No More Learning

But were we to return to that field sometime in mid-June, we would find that the most marvelous of transformations had occurred. The very same field that had been barren and still is now the scene of bustling activity, covered with ten thousand (as it were) different forms of life. There are sunflowers and nightshade and butter-and-eggs and chicory, hundreds of kinds of wildflowers, all different shapes and colors and sizes, some tall and some short, some with one big flower, others in tiny clusters, to say nothing of the many nonflowering
the dao and the field 35
36 approaching the daode jing
grasses. And just as there seems to be an infinite number of kinds, there is as well an infinite number of each kind.
It would now seem clear to our minds that what had appeared to us in winter to be an inert, sterile void was in reality a fecund, perhaps inexhaustible womb, containing the seeds for all forms of life. Had we dug into the earth in winter, of course, we would never have detected these forms--there would have been only one, undifferentiated, homogeneous earth. And yet somehow, mysteriously, in the most minute, infinitesimal forms, the seeds of all these many plants, as yet indistinguishable, were there all the time.
The work of the field does not stop with springtime creation. Just as it made no distinctions in bringing forth a variety of forms, so too it remains impartial through the summer in providing support and nourishment for all, bringing all of the plants to completion of their natural life cycles. It does this all, however, somewhat mysteriously, with no sign of any ''action'' on its part at all. It, like the Dao, does indeed do everything by seeming to do nothing at all. 16 And the marvel of it all is that though none of this would have come to be without the soil--the earth--the field itself never claims any credit. Instead, it remains in the background, assuming a low and withdrawn position. We lose sight of the real source for all this beauty; our senses are captivated by the variety of forms and colors and smells. After all, the field, in contrast, is drab and uninteresting.
In discussing our field point for point have we not in fact also been talking about Laozi's Dao? They are both, before they give birth, still and tranquil, the undifferentiated one. They might appear to be lifeless but are in fact fecund wombs. They both bring into being a multitude of forms and provide nour- ishment for all alike. They bring all things to completion but claim no credit and act without force. It is only in its cyclical character that the field seems to vary from the Dao. The field passes through cycles of creation and destruction, of evolution and devolution of plant life. But although the Dao's forces may wax and wane, total cosmic reabsorption, a swallowing up periodically of even Heaven and Earth, does not seem to be part of its movement.
We can continue with the analogy. Although the field makes no demands on the plants for which it provides, there is one obvious condition that must be met for any flower that wants to realize its given nature, destiny, and life span, that condition being that it must keep its roots in the ground. A sunflower will never realize its ''sunflowerness'' and will never live the four to eight weeks possible for its species if it forgets its origins and tries to make it on its own, uprooting itself from its very source of sustenance.
It is the same for man, I think, in Laozi's terms. The only way for a man to realize his particular way of being human, and to realize his given span of years,
is somehow to keep his roots planted in the Dao. Laozi himself tells us (in chapter 20) that he, at least, values drawing sustenance from the Mother. And in chapter 52 he talks of holding on to the Mother, even after we have become aware of her sons, and he says that one who does so will remain free from harm throughout his life:
There was a beginning of the universe
Which may be called the Mother of the universe. He who has found the mother (Dao)
And thereby understands her sons (things),
And having understood the sons,
Still keeps to its [their] mother,
Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime. 17
Our analogy, however, perhaps breaks down at this point, in that Laozi seems to assume that this is precisely what most people do not do. In contrast to our flowers in the field, people can and do go against the natural way of things: they turn their backs on the mother and become uprooted. Or, to put it another way, as Laozi does in chapter 53, people ought to stay on the Great Way, a road that is broad and smooth, but somehow they all delight in bypaths. 18
Thus, in the case of man a rupture occurs. And if a man is to be what he can be, if he is to realize his nature and destiny, a return must be made: he must get back to the highway, get back to mother Dao. Laozi speaks of re- turning to the roots in chapter 16, and perhaps this is what he means:
Attain complete vacuity.
Maintain steadfast quietude.
All things come into being,
And I see thereby their return.
