TAOISM- My understanding of it.

 Based on Convergence with Nature: A Daoist perspective by David E. Cooper. as well as my  readings of Tao te Ching and Chuang Tzu [i]

Daoism is very this worldly, humanistic, anti-dualistic, very empirical, very embodied, very deep, very useful, very interesting ,very phenomenological.

Heidegger liked Daoism.

Daoism favours spending time in nature as a way to cultivate mindfulness and understand Daoist virtue. It must involve activity. It must be to understand nature not as a mere spectacle. Daoism rejects Eco-tourist approaches to environmentalism and nature.

The Tao te ching days to love and value your body.

Has parallels to Anarchism, Existentialism, Post-modernism, Post-structuralism.

Ancient Chinese:-



Tian: Heaven.

Tiandi- heaven and earth.

Tianxia= all under heaven, nature as a whole or general processes of nature.

Xing and Ben Xing= original nature of things, ‘human nature’.

Jing= Something’s essence.

Ziran(Tzu-jan) =spontaneous or natural  , “being so of itself”




Zhuangzi(  AKA Chuangzi)

Zhuangzi was perspectival not nihilist or relativist. He rejects anthroprocentrism. OK with truth for pragmatic purposes but dislikes metaphysics.

Zhuangzi said our deaths are but part of nature.

We are what we experience seems to be the meaning of his butterfly example not scepticism.

Critical of aesthetic judgements which are assumed to be objective or neutral. Daoism says beauty and goodness are connected. Virtue makes us beautiful. Daoism celebrates the virtuous in nature.

Zhuangzi rejected the idea of values independent of a creatures perspective i.e. what could be claimed to be inherent or intrinsic value.

THE DAO

 The Dao means path course way or road, to tell, to lead or to cut a path or channel. Can mean to teach or explain.

A way was a human practice. The Dao is the source of all things yet we know little about it. It is not a god nor a creator. The Dao is not an object nor a thing. It is not EVEN correct to call it “THE DAO” better just Dao.  It is more a process or a pattern.

The Dao is not conditioned by anything else  “all things are one”  Dao is impersonal, does not plan deliberate or calculate. Dao is not god or anything like god.  It is “The Way of Ways”  the aggregate of all possible ways or paths.

The Dao could be called a source or opening up of all channels that enables experience to flow. It is the way that gives all ways.

Unity is very daoist. It is opposed to dualism.

There is no dualism of self and the world nor Dao and the world. Dao does not exist separately but only through there being things.

“Dao that can be spoken of is the CONSTANT Dao” – it never stops, it is continuous, always gives ways of experiencing , pattern harmony and regularity are necessary parts of experience , of Dao.

Dao is not separate or independent or outwith the world. It is part of the world. There can be no river without a source no source without a river!

The best example is this: language is not a collection of atomic words and meanings. Words have meanings through connections and contrasts in connection to the whole. The same is true of all life says Daoism. Things belong to a context ,a perspectival world of experience, everything is relational, difference can only come from knowing similarity and contrast.

Ethics:

De =  Power,disposiyion, excellence, charisma, inherent capacity to produce certain effects.

De is a relational notion. De requires right understanding of your place in the world. Dao is that by which things come to be, De is that by which they are what they are.

The Sage.

·         Does not try to force things

·         Is ‘empty’

·         Is simple

·         Responds but does not control.

·         Doesn’t seek prestige or gain

·         Maintains the body

·         Abandon’s the ambitions of society.

·         Open and friendly to all beings.

·         Does not seek to be separate but feels part of everything.

·         Grounded not otherworldly.

·         Lives in this world since the world of experience is all there is.

·         Not impulsive.

·         Gentle, respectful, tolerant, compassionate, enjoys the ordinary, not arrogant but humble, relaxed, tranquil., full of energy, modest lifestyle but not austere either, enjoys himself i.e. is not a puritan, responsive but steady and focused, flexible,

·         Follows no rigid plans, is ironic and distanced from own beliefs,

·         Never claims neutrality,

·         Reluctant to judge

·         Not world weary or indifferent but adjusts to the world but does not adjust in the sense of just giving up Daoism.

·         Alertful, mindful, still but not rigid, responds to things appropriately ,

·         Flexible and receptive.

·         Wandering, german lieder, backpacker, mindfulness, reverie, poetics of reverie, flaneur, zen meditation, Psychogeography of Situationism,










“Supreme good is water”

Benefits all

Is not elitist

Is spontaneous

Is not authoritarian

Is flexible changing open.




Daoism is neither anarcho-primitivism nor does it just embrace the world as it is without critique.

