To know the cock yet preserve the hen is to be the canyon of the world.6
Being the canyon of the world, his constant de does not scatter and he returns
to the state of an infant.

To know whiteness yet preserve blackness is to be the model of the world.

Being the model of the world, his constant de does not deviate and he returns
to the unlimited.

To know glory yet preserve disgrace is to be the valley of the world.

Being the valley of the world, his constant de is sufficient and he returns to
simplicity.

Once their simplicity is scattered, things become instruments.

When the Sage makes use of them, they become officials and elders.
Because of this, the greatest regulating does not injure.

29
“I see that one who desires to take the world by intentionally acting on it will
never obtain it.
The world is a sacred vessel: it cannot be intentionally acted upon and it cannot
be held.
One who intentionally acts on it destroys it, and one who holds it displaces it.”

For this reason, some things go forward, others follow.

Some breathe gently, others breathe hard.
Some are strong, others weak.
Some destroy, others are destroyed.

Therefore the Sage rejects extremes, rejects exaggeration, and rejects

extravagance.
 Th e Daodejing 247

30
One who uses the Dao to assist the ruler will not use soldiers to impose his might
over the empire.
His project is vastly different.

Where troops are stationed, only thorns and brambles will grow.
In the wake of a great army, there will inevitably be a year of famine.
That is why the good General achieves his result and that’s all.
He would never dare to impose his might.

He achieves his result but does not become arrogant.

He achieves his result but does not praise his deeds.
He achieves his result but does not boast of it.
He achieves his result but only because he has no choice.
He achieves his result but does not impose his might.

When things reach their prime they get old.

This is called “Not of the Dao.”
Whatever is not of the Dao dies prematurely.

31
Weapons are inauspicious instruments, and there are those who hate them.
Therefore, one who has the Dao does not rely on them.

When the nobleman is at home, he honors the left;

When he is at war, he honors the right.

Weapons are inauspicious instruments, and are not instruments of the nobleman.
When one has no choice but to use them, it is best to remain tranquil and calm.
Attain victory and do not beautify them.
Weapons are not beautiful, but to see them as beautiful things is to delight in
killing.
Those who delight in killing will never realize their goal in the world.

For festive projects the left is honored, for mournful projects the right is honored.
The lieutenant stands on the left, while the general stands on the right.
This means that they arrange themselves as they would at a funeral.
When multitudes of people are killed, stand before them in sorrow and grief.
When victorious in battle, observe the rites of mourning.
248 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

32
The Dao is constantly without name.
In its simplicity it is small, yet the world does not dare to put it into its service.
Were princes and kings able to preserve it,
Then the ten thousand living things would spontaneously submit,
And Heaven and Earth would come together and release sweet dew.
It would naturally fall equally on all things, without a single person ordering
it.

With the beginning of regulations, there are names.

Once names are there, one must also know to stop.
Knowing to stop in this way keeps one from danger.

The presence of the Dao in the world is like the relationship of rivers and oceans
to rivulets and streams.

33
To understand others is to be To understand yourself is to be
intelligent. bright.

To conquer others is to be To conquer yourself is to be

forceful. strong.

To powerfully enact is to have To know contentment is to be

your will. rich.

To not lose your place is to be lasting.

To die but not perish is to have long life.

34
The Great Dao pervades everything, it can go both left and right.
The ten thousand living things depend on it for their birth, but it does not
speak.
This merit completed, it does not go on to possess them.
Clothing and nurturing the ten thousand living things, it does not act as their
master.
Constantly non-desiring, it can be named among the small.
When the ten thousand living things return to it without it acting as their master,
it can be named among the great.

[The Sage] never takes himself as being great.

Therefore he is able to complete the great.
 Th e Daodejing 249

35
Hold the Great Image and the whole world will follow.
When it follows and suffers no harm, it enjoys security and peace.

Music and delicacies attract traveling customers,

But the words of the Dao are insipid and tasteless.

Looked for, it cannot be seen.

Listened for, it cannot be heard.
Used, it cannot be exhausted.

36
If you wish to shrink something, you first must stretch it.
If you wish to weaken something, you first must strengthen it.
If you wish to distance something, you first must make it flourish.
If you wish to take from something, you first must give something to it.

This is called Subtle Brightness.

Pliancy overcomes hardness, suppleness overcomes strength.

Fish cannot be taken out of deep waters.

The state’s instruments of power cannot prevail by being demonstrated to the
people.

37
“The Dao is constantly non-intentional yet nothing is left undone.
Were princes and kings able to preserve it,
The ten thousand living things would spontaneously transform.
Having transformed, were their desires to act up,
I would subdue them with nameless simplicity.
Nameless simplicity is to be non-desiring.
By being non-desiring they are tranquil, and the world spontaneously aligns.”

38
Highest de is not “de,” therefore it is truly de.
Lowest de never displaces “de,” therefore it is not de.

Highest de is non-intentional, and is done without purpose.

Lowest de is non-intentional, and is done with purpose.
Highest benevolence is intentional, and is done without purpose.
250 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Highest righteousness is intentional, and is done with purpose.

Highest ritual comportment is intentional, and when someone does not conform
to it,
Then others angrily roll up their sleeves and force him.

For this reason, when the Dao is displaced, then there is de.
When de is displaced, then there is benevolence.
When benevolence is displaced, then there is righteousness.
When righteousness is displaced, then there is ritual comportment.
As for ritual comportment, it is the thin edge of loyalty and trust, and the
beginning of disorder.

Foresight is the flower of the Dao, but also the beginning of ignorance.
For this reason, the Great Man dwells in the thick but not in the thin.
He dwells in the fruit but not in the flower.
For this reason, he rejects that and takes this.

39
Of those in the past that attained the One—
Heaven attained the One and became clear.
Earth attained the One and became stable.
Spirits attained the One and became divine.
Valleys attained the One and became full.
The ten thousand living things attained the One and came to be born.
Princes and kings attained the One and became the standards for the empire.
It is the One that brought them to this.

If Heaven were without that by which it is made clear, it will tear apart.
If Earth were without that by which it is made stable, it will shatter.
If spirits were without that by which they are made divine, they will exhaust.
If valleys were without that by which they are made full, they will dry up.
If the ten thousand living things were without that by which they came to be
born, they will perish.
If princes and kings were without this standard by which they are ennobled and
made high, they will topple.

Therefore, the noble has the base as its root, and the high has the low as its
foundation.

For this reason, princes and kings call themselves “The Lonely One,” “The
Orphaned One,” and “The Needy One.”
 Th e Daodejing 251

Is this not taking the base as one’s root?

Thus, what brings renown is itself without renown.
Because of this, (princes and kings) should not wish to be polished like jade or
cut like stone.

40
Reversal is the movement of the Dao.
Suppleness is the function of the Dao.

The ten thousand living things of the world are born from Being.
Being is born from Non-being.

41
When the best student hears about the Dao, he practices it diligently.
When the average student hears about the Dao, he retains some things but forgets
others.
When the worst student hears about the Dao, he loudly ridicules it.
If he did not ridicule it, it could not be taken as the Dao.

“This is why I have these sayings:

The bright Dao seems dark.
The advancing Dao seems to retreat.
The smooth Dao seems uneven.
The highest de seems like a valley.
The purest white seems dirty.
The broadest de seems insufficient.
The strongest de seems defective.
The simplest de seems soiled.
The Great Square has no corners.
The Great Vessel takes long to complete.
The Great Tone makes little sound.
The Great Image has no shape.

The Dao is hidden and nameless.

But this Dao is good at providing and good at completing.”

42
Dao gave birth to the One.
The One gave birth to the Two.
The Two gave birth to the Three.
And the Three gave birth to the ten thousand living things.
252 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

The ten thousand living things carry yin on their backs and embrace yang.
Through the blending of qi they arrive at a state of harmony.

What people hate is to be orphaned, lonely, and needy.

Yet kings and dukes refer to themselves with these names.

This is why some things are increased by being reduced while other things are
reduced by being increased.

“What others teach, I also teach:

‘Those who are violent and brutal will not have a natural death.’
I take this as the father of my teachings.”

43
“The most pliant things in the That which has no substance
world run through the enters that which has
hardest things in the world. no gap.

From this I know the benefit of non-intentionality.

Few in the world realize the teachings without words

and the benefits of non-intentionality.”

44
Which is more dear: Which is worth more:
Fame or your body? Your body or goods?

Gaining (fame or goods) or losing (the body):

which causes more sickness?

This is why

craving (for fame) leads to and hoarding (goods) leads to

great expenditure, great loss.

Knowing contentment (with Knowing restraint (with
fame) leads to no danger. goods) leads to no loss.

In this way, it is possible to be

long and lasting.

 Th e Daodejing 253

45
Great completing seems to be incomplete, yet its usefulness is never worn out.
Great filling seems to be empty, yet its usefulness is never used up.
Great straightening seems to be bent.
Great skill seems to be clumsy.
Great eloquence seems to stammer.

Activity overcomes cold.

Tranquility overcomes heat.

Calmness and tranquility regulate the world.

46
When the world has the Dao, plow-horses are used in the fields.
When the world is without the Dao, war-horses are reared on the borders.

No crime is greater than having excessive desires.

No disaster is greater than not knowing how to be satisfied.
No misfortune is greater than the desire to possess.

That is why the contentment of one who knows contentment provides constant
contentment.

47
Know the world without leaving the door.
See the Dao of Heaven without peering through the window.
The farther one goes, the less one knows.

For this reason, the Sage knows without going, names without seeing, and
completes without intending.

48
Those who pursue study increase daily.
Those who pursue the Dao decrease daily.
They decrease and decrease until they reach a point where they act non-intentionally.
They act non-intentionally and nothing is left undone.

To gain the world, one must constantly perform non-intentional projects.

If someone performs intentional projects, he becomes unworthy of gaining the
world.
254 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

49
The Sage has no constant mind.
He takes the mind of the common people as his mind.

“Those who are good Those who are not good

I treat as good. I also treat as good.

In doing so I attain goodness.

Those who are trustworthy Those who are not

I trust. trustworthy I also trust.

In doing so I get their trust.”

When the Sage is present in the world he is absorbed in it.

He merges his mind with the world.
The common people all fix their eyes and ears on him,
And the Sage treats them all as his children.

50
We come out into life and go back into death.
Three out of ten live for life.
Three out of ten live for death.
Why is it that those who hold onto life, and through their actions end up in the
realm of death, are also three in ten?
It is because they set too much on life.

It said that one who is good at holding on to life

does not avoid rhinos and tigers and does not put on armor and
when walking through hills, shields when going into battle.

The rhino has no place to stick and weapons have no place to insert
its horn, the tiger finds no their blades.
place to put its claws,

Now, why is this so?

Because inside him there is no place for death.

51
The Dao gives birth to them De raises them and
and substance forms them. circumstances complete them.
 Th e Daodejing 255

For this reason none among the ten thousand living things does not

venerate the Dao and honor de.

As for this

veneration of the Dao: and honoring of de:

Nobody orders it, it is constantly spontaneous.

This is why

The Dao gives birth to them and de raises them.

They are given birth but It grows them and rears them.
not possessed.

They are acted for but not It fosters them and nurses them.
put into service.

They are grown but not put It nurtures them and shelters them.
under command.

This is called Profound de.

52
The world had a beginning.
This beginning can be taken as the Mother of the world.
One attains the Mother through knowing her children.
If one knows her children yet returns to preserve the Mother,
One will never be endangered.

Block up the holes and close the doors,

And to the end of one’s life the body will never be exhausted.
Open the holes and add to the projects,
And to the end of one’s life the body will never be saved.

To perceive smallness is to be bright.

To preserve pliancy is to be strong.
Using the light to return to brightness, the body will experience no disaster.
This is to accord with the Constant.
256 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

53
“If I reduced the knowledge of the people and had them proceed along the great
Dao,
The only thing I would fear is interfering with them.
The Great Dao is very level, but the people delight in bypaths.”

When the courts are spotless, the fields are full of weeds and the granaries are
completely empty.
Their clothing is patterned and embroidered and they carry sharp swords on
their sides.
They are gorged with drink and food and they have a wealth of possessions and
goods.

This is called thievery and aggrandizement, and is not the Dao.

54
One who is excellent at being anchored cannot be uprooted.
One who is excellent at embracing [the One] cannot be denuded.
Sons and grandsons will sacrifice without end.
Cultivated in the body, his de is genuine.
Cultivated in the family, his de is abundant.
Cultivated in the village, his de is long lasting.
Cultivated in the state, his de flourishes.
Cultivated in the world, his de is pervasive.

Thus, he uses his body to see into all bodies.

He uses his family to see into all families.
He uses his village to see into all villages.
He uses his state to see into all states.
He uses his world to see into all worlds.

How do I know that the world is so?

By this.

55
One who contains the fullness of de can be compared to a newborn infant.
Wasps and scorpions, snakes and vipers do not sting him.
Birds of prey and fierce beasts do not seize him.
His bones are supple and his sinews are pliant, yet his grasp is firm.
He does not yet know the union of male and female, yet his penis is erect.
This is the height of vitality.
He can shout all day, yet he never becomes hoarse.
This is the height of harmony.
 Th e Daodejing 257

Knowing harmony is to be constant.

Knowing constancy is to be bright.
To add on to life is inauspicious.
For the heart to manipulate qi is aggression.

As soon as things reach their prime they begin to age.

This is called “Not of the Dao.”
Whatever is not of the Dao dies prematurely.

56
One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know.
He blocks up his holes and closes his doors.
He blunts his sharpness and dissolves his knots.
He harmonizes with the light and joins in the dust.
This is called the Profound Union.

This is why:
Others are unable to get close to him and yet unable to get distant from him.
Others are unable to benefit him and yet unable to injure him.
Others are unable to honor him and yet unable to disgrace him.
For this reason he is the treasure of the world.

57
Employ the standard measures to order the state.
Employ surprise tactics when you use troops.
Employ non-intentional projects to get the world.

How do I know that this is so?

From this.

The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world, the poorer will be the
people.
The more sharp weapons the people possess, the more muddled will be the state.
The more craftiness and cleverness the people possess, the more depraved will
be their behavior.
The more legal matters are made prominent, the more numerous will be robbers
and thieves.

That is why the words of the Sage say:

“I act non-intentionally, and the people spontaneously transform.
I love tranquility, and the people spontaneously align.
I am without intentional projects, and the people spontaneously flourish.
I am without intentional desire, and the people spontaneously are made simple.”
258 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

58
When the government is drowsy, drowsy,
The people are generous, generous.
When the government is alert, alert,
The people are contentious, contentious.

Disaster perches on good fortune.

Good fortune crouches in disaster.
Who knows its limit? It is without standards.
Standards in turn lead to surprise tactics.
Goodness in turn leads to evil.

The perplexity of the people has been long standing.

For this reason, the Sage makes square but does not injure.
He makes clean but does not cut.
He makes straight but does not bully.
He makes bright but does not dazzle.