All things flourish,
But each one returns to its root.
This return to its root means tranquility.
It is called returning to its destiny.
To return to destiny is called the eternal (Dao).
To know the eternal is called enlightenment.
Not to know the eternal is to act blindly to result in disaster. 19
The fitness of the field analogy for understanding the nature of the Dao ought to be clear by now. That it works so well might not be all that remarkable. One of the names used for the Dao at certain places in the Zhuangzi is in fact
the dao and the field 37
38 approaching the daode jing
the ''great Clod'' (that is, the great lump of earth). 20 And the Dao that Laozi talks about sounds in many ways like the Mother Earth deities that we find in other cultures at other times. To take but one example, when the Sioux holy man Black Elk speaks of the earth in the following passage, we are reminded of things Laozi says about the Dao: how it is the source for all things and how he himself draws nourishment from it.
Is not the sky a father and the earth a mother and are not all living things with feet or wings or roots their children? And the hide upon the mouthpiece here [Black Elk is describing a holy pipe],which should be bison hide, is for the earth, from whence we came and at whose breast we suck as babies all our lives, along with all the ani- mals and birds and trees and grasses. 21
Of course, the Dao is not exactly the same as Mother Earth. For example, in Black Elk's statement at least, the fecundity of the Earth is in some part dependent on the sky-father: life-giving rain and the heat of the sun come from him. Conversely, the Dao's creativity seems to be self-contained, and the Dao as a conception of ultimate reality is both more transcendent and more universal than that which we find in the Earth Mother. 22 The Dao is an eternal, unchanging, invisible reality that is somehow present everywhere, not localized in space. And the Dao gives birth to the entire universe, including Heaven and Earth, not just to man, the animals, and plants. Moreover, the use of the name Dao or Way for this reality underscores the identity of it with the ongoing process of change and transformation in the universe as a whole, just as it underscores the fact that there is a Way for man to live, that is, to remain in touch with the Way.
Still, the correspondence of Dao and Mother Earth is interesting, and it is tempting to think that somewhere behind Laozi's conception of the Dao lies an earlier belief in or veneration of a Mother Earth deity in China. However, we find little indication of this in the religious beliefs and practices of dynastic times. There is, apparently, evidence in the oracle bones of Shang (c. 1766- 1122 b. c. ) of sacrifices to the Earth, and the Zhou (c. 1122-249 b. c. ) did offer periodic sacrifices to the Earth, or at least to the Gods of the Land, at the she altars. 23 But in both cases, that is, in both the Shang and the Zhou, the masculine deities in the heavens, Shangdi (the Lord on High) and Tian (Heaven), and the royal ancestors held center stage. 24
This is a question that could be further explored. Perhaps this is simply another indication of Laozi's southern origins; the goddess form and the sacredness of the earth were perhaps more important in Chu. 25
I claimed at the start that the field analogy also sheds light on other aspects of Laozi's thought, and I would like to show how this works with two issues in particular: morality and immortality.
Although there are passages in the Laozi that could be interpreted to suggest that Laozi's ideal sage is harsh, calculating, and inhumane,26 the overall tenor of the text is moral. To put it more precisely, Laozi seems to have little quarrel with the Confucian ideal of the ''good man,'' namely, the man who is filial to his parents, compassionate to his children, loyal to his prince, and genuine in all his relationships. Laozi's quarrel with the Confucians is rather one of method. He implies that left alone, people would naturally manifest these traits, and that consciousness of virtue--that there is a ''good'' way to act that needs to be cultivated--in fact destroys the possibility of genuineness and spontaneity, without which there can be no true virtue.
This is what I conclude from reading the two passages where he attacks the Confucian virtues of humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi), and propriety (li), first in chapters 18 and 19 (which should be read as continuous) and then in chapter 38. From chapter 18:
When the great Dao declined,
The doctrine of humanity and righteousness arose.
When knowledge and wisdom appeared,
There emerged great hypocrisy.
When the six family relationships are not in harmony,
There will be advocacy of filial piety and deep love to children. When a country is in disorder,
There will be the praise of loyal ministers.