Of I against the world(people or nature)

Philosophy requires transformation and demands action.

Daoism says all things are in flux including human beings and their sense of selves.

Causes of environmental crisis:  Descartes mind/body dualism, human-nature dualism, Abrahamic religion, mechanistic view of nature, T.H. Huxley,  

The causes are political, economic, cultural, philosophical and psychological. Deep Ecology and Social Ecology.

Taoism rejected the mind body dualism.  Mind-Heart(Xin)

In the Liezi the idea nature exists for human is mocked.

For daoists it is not technology as hardware which estranges us from nature by technology as a way of experiencing.

Zhuangzi “ the genuine human beings of old..did not aspire to completeness, did not plan their affairs in advance. In this way ,they could be wrong, they could be right but without regret and without self satisfaction”.

Wu Wei Wu is not immobility ,apathy or laziness. It is inobstructive unforceful unforced spontaneous action. It is ‘doing without doing’.

If you do not live in a wu wei way you fail to ‘follow’ the Tao.




Huangye=  term for ‘wilderness expanse’ areas more or less affected by humans.




Taoists like anarchists do not believe you can teach goodness by instruction. It must be encouraged indirectly, it must be learnt in doing ,in experiencing ,in thinking.

Nature is indifferent to us( in the sense that it has no personal connection to us, it has not personal interest in whether we live or die , it just is and is there and it’s up to us to use it or abuse/lose –it.)

However we should not be indifferent back to it.

The aesthetic stance to nature is anthroprocentric?? Based purely on the pleasure they give to people, exploits pleasure and thrills.

To judge a place beautiful is to regard others as not and so of less value.

Daoism is not hostile to wilderness “Every walk is a sort of crusade”(Thoreau)

“Wildness is not wilderness”?

Gary Snyder talks of 3 distinctions

Nature- all that exists

Wildness- qualities of nature like spontaneity, self organizing,  it’s a process nature does and qualities nature has.

Wilderness- places where wildness (is heavily??) present due to absence of human influence.

Wildness can occur outside of wilderness areas. Wildness is in human activity to some extent too!

Bodily activities put us in harmony with natural rhythms and Dao. What we are inside is reflected in what we are outside. Bodily wellbeing is an expression of virtue???

Contrary to primitivism, Daoism does not believed in a wild self before society instead we are shaped by society.

Daoism admires gardeners and gardening as a way to cultivate virtue.

To call dao a thing or a form is to misunderstand it.

Taoism does not say differences between things are illusory. Differences in things are only perspectival not objective , not independent of perspective, not neutral. We cannot be neutral.

Daoist holism does not mean everything is a ‘great self’ or dissolves into a mushy oneness.

Dao cannot be truly described in the same way Wittgenstein talks of .

THE SELF:-   Your ‘I’ or self  is a particular channel of experience. The idea of Dao as source vs the world is wrong too. There can be no selves except in relation to the world and vice versa. Everything is interconnected and interdependent. What is called self is not a fixed thing, object or substance but an ongoing project, a creation, an artwork , a flux, a process. We are creatures in a context we should not have a solid fixed sense of self

Water:- has no shape of it’s own but that of its container, flows freely but along a course, flows past obstacles, flows to the lowest level, clear water reflects well but hard to see,  does not set itself above anything.

The sage will be supply in responding to life, will be “still in the mind” ,will have clarity of mind ,will be humble not aggressive, will not seek to compete.

Being in nature allows us to forget rank,wealth,prestige, desire to produce or consume.It allows us to recognise we’re part of a larger whole and the world does not revolve around us and to recognise that nature does as it does without fearing others judgement or without seeking praise.

Daoism respects KNOW HOW which does not require scientific knowledge.

Daoism says science is no less perspectival than anything else and is not a privileged form of truth seeking.

Daoism rejects the idea of mindfulness as concept-free experience. Words do not distance us from nature. How we use words distances us from nature. Daoism sees mindfulness as a virtue. Daoism does not yearn for ‘pure experience’ since it is perspectival. Everything is a perspective and there is no ‘it ‘ behind an object, there is no noumen like Kant thought. Only phenomena, only appearances, only what we can perceive.




POLITICS:

Do social systems encourage kinds of ethics or do kinds of ethics encourage social systems or both or neither???

Daoists are absolutely NOT primitivists!

Roaming in nature as a TAZ( Temporary Autonomous Zone)

Tao Te Ching- “revere your own body”  “ who care for their own body as if they were the entire world can be entrusted with the world”  We are the world and the world is us!!!

Daoism is pretty compatible with a green communism. Communism seems the only arrangement compatible with green ideas though communism could be tied to an industrial techno-utopian technological fetish society too (sadly!)