59
In regulating the people and serving Heaven, nothing compares with being sparing.
Being sparing is to submit early [to the Dao].
Submitting early is to accumulate de repeatedly.
Accumulating de repeatedly, there is nothing that cannot be overcome.
When there is nothing that cannot be overcome, nobody knows where it will end.
When nobody knows where it will end, then the state can be possessed.
And when the Mother of the state is possessed, one is long and lasting.

This is called the Dao of deep roots and a solid base.

It is the Dao of long life and lasting vision.

60
Managing a large state is like cooking small fish.

Approaching the world by using the Dao, its ghosts do not become potent.
Not only do its ghosts not become potent, its spirits also do not injure people.
Not only do its spirits not injure people, the Sage also does not injure people.
Because they do not injure, their de intersects and converges.

61
The large state is like the lowest reach of a river, the convergence point of the
world.
 Th e Daodejing 259

It is the female of the world.

The female constantly overcomes the male through stillness.
Because of her stillness, she assumes the lower position.

For this reason,

if the large state places and if the small state places

itself below the small itself below the large state,
state, then it takes over then it is taken over
the small state, by the large state.

This is why

some by being lowest and some by being lowest are

take over, taken over.

The large state merely desires The small state merely desires
to unite and rear others. to join and serve others.

For both to get what they want, then the

large state must assume the lower position.

62
The Dao spreads over the ten thousand living things.

Good people treasure it. Not-good people are

protected by it.

Beautiful words can be offered If a person is not good, why

and revered and beautiful should he be rejected?
deeds can be presented as gifts.

Therefore, when the Son of Heaven is being enthroned and

the Three Ministers installed, though one offers disks of jade
preceded by teams of four horses, it would not compare to
offering this Dao while remaining in one’s seat.

Why did the ancients value this Dao?

Did they not say:
260 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

If good people strive by means Not-good people who have

of this, they will get it. committed crimes by means
of this will avoid punishment.

Therefore, it’s the most valued thing in the world.

63
Act non-intentionally; serve the non-intentional project; taste the tasteless.
Whether they are big or small, many or few, repay resentments by means of de.

Plan for eventual difficulties Act on what will be eventually

while things are simple. great while it’s minute.

The difficult project of the The great project of the

world inevitably arises from world inevitably arises
the simple. from the minute.

This why the Sage

never intentionally acts on

the great [project], therefore
he can complete the
great [project].

He who easily makes promises He who treats many things lightly

inevitably is rarely trusted. inevitably has many difficulties.

For this reason, the Sage regards [light problems] as difficult,

and in the end he has no difficulty.

64
While it is secure, it is While there are no signs
easy to maintain. of danger, it is easy
to take precautions.

While a threat is starting, While [a threat] is minute,

it is easy to snap. it is easy to disperse.

[The Sage]

acts on [threats] before they and manages [threats] before

manifest, they cause chaos.
 Th e Daodejing 261

A tree so big that it takes both arms to encircle starts from a tiny shoot.
A nine-story terrace starts from a basket of dirt.
A thousand mile march starts from under your feet.

He who intentionally acts on it He who holds onto it after

after it has come into it has reached its full
existence ruins it. growth loses it.

This is why the Sage

acts non-intentionally and and does not hold onto it and thus
thus he does not ruin it, he does not lose it.

When people take up their projects, they always ruin things when they are about
to be completed.
[The Sage] carefully considers eventual outcomes as the extreme development of
small beginnings, and thus he does not ruin the project.
This is why the Sage desires to have no desires and does not value goods that
are hard to get.
He studies non-study in order to redress the misfortunes of the masses.
By doing so, he restores the spontaneity of the ten thousand living things, but
he does not dare to do so intentionally.

65
Those in antiquity who were good at the Dao

did not use it to but used it to keep people

brighten the people, ignorant.

The reason why people are difficult to

regulate is because their cleverness increases.

Relying on cleverness to rule Not relying on cleverness to

the state is thievery of the state. rule the state is the bliss of
the state.

One who knows these two [thievery and bliss]

Also knows the model relevance.
Constantly to be able to know this model
relevance is called Profound de.
Profound de is deep and far-reaching.
262 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

It provides things a way of returning.

Having achieved this, the Great Accord arrives.

66
The reason why rivers and oceans are able to be the kings of the hundred rivulets
is that they are good at taking the lowest position.
For this they are able to be the kings of the one hundred rivulets.

This is why the Sage

in his desire to be above the and in his desire to be ahead

people will inevitably put his of the people will
words below them, inevitably put his body
behind them.

When the Sage

takes his place above them, and takes his place in front of
the people don’t find him them, the people don’t
heavy, harm him.

This is why the world without resentment

rejoices in promoting him.

Is it not because he does not compete that no one in the world

can compete with him?

67
“The whole world says that the greatness of my Dao cannot compare to anything.
But it is only because it is so great that it cannot be compared to anything.
Were it comparable to anything, it would have become small long ago.

I have three treasures that I hold to and embrace:

The first is compassion.
The second is frugality.
And the third is not daring to put myself at the forefront of the world.

Because of my compassion, I am able to be courageous.

Because of my frugality, I am able to be generous.
Because of my not daring to put myself at the forefront of the world, I can
­complete the growth of vessels.
 Th e Daodejing 263

If I would abandon this compassion and yet strive to be courageous,

Or if I would abandon this frugality and yet strive to be generous,
Or if I would abandon this staying behind and yet strive to the forefront:
Then I would die.

If one attacks with compassion, then he will win.

If one defends with compassion, then he will stand firm.
Heaven protects with compassion those whom it intends to save.”

68
One who is good at being an One who is good at fighting
officer is not martial. does not get angry.

One who is good at using others One who is good at

lowers himself beneath them. defeating enemies does not
engage them.

This is called using the strength This is called the de of not

of others. competing.

[When these are put together,] it is called matching Heaven.

It was the ultimate achievement of the past.

69
Those who understand the use of soldiers have a saying which goes:
“I do not dare to act the master, but rather act the guest.
I do not dare to advance an inch, but rather retreat a foot.”

This is called advancing without a road,

Rolling up one’s sleeves without showing one’s arms,
Hurtling forward without engaging the enemy,
Maintaining control without wielding a weapon.

“No disaster is greater than lightly taking on an enemy.

Lightly taking on an enemy is equal to wasting my treasures.
This is why, when two armies raise arms against each other, the one with sorrow
will win.”

70
“My words

are easy to know and easy to carry out.

264 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

Yet no one in the world can

know them or carry them out.

My words have an ancestor. My project has a lord.

Because nobody knows them, nobody knows me.
Because those who know me are few, I’m of great value.”

This is why the Sage wears coarse cloth, but

inside it he embraces jade.

71
To know not to make use of knowledge is best.
Not to know how to make use of knowledge is a sickness.
Only by recognizing the sickness as a sickness can one be without sickness.

Therefore, the Sage not being sick is due to his recognizing that sickness as a
sickness.
This is why he is not sick.

72
When the common people are not in terror of the authority of those in power,
then will arrive the Great Authority.

Don’t reduce their living spaces, and don’t oppress their livelihood.
Because they are not oppressed, they in turn will not oppress.

The Sage

knows and cherishes but does not display or exalt

himself, himself.

The Sage

takes this and rejects that.

73
One who is brave in being One who is brave in not
daring will be killed. being daring will live.

 Th e Daodejing 265

With these two kinds of courage,

one is harmful and the other is beneficial.

Who knows the reasons why Heaven hates something?

The Dao of Heaven does not compete, yet it is good at winning.

It does not speak, yet it is good at being followed.
It does not summon, yet others spontaneously come.
It is at ease, yet it is good at taking precautions.

Heaven’s net is vast, vast, yet nothing slips through.

74
The people are not afraid of death, so how could they be frightened by the threat
of death?
If the people were constantly afraid of death,
We could take those who commit outrages against us and personally kill them.
But who would dare to do so?

There are always those who are in charge of executions who perform the
executions.
But to replace those who handle executions is like replacing the master carpenter
in cutting wood.
Few among those who would replace the master carpenter would not end up
injuring their own hands.

75
The people do not eat their own harvests because their superiors eat their grain
tax to excess.
For this they do not eat their own harvests.

The people are difficult to manage because their superiors pursue their own agendas.
For this they are difficult to manage.

The people trivialize death because their superiors are consumed with their own
pursuit of pleasure.
For this they trivialize death.

Those who do not act only for the purpose of their own pleasure are nobler
than those who value their own pleasure.
266 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

76
When people are

born, they are pliant and and dead, they are hard and
supple, rigid.

When the ten thousand living

things and grasses and trees are

alive, they are pliant and and dead, they are dry and
tender, brittle.

That is why

the pliant and supple are and the hard and rigid are
companions of life, companions of death.

If a soldier is rigid,
he will be killed.

If a tree is rigid, it
will break.

This is why

pliancy and softness and hardness and rigidity

occupy the superior occupy the inferior
position, position.

77
Is not the Dao of Heaven like the drawing of a bow?

It presses down the high It pushes up the low and

and reduces the excessive. adds to the deficient.

The Dao of Heaven

reduces the excessive and increases the deficient.

The Dao of the Human is not the same: it

reduces the deficient by supplementing the excessive.

 Th e Daodejing 267

Who is able to

reduce the excessive by way of supplementing the world?

Only one who possesses the Dao.

For this reason the Sage takes action but does not linger on it.
He completes the merit but claims no credit for it.
Like this is his desire not to make a display of his worthiness.

78
Nothing in the world is more pliant and supple than water.
But for attacking the hard and rigid, nothing can surpass it and nothing can
replace it.

Suppleness overcomes strength.

Pliancy overcomes hardness.
There is no one in the whole world who does not know this,
Yet nobody is able to carry this out.

For this reason, the words of the Sage say:

“Only he who takes upon himself the disgraces of the state is called the lord of
the altars of earth and grain.
Only he who takes upon himself the misfortunes of the state is called the king
of the empire.”

Correct words seem to say the opposite of what you expect them to say.

79
When a great resentment has been settled, inevitably there will be resentment
left over.
How could this be regarded as good?
That is why the Sage holds the left tally yet does not demand payment.7

Those who have de take charge of the tally.

Those without de take charge of exactions.

The Dao of Heaven has no favorites; it constantly sides with good people.
268 I n t h e S h a d o w s o f t h e Dao

80
In a small state with few people:
Although the people possess enough weapons for a troop or a battalion, they do
not use them.
Although the people take death very seriously, they do not migrate.
Although they have boats and carriages, they do not ride them.
Although they have armor and weapons, they do not display them.

Have the people return to knotting cords,8

Then they will relish their food and take pleasure in their clothing,
Then they will delight in their customs and feel content in their homes.
Neighboring states will look upon each other and hear each other’s chickens
and dogs.
The people will die of old age because they do not attack each other.

81
Sincere words are not beautified.
Beautified words are not sincere.

Beautified words are not persuasive.

Persuasive words are not beautified.

One who has knowledge is not broadly educated.

One who is broadly educated does not have knowledge.

The Sage does not accumulate.

Because he acts for other people, he has more for himself.
Because he gives to other people, he has even more for himself.

The Dao of Heaven is to benefit and not injure.

The Dao of the Sage is to act for others and not compete.
 Notes

Chapter 1

 1. For more on Legge and his impact on early Western sinological studies, see
Girardot (2002).
  2. Brooks and Brooks (1998:4–5).
  3. See LaFargue (1994), and Lau (1964:xi).
  4. This approach has been championed by, among others, Levenson (1993).
  5. Wagner (1980) and (2000).
  6. Wagner (2003:44).
  7. http://ctext.org/.
 8. Baxter (1998:233). He arrives at his 400 BC date for the Daodejing based on
a linguistic analysis of its language in terms of its rhetorical structures and the pronun-
ciation of its rhymes, and he places it in the period between the Shijing and the Chuci.
Rather than reckon with the ins and outs of his findings, here I give the most important
and, for my purposes, the most relevant of his comments in one big block form that
jumps across several pages of his chapter (1998:236–48): “A considerable portion of the
Daodejing is rhymed; but unlike the Shijing, the rhymed passages of the Daodejing are often
closely integrated with unrhymed portions of the text. The Daodejing is not simply a col-
lection of rhyming poems with prose sprinkled around them; it represents a genre in its
own right, quite different from the traditions found in either the Shijing or the Chuci, in
which semantic parallelism plays a major role. The first characteristic of this genre is, as
we have seen, that both rhyme and semantic patterning are used as poetic devices; the
vast majority of the Daodejing text shows either one or the other or both . . . This pas-
sage [from DDJ 59] shows what we might call a chain repetition: the end of each line is
repeated in the beginning of the next. The patterns of repetition in the Shijing, on the
other hand, are quite different: in one typical pattern, the same words are repeated in

269
270 No t es t o C h a p t er 1

each stanza, providing a framework for the rhyming words, which change from stanza to
stanza . . . Another characteristic of the Daodejing, central to the style of Daoist discourse,
is the use of paradoxical statements. Still another characteristic, finally, which separates the
Daodejing from much of early Chinese philosophical discourse, is that it is entirely free of
narration, in the sense that its statements are general and not anchored to any particular
persons, times, or places. There is no indication of who is speaking, no direct reference
to historical events. This contrasts strikingly with Confucian discourse . . . Parts of the
Guanzi contain passages which are quite similar to the Daodejing in content as well as in
form. For our purposes, the similarities in form among these [two] texts are as important
as the similarities in ideas, for they show that the Daodejing is not a text in a vacuum;
rather, it represents a genre of which there are other examples . . . The rhymes of the
Daodejing show some differences from those of the Shijing (ca. 1000–600 BC); but that the
Daodejing also preserves other distinctions which are found in the Shijing, yet appear to be
lost by the time of the Zhuangzi and the Chuci (roughly 300 BC) . . . It is probably safe
to conclude that the pronunciation implied by the Daodejing developed out of the Shijing,
and that the pronunciations found in the Zhuangzi and the Chuci are later developments
still.” I agree with most everything that Baxter has here written, but at the same time
I remain partial to pushing the date for the first circulations of the Daodejing back even
earlier than 400 BC, and the date of 500 BC, for example, still falls within the general
300 year parameter laid out by Baxter.
  9. Baxter (1998:232–34).
10. Chan (2000:4).
11. Cook (2012:195–97).
12. Henricks (2000:2).
13. Henricks (2000:17).
14. Chen (2015:67).
15. Among all of the writings excavated from the Guodian site, the Guodian Laozi
and the “Taiyi sheng shui” are outliers; all of the other “philosophical” writings are sol-
idly squared with Confucian thought and practice. This raises the question as to why the
Guodian Laozi and the “Taiyi sheng shui” were included in the tomb’s collection of slips.
For more on this subject, see Allan and Williams (2000), Allan (2003), Csikszentmihalyi
(2004), Cook (2012), and Wang (2015), a note that these last two works came out at
the end stages of the composition of the present work, and I had only a brief period in
which to take account of them.
16. See Cook (2012:195–99), Chen (2015:64–67). This realization of multiple ver-
sions, or “bundles” as Cook calls them, will certainly play a big role in all future discussions
of the Guodian Laozi.
17. See Schipper (1978); Robinet (1986); and Kohn (1998).
18. See Strickmann (1977), Vervoorn (1990), and Berkowitz (2000); I return to
their arguments in chapter 5.
19. Berkowitz (2000:xi–xii) gives an interesting discussion of the term “reclusion”
and some of its many variants, with particular attention to classical Chinese.
20. This is precisely and literally the sense in which Goosaert (1999) takes the
term: “between four walls.”
21. On the other hand, I also recognize the incisive studies of Wang (2014), who
persuades me that the term “recluse” is not entirely out of place for early Daoism, but
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 2 271