From chapter 19:
Abandon sageliness and discard wisdom;
Then the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Abandon humanity and discard righteousness;
Then the people will return to filial piety and deep love. Abandon skill and discard profit;
Then there will be no thieves and robbers.
From chapter 38:
The man of superior virtue is not (conscious of) his virtue, And in this way he really possesses virtue.
The man of inferior virtue never loses sight of his virtue,
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40
approaching the daode jing
And in this way he loses his virtue.
The man of superior virtue takes no action,
but has no ulterior motive to do so.
The man of inferior virtue takes action,
And has an ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior humanity takes action,
But has no ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior righteousness takes action,
and has an ulterior motive to do so.
The man of superior propriety takes action,
And when people do not respond to it, he will stretch his arms
and force it on them.
Therefore when Dao is lost, only then does the doctrine of
virtue arise.
When humanity is lost, only then does the doctrine of righteous-
ness arise.
When righteousness is lost, only then does the doctrine of propri-
ety arise.
Now, propriety is a superficial expression of loyalty and faithful-
ness and the beginning of disorder.
Those who are the first to know have the flowers of Dao but are
the beginning of ignorance.
For this reason the great man dwells with the thick, and does not rest
with the thin.
He dwells with the fruit, and does not rest with the flower. Therefore he rejects the one, and accepts the other. 27
The analogy to the field might make this clearer. I interpret Laozi to be saying that all people feel and express compassion, filial piety, loyalty, and humaneness, and perhaps righteousness and propriety, just as all black-eyed susans have yellow flowers with a brown cone, daisylike heads of ten to twenty rays, and hairy stems of one to three feet in length. This is the natural condition of things, and just as in the natural field black-eyed susans grow this way spontaneously, unaware of it, in a sense effortlessly, so too, when the Dao has not declined, do people feel and express these attitudes spontaneously, effort- lessly, and without self-consciousness.
However, that is not to say that they all do so in the same way at the same time. Just as black-eyed susans differ from one another in their number of petals, in their length of stalks, and even perhaps in their shade of color, so too do people differ in their degree of feelings and their modes of expression.
But the evaluation of certain feelings and actions, the labeling of them as good, brings about self-consciousness and inevitably leads to the defining of a standard. The cultivation of virtue, like the cultivation of a field, aims at de- veloping a hybrid crop by weeding out variety. This means that one way of expressing loyalty will be set up as the true way; there will be only one true way to be filial in any given situation. And it would be comparable to saying that all black-eyed susans ought to have, say, fifteen petals, stems of two feet, and a dark shade of yellow to be ''good'' black-eyed susans.
If flowers are anything like people the results of this would be (a) conflict, as each flower takes its own properties as the standard for all to follow; (b) hypocrisy, as flowers deny their given properties and try to become something they are not; and (c) discontentment, dissatisfaction with one's given condi- tion when it does not match the norm.
All of this could be avoided by maintaining the variety, spontaneity, and natural harmony of the uncultivated field--that is, by returning to the Dao.
On the problem of afterlife/immortality, Laozi never comes right out and says that there is or is not life after death, or if there is, what it would be like. One can reach different conclusions on this point, depending on how one understands certain passages.