Daoism decries peoples restlessness and sense of boredom. Consumerism encourages this.

Daoist criticism of estrangement from nature challenges the status quo and modern values. It argues against being restless, against consumerism, against seeking spectacle, against being very ambitious.

Daoism rejects use of ‘vermin’ and ‘pest’ which is humans imposing our perspective onto nature.

Daoism has no concept of rights of nature or future generations. Rejects the idea of humans as stewards of nature.

Where do we go between treating nature as an inferior ‘other’ and treating nature as exactly like us and anthropromorphising it. I guess the answer is we should recognise nature as different from us but not separate or opposed to us. It is dialectically both like and unlike us in different ways.

Daoist farming would be organic, free range, communal, embedded, democratic not run by experts, will probably be passed on orally, would not be split off from other activities or from the community or from the unity of nature.

Traditionally farming formed a community, people felt part of something. Now we are disconnected from our food- how its produced, how it’s consumed, how it’s used. Everything, really.

Modern agriculture has turned culture into industry. It is a frenzy, arrogant, profit seeking and about separation. It puts efficiency over community and democracy and everything else.

Daoism does not seek us as less than nature nor above it but equal to it, part of it and should act like it.

Domestic cats do not live in wilderness yet much of their behaviour is wild and expresses wildness.

Wildlife should not be a resource for gameplaying ,for spectacle or for entertainment. Zhuangzi and Lielzi disliked animals turned into spectacles.They opposed animal cruelty. Zhuangzi liked to fish but seems to oppose hunting.  Daoism has not party line or easy answers but it does has principles to draw from. It does oppose senseless killing of animals.

Daoism favours craftswork.

“Daoists are gardeners of the Cosmos”

Daoism does not separate or divide unspoilt nature and industry. Does not seek to see humans destroyed as a virus on the earth or a parasite on nature. Humans are part of nature. Daoism is not Anarcho-primitivist. Daoism is not opposed to using nature. But it does not seek to dominate nature. Nor does it seek to surrender to it.

Capitalism:-

Restlessness,

Must be business orientated,

Consumerist,

Productiveness for profit(bosses)

Technological expansion

Spectacle in Guy Debords sense.

Hierarchy and meditation, separation.  Hierarchy pretty much always means separation.

Encourages selfishness, atomized individualism, ambition for wealth/power/fame, success is property/ possessions/money.

Never stands still.  Demands competititon and arrogance- the war of all against all.


Green Communism:-

could require and allow a slower place of life.   Individual and social wellbeing not economic growth.

Mix of modern knowledge and possibly some more  useful traditional/ indigenous practices.

Could have no rushing.

Things done for pleasure. Things done for joy not profit.

Little need for travel.

Minimal technology- technological progress based on precautionary principle.

Differing sizes of organization and coordination.

Lots of localism. Grassroots unity.

Encouraging selflessness, mutual aid, solidarity ,community, giving, being,  quality over quantity,

Ambition would be helping others  ,seeking the fulfilment of each and every person.

Satisfaction with the ordinary  as opposed to the spectacle.

Humility, rambling and roaming.

Living with and understanding of, nature as opposed to being at war with it and seeking to dominate over it.

Being an oppressor or seeking to compete or dominate seen as individual AND social failure.

Encouragement of mutual aid,solidarity, critical thinking, responsibility, compassion, desire to help others, curiosity, play, spontaneity, childlike without being childish, pleasure seeking but not thrill seeking , not constantly seeking new things,

QUESTIONS.

·         Does nature have intrinsic value????

·         CAN there be positive anthropocentric intrinsic value?

·         How to have an anthropocentric view which does not make humans superior nor inferior.

·         Maybe we cannot escape coming from a human centred viewpoint? – I tend to think we can’t.  If this is correct then we must develop our ecological ethics from that point of view and we cannot have any sort of value free/neutral ecological ethics.

·         Is the middleground between disrespect for nature and misanthropy to be found in thinking of nature as like us but slightly different from us- of ourselves as nature conscious of itself. Self conscious of itself.

·         Since we are more capable than the rest of nature of preserving nature (as much as is possible)  Surely we have a moral responsibility to do so?  That is not anthropocentric as such.  We are part of nature but more self aware and more responsible than all the rest of nature.

·         Does nature need us??  Is it selfish of us to seek to preserve nature which is only to preserve humanity?  Can we seek to preserve nature without it being self servingly only to preserve the human species?  What is best for nature?  Will nature recover if human does end up wiping itself out???


·         Does Daoism risk falling into lifestylism?  YES! Unfortunately!