he is not talking about the early yangsheng Daoism identifiable with the Daodejing; rather,
what he targets is the early zuowang Daoism of the Zhuangzi; for more on this, see below.
22. I readily admit that I am partially yet brazenly co-opting certain comments from
an earlier reviewer of this work who remains anonymous; I would cite him/her here if it
were possible for me to do so.
23. For more on the early Daoist mountain-dwelling of Geng Sangchu, see Michael
(2015b, 2016).
24. Smith (2003) remains the definitive statement of this issue.
25. Given the formidable force of the building momentum of modern Western studies
on Daoism in the last few decades, it is already a nearly Sisyphean task to speak of one
possible movement of early Daoism, and yet I dare here to raise the specter that there were
quite possibly two. This is in fact precisely what I explore in an initial way in Michael
(2015b, 2016), although I am not working entirely in the dark; I recognize both indications
and authority for this path from the works primarily of Roth (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000)
and Kohn (2010, 2015). Throughout the present work, I tend to speak of early Daoism
in the singular with specific reference to early yangsheng Daoism, but this is mostly for the
sake of present convenience. I want to keep early zuowang Daoism to the side until I can
properly attend to what is at stake in separately designating these two strands in future
work.
26. For more on how these core elements continue to play out in contemporary
Daoism, see Herrou (2013).
27. While chapter 5 of the present work attends to the relation between early
Daoism and mountains only in a perfunctory way, Michael (2016) attends to this much
more closely.
28. The outstanding modern Western-languages studies on these different layers
of the Zhuangzi include first of all Graham’s several studies collected in Roth (2003); an
essential companion and countervoice to Graham’s studies is Liu (1994). Roth (1993) pro-
vides a detailed overview on many of the issues surrounding the Zhuangzi text, and Kohn
(2014) provides a magnificent articulation and contextualization of the ins and outs of
these same issues. But I am not entirely concerned with these issues in the present work,
which is devoted to the Daodejing.

Chapter 2

 1. Zhuangzi 16:554 states, “Although the Sage might not remain in the mountains
or forests, his de was still hidden” 雖聖人不在山林之中其德隱矣 (sui shengren bu zai shan
lin zhi zhong, qi de yin yi).
  2. Graham (1989:219–20).
 3. The phrase wanwu 萬物 is standardly translated as either “the myriad things”
or “the ten thousand things.” I have long felt very uneasy with these translations, and
I tended to translate it as “the ten thousand beings,” but that did not feel right either.
Allan (1997:96) has explained my uneasiness with each of these translations, and I base
my current translation on her comments: “The difficulty with the translation [of wu] as
‘creatures’ is that it limits the term to animal life, but ‘things’ in English are primarily
inanimate objects. Neither corresponds precisely to the Classical Chinese, for wu refers
to both plants and animals. I translate wu as ‘living things’ because the myriad wu are
272 No t es t o C h a p t er 2

conventionally described as ‘generated’ or ‘living’ (sheng 生) and because English has no

ordinary expression that includes both animals and plants.”
  4. Chan (2000:9) remarks on this: “The Mawangdui manuscripts make use of a far
larger number of grammatical particles when compared with the received text of Wang
Bi and Heshang Gong. They do clarify the meaning in many instances. But the question
is precisely whether they do not reflect an interpretive stance. For example, the phrase
guchang wuyu yiguan qimiao in the current Wang Bi text is clearly marked by grammatical
particles in both Mawangdui versions so as to leave no mistake that wuyu is to be read
together, meaning ‘not having desires.’ This seems to rule out the alternative reading, found
in both traditional and modern readings, that the line should break after the character
wu, yielding a different interpretation centering on the concept of ‘nonbeing.’ Does this
mean that the ‘original’ Daodejing had wuyu, or that the line was read in a particular way
in the Mawangdui manuscripts?”
  5. Schipper (1993:186).
  6. Schipper (1993:192–93).
  7. Chan (2013).
  8. Schipper (1993:192).
  9. This does not at all mean that modern Chinese scholars had not already opened
up these paths of approach to the Daodejing. Shaughnessy (2005) makes this clear in
his study of the earlier twentieth-century Chinese intellectual debates surrounding the
Daodejing originating with Liang Qichao and Hu Shi, and he (2005:418) writes that “the
Daodejing was the focus of perhaps the bitterest of the debates on ancient history that
consumed Chinese scholarship of the 1920’s and 30’s.” My point is that Shaughnessy’s
study is eye-opening precisely because those debates did not play a prominent role in
modern Western scholarship on the Daodejing. Shaughnessy (2005:420) writes that Liang
“noted that some Qing dynasty scholars had already voiced some suspicions regarding the
[sixth century BC] date of the Daodejing, [and] he presented five points of evidence for
a much later date of the text,” including contradictions in Laozi’s biography in the Shiji,
the absence of mentions of the Daodejing in other early Chinese writings, and suspicions
that the language of the Daodejing is not consistent with that of the Spring and Autumn
period. Shaughnessy’s study represents the best kind of engagement with earlier Chinese
scholarship that bridges the gap between Eastern and Western Daodejing studies, but early
modern Western scholarship was not very indebted to them.
10. Welch (1965:3).
11. Hardy (1998:174–75).
12. Although I briefly mentioned the distinction between these two strands of early
Daoism in chapter 1, it needs to be recognized as fundamental. Because the present work
concentrates on the Daodejing, I want to keep that discussion to a minimum and explore
it more fully in a future study. Michael (2016), however, provides some indications of what
such a study would look like.
13. See, for example, Hansen (1992) and Ames and Hall (2003).
14. See, for example, Schipper (1993), Kohn (2001), and Roth (1999).
15. Kohn (2001:6).
16. Roth (1999:173–74).
17. Among the large number of studies on this issue, three stand out: Graham (1989);
Smith (2003), and Denecke (2010).
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 2 273

18. For Sima Tan’s usage of daojiao, see Smith (2003). My examination of the terms
daojia and daojiao in the following pages attends more to the ways they have been treated
by modern Western scholars and less to how they have been treated by traditional Chinese
literati; Raz (2012:4–14) examines the historical construction and deployment of these
terms from the time of Sima Tan to the end of the Six Dynasties.
19. Fung (1966:3).
20. For more on this, see Michael (2015a).
21. Yu (2005:5).
22. Nylan (2001:3).
23. Czikszentmihalyi (2004:15).
24. DeWoskin (1983:18).
25. Shiji (63:2139–43); see also Graham (1998), which I also discuss in chapter 5,
and Kohn (1998).
26. Shiji (63:2143–45); see also Kohn (2014:1–2).
27. Zhuangzi (1:17).
28. Zhuangzi (7:297–306).
29. Csikszentmihalyi (2004) goes to great lengths to show that the term “Confucian-
ism” is entirely misleading and that we should adopt the Ru label instead. I agree with
his reasoning completely, but I choose to keep the Confucian label only for reasons of
accessibility for the non-specialist reader.
30. Csikszentmihalyi (2004:26–27).
31. Schipper (1993:192).
32. Robinet (1997:3).
33. The term fangshi, like the term daojia, owes its importance to the Shiji, which
presents the earliest recorded textual instance of the phrase; I leave fangshi untranslated.
DeWoskin (1983:1) also leaves the phrase untranslated and writes: “The word ‘fang’ in its
various common contexts meant ‘efficacious,’ ‘formulaic,’ ‘parallel,’ ‘correlative,’ ‘compara-
tive,’ ‘medicinal,’ ‘spiritual,’ or ‘esoteric.” When the term fangshi is translated in modern
scholarship, it is usually as “recipe gentlemen” or “masters of esoterica.” The former is
Harper’s preferred translation (1999:818 passim), and the latter is Campany’s (2002:6 pas-
sim). I take this up more fully in chapter 5.
34. Creel (1970:9).
35. Sivin (1978:304).
36. Ren (1990:13).
37. Creel (1970:41, 46).
38. Sivin (1978:305).
39. Strickmann (1978:166).
40. Sivin (1978:306).
41. Strickmann (1979:165).
42. Raz (2012:14).
43. Lakoff and Johnson (1980).
44. Campany (2002:7). In another piece, Campany (2003:291) writes about the
metaphorical nature of how we think about religions: “The most basic aspect of how
religions are imagined in Western discourse is that they are construed as entities; they are
reified. One prominent way in which Western discourse reifies religions is by the decep-
tively simple use of the morphological device of the English suffix ‘ism’ and its European
274 No t es t o C h a p t er 2

equivalents. By adding ‘ism’ to a root noun or adjective that does not yet designate a
religion, we form new, abstract entities, and by adding ‘ist’ we denote things or tendencies
that belong to these entities.”
45. Campany (2003:292). He also rightly points out (2003:293) that this is not
limited to “religions” but also encompasses two other often appended terms, “tradition” and
“system.” I want to step back and present three questions that an earlier reviewer of this
piece posed: “What is involved in defining and demarcating religious traditions in the first
place? What counts as a successful enterprise of this sort? Why is the question important,
anyway?” This is undeniably good food for thought.
46. Campany (2003:293).
47. Campany (2003:288).
48. Liu (1991:18–19).
49. Qing (2012:7).
50. If any readers call me out for not including the magisterial study (1985 [1949])
by Chen Guofu, arguably the most important early modern Chinese scholar of Daoism as
well as its most important international representative, my response is that his work did not
target the origins of Daoism; it primarily examined Chinese alchemy and the Daoist Canon.
51. Qing (2012:8–9).
52. Qing (2012:8).
53. Xu (1996:190–219).
54. Fu (1992:9).
55. Fu (1992:14).
56. Fu (1992:43–45).
57. Qing (2012:19).
58. Barrett (1986:330–31).
59. MacInnis (1989:25).
60. Qing (2012:22).
61. Ren (1983).
62. Qing (2012:22–27).
63. On a more personal note, I was able to participate in the 2nd International
Conference on Daoist Studies held at Mt. Qingcheng in 2004, when I got the chance to
meet Dr. Qing. This meeting led to my one-day seminar at the Institute of Religions at
Sichuan University, which Dr. Qing was kind enough to sponsor and attend. The series of
International Conferences on Daoist Studies itself is the child of Livia Kohn, which held
its 9th Conference in Spring 2014 at Boston University. It remains the only international
conference series on Daoism to this day, with close collaboration between Western and
Eastern scholars and institutions.
64. Qing (1980:28).
65. Ren (1983:2).
66. Qing (1988:1a–2a).
67. Ren (1990:6).
68. Ren (1990:8–9).
69. Seidel (1997:46).
70. Sleeboom has devoted four pages of her study on academic nationals in China
and Japan to Hu’s positions on Daoism in the modern world of international relations.
What she writes about Hu is interesting, and I give a short excerpt because it contextualizes
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 3 275

this quote; she writes (2004:68): “Hu does not only give Daoism a scientific foundation;
he also gives the dao a place in time before the emergence of gods in other religions. In
this way Daoism can claim the most ancient tradition of them all . . . God is not the
ultimate limit of human rational thought. Instead, the Dao is, for it stems from before
the birth of the universe.”
71. Hu (1999:267–68).
72. Robinet (1983: 59).
73. Michael (2005:2).
74. Creel (1970:2).
75. Lakoff and Johnson (1980).
76. For more on this idea of “closure” and “challenge,” see Michael (2011:101–04).

Chapter 3

  1. Creel (1970:20).
  2. Creel (1970: 5).
  3. Robinet (1983:59).
  4. Kirkland (2000: xi).
  5. Kirkland (2004: 2).
  6. Strickmann (1979:165).
 7. It is one thing to argue that the Daodejing has a separate history based on its
internal contents (this is the primary direction that I take in this work). It is another thing
altogether to argue that its separate history (at least in relation to the philosophical debates
of the Warring States) could be based on a cultural (much less geographic) distinction
between the northern Zhou and the southern Chu. If anyone were to argue that my entire
argument for this third reading of the Daodejing stands or falls with the relevance and reality
of this cultural distinction, I would ardently agree that it does. This question is a very close
second to that of early Daoism itself in terms of the intensity of scholarly debate about it.
In my opinion, this question is even more complex and complicated than that of an early
Daoism. It concerns possible southern emigrations of citizens of the ancient Xia and Shang
cultures to Chu; the timing, level, and intensity of the promulgation of Ruist ideology in
Chu by Zhou royalty and other of their political emissaries to the south; and a whole slew
of other considerations, including the ritual reforms ascribed to the Duke of Zhou at the
beginning of the Zhou dynasty. While pursuing this line of inquiry and the relevance it
has for the origins of early Daoism is not my challenge in this work (although the question
continues to pop up more and more as I develop my arguments herein), I see it as the most
important challenge to scholars who may be at least partially persuaded by my arguments,
namely that they will bring their own interests and training to bear on the question of the
relation between the origins of Daoism and early Chu. A number of scholars have already
opened this door concerning the distinctions between the northern Zhou and the southern
Chu, but not with a sustained gaze on the origins of Daoism. I also have pursued what is at
stake in this distinction, but I did so with specific regard to the issue of ancient and early
Chinese shamanism (Michael 2015c, forthcoming). Two other important works that are
indispensable to confronting this issue (and there are a lot of them; I only provide these
citations because they represent the best English- and Chinese-language studies of which I
am aware) are the collections edited by Cook and Major (1999) and Zhang (1994).
276 No t es t o C h a p t er 3