To begin with there are several places where Laozi claims that those who live in accord with the Dao will live out their life free from harm. At the end of chapter 16 we find: ''Being one with Nature, he is in accord with Dao. Being in accord with Dao, he is everlasting, and is free from danger throughout his lifetime. ''28 In chapter 32 we find: ''It is by knowing when to stop that one can be free from danger. ''29 This is repeated in chapter 44: ''He who knows when to stop is free from danger. Therefore he can long endure. ''30 Chapter 52 reads: ''He who has found the mother (Dao) and thereby understands her sons (things), And having understood the sons, Still keeps to its [their] mother, Will be free from danger throughout his lifetime. ''31 And finally in chapter 59 we find the conclusion: ''He who possesses the Mother (Dao) of the state will last long. This means that the roots are deep and the stalks are firm [note the relevance to the analogy], which is the way of long life and everlasting vision. ''32
Since no more than freedom from harm is claimed here, the conclusion seems to be that for the Daoist, long life--or at least to reach one's natural or destined end--is the limit of expectation. However, the words ''he is everlast- ing'' (chapter 16) and ''he can long endure'' (chapter 44) in these passages could be read as suggesting an unnaturally long life, or even continued life, either physical immortality or life beyond the limits of the body. 33
Physical immortality may be found in chapter 50, where we hear about one who is good at preserving his life:
the dao and the field 41
42
approaching the daode jing
I have heard that one who is a good preserver of his life will not meet tigers or wild buffaloes,
And in fighting will not try to escape from weapons of war. The wild buffalo cannot butt its horns against him,
The tiger cannot fasten its claws in him,
And weapons of war cannot thrust their blades into him. And for what reason?
Because in him there is no room for death. 34
In later Daoism, when it was thought that one could transform his body into something refined and subtle, and thus impervious to harm, through breathing exercises, drugs, and other means, these lines would be taken quite literally. And I do not know that we can conclude for sure that Laozi himself did not have that in mind. However, the lines are certainly open to other interpretations. For example, that tigers and buffaloes and weapons of war could not harm such a man might come about because he lives cautiously and avoids dangerous sit- uations. 35 Or it could be that he adapts to the natural tendencies of things and thus knows how to act with wild animals and soldiers so that they are not moved to anger. 36 That there is in him ''no room for death'' might only mean that he is not vulnerable in the ways that others are, that he will not be easily killed. Or it could mean that to the true Daoist ''death'' is not really ''death''; he does not dwell on or fear it as others do, and he can thus better avoid it.
The end of chapter 33 is also a problem area. There we have the lines: ''He who does not lose his place (with Dao) will endure. He who dies but does not really perish enjoys long life. '' What does this last line mean? On the surface of it, it seems to say that life can go on (perhaps in a spiritual way) even after the body dies, and that this is true long life (i. e. , not simply a matter of living many years). But maybe the death he speaks of refers to dying in a spiritual sense, a dying to the old ways, that is, and a rebirth to a life lived in accord with the Way. Or perhaps ''perish'' means to die an ''unnatural'' death, to come to an end before one's time: to reach one's natural end, then, is long life. Or finally, one could follow Wing-tsit Chan on this, who reads this as speaking of an im- mortality of virtue; so long as one is remembered by future generations one does not really perish. 37
There would seem to be three ways to read Laozi on the problem of af- terlife/immortality: (1) he believed in physical immortality, continual life in the body for those who had lived right and learned how to preserve their lives; (2) he believed in some form of life after death (not specified) for those who had become one with the Dao;38 and (3) he recognized death as final for all: the Daoist hope was for a long, natural life, free from danger and harm.
Moreover, the possibility of life after death may be understood in two different ways. It could be understood in a mystical sense. Insofar as the Dao is that one, eternal reality that gives rise to everything else, and insofar as the Daoist in some sense becomes one with the Dao, he could, at death, become fully identical with it--one with the eternal and unchanging. But in a more materialistic sense, insofar as the Dao is in some sense equivalent to the on- going process of life and material change, the Daoist could see death as just a stage in that process, and by developing matter and energy he does continue on.
The analogy of the field does not solve this problem; it does not show us for sure what Laozi thought. But it does help us visualize several distinct ways in which the problem could work out. The analogy does not, so far as I can see, support a notion of physical immortality; wildflowers do not continue on past their season. But that option aside, there are three different views to which it could point. One is that at death we merge once again with that storehouse of matter and vitality, the Dao, and that as matter and energy we are constantly recycled, reemerging in new forms of life, forms other than the human--in the analogy, the stuff of this year's sunflowers, bluebells, dandelions, and so on.
