WHO WAS LAOZI?

Xunzi's criticism of Laozi: "Laozi could see the advantages of humbling oneself, but not the advantages of raising one's station. . . . If everyone humbles himself and no one tries to improve his station, then the distinctions between eminent and humble will become meaningless"(Watson trans., p. 88).

Xunzi's criticism of Zhuangzi: "Zhuangzi has obsessed by thoughts of Tian and did not understand the importance of