 8. The two best modern Western studies on this topic remain Boltz (1993) and
Chan (2000).
 9. Chan (2000:9) writes, “Three points need to be made in this regard. First,
technically there are multiple versions of Wang Bi and Heshang Gong Daodejing—there are
over thirty Heshang Gong versions at present—but the differences are on the whole minor.
Second, the Wang Bi and Heshang Gong versions are not the same, but are sufficiently
similar to be classified as belonging to the same line of textual transmission. Third, the
Wang Bi and Heshang Gong versions that we see today have suffered change. In particular,
the Daodejing text that now accompanies Wang Bi’s commentary bears the imprint of later
editorial alteration, mainly under the influence of the Heshang Gong version, and cannot
be regarded as the Laozi that Wang Bi himself had seen and commented on.” Chan’s
points here are very helpful in arriving at a proper orientation to the various versions of
the Daodejing, and I rely on them to better examine the commentarial traditions that the
Heshang Gong and Wang Bi launched. Wagner (2003:3–31) provides the most technically
precise examination of the Daodejing text that was superimposed over Wang Bi’s commen-
tary based on specific divergences of that text from the commentary.
10. Chan (2000:1); Robinet (1998:119).
11. Robinet (1998:121–22).
12. Chan (2000:17–19).
13. I am fully aware that in our postmodern world, the political can be said to
include not only the religious, the philosophical, and the physical, but much else besides.
By the political, I specifically refer to political office, from rulership to ministerial office,
including any level of bureaucratic position in the governmental hierarchy.
14. Robinet (1981:30).
15. Laozi Daodejing Heshang Gong Zhangju (314–15).
16. For more on Huang-Lao Daoism, see Peerenboom (1993).
17. For more on the legends of Huangdi, who began his career as a King but ended
it as a Sage, see Seidel (1969), Lewis (1990), Roth (1997), and Michael (2015b).
18. Seidel (1992:51).
19. Robinet (1981:38).
20. See Chan (1991:107–18).
21. Robinet (1981:39) writes, “The commentary of Heshang Gong permits us to
make a relation between ‘operative’ Daoism inherited from the fangshi, the magicians, and
the philosophical Daoism of Zhuangzi and Huainanzi.” By “operative” Daoism, Robinet
refers to the physical cultivation techniques that lead to longevity, what I call yangsheng.
I return to the question of the fangshi and their relation to reclusive Daoism in chapter 5.
I do not agree with her ascription of yangsheng to “the magicians” (by whom she means
the shamans) for reasons I return to also in chapter 5. And I also would not take the
Zhuangzi and the Huainanzi as representative of “philosophical Daoism” as such. I do,
however, entirely agree with the point she makes here (thirty-five years later, we have the
Mawangdui texts, to which she did not have the same kind of access that we do today),
namely that the yangsheng practices that the Heshang Gong discusses are the inheritance
of a very early Daoism that can be seen in the shadows of the Daodejing, and that the
political component was a later accretion. I recognize, however, that Harper makes the
opposite argument, namely that yangsheng practices were a later accretion over an originally
political Daodejing.
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 4 277

22. There is a lot of literature on this topic, but outstanding among them are Seidel
(1970), Mollier (1990), Hendrischke (2006), and Espesset (2007).
23. See Bokenkamp (1997:29–77); Kleeman (1998).
24. Robinet (1981:41).
25. http://www.guoxue.com/xstj/lzxez/lzf.htm.
26. See Kohn (1998); Boltz (1982).
27. See Wagner (2000).
28. Chan (2000:15) gives a taste of his metaphysics: “According to Wang Bi, the
Dao is the ‘beginning’ of the ‘ten thousand things.’ Unlike Heshang Gong or the Xiang’er,
however, he did not pursue a cosmological or religious interpretation of the creation.
Rather, Wang seems concerned with what may be called the logic of creation. The Dao
constitutes the absolute ‘beginning’ in that all things have causes and conditions that
derive logically from a necessary foundation. The ground of being, however, cannot itself
be a being; otherwise, infinite regress would render the logic of the Daodejing suspect.
The transcendence of the Dao cannot be compromised. To do justice to the Daodejing,
it is also important to show how the functions of the Dao translate into basic principles
governing the universe. The regularity of the seasons, the plenitude of nature, and other
expressions of ‘heaven and earth’ all attest to the presence of the Dao. Human beings
also conform to these principles, and so are ‘modeled’ ultimately on the Dao. Wang Bi is
often praised in later sources for having given the concept of ‘principle’ its first extended
philosophical treatment.”
29. For the Heshang Gong commentary, see Erkes (1958); for the Xiang’er commen-
tary, see Bokenkamp (1997); for the Wang Bi, see Wagner (2003).
30. Raz (2012:4–14) examines the historical construction and deployment of these
terms from the time of Sima Tan to the end of the Six Dynasties.
31. Wagner (2003:65).
32. Wagner (2003:42–48).
33. Chan (1991:2–3).
34. Chan (1991:190–91).
35. Translated by Bokenkamp (1997:209–10).
36. Shenxian zhuan (1:2b–3a).
37. Zhang (2003:142).
38. Schipper (1993:185).
39. Michael (2005:3–6).
40. Wagner (2003:149).
41. Laozi Daodejing Heshang Gong Zhangju (35).
42. See Sivin (1995); Schipper (1993:100–12).
43. Laozi Xiang’er Zhu; see also Bokenkamp (1997:90).
44. Schipper (1993:193–94).
45. Robinet (1981:49–55).

Chapter 4

  1. Chen (2015) in fact argues (persuasively, as far as I am concerned), that Laozi

was indeed the first early Chinese philosopher, and I am confident that his research will,
in time, radically alter our modern Western tendency to give that accolade to Confucius.
278 No t es t o C h a p t er 4

 2. Chen (2015:1–8) also provides an extremely insightful analysis of these inter-
views between Laozi and Confucius on the very lines that I pursue. Unfortunately, his
work came out at the final stages of this one, and I am unable to adequately incorporate
his findings here with the proper attention that they deserve.
  3. Lau (1989:xxii).
  4. Graham (1989:217–18).
  5. I discussed the impact of the Guodian Laozi on these efforts to date the Daode-
jing after Zhuangzi in chapter 1, where it was noted that scholars have, for the most part,
become resigned to the fact that such efforts are no longer feasible. In the aftermath, some
scholars still hold that the Daodejing indeed is a very late text, and the most persuasive
case for this is put forth by Kim (2013), who argues that it is best taken as a very late
second-century BC text.
  6. Brooks and Brooks (1998:4–5).
  7. See Allan and Williams (2000) for their important collection of studies on the
Guodian Laozi; see also Allan (2003) for her more in-depth study of the Guodian Laozi.
The recent work by Cook (2012), however, will do more to raise our collective aware-
ness of the centrality of the Guodian excavations than most previous works put together.
  8. Chen (2015:66).
 9. Zhuangzi (14:516).
10. Liji (754).
11. Shiji (63:2219–20).
12. Liji (754–55).
13. Lüshi chunqiu (88).
14. Graham (1998:26). I return to Graham’s study of the interviews momentarily.
15. Shiji (63:2220).
16. Liji (750; 754–55).
17. Here I attend a little more closely to these interviews in the Zhuangzi, but only
because they offer more food for thought than the Liji records, which are, to be honest,
somewhat more insipid by comparison. I return to the Liji’s characterization of Laozi as a
staunch master of the li momentarily.
18. Zhuangzi (13:478).
19. Zhuangzi (14:522).
20. Zhuangzi (12:427).
21. Zhuangzi (14:516).
22. Zhuangzi (22:741).
23. Zhuangzi (14:530; 21:711).
24. Lau (1989:121).
25. Lau (1989:129).
26. Graham (1998:27–28).
27. Czikszentmihalyi (2004:25–26).
28. The work of Granet (1926, 1929, and 1934) continues to stand as the most
formidable effort to do just that.
29. I leave aside, for the most part, other members of it, including the Yijing 易經
(Book of Changes) or, more precisely, the Zhou Yi 周易 (Changes of Zhou), because that study
will take me far away from my present purposes. My reasons for leaving other sources aside
also involve that reason, but a further hesitation of mine is that their dates are even more
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 4 279

highly contested, and I prefer not to involve myself with them here. These other works,
arguably or not predating Laozi and Confucius, include the Shujing 書經 (Classic of History,
also known as the Shang shu), the Chunqiu, as well as the excavated bronze inscriptions,
although the term dao is not found in the oracle bone inscriptions (but antecedents of it
are). For more on the cultural impact of the Shijing in addition to the works of Granet,
see Nylan (2001) and Wang (2013).
30. Boodberg (1957:599).
31. Shouwen jiezi (2006:75).
32. Allan (1997:67). See also Allan (1997:68–69) for her analysis of the visual
presentations of dao in the bronze inscriptions.
33. Shouwen jiezi (2006:75).
34. Shijing (319).
35. Shijing (337).
36. Shijing (278).
37. Shijing (262).
38. Shijing (264; 265).
39. Shijing (282).
40. Shijing (287; 296; 316; 320).
41. Shijing (320).
42. Shijing (316).
43. Shijing (278).
44. Shijing (296; 299).
45. Shijing (232; 325).
46. Shijing (340).
47. Shijing (357).
48. Shijing (238).
49. The best analyses of “Sheng Min” are Owen (2002:25–31) and Peterson
(2000:31–34), which explore the mythological and ritual importance of this poem for the
Ji lineage.
50. Shijing (345).
51. For further studies of this ancient dao, especially as the term dovetails into the
Analects and the Daodejing, see Eno (1996:129–30), who writes, “Usage in the bronze
inscriptions and the Shijing suggest that the word dao possessed four principal meanings
during the prephilosophical period: as a noun, it meant ‘a path’ or ‘an art’; as a verb, it
meant either ‘to guide on a path’ or ‘to say.’ Together with the graphic form, these uses
point toward an original sense of dao as a formula of speech and step.” See also Allan
(1997:70–79), where she pursues her exploration of the ancient usages of the term dao as
it was taken up by the Analects, Mencius, Daodejing, and Zhuangzi.
52. I particularly have in mind Heidegger (2008:393–426), among other of his writ-
ings on “the Way.” For a more contemporary application of Heidegger’s thought to dao
and Daoism, see Zhang (2004:206–07), who writes that “for Heidegger and for Laozi and
Zhuangzi, language or ‘speaking’ has two kinds of meaning, one of which is the means or
symbol system used to convey information, the other of which is the primordial, purely dis-
closing ontological region or realm of occurrence. The first is only for ready-to-hand beings
to make contact with one another and express or convey the ideas, thoughts, or concepts
in their minds . . . Conversely, the second view of language holds that primordial speaking
280 No t es t o C h a p t er 4

or dao (saying) is prior to any dualistic ontology or epistemology.” An early work in this
line is Parkes (1990); more recently, see Parkes (2012), Froese (2006), and Burik (2009).
53. For more on the possible connections (or lack thereof) between “the public King”
and “the hidden Sage,” see Michael (2005:40–50). More recently, Boileau (2013) has pro-
duced an extremely cogent article on the relations between the Sage of the Daodejing and
the ancient King, although he still wants to identify the Sage with the King in the real
time of the Daodejing (an identification that I reject). His article unfortunately came out
too late for me to adequately situate its findings in the present work, and I look forward
with relish to dealing with just this issue in a future work, together with his even more
recently published work (2014) on ancient Chinese religion and ritual.
54. Graham (1989:3).
55. Lüshi chunqiu (17:7).
56. Quoted with slight modification from Wagner (2000:129).
57. Zhao (1960:13).
58. Xiaojing (2102).
59. While contemporary scholarship is turning its attention more and more to dis-
ciplines of the body, Emerson (1996:539) articulates this with exceptional perspicacity in
displaying the position of the family within the structures of the state by way of ritual and
ceremony: “For the Zhou nobility, public life—warfare, court life, and personal bonds with
feudal superiors—was the primary arena within which self-definition took place, and the
Confucians hoped to bring China to order by purifying and regulating the court occasions
within which rank and status were made manifest. Confucians believed that these festivities
should be modeled on the traditional clan and neighborhood ceremonials . . . To begin
with, it has to be shown how the Confucian attempt to model the state on the family was
plausible at all. First, the ancient Chinese family (or clan) was a political unit. The head
of the clan was a political figure who had authority over his family and represented it in
all public dealings, and he was treated by its members with respect and deference rather
than with affectation . . . Second, the ‘rituals’ or ‘ceremonies’ by which the Confucians
hoped to attain order were feasts and celebrations: splendid events, the focal point of the
empire’s wealth, beauty, luxury, and haute cuisine . . . Seating arrangements were minutely
calculated to display the relative status of the participants . . .”
60. Puett also identifies these indications from the Daodejing that demonstrate a
conception of genealogy subversively alternative to that of family and state, but his reading
relies on the daojia interpretation of the Daodejing, which sees it as directed to the ruler. I
categorically reject this: the Daoist Sage is anything but a King, and I am far from alone in
this reading. Puett nonetheless is absolutely spot on in recognizing the power of this alterna-
tive genealogy; he writes (2002:165–67) that “the cosmogony of the Daodejing, like that of
the Taiyi sheng shui, is based on generation from an original ancestor, the Way . . . Unlike
the Taiyi sheng shui, the Daodejing calls upon the adept to return to this ancestor . . . By
holding first to the Way, the adept is able to make all things submit to him, to control
the populace without resorting to overt commands, and even to bring Heaven and Earth
into harmony. He becomes, in a sense, like the ancestor: he is able to generate order and
cause everything to submit to him . . . In the Daodejing the sage does not model himself
on nature: he models himself on the Way, which is the ancestor of the natural and human
worlds. He thus gains power over both.” Puett’s reading on this issue, however, does not
consider the early Daoist reading for which I here argue; he for all intents seems to give
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 5 281

priority to Han Feizi’s reading of the Daodejing with its strongly Machiavellian overtones,
but this is, in my understanding, already a secondary reading long postdating the original
yangsheng environment from which the Daodejing emerged.
61. Zhuangzi (5:202–03).