This is a view that other Daoist texts seem to draw out,39 and it is presented as the natural way of things, a prospect that we ought to be willing to accept and perhaps even look forward to. For example, in chapter 6 of Zhuangzi when a certain Master Li is on the verge of dying, his friend Master Lai says to him, ''How marvelous the Creator is! What is he going to make out of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat's liver? Will he make you into a bug's arm? ''40 And he continues:
The Great Clod burdens me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death.
So if I think well of my life, for the same reason I must think well of my death. When a skilled smith is casting metal, if the metal should leap up and say ''I insist upon being made into a Mo-yeh! '' he would surely regard it as very inauspicious indeed.
Now having had the audacity to take on human form once, if I should say, ''I don't want to be anything but a man! --Nothing but a man! ,'' the Creator would surely regard me as a most inauspicious sort of person. 41
Second, the field of flowers analogy could also lead to a transmigration of souls theory. That is to say, we could argue that the essence of each plant is contained in the seed, and that this provides a continuum of identity in the different plants that appear each year (i. e. , the seeds from this year's black-eyed susans will give rise to next year's).
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44 approaching the daode jing
I do not know of Daoists ever developing this possibility, but it was used by an early Chinese convert to Buddhism, Mouzi, to explain rebirth:
The spirit never perishes. Only the body decays. The body is like the roots and leaves of the five grains, the spirit is like the seeds and kernels of the five grains. When the roots and leaves come forth they inevitably die. But do the seeds and kernels perish? Only the body of one who has achieved the Way (here the Buddhist Way) perishes. 42
Finally, one could also conclude from looking at the field that unique forms of life are unique forms of life, that this year's flowers will live and die to be replaced by a totally new crop next year. In short, one might conclude that death is final, and that the best one can hope for is a long life of health, natural growth, and a natural end.
notes
This essay first appeared in St. John's Papers in Asian Studies series, no. 27, in 1981. It is reprinted with kind permission of St. John's University, Institute of Asian Studies.
1. Wing-tsit Chan, Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1963), 97. This is Chan's translation. Note that where I cite Chan's translation, words in parentheses are his own; my own comments or suggested var- iant translations are included in brackets. This article was written before I completed my own translation of the Laozi: Robert G. Henricks, tr. , Lao-tzu Te-tao ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui Texts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989).
2. Ibid. , 97. The silk texts of the Laozi, read differently here. They both say, ''The Nameless is the beginning of the 10,000 things. '' The silk texts (there are two, des- ignated chia and I) were discovered in 1973 in a Han dynasty tomb at Mawangdui in Changsha. They are the earliest known versions of the Laozi, dating from the first half of the second century b. c. While the content of the texts is generally the same as other known versions, there are occasional interesting variations, and I note some of these in the pages that follow. The silk texts are now readily available to Chinese scholars in book form in Laozi: Mawangdui Han mu bo shu (Peking: Wen-wu, 1975), hereafter cited as Laozi: Mawangdui.
For the references to chapter 1, see p. 82.
3. Chan, The Way, 124.
4. Ibid. , 152.
5. Max Kaltenmark, Lao Tzu and Taoism, trans. Roger Greaves (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1969), 29.
6. Chan, The Way, 97. This is literally the ''10,000 things''; in some of my own
translations below I use that term. The term is a comprehensive way to refer to all forms of life.
7. Ibid. , 134.
8. Ibid. , 192.
9. Ibid. , 205.
10. Ibid. , 97.
11. Ibid. , 105.
12. Ibid. , 137.
13. Ibid. , 110.
14. Ibid. , 160. The silk texts read somewhat differently, and the lines about
''clothing and feeding'' are not present at all. My translation of the silk texts is as follows (for the Chinese, see Laozi: Mawangdui, 93):
The Way floats and drifts.
It can go to the left or right.
It accomplishes tasks and completes affairs,
And yet it does not have a name.
The 10,000 things entrust their lives to it,
And yet it does not act as their master.
And therefore it is constantly without desires. [This line seems out of place. ] It can be named with the things that are small.
The 10,000 things entrust their lives to it,
And yet it does not act as their master.
It can be named with the things that are great.
Therefore the Sage's ability to accomplish the great,
Comes from his not playing the role of the great.
Therefore he is able to accomplish the great.
15. This is my own translation of the silk texts. For the Chinese, see Lao-tzu Ma- wang-tui, 70. The line I translate ''It brings them to life,'' however, is missing from both texts and is supplied from other versions. See Chan, The Way, 190, for an alternative translation of this line.
16. Wuwei, acting by not acting, is one of the traits of the Dao and the Sage. The opening line of chapter 37 in the Laozi is ''Dao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone. '' Chan, The Way, 166.
17. Chan, The Way, 192.
18. Ibid. , 194.
19. Ibid. , 128.
20. See especially chapter 6 and the phrase: ''The Great Clod burdens me with
form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death. '' Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 76. The Dao as the ''great Clod'' is the subject of H. G. Creel's essay ''The Great Clod,'' in Herrlee G. Creel, What is Taoism? And other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 25-36.
21. From John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), 3.
22. We quite often find the combination of Sky-father and Earth-mother as world parents. However, there are instances of the Earth Mother herself giving birth out of
the dao and the field 45
46 approaching the daode jing
her own fecundity. On this see Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 144-145.
23. The dates here given are traditional. Our evidence from the Shang oracle bones actually accounts only for the period 1324-1225 b. c. , the reign of Wu Ding. H. G. Creel The Birth of China (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1937), 180-181. The she and fang sacrifices were offered to the god(s) of the land and the spirits of the four quarters, respectively, in the spring and summer for aid in the growing season. Lester J. Bilsky, ''The State Religion of Ancient China'' (PhD diss. , University of Washington, 1971), 59-62.
24. Shangdi is the name given to the supreme deity in the oracle texts of the Shang; Heaven, or Tian, is more commonly used by the Zhou, although they at times also use the name Shangdi. Both names refer to a deity of the ''sky-god'' type, an all- powerful, supreme deity who is constantly watching what goes on below. Both can and do intervene in human events; with Heaven this is done for moral purposes: he gives a mandate to a ruler, a contract to rule, and intervenes to remove this if the conditions are not upheld. Shangdi and Tian could be two distinct deities, the former of the Shang and the latter of the Zhou. Or it could be that Tian is another name for Shangdi, or a Shangdi who has been transformed. The best reading on this problem is found in D. Howard Smith, Chinese Religions from 1000 b. c. to the Present Day (London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 12-21, and H. G. Creel, The Origins of Statecraft in China, vol. 1: The Western Chou Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 81-100, 493-506.
25. Both Laozi and Zhuangzi are reported to have come from the state of Chu, an area whose customs and beliefs are well known to have differed markedly from those of the Zhou states to the north.
26. I have in mind the controversial lines in chapters 5 and 3. Respectively they read: ''The sage is not humane. He regards all people as straw dogs''; ''Therefore in the government of the sage, He keeps their hearts vacuous, Fills their bellies, Weakens their ambitions, And strengthens their bones. '' Chan, The Way, 107, 103.
27. Ibid. , 131, 132, 167. 28. Ibid. , 128.
29. Ibid. , 157.
30. Ibid. , 179.
31. Ibid. , 192.
32. Ibid. , 205.
33. That the Chinese here is jiu (''long time'') in the first case and chang jiu (much
the same meaning) in the second suggests to me life's coming to an end at some point.
34. Chan, The Way, 188. It is interesting to note that in the Mawangdui copies of the Laozi, the opening line of this chapter has ''one who is good at holding on to life (zhisheng),'' instead of ''one who is a good preserver of his life (shesheng). '' (zhish- eng). See Laozi: Mawangdui, 69.
35. In chapter 17 of the Zhuangzi we have a passage where this kind of inter- pretation of how the Daoist avoids harm seems to be implied. Either that, or the
Daoist simply does not see harm as harm and accepts whatever comes his way. The passage reads: ''And he who knows how to deal with circumstances will not allow things to do him harm. When a man has perfect virtue, fire cannot burn him, water cannot drown him, cold and heat cannot afflict him, birds and beasts cannot injure him. I do not say that he makes light of these things. I mean that he distinguishes between safety and danger, contents himself with fortune and misfortune, and is constant in his comings and goings. '' Watson, Chuang Tzu, 104.