Chapter 5

  1. Strickmann (1977:35–36).
  2. Vervoorn (1990); Berkowitz (2000). I deal with these two works more fully in
separate pieces (with particular attention to the writings of both Zhuangzi and Ge Hong)
because this directly bears on the issue of early Daoist mountain dwelling; see Michael
(2015a, 2015b).
  3. Berkowitz (2000:12).
  4. Berkowitz (2000:11).
  5. Wells (2009:71–72).
  6. I am currently pursuing two separate projects that examine the further develop-
ments of early Daoism postdating the Daodejing, in which I indeed engage each of these
works in a much more sustained way.
  7. Examples of the master-disciple relationship are legion in the Zhuangzi: Huangdi
was disciple to Guangchengzi as master as Yun Jiang was to Hong Meng, Nanrong Chu
to Gengsang Chu, and Gengsang Chu (among others) to Laozi; the list goes on. Roth
(1997, 1998, and 1999) discusses the early Daoist transmission of texts (but I prefer to
speak of the transmission of techniques) in the singular by calling that line of transmis-
sion a “distinctive lineage” structured around the master-disciple relationship. In this vein,
Komjathy (2014:62–64) remarks: “The earliest evidence of Daoist lineages is found in the
Zhuangzi and other texts of classical Daoism. These are the inner cultivation lineages, the
master—disciple communities, of classical Daoism, and careful study and reading show that
they were at least as diverse as the movements of organized Daoism . . . Classical Daoism
was a religious community, a series of master-disciple lineages. It consisted of individuals
and communities, albeit diverse and only loosely associated ones, aimed at ‘cultivating the
Dao.’ ” Herrou (2013) provides a penetrating picture of how these master-disciple relations
continue to structure contemporary Daoism in China today.
 8. Zhuangzi (23:779).
 9. Zhuangzi (23:774).
10. Zhuangzi (1:27).
11. Zhuangzi (1:31).
12. Zhuangzi (6:247).
13. Zhuangzi (11:379).
14. Zhuangzi (22:729–30).
15. Zhuangzi (24:848).
16. Discussing the episode from Zhuangzi 7 in which Liezi undertakes a three-year
period of training, Komjathy (2014:44) writes, “This passage parallels others wherein three
years is identified as the ideal period of temporary seclusion for intensive training: Cook
Ding (chapter 3), Gengsang Chu (chapter 23), as well as adept Huan and Zhuping Man
(chapter 32). As three years is the traditional Chinese mourning period, one might read
these descriptions both literally and metaphorically. One goes into physical seclusion, which
282 No t es t o C h a p t er 5

also involves the death of one’s former self and mundane social concerns. For [Liezi], seclu-
sion establishes a situation conducive for intensive Daoist cultivation. It results in mystical
union with the Dao, which may or may not include physical death.”
17. Zhuangzi (23:777).
18. Zhuangzi (11:387).
19. Zhuangzi (11:380).
20. Zhuangzi (14:533).
21. Zhuangzi (20:697).
22. Kleeman (1994) has also attended to some of the main points of this chapter,
but with a very different approach.
23. Baopuzi Neipian (17:299).
24. Again, my extremely perfunctory treatment of what Ge Hong says about the
hiddenness of early Daoist mountain-dwelling will most likely draw the criticism of some
readers. This presumably even starts with my identification of him as a Daoist, not to
mention that his writings come some eight centuries too late for my empirical and histori-
cal purposes. Nonetheless, I offer these comments on his writings for two reasons. First,
because they show that early Daoist mountain-dwelling was a serious business long before
Strickmann’s fifth-century CE date, which of course then begs the question of whether we
can trace this back all the way to the fifth century BC; but the Zhuangzi seems already
well aware of early Daoist mountain-dwelling. Second, because I contend that Ge Hong
theoretically culminated the tradition of early Daoism: he did not invent it. For more on
this aspect of Ge Hong, see Michael (2015a, 2015b, 2016).
25. Michael (2005:1–6).
26. For more on my views on early Chinese shamanism, see Michael (2015c,
forthcoming).
27. Schipper (1993:185).
28. Schipper (1993:6).
29. For example, Robinet (1997:36), discussing the collection of poetry from the
Chuci, writes, “The poems seem to be the written remnant of the tradition of the wu, a
term translated roughly as ‘shaman’ or ‘sorcerer.’ These wu (were) a feature of religion
very different from the official cults . . . Many Daoist practices descend in a direct line
from this tradition, even though Daoists insist that they have no part in it.” Although I
am entirely sympathetic with Robinet’s position, I am still compelled to concur with the
sentiments voiced by Kirkland (2004:227): “A specific problem here is a widespread use of
the term ‘shamanism’ for any kind of ‘popular’ religious activity in which humans inter-
act directly with unseen personal beings. Daoists of later periods certainly did, at times,
interact with unseen personal beings, but by that token Krishna in his chariot or Moses
on his mountaintop would have to be explained as having ‘shamanic origins.’ ” The term
“shamanism” is a beast of an altogether nature, and I think it best to keep it separate from
any discussion of early Daoism.
30. Rickett (1998:17–19).
31. Robinet (1997:91).
32. Schipper (1993:184–85).
33. Schipper (1993:185).
34. Chan (2000:5).
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 5 283

35. LaFargue (1998:263). For his systematic study of these sayings, see LaFargue
(1994).
36. Lau (1989:xi).
37. Michael (2005).
38. Roth (1998:62).
39. Schipper (1993:191).
40. Schipper (1993:192).
41. Graziani (2009:486). Scholars qualified to tackle the question of early Chinese
traditions of orality are not numerous, and I certainly do not include myself among their
ranks. ter Haar (2013) has written a fascinating essay on this topic.
42. Graziani (2009:485–86).
43. Graziani (2009:461–62) takes a general approach to early Chinese self-cultivation
rather than to any specific program: “Self-cultivation is furthermore an expression that
may appear vague and too broad. Linguistically, it has, however, precise counterparts in
primary sources, with a set of equivalent expressions using the term xiu 修 (to care for,
to work on, to cultivate) and/or yang 養 (to nourish, to nurture), in combination with
shen 身 (the self, or the body), xin 心 (the heart/mind) or xing 形 (the physical ‘form’ or
appearance). In its more general aspect, or if we try to take stock of its variable forms,
self-cultivation consists of voluntary, personal, self-initiated practices that aim at moral
development, cognitive enlightenment, vital flourishing, long life or immortality but also,
and not infrequently, undisputed political domination.”
44. Csikszentmihalyi (1998:41).
45. Csikszentmihalyi (1998:41).
46. Although Despeux (2004:82) speaks about “breath absorption” rather than qi
circulation, she writes that these practices “are equally accompanied by diverse exercises for
absorbing the breath and having it circulate in the body. The exercises of breath absorption
are carried out a certain number of times morning and night according to the Mawangdui
manuscript. In the techniques, daoyin intervenes as a complementary method for favoring
the internal circulation of breath, eliminating blockages and stagnations, and facilitating
the elimination of breath, but also for ‘attracting out’ the internal maleficent breaths and
expelling them, or attracting beneficial breaths.”
47. Campany (2002:21–22) writes about this from the later perspective of Ge Hong:
“The gist of almost all of the methods collected by Ge Hong could be summarized as salva-
tion by ingestion, if we understand ‘ingestion’ in the broadest sense of anything absorbed
into the body (with attention also to what should not be ingested) . . . By far the most
common dietary avoidance mentioned in Traditions [Shenxian zhuan], Inner Chapters [Baopuzi
Neipian], and texts of the Grand Purity patrimony, however, was ‘grains’ (gu 榖)—the
entire class of cereals, the staple food group of the Chinese diet. This particular avoid-
ance had been observed for centuries, as we may deduce from its mention in early texts
such as the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi, the Lüshi chunqiu, and Wang Chong’s Lunheng.”
Despeux (2004:82) writes, “Reducing the intake of the basic food of the ancient Chinese,
grains, implies taking in substitute foods, what one calls fushi 服飯, whether this be roots
or minerals.”
48. Despeux (2004:82) writes, “The goal in both cases [of daoyin and sexual practices]
was to engender breath and essence (sperm) that one conserves precisely in the body,
284 No t es t o C h a p t er 5

and that one avoids any loss of, and to contribute to the establishment of a circulation
of breath and essence without obstacle.” The early Daoists mentioned in the Zhuangzi are
often married and have children, and this is the topic of another study, but the question of
Daoism and sexuality is very rich. Eskildsen (1998:25) writes, again from the later Daoist
perspectives around the time of Ge Hong:

Various Daoist training methods called for celibacy. Unless one were celibate,
these methods were deemed futile and even dangerous. The most important
purpose for celibacy was the retention of seminal fluid (referred to as jing or
“essence”), which was considered indispensable for good health and long life.
Loss of seminal fluid was thought to shorten the life span. Still, it must be
noted once again that both the Liexian zhuan and Shenxian zhuan contain many
references to immortals who practiced sexual yoga (i.e., were not celibate) and
do not express a critical attitude toward them. These techniques required the
male practitioner to resist ejaculation at the moment of climax during intercourse
with his female partner and then send the jing to the brain through the spine.

Despite the fact that the Liexian zhuan lies just outside what I am able to take into
account in the present work (although I do sneak in the Shenxian zhuan, which is an
even later text, and my studies of both of these two writings are the matter of a future
work), these sexual arts mentioned by Eskildsen were already an important part of early
Chinese physical cultivation practices, as Harper (1987) demonstrates (see below). Were
they already established at the time of the first circulations of the Daodejing?
49. See Kohn’s (2008) study of daoyin for the most incisive exploration of what is
entailed by this practice.
50. Li (2001:342).
51. Despeux (2004:47).
52. For a brief summary of these debates, see Roth (1999:161–62).
53. Li (2001:343–44).
54. Li (2001:342).
55. Zhuangzi (7:297–304); see also Michael (2005:19–21).
56. Roth (1999:2).
57. Michael (2005:101–08).
58. Roth (1998:61–62).
59. Roth (1998:85).
60. Schipper (1993:191).
61. Roth (1999:173–74).
62. Zhuangzi (28:971).
63. Zhuangzi (15:535).
64. See Gao (1995).
65. See, for example, the Web site of the Hunan Provincial Museum, www.hnmu-
seum.com.
66. Zhang (2003:34–35).
67. Despeux (2004:61–65).
68. For more on this aspect of Ge Hong’s writings, see Michael (2015a, 2015b, 2016).
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 5 285

69. Shenxian zhuan (1:7b–8a); see also Campany (2002:174–75).

70. Baopuzi Neipian (5:114).
71. Xuan Nü and Su Nü are the two most popular female instructors in the mythi-
cal history of Chinese sexual arts; they famously were (separately) Huangdi’s teachers; see
van Gulik (2003:74–75 and passim). Wile (1992) has provided the most thorough study
of these two figures.
72. Baopuzi Neipian (6:124).
73. Schipper (1993:192).
74. Campany (2002:4–5).
75. Zhang (2012:116).
76. Shuowen Jiezi (2006:383).
77. Shuowen Jiezi (2006:384).
78. Karlgren (1957:72).
79. Zhuangzi (11:390).
80. Zhuangzi (12:421).
81. Zhuangzi (1:17).
82. Liezi (2:45).
83. Zhuangzi (6:228).
84. Chuci (5:164).
85. Chuci (5:164).
86. Chuci (17:327).
87. Chuci (11:228–29).
88. Left to itself, any tradition of early Daoism is already difficult to specify, but
particularly so as it coheres around a somewhat hidden tradition that lies outside the
mainstream of transmitted writings when so much of our growing knowledge of the cur-
rents of early Chinese religions comes from texts excavated from tombs such as those
from Baoshan, Zhangjiashan, and Mawangdui. The presence of even shadier lineages and
traditions (namely the fangshi) that existed for some time next to an early Daoist tradition
and that had entirely separate origins from it, which then had some of its central com-
ponents absorbed by early Daoism (and vice versa), only serves to challenge our attempts
to understand it even more.
89. The term fangshi, like the term daojia, owes its importance to the Shiji, which
presents its earliest recorded textual instance; I leave the term fangshi untranslated for the
same reason that I also leave the term xian untranslated. DeWoskin (1983:1), who also
leaves the term untranslated, writes: “The word ‘fang’ in its various common contexts
meant ‘efficacious,’ ‘formulaic,’ ‘parallel,’ ‘correlative,’ ‘comparative,’ ‘medicinal,’ ‘spiritual,’
or ‘esoteric.” When the term fangshi is translated in modern scholarship, it is often either
as “recipe gentlemen” or “masters of esoterica.” The former is Harper’s (1999:818) pre-
ferred translation, and the latter is Campany’s (2002:6) preferred translation, which Raz
(2012:41) opts to employ.
90. DeWoskin (1983:6).
91. Hu (1999:269). See also Zou Yan’s biography in Shiji (74:2344).
92. Shiji (28:1368–69).
93. The Shiji records many interactions of the fangshi with the First Emperor of
the Qin and Emperor Wu of the Han; the Hanshu, Sanguo zhi, and Hou Hanshu provide
286 No t es t o C h a p t er 5

extensive fangshi biographies, which have been translated into French by Ngo (1976) and
English by DeWoskin (1983).
 94. The “Yiwenzhi” is the earliest bibliography in the Chinese tradition, and it
consists of six sections: the Six Arts (the Confucian Classics), the Masters, the Poets, the
Militarists, and then shushu and fangji (Hanshu 30). The shushu section lists six categories,
including astronomy, calendrics, Five Phase correlations, and divination. The fangji sec-
tion lists four categories: medicine, pharmacopoeia, the sexual arts, and shenxian (“divine
xian”). This division of the fangshi into shushu and fangji was emphasized by Li (2001:17):
“Shushu involves astronomy, the calendrical arts, arithmetic, geography, and phrenology.
Fangji involves medicine, pharmacology, the sexual arts, the arts of yangsheng, as well as the
knowledge related to botany, zoology, mineralogy, and chemistry.” More generally, Kalin-
owski (2004:224) writes that “the two divisions of the bibliographical catalog . . . were
devoted to the traditional sciences: shushu . . . for the science of the heavens, calendrical
arts and divination, and fangji . . . for medicine and the arts of long life.” Note, how-
ever, that this bibliography was compiled not by actual fangshi and xianren, but by official
bureaucrats of the Han dynasty; Kalinowski (2004:225) continues: “The division comprising
the shushu writings was assigned to Yin Xian, head of the Office of the Grand Astrologer,
while the fangji materials were allocated to an imperial physician, Li Zhuguo.” This also
serves as a partial explanation for the complexities of these lines of intersection between
early Daoism and the fangshi.
  95. This is the consequence of the biographical assemblages of the Hanshu, Sanguo
zhi, and Hou Hanshu, and DeWoskin (1983) reflects this inclusive usage.
  96. Maspero (1981:416) remains, nearly a century later, the leading voice in this
identification: “By the fourth and third centuries BC, the Daoists are seekers for immortal-
ity: from the beginning, Daoism had been a doctrine of individual salvation which claimed
to guide the adept to immortality.”
  97. Creel (1970:11) is one of the earliest to use this label: “At an undetermined
date, perhaps around 300 BC, there arose what we might call a cult of immortality. Also
around 300 BC, and perhaps in the same areas, Daoist philosophy arose. The cult and the
philosophy seem to have been almost entirely distinct until perhaps as late as the middle
of the former Han times. During the Han dynasty those seeking immortality gradually took
over the name of Daoism . . .”
  98. For a detailed study on the Baoshan site and the texts excavated from them,
see Cook (2006); for Zhangjiashan and Mawangdui, see, for example, Harper (1998).
  99. Harper (1998:7).
100. Harper (1998:52).
101. Harper (1998:6).
102. Harper (1998:114).
103. Csikszentmihàlyi (2009:528).
104. DeWoskin (1983:17).
105. Maspero (1981:413).
106. Schipper (1993:191).
107. Harper (1998:114).
108. Harper (1998:114).
109. Harper (1995:383–84).
110. Roth (1999:7).
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 5 287