36. In chapter 4 of the Zhuangzi we read of the tiger trainer who succeeds by not going against the fierce dispositions of the tigers: he does not give them any- thing alive that they would have to kill, or anything whole that they would have to tear up. Ibid. , 59.
37. Chan, The Way, 159. The silk texts would seem to support this since they substitute ''not forgotten'' (bu wang) for ''not perish'' (bu wang). But since the character for ''forgotten'' is made by adding the ''heart'' element to the character for ''perish,'' and since the adding of an element to the correct character is common in the silk texts, ''perish'' might still be the intended word. See Laozi: Mawangdui, 93.
38. I should note that in addition to the evidence already cited, there is one other thing that could support this. Ellen Ch'en, in her essay ''Is There a Doctrine of Physical Immortality in the Tao-te-ching? ,'' History of Religions 12, no. 3 (1973): 231- 247, notes the phrase mo shen bu dai (in chapters 16 and 52), which she translates as ''to lose the body without coming to an end. '' Unfortunately this phrase is open to interpretation. Chan translates it as ''free from danger throughout his lifetime'' in both places. Arthur Waley has ''though his body ceases is not destroyed'' in chapter 16, which supports Professor Ch'en, but ''and to the end of his days suffers no harm'' in chapter 52. See Arthur Waley, trans. , The Way and its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought (New York: Grove, 1958), 162, 206.
39. In addition to the Zhuangzi passages cited below, the Liezi follows this line and specifies what is involved. Man is a combination of dense qi (breath, energy) from the earth (his body), and subtle, active qi from heaven (his breath and vital energies). At death these qi return to their sources and are then recycled. See A. C. Graham, trans. , The Book of Lieh-tzu (London: Lewis Reprints, 1973), 14-15, 18-20, 20-23, especially the anecdotes.
40. Watson, Chuang Tzu, 81. I would not take ''Creator'' here in a literal sense. I think it is used by Zhuangzi as another way to talk about the creative work of the Dao; natural transformation is all that is involved.
41. WatsonnotesthatMoyewasafamousswordofKingHelu(reigned514-496 b. c. ) of Wu.
42. William Theodore deBary, The Buddhist Tradition in India, China and Japan (New York: Random House, 1972), 134-135. From a text called Mouzi li huo lun (Mouzi Settling Doubts), which is traditionally believed to date from the end of the second century a. d.
the dao and the field 47
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? The Daode Jing and Comparative Philosophy
David L. Hall
The Confucian asks, ''Master Lao, you say that 'the way that can be spoken of is the constant way. ' Why, then, do you offer so many words which speak of the Way? ''
To which Laozi replies, ''I make for you a golden embroidery of drakes and pass it along for your enjoyment. I cannot, however, show you the golden needle by which it was made. ''
Before beginning any classroom discussion of the Daode jing I always recount this apocryphal exchange as a means of making a point about the language of that work and, indeed, of language generally. That cautionary tale is useful in warning us not to mis- take the embroidery, however fine, for the ''golden needle'' that permits its creation. And, of course, the Daoist would believe that the sentiment of this story suggests the mood with which we might well approach language itself.
Words, the Daoist might say, serve as both signposts and barriers. It is as if the very sign that tells us where to go stands in the way of our getting there. Were I, for example, to encounter a sign in the form of a roadblock across the only highway leading into town that read ''El Paso 99 Miles,'' I would know that I was heading in the right direction but would be prevented from going home.
Knowing this, we may be reconciled to the fact that traveling along the way that can be spoken of is the only means whereby we may celebrate the Nameless Dao. Its ability to provide its
50 approaching the daode jing
readers important experiences of the evocation of meaning beyond any words is what makes the Daode jing one of the most provocative of all the texts of world literature.
My first encounter with this book was as oblique as is the language of the work itself.