111. Roth (1998:89).

112. Harper (1998:111).
113. Harper (1998:55–56).
114. Harper (1998:116).
115. Shiji (28:1369).
116. Hu (1999:269).
117. Hu (1999:270–71).
118. Hu (1999:271).
119. Raz (2012:41–42).
120. Schipper (1993:192).
121. Among modern taiji masters, one of the more compelling readings is Cheng
(1993).
122. Chen (1973:25, 65, 67).
123. Schipper (1993:137–38).
124. Li (2001:241–42).
125. Schipper (1993:186).
126. While I realize that breaking with certain scholarly conventions in serious stud-
ies such as I undertake here are looked down upon when the personal voice of the author is
overly flagrant, at least outside the “Acknowledgements” that typically open such works as
this, I am going to do so here, but it is my only transgression of this sort for the remainder
of this study. The reason that scholarly studies such as this get published is largely because
they survive the process of anonymous evaluation by recognized specialists in the field;
more than surviving, these kinds of studies actually come into bloom from the reports we
receive about them, pointing out the strong and weak points for authors to consider in our
revisions; or at least this is the ideal. Here I want to recognize one such anonymous reader
of an earlier version of this manuscript, but I cannot do so because he/she is anonymous to
me, and yet this work would not be published without his/her report that was delivered to
me and that I took to heart when I received it. I want to present one section of it because
it is extremely cogent; it says: “I will give an example of where a broader contextualization
of the DDJ would complicate or alter Michael’s reading of the text [at which point the
reviewer examines my analysis of DDJ 26 above]. This analysis, however, presupposes that
the most urgent question in the context of Warring States discourse was whether or not
this passage was centered on the body. We do not have to travel as far as medieval Dao-
ist religious literature to find parallels and resonances with this passage. In Lüshi chunqiu
1.3, “Treating Oneself as Heavy,” we read: ‘Now my life is my own, and its benefits for
me are even greater. If we assess it according to nobility or baseness, then it cannot be
compared even with the position of the Son of Heaven. Assessed according to ‘heavy and
light,’ if I were to be enriched with the entire empire, I could not accept it in exchange
for my life.’ [The reviewer continues:] The phrasing and themes here are too close to that
of DDJ 26 to be wholly accidental. This formulation of treating one’s own body as more
‘heavy’ than the empire appears throughout the early literature, recurring in texts such
as the Lüshi chunqiu, Han Feizi, and Zhuangzi, and being alluded to in the Mencius, Mozi,
Xunzi, and other texts. What we have in DDJ 26 is the appearance of technical vocabulary
that, during the Warring States, was being deployed with particular logical and rhetorical
implications, pertaining to a larger debate about ‘life’ and the priority it should be given
in reasoning through various problems. This would suggest that the author or authors of
288 No t es t o C h a p t er 6

the DDJ were engaged with these debates; and that there was something at stake for him/
them in participating in them. This would contradict Michael’s depiction of the DDJ as a
manifesto of ‘reclusive Daoism.’ Why would recluses take such an interest in these types
of debates? Michael might hold that the DDJ predates these debates (and thus helped set
them in motion), or he might have some other explanation for why the engagement of
the DDJ with these debates does not undermine his ‘reclusive Daoist’ thesis.” I have pre-
sented this very long quotation for two reasons. First, if I did not present it here, in this
footnote, nobody other than I would ever see it, and it is well worth considering. Second,
it presents incredibly valuable insights and should be seen by everybody who is interested
in the study of early Daoism. To the major point that it raises, I respond that I emphati-
cally hold that the Daodejing predates these Warring States debates and indeed helped set
them in motion. But this could occur only after or because of the public reception of the
text around 250 BC, and I have a strong feeling that Xunzi had a lot to do with that in
his appointment as the “Chair” of the Jixia Academy. One might counter that in this,
I ignore the Guodian Laozi, at least an entire century before 250 BC, but then I would
counter that with the two following points. First, the Guodian Laozi was excavated from a
silent tomb, which itself is surrounded in shadows, and second, with the exception of the
excavated Guodian Laozi, no other writing brings up either Laozi or the Daodejing before
250 or so BC, except for the Zhuangzi. This, in fact, is telling.

Chapter 6

  1. Even as I isolate to designate these three archetypes, it should go without saying

that their total fields of signification overlap; many of us are familiar with readings of the
Daodejing that announce that the Daoist Sage really is a Confucian King (an identification
that I categorically reject). The Bingfa has not received such scrutiny from modern schol-
arship, and I am not very familiar with studies that have explored that overlap between
the Sage and the General. Mair (2008:36–7) has done the most with this overlap, but his
comments remain perfunctory: “Though the Bingfa may have been estranged from Confu-
cianism, it gives every appearance of having arisen in concert with the Daodejing during
the mid- to late fourth century BC. Both texts were projected back in time to ahistorical
authors who were imagined to have lived approximately two centuries earlier during the
late Spring and Autumn period. The Bingfa consists of military aphorisms attributed to
a hazy, legendary figure, just as the Daodejing is a collection of mystical maxims grouped
around a vague, semi-divine founder . . . The chief difference between the Daodejing and
the Bingfa is that the former focuses on how to use a wuwei (‘nonaction’) approach to rule
a state, whereas the latter concentrates on applying a similar attitude toward the prosecu-
tion of war. Thus the Daodejing is a manual for the wuwei-minded ruler, and the Bingfa is
a handbook for the wuwei-minded general.” The “Introduction” to his translation of the
Bingfa (2009:49) articulates the same intuition. Need I point out that Mair conflates, here
and in other of his work, the Daoist Sage with the Confucian King; he does, nevertheless,
triangulate the Analects, the Daodejing, and the Bingfa in ways not entirely unlike my own.
This triangulation offers a very rich field of exploration, and particularly so if the texts
can all be taken as fourth-century BC writings. Here I only attempt to provide a sharp
contrast of the Daoist Sage with the Confucian King and the Militarist General to better
orient my approach to the Sage for the remainder of this study.
 No t e s t o C h a p t er 6 289

  2. An earlier reader of this work questioned why I do not include a fourth archetype,
one that would fall directly in line with my picture of early Daoist hiddenness, namely the
(early Daoist) Recluse. As Vervoorn (1990) and Berkowitz (2000) have exhaustively docu-
mented, the received historical records of recluses pertain almost exclusively to Confucians
who adopted temporary reclusion, often as a political statement, and who had virtually zero
interest in yangsheng. In my estimation, early Daoist hiddenness was not reclusion in any
appropriate sense of the word, but its hiddenness was an existential life choice pertain-
ing exclusively to the Sage. The early Daoist Sage, whether designated as the Daodejing’s
shengren, the Zhuangzi’s zhenren, or Liu Xiang’s or Ge Hong’s xianren, is already hidden
(something like but not quite a recluse), and there are not two (or three or four) separate
archetypes involved here. Although DDJ 22 says, “The Sage does not show himself and
thus he is bright” 不自見故明 (bu zi jian gu ming), he is not a fourth archetype.
 3. For a brief but enlightening essay on the centrality of harmony in traditional
Chinese thought, see Ames (2010:30–46).
  4. Michael (2005:40–49).
  5. It is likely that what I here say about the benefits of the Sage or, more precisely,
the actual mechanisms of how the Sage provides benefits to the people will face eminent
empirical challenges that I need to forestall from certain readers. According to this read-
ing of the Daodejing, the Sage is hidden, and not only does he not hold a government
position, but he is certainly not a ruler. If I did not sufficiently tackle this issue head-on
in a previous publication (2005:40–50), I at least opened it up for reconsideration. So if
the Sage is not a King and has no explicit political role in the court, what other outlets
are left for him to make a difference? My immediate answer to this is that even Confu-
cius drew an explicit distinction between the Sage and the King, but that does not get
me to the end of this issue. My second response comes from one of the most fascinating
passages in all of the Zhuangzi (25:880–83): “The Sage attains such intimate union with
things as that of a single body, for it is only his nature . . . Thus the Sage causes families
to forget their hardships when they are impoverished; he causes dukes and kings to forget
their titles and emoluments when they are victorious, and transforms them into humble
people. When he is among things, he takes pleasure with them; when among people, he
experiences their pleasures but preserves himself. Therefore, he sometimes says nothing and
yet immerses people in harmony. When he stands together with others, he causes them
to be transformed.” I do not know if I have satisfactorily answered the question about
the specific processes by which the Sage provides benefits, but I think it is clear that the
Daodejing (and the Zhuangzi) do not question that the Sage does in fact provide them,
whatever the mechanisms are.
 6. For more on this model of the first- and second-order harmonies, see Michael
(2005:55–59 and passim).
  7. Zhang (2014:177–78).
  8. Schwartz (1985:181).
  9. Hansen (1992:103).
10. Unschuld (1985:72).
11. Harper (1999:862). For antecedents to the term qi and its etymological analysis,
see Allan (1997:87–88).
12. Chunqiu Zuozhuan (1427).
13. Schwartz (1985:181).
290 No t es t o C h a p t er 6

14. Schwartz (1985:181).

15. Harper (1999:86).
16. Ames (1993:50).
17. Allan (1997:92).
18. Allan (1997:87).
19. Allan (1997:87–92).
20. Lagerwey (1986:276).
21. Allan (1997:88).
22. Allan (2003:251–52).
23. Graham (1989:13).
24. Allan (1997:102). She also examines some of the graphic antecedents to the
term found in the oracle bone inscriptions (1997:102), which are very interesting from a
historical perspective, but they do not necessarily offer a lot of insight into the Daodejing,
so I do not address them here.
25. Allan (1997:102, 105).
26. Nivison (1996:32).
27. Pines (2002:180–84).
28. Hall and Ames (1981:217).
29. Leys (1997:130–31) writes:

Humanity, ren, the supreme virtue, often translated as “goodness,” “benevo-

lence,” or “virtue.” The person who practices it is “the good man,” “the virtu-
ous man,” “the man fully humane.” I have usually translated it “humanity”
but occasionally I’ve used “goodness.” For Confucius, ren, the plenitude of
humaneness, is truly an absolute; it is of inexpressible and blinding splendor;
it puts heroic demands upon every individual, and yet remains close at hand
in everyday life; no one possesses it, and yet it informs all our endeavors;
though it can never be fully grasped, it is constantly revealed in its diverse
manifestations. Originally the word had no moral connotations; in archaic
usage (still found in the Shijing) it merely described the virile and manly
bearing of a hero. For this primitive acceptation, still pertaining to an epic
mentality, was progressively substituted an ethical notion: man considered in
his complex moral relationships with others, and in his obligations toward
himself. Confucius gave full development to this new moral perception, setting
ren as the cornerstone of Chinese humanism.

30. Nivison (1996:33).

31. The two foundational works that explore this conflation are Sivin (1995) and
Schipper (1978).
32. Hall and Ames (1981:218–19).
33. Hall and Ames (1981:216).
34. Shuowen jiezi (76).
35. Allan (1997:104).
36. I have previously explored Mencius’s participation in these ideas; see Michael
(2005:105–08).
37. Allan (1997:101).
 No t es t o C h a p t er Ap p e ndix 291

38. I have previously explored the Guanzi’s participation in these ideas; see Michael
(2005:16–17).
39. Zhang (2014:185–89). For more on jingqi, see also Harper (1998:119–23) and
Roth (1999: passim).
40. Harper (1995:381).
41. Harper (1995:383).
42. Allan (1997:102).

Chapter 7

  1. Lewis (1990:60–61).
  2. This social ethic is visible in the Zhuangzi, becomes tangible in the Liexian zhuan,
and is full-blown in the Shenxian zhuan.
  3. I have argued elsewhere (2005:35–40) that early Daoist discourse was the first to
describe the ultimate cosmogonic origins of the world. Lewis (2006:22–23) also marks the
Daodejing as providing the earliest cosmogonic visions of early China, although he dates
the text very late: “The earliest of these cosmogonies appear somewhat later than the Chu
silk manuscript in a handful of cosmogonic accounts in texts associated with the Daoist
tradition,” and he goes on to quote five different cosmogonic passages from the Daodejing.
For a focused study on this issue, see Wang (2015).
  4. See Eno (1990).
  5. The best study of this is Vankeerberghen (2001).
  6. The foundational studies of this topic remain those of Seidel (1970, 1992).
  7. See Barrett (1996).
  8. Yu (2005:55–56).
  9. My inspiration for using this term comes from Wyschogrod (1985).
10. See the numerous Daoist depictions of the world’s end in Bokenkamp (1993)
and Mollier (1990).
11. Slingerland (2003:77).
12. Ames and Hall (2003:38).
13. These ideas are explored more fully in Michael (2005:71–77).
14. Slingerland (2003:7).
15. For more on this usage of Heaven to refer to the realms of Heaven and Earth
in distinction to the realm of the Human, see Michael (2005:33).

Chapter 8

  1. My understanding of the deep relationship between knowledge (zhi), study (xue),

and the proper performance of ritual comportment (li) that lies at the heart of early Con-
fucianism is very much indebted to Eno (1990). This is a groundbreaking work that has
not received the scholarly attention that it deserves.
  2. Creel (1970:5).

Appendix

  1. The term Di refers to an ancient semi-anthropomorphic deity to whom sacrifices

and prayers were directed, primarily by rulers.
292 No t es t o App e n d ix

  2. The term po refers to one of several life-energies of the body and is something like
the Western conception of the soul, but without the centrality that the West gives to it.
  3. See footnote in DDJ 20 for a brief explanation of “the hen.”
  4. Here, “fate” means something like “who you are naturally.”
  5. The tailao (Great Beasts: ox, pig, and goat) sacrifice was among the most impor-
tant, as well as the most festive, of ancient and early Chinese sacrifices. At its conclusion,
participants would divvy up the meat for their own consumption, as the following lines
explain.
  6. The “cock” and the “hen” refer to two kinds of energies that are active in the
world and also in the human body; more specifically, the “cock” refers to yang, and the
“hen” refers to yin. A perfect body is one that maintains a perfect balance between the
internal yin and yang, here metaphorically called “the cock and the hen,” and successive
lines of this chapter continue this metaphorical language of yin and yang.
  7. Tallies were used as a kind of contract and record for debts and loans. Marked
and signed, they were broken in half, with one party holding the left piece and the other
party holding the right until repayment was made.
 8. “Knotting cords” was a method of counting and calculating, much like the
ancient abacus.
 
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edited by Mou Zhongjian, translated by Pan Junliang and Simone Normand, pp.
177–90. Netherlands: Brill, 2014.
Zhang, Ji. One and Many: A Comparative Study of Plato’s Philosophy and Daoism Represented
by Ge Hong. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012.
Zhang Jun 張軍. Chuguo shenhua yuanxing yanjiu 楚國神話原型硏究. Taipei, Taiwan:
Wenjin chubanshe, 1994.
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Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.
Zhao Jiazhuo 趙家焯. Daoxue yu Daojiao 道學与道教. Taiwan: Yonghua yinshuacheng,
1960.
 Index

“Ai Shi Ming” (Chuci), 122 benefits (yi), 152

Allan, Sarah, 77–78, 155–58, 164, See also Sage
270n15, 271–72n3, 278n7, 279n32, Berkowitz, Alan, 11, 94–95, 270n18,
279n51, 289n11, 290n24 270n19, 281n2, 289n2
Ames, Roger, 25, 34, 155, 159, 160, Bingfa, 5, 19, 140, 142–48, 288n1
163–64, 185, 272n13, 289n3 Bodde, Derk, 26, 42, 48, 49
Analects, xviii, xix, 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 16, 19, Boileau, Gilles, 280n53
29, 37, 46, 67–70, 73–85, 88, 91–92, Bokenkamp, Stephen, 17, 277n23,
101, 140–46, 159–60, 162, 178–79, 277n29, 277n43, 291n10
197–200, 279n51, 288n1 Boltz, William, 276n8, 277n26
See also Confucius Brooks, Bruce, and Taeko Brooks, 2,
archetypes of Sage, King, General, 68–69, 129
139–46, 151, 288n1, 289n2 Buddha, 67
See also Sage; King; General Buddhism, 61, 178, 200
“Article 19: The Basic Viewpoint and Burik, Stephen, 279–80n52
Policy on the Religious Question
During Our Country’s Socialist “Cai Wei” (Shijing), 79
Period,” 39, 40 Campany, Robert, 32–35, 120, 273n33,
273–74n44, 274n45, 283n47, 285n69,
Baopuzi Neipian, 62, 65, 96, 99–100, 117, 285n89
118, 283n47 Celestial Masters, 13, 16, 24, 32, 50, 56,
Barrett, Timothy, 39, 291n7 60, 93, 94
Baxter, William, 6, 269–70n8 Chan, Alan, 7, 22, 52–53, 55, 58, 60,
Bei Yi (Zhuangzi), 97 104–05, 272n4, 276n8, 276n9,
Beida Laozi, 2 276n20, 277n28
Being, 9, 20, 21, 84, 85, 202 Chan Buddhism, 61, 200
See also you changshou, see long life

303
304 In d e x

changsheng, see long life and early Daoist versus Confucian views
Chen Guofu, 274n50 of, 67–92, 199–201
Chen Guying, 7–8, 69–70, 270n16, 277n1, and life, 152–53, 172–73, 190
278n2 and qi, 110, 152–57
Chen, William, 287n122 and Sage, 16, 146, 149, 168, 173, 177,
Cheng, Man-ch’ing, 287n121 186, 189, 192–94, 202–05, 210, 225,
Chi Songzi, 122, 131 232
Chu, 51, 61, 70, 102, 131, 275n7 and wudao/ budao/ feidao, 180–81, 219,
Chuci, 121–23, 269n8, 282n29 221
Chunqiu, 279n29 archive of, 75–81, 278–79n29, 281n32,
Confucianism, 23, 27–29, 37, 45, 48, 54, 279n51
67–74, 84, 85, 101, 140–41, 144, as nameless, 12, 17–20, 172, 227, 228
161, 164, 171, 179, 198, 269–70n8, of Heaven, 146, 184, 190–92
270n15, 273n29, 281n59, 286n94, See also first-order harmony; second-
288n1, 289n2, 291n1 order harmony
and Dao of, 75–92 “Dao ying” (Huainanzi), 25, 57
and discipline of the body, 85–92 daodejia, 37
as label, 27–29 Daodejing, 1, 2, 8, 9, 12–14, 15, 118, 119
and philosophical commentarial and composition of, 2–3, 5, 6, 9, 68–74,
tradition on the Daodejing, 2, 22, 23, 68–70, 104, 106–07, 127, 269–70n8,
26, 47, 50–51, 57, 58–63, 65, 100, 278n5
134 and cosmic drama, 175–83
and reclusion, 11, 93–96 and Dao-centered worldview and
and Wang Bi, 21, 57–58 yangsheng, 100, 103, 104, 110, 116,
See also daojia 230
Confucius, 6, 7, 9, 16, 28, 29, 44, 46, and Interlocking Parallel Style, 3–4, 18,
75, 76, 86, 88, 90, 91–92, 96–99, 134, 137
101, 129, 152, 179, 277n1, 278n2, and orality, 14, 103–09, 119, 129, 134,
278–79n29, 289n5, 290n29 135, 283n41
interview with Laozi, 61–74 and role of commentary, 51–53
on differences between the Sage and and Sage, 10, 15, 148, 175, 177–79, 197
the King, 140–41, 145 and separate history of, 37, 39, 41, 42,
on de, 157–58, 164 48, 101, 112, 118, 275n7
on study, 197–200 and synthetic reading of, 2–3, 5, 6, 14,
See also Analects 105, 127, 172, 223
Cook, Constance, 275n7, 286n98 and third reading of, 3, 16–17, 43, 57,
Cook, Scott, 7, 270n15, 270n16, 278n7 51–52, 66, 100, 223, 275n7
Creel, Herlee, 23, 27, 31, 32, 46, 48–49, and versions consulted, 4–5
93, 211, 286n97 from hidden to public text, 54–55, 134,
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark, 29, 108, 125, 123–29, 287–88n126
270n15, 273n29 written for Sages-to-be, 51, 107, 127,
134, 177, 223, 229
“Da Dong” (Shijing), 78, 79 See also Dao; daojia; daojiao; early
Dao, 5, 13–14, 43–46, 222, 279–80n52 Daoism; Heshang Gong; Laozi; Wang
and de, 157–64, 169–73, 202–03, Bi; Xiang’er; yangsheng; Zhuangzi;
220–21 passim
 In d ex 305

Daodejing Heshang Gong zhangju, see “Duodecagonal Jade Tablet Inscription on

Heshang Gong commentary Qi Circulation,” 109
Daodejing Wang Bi zhu, see Wang Bi See also “Inscription on Qi Circulation.”
commentary
Daoism, see early Daoism early Daoism, 1–3, 10–14, 25, 27–29,
daojia, 5, 24–27, 31, 32, 34–44, 47–48, 34, 96–100, 100–03, 119, 222–23,
50–53, 57, 58, 60, 62, 65, 85, 100, 271n25, 271n27, 275n7, 284n24,
132, 134, 273n18, 273n33, 280– 287n88
81n60, 285n89 and Daodejing, xvi, 1, 3, 8, 51–53,
daojiao, 24–27, 31, 32, 34–44, 47–48, 65–66, 116, 132–37, 116, 132–37
50–53, 57, 60, 62, 65, 85, 100, 132, and discourse of, 31, 86, 100, 110, 121,
134, 273n18 293n3
Daojiao Shi, 37 and Laozi, 61–63
daoxue, 44–46 and mountains, 10–14, 93–100, 118,
daoyin, 62, 78, 108, 109, 113–18, 131–34, 119, 271n23, 271n27, 271n1, 281n2,
285n46, 283–84n48, 284n49 282n24
See also yangsheng yin/yinju/yinshi and, 11–12, 93
Daoyin tu, 113, 114, 116, 118, 132 See also Daodejing; Laozi; Sage; yangsheng
daozhe, 26 Emerson, John, 280n59
de, 5, 153, 186, 203, 220–21, 228, 232 Emperor Wen, 54, 56
and Chinese philosophy, 157–65 Emperor Wu, 128, 179, 285n93
and Confucianism, 87 Eno, Robert, 279n51, 291n4, 291n1
and qi, 5, 153–54, 156, 157, 164, 169, Erkes, Eduard, 277n29
173 Eskildsen, Stephen, 283–84n48
as rhythmic systems of circulation, 90, Espesset, Grégoire, 277n22
154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 163,
164–74, 202, 204 fang, 31, 124, 129, 275n33, 285n89
See also Dao fangji, 123–26, 128–31, 286n94
death, 9, 89, 90, 135, 137, 142, 144, 167, fangshi, 31, 38, 39, 122, 123–25, 128–31,
168, 176, 177, 180, 181, 189, 192, 273n33, 276n21, 285n89, 285–86n93,
194, 195, 203, 206, 207, 213, 218, 286n94
228 fangshu, 130
death-world, 175–83, 187, 189, 192, 193, fangxiandao, 129–31
207, 217, 219, 221, 225 fangzhong zhi shu, 108
See also second-order harmony See also sexual arts, yangsheng
Denecke, Wiebke, 272n17 “Fei Feng” (Shijing), 78
“Deng She” (Baopuzi Neipian), 99–100 first-order harmony, 152, 161–62, 175,
Despeux, Catherine, 101, 103, 108–09, 177, 181, 183
114, 115–16, 118, 283n46, 283n47, See also second-order harmony
284–85n48 Five Phases, see wu xing
DeWoskin, Kenneth, 28, 122, 125, Froese, Katrin, 280n52
273n33, 285n89, 285–86n93, Fu Qinjia, 36–41
286n95 Fung Yu-lan (Feng Youlan), 26, 32, 37,
dietetics, 94, 108, 117, 118 42, 48, 50
See also fushi, yangsheng fushi, 108, 283n47
Dong Zhongshu, 54 See also dietetics, yangsheng
306 In d e x

Gao Dalun, 284n64 “He Cao Bu Huang” (Shijing), 78

Ge Hong, 1, 13, 52, 54, 61, 62, 65, 96, Heidegger, Martin, 81, 187, 279–80n52
99, 100, 116–18, 120, 124, 281n2, Hendrischke, Barbara, 277n22
282n24, 283n47, 283–84n48, 284n68, Henricks, Robert, 7
289n2 Herrou, Adeline, 271n26, 281n7
Ge Xuan, 54, 55 Heshang Gong, 22, 59, 60, 65, 66, 107,
General, 19, 139–44, 288n1 127, 272n4, 276n21, 277n28
and projects, 183–84 Heshang Gong commentary, 1, 2, 4, 8, 22,
Gengsang Chu (Zhuangzi), 11, 62, 96, 97, 52, 53–55, 56, 58–66, 276n9, 276n21,
98, 283n7, 281–82n16 277n29
Girardot, Norman, 271n1 Heshang Gong zhangju, see Heshang Gong
gongfu, 107, 136, 209, 230 commentary
Graham, A. C., 17–18, 20, 23, 24, 34, 68, Hong Meng (Zhuangzi), 98–99
70–73, 84, 101, 129, 157, 158, 164, Hou Hanshu, 287n93, 286n95
271n28, 272n17, 273n25, 278n14 Hu Fuchen, 36, 43, 44–45, 46, 48, 123,
Granet, Marcel, 278n28, 278–79n29 130–32, 274–75n70
Graziani, Romain, 106–08, 283n43 Huainanzi, 51, 127, 128, 179, 276n21
great project of the world, 184, 186, 189– Huainanzi, 9, 16, 17, 25, 27, 34, 45, 55,
94, 195, 196, 210, 212, 221, 225, 228 57, 96, 100, 111, 276n21
See also projects; Sage Huangdi, 54, 98, 99, 276n17, 281n7,
Gu Huan, 94 285n71
Guangchengzi (Zhuangzi), 98, 99, 281n7 Huzi (Zhuangzi), 97
Guodian, 5–9, 70, 270n15, 278n7
Guodian Laozi, 2, 4, 7–8, 9, 68, 69, 74, 91, immortality, 120
130, 270n15, 270n16, 278n5, 278n7, and fangshi, 31, 123, 125
287–88n126 and xian, 120, 122, 126
Guo Xiang, 57 “Inscription on Qi Circulation,” 109–11,
118
ter Haar, Batrend, 283n41 interlocking parallel style (IPS), 3–4, 18,
Hall, David, 159, 160, 163–64, 185, 134, 137, 170
272n41 “Inward Training,” 111–12, 125, 126
Hansen, Chad, 23, 24, 25, 34, 101, 154, See also “Neiye”
272n13
Han Feizi, 57, 83, 280–81n60 Jixia Academy, 45, 129, 290
Han Feizi, 9, 16, 17, 24, 49, 55, 57, 140, Ji Xian (Zhuangzi), 110
287–88n126 “Jian Jia” (Shijing), 79
“Han Yi” (Shijing), 79 Jian Wu (Zhuangzi), 98
Hanshu, 123, 285–86n93, 286n95 “Jiang You Ci” (Shijing), 80
Hardy, Julia, 24 “Jie Lao” (Han Feizi), 24, 57
harmony, 145, 148, 150–51, 165–68, jing, 164, 165, 166, 282–84n48
176–78, 289n3 jingqi, 165, 291n39
See also first-order harmony; second- jiu, see salvation
order harmony junzi, 140, 179
Harper, Donald, 108, 124–29, 131, 155,
169, 273n33, 276n21, 283–84n48, Kalinowski, Marc, 286n94
285n89, 286n98, 291n39 Kaltenmark, Max, 24
 In d ex 307

Kan Pei (Zhuangzi), 98 Levenson, Jon, 269n4

Karlgren, Bernhard, 121 Lewis, Mark, 176, 276n17, 291n3
Kim, Hongkyung, 278n5 Leys, Simon, 290n29
King, 2, 6, 54, 55, 63–65, 83, 107, 127, Li Hong, 57, 179
134, 139–46, 177, 178, 179, 185, 186, Li Ling, 108–09, 133–34
228, 276n17, 280n53, 280n60, 288n1, Liezi, 28, 45, 281–82n16
289n5 Liezi, 27, 97, 121
Kirkland, Russell, 49, 282n29 Liexian zhuan, 96, 100, 283–84n48, 291n2
Kleeman, Terry, 277n22, 282n22 life-world, 190, 192, 207, 225
Kohn, Livia, 14, 25, 27, 34, 270n17, See also second-order harmony
271n25, 271n28, 272n14, 273n25, Liji, 17, 70–73
273n26, 274n63, 277n26, 284n49 Liu Fengzhao, 35
Komjathy, Louis, 281n7, 281–82n16 Liu Xiang, 289n2
Kuang Qu (Zhuangzi), 98 long life, 62, 83, 90–91, 110, 118, 168,
204, 205, 206, 210, 216
LaFargue, Michael, 23, 105, 271n3, 283n35 See also longevity; Sage
Lagerwey, John, 156–57 longevity, 90–91, 113, 119, 125, 136, 137,
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson, 33 155, 195, 204, 205, 216, 232, 276n21
Lao Dan, 6–7, 69–73, 84, 97 and fangji, 123, 125, 128
See also Laozi and xian, 122
Lao Peng (Analects), 70 See also long life; Sage
Laojun, 56, 61, 64, 179 Lüshi Chunqiu, 8, 45, 70, 84, 283n47,
See also Taishang Laojun; Laozi 287–88n126
Laozi, 5, 9–10, 14, 16, 28, 38, 51, 54, 56,
61, 74, 97, 283n7 Mair, Victor, 23, 289n1
and Confucius, 46, 67, 70–74, 81–84, Maspero, Henri, 12, 24, 30, 31, 34, 49,
90, 91–92, 99, 199–200, 277n1, 125, 126, 286n96
278n2, 278n17 Mawangdui Laozi, 4
and dao of, 46, 74–76, 81–84 Mencius, 28, 29, 164
and Daodejing, 21–24, 32, 42, 61, 63, Mencius, 2, 8, 281n51, 287–88n126
63, 68–70, 104, 129, 287–88n126 merit (gong), 172, 173, 183–84, 18–90,
and Huang-Lao, 54–55 192, 210
and Lao Dan, 6–7, 69–73, 84, 97 See also Dao; projects; Sage
and Laojun, 56, 61, 64, 179 “Mian” (Shijing), 79
and yangsheng, 11, 61–63 “Mian Man” (Shijing), 79
Laozi Daodejing Wang Bi zhu, see Wang Bi Mohism, 23, 37, 48, 101, 144
commentary Mollier, Christine, 277n22, 291n10
Laozi duben, 4 mountains, see early Daoism
Laozi jiaoshi, 4 Mozi, 152
Laozi Xiang’er zhu, see Xiang’er Mozi, 69, 101, 152, 287–88n126
commentary
Laozi Zhushi ji pingjie, 4 “Nan Shan” (Shijing), 78, 79
Lau, D. C., 2, 23, 68, 69, 71–72, 105, Nanbo Ziqi (Zhuangzi), 98
269n3 Nanrong Chu (Zhuangzi), 97, 98, 281n7
Legalism, 23, 83, 140, 144 “Neiye,” 52, 110, 111, 118
Legge, James, 1, 23, 269n1 See also “Inward Training”
308 In d e x

Nivison, David, 159, 162–63 and circulation, 55, 64, 94, 98, 108–10,
Ngo, Van Xuyet, 286n93 113, 115–18, 131, 133, 155–64, 167,
Nie Que (Zhuangzi), 97 168, 283n46
Nominalism, 23 and de, 5, 153–54, 156, 157, 164, 169,
Non-being, 9, 20, 21, 84, 85, 202, 272n4 173
See also wu and yin-yang, 89–90, 155, 166, 169, 195,
non-intentional action, see wuwei 202, 208
Nylan, Michael, 27, 279n29 See also Dao, qigong, xingqi; yangsheng;
yin-yang
Owen, Stephen, 279n49 qigong, 36, 62, 108, 111, 114, 115, 116,
118, 132, 133–34, 136, 209, 230
“Pan Shui” (Shijing), 80 qingqi, 108, 109, 115, 116
Parkes, Graham, 280n52 See also qi circulation; yangsheng
Peerenboom, R. P., 276, n16 Qing Xitai, 36–41, 48, 274n63
Pei Hui, 84
Peng Zu (Shenxian zhuan), 70, 113, 117, Raz, Gil, 32, 131–32, 275n18, 277n30,
131 285n89
Peterson, Willard, 279n49 religion, 22, 24, 26–27, 41, 44, 47–48, 50
philosophical Daoism, 2, 12, 16, 23–39, 43, and Chinese philosophy, 16, 19, 41–42
47, 48, 49, 58, 60, 102, 132, 276n21 and Daodejing, 175–83
See also daojia and modern Chinese scholarship on
philosophy, 22, 24, 26–27, 41, 44, 47–48, Daoism and, 38–46
50 and modern discourse of, 32–34, 46,
and Daodejing, 16–23 273–74n44, 274n45
and Chinese religion, 16, 19, 41–42 See also philosophy; shamanism
early Chinese origins of, 67–81, religious Daoism, 2, 16, 22–39, 43, 47, 49,
277–78n1 50, 51, 57, 58, 60, 61, 64–66, 81, 85,
See also religion 94, 100, 132, 134, 182, 283n7
Pines, Yuri, 158 See also daojiao
The Pristine Dao, 51, 100, 105, 111 Ren Jiyu, 31, 36, 39–44, 48
projects, 15–16, 145, 146, 162, 173, 183, Rickett, Allyn, 102–03
184–89, 189–94, 221, 229 Robinet, Isabelle, 30, 31, 34, 45–46, 49,
common, 195, 183, 188, 189, 204 52–53, 55, 56, 65–66, 103, 270n17,
and General, 183–84 276n21, 282n29
and non-intentional projects (wushi), Roth, Harold, 14, 25, 27, 30, 34, 105,
184–85, 186, 189, 230 111–12, 127, 271n25, 271n28,
and Sage, 15–16, 145, 146, 162, 173, 272n14, 276n17, 281n7, 284n52,
183, 184–86, 189–93, 195, 196, 209, 291n39
210, 212, 225, 228
See also great project of the world; Sage, 10, 14, 15, 92, 119, 121, 123, 153,
merit; second-order harmony; Sage 172
Puett, Michael, 280n60 and archetype of, with King and
General, 139–46, 151
qi, 5, 11, 14, 56, 94, 99, 109, 117, 131, and benefits of, 145, 146–51, 152, 174,
135, 136, 154–56, 163, 173, 202, 206, 178, 182, 186, 193, 196, 225, 229,
209, 289n11 289n5
 In d ex 309

and Dao, 16, 83, 110, 168–69, 172–74, second-order harmony, 152, 162, 175,
177, 185–86, 192–94, 196, 203–04 183–86, 189, 190, 192, 193, 225–29,
and Dao of, 146, 192, 193 232
and Daodejing, 10, 148, 175, 177–79, See also death; first-order harmony;
197 great project of the world; project;
and different from King, 54, 63–65, 83, salvation
107, 127, 134, 177, 185–86 Seidel, Anna, 44, 54–55, 276n17, 277n22,
and hiddenness of, 12, 15, 83, 146, 151, 291n6
273n53, 289n5 sexual arts, 94, 98, 102, 117, 118, 125,
and Huangdi as, 276n17 131, 283–84n48, 285n71, 286n94
and knowledge of, 196, 197, 202–03, See also fangzhong zhi shu, yangsheng
207, 210, 223, 229–33 shamans, shamanism, 13, 35, 37, 38, 39,
and Laozi as, 62–63 101–03, 106, 115–16, 130, 275n7,
and longevity, 83, 195, 205, 210 276n21, 282n26, 282n29
and merit, 173, 184, 192, 210 Shangqing Daoism, 94
and physical, political, and cosmic Shaughnessy, Edward, 36, 272n9
transformations of, 15–16, 156 “Sheng Min” (Shijing), 80
and practice versus study, 200–01 shenren, 97, 121, 125
and projects, 15–16, 145, 146, 162, 173, shenxian, 45, 130, 286n94
183–85, 187–93, 194–96, 210, 212, Shenxian zhuan, 61, 96, 99, 117, 283n47,
225, 228 283–84n48, 291n2
and salvation, 16, 92, 175, 176, 179, Shiji, 13, 28, 29, 62, 70, 71, 122–23, 128,
183, 186, 194–96 129, 272n9, 273n33, 285n89, 285n91,
and second-order harmony, 152, 162, 285–86n93
175–76, 183, 185, 189, 190, 192, 225, Shijing, 75, 77–81, 86, 121, 155, 157,
226, 228, 229 269–71n8, 279n29, 279n51, 290n29
and yangsheng, 15, 16, 100, 110, 115, shou, see longevity
136, 137, 168, 195, 201–22 “Shou Zhi” (Chuci), 122
See also Dao, Daodejing, projects; great Shujing, 279n29
project of the world; salvation Shushan Wuzhi (Zhuangzi), 90
Sage-King, 2, 58, 63, 64 shushu, 123, 286n94
See also King Shuowen Jiezi, 77, 120, 164
Sage-to-be, 51, 107, 127, 134, 177, 206, Shun, 140, 145, 159, 178, 179
207, 223, 229 “Si Mu” (Shijing), 78, 79
See also Daodejing Sima Qian, 70, 128, 273n18
salvation (jiu), 180, 182, 176, 179, 186, Sima Tan, 13, 28, 273n18, 277n30
189, 194–96, 221, 286n96 Sivin, Nathan, 13, 27, 30, 31–32, 34, 45,
See also great project of the world; Sage; 47, 49, 93, 277n42, 290n31
second-order harmony Sleeboom, Margaret, 274–75n70
Sanguo zhi, 285–86n93, 286n95 Slingerland, Edward, 183, 186
Schipper, Kristofer, 21–22, 24–25, 27, 30, Smith, Kidder, 271n24, 272n17, 273n18
31, 24, 63, 65, 101–02, 103, 104, Strickmann, Michel, 11, 13, 27, 32, 34,
105–06, 112, 118, 126, 132, 133, 134, 47, 49, 50, 93–95, 123, 270n18,
271n17, 272n14, 277n42, 290n31 282n24
Schwartz, Benjamin, 23, 24, 34, 101, 154, Su Nü, 118, 131, 285n71
155 Sunzi, 19, 140
310 In d e x

Sunzi Bingfa, see Bingfa wuyiwei (without purpose), 160–61

Wuqian wen, 61
taiji/ taijiquan, 111, 132–33, 136, 209, 230, wuwei (non-intentional behavior), 11, 13–
287n121 14, 20, 31, 150, 151, 159, 174, 185–86,
Taishang Laojun, 56, 57, 61, 67 189, 210, 206, 208, 227, 230, 288n1
See also Laojun; Laozi Wuweiwei (Zhuangzi), 98
Tao Hongjing, 94 Wyschogrod, Edith, 291n9
ten thousand living things, see wanwu
tuna/ tugu naxin, 108, 109, 118, 131 xian, 45, 119–26, 128, 129, 130, 131,
See also yangsheng 285n89
“Xiang Bo” (Shijing), 78
Unschuld, Paul, 154 Xiang’er commentary, 1, 17, 22, 44, 50,
52, 53, 55–58, 58–65, 182, 277n28,
Van Gulik, R. H., 285n71 277n29
Vankeerberghen, Griet, 291n5 Xiang’er zhu, see Xiang’er commentary
Vervoorn, Aat, 11, 94–95, 270n18, 281n2, xianren, 121, 122, 286n94, 289n2
289n2 “Xiao Bian” (Shijing), 78, 79
Xing zi ming chu, 8, 9
Wagner, Rudolf, 3, 4, 58–59, 60, 276n9, Xiaojing, 86
277n27, 277n29, 280n56 “Xiong Zhi” (Shijing), 79
Waley, Arthur, 23 “Xuan” (Shijing), 78
“Wanqiu” (Shijing), 78 Xu Dishan, 26, 36–41, 48
wanwu (ten thousand living things), Xu You (Zhuangzi), 97
271–72n3 Xuan Nü, 118, 131, 285n71
Wang Bi, 16, 17, 18, 21–22, 25, 28, 45, xuanxue, 57–58
49, 57–58, 59, 60, 84–85, 107, 127, Xunzi, 28, 29, 83, 107, 127, 129, 287–
272n4, 276n9, 277n28 88n126
Wang Bi commentary, 1, 4, 52, 53, 55, Xunzi, 16, 17, 29, 49, 287–88n126
57–65, 276n9, 277n29
Wang Bi zhu, see Wang Bi commentary Yan Zun Laozi, 2
Wang Bo, 270n21 yangsheng, 3, 51–52, 53, 92, 103, 108, 112,
Wang Ni (Zhuangzi), 97 119, 125, 153, 156, 200, 270–71n21,
Wangzi Qiao, 122, 131 276n21, 286n94, 289n2
Wang, William, 279n29 and cultivation sequences of, 201–22
Wang Yi, 122 and Daodejing, 10, 13, 15, 16, 65, 68,
Wang Zhongjian, 270n15, 291n3 74, 82, 96, 100, 103, 106, 108, 109,
Welch, Holmes, 23 132–38, 156, 169, 192, 195, 230
Wells, Matthew, 95–96 and daoyin, 62, 78, 108, 109, 113, 115,
Wile, Douglas, 285n71 132, 134
wu, 9, 20, 21, 82, 84, 151, 202 and Dao-centered worldview, 100, 103,
See also Non-being 104, 110, 116, 230
wu-construction, 185 and early Daoism, 3, 10, 14, 25, 65, 67,
wu, see shaman 96, 97, 100, 103, 107, 108, 109, 112,
wu xing (five phases), 8, 9, 122, 125 119, 132, 134, 153, 222, 230, 231
wushi (non-intentional project), 184–85 and fangshi/ fangji/ fangxiandao
See also projects assimilation of, 123–32
 In d ex 311

and Ge Hong, 61–62, 116–18 “Zengzi Wen” (Liji), 70

and Gengsang Chu, 97 Zhang Daoling, 17, 18, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32,
and Heshang Gong, 55, 64 34, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 64, 94, 101,
and Laozi as master of, 61–63 123
and Nanbo Ziqi, 97 Zhang Guangbao, 153, 165
and origins and history of, 48, 103, 105, Zhang Ji, 120
106, 112–18, 133–34, 230 Zhang Jun, 275n7
and Sage, 15, 16, 74, 100, 110, 168, Zhang Lu, 50, 56
196, 225, 229–33 Zhang Rongming, 62, 114–15, 116, 118
as bodily techniques of cultivation, 2, Zhang Xianglong, 280n52
17, 30, 53, 78, 90, 91, 94, 100, 102, Zhao Jiazhuo, 85
103, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, 121, zhenren, 121–22, 125, 289n2
168, 169, 192, 196, 230 Zhi (Zhuangzi), 98
versus zuowang, 13–14, 25, 30, 96, zhiren, 121–22
111–12, 131, 270n21, 271n25 Zhisheng Xianshi, 67
See also daoyin; fangzhong zhi shu; fushi; See also Confucius
xingqi Zhongguo Daojiao Shi (Fu), 37
yangxing, 65, 109, 113 Zhongguo Daojiao Shi (Qing), 41
See also yangsheng Zhongguo Daojiao Shi (Ren), 41
yangshen, 109 Zhongguo Zhexue Shi, 26, 37
See also yangsheng Zhou Dynasty, 78, 79, 80, 101, 102, 152,
Yao, 97, 140, 145, 178, 179 157, 171, 275n7, 280n59
Yellow turbans, 56, 57, 179–80 Zhuangzi, 6, 7, 28, 51, 68, 72, 99, 109,
Yijing, 58, 278–79n29 131, 276n21, 278n5, 279n52, 281n2
Yin Xi, 61, 65 Zhuangzi, 7, 16, 43, 52, 58, 62, 79, 109,
Yinshu, 113, 118, 126, 133, 169 121, 123, 131, 200, 270–71n21,
yin/ yinju/ yinshi, see early Daoism 271n28, 271n1, 276n21, 279n51,
yin-yang, 37, 45, 89, 90, 122–23, 125, 130, 280–81n16, 282n24, 289n2, 289n5,
155, 166, 169, 195, 202, 208, 294n6 291n2
See also qi and Daodejing, 1, 2, 25, 27, 31–32,
“Yiwenzhi” (Hou Hanshu), 123, 124, 34, 49, 68–69, 93, 95, 96, 110, 111,
286n94 112, 117, 125, 269–71n8, 278n5,
you, 9, 20, 21, 82, 84, 202 286–87n126
See also Being and early Daoism, 11–14, 25, 27, 52,
youyiwei (with purpose), 161 90, 96–100, 109, 112–13, 118, 125,
Yu, 140, 145, 178, 179 281n7, 283–84n48
“Yu Lao” (Han Feizi), 24, 57 and interview between Confucius and
Yu, Anthony, 26, 189–90 Laozi, 69–74, 278n17
yuanqi, 14, 103, 110 See also zuowang Daoism
See also qi Zongjiao Cidian, 40
“Yuan You” (Chuci), 121 Zou Yan, 122–23, 125, 130, 285n91
Yun Jiang (Zhuangzi), 98–99 zuowang Daoism, 13–14, 25, 30, 97, 111–
12, 131, 200, 270–71n21, 271n25
“Zai Qu” (Shijing), 78, 79 Zuozhuan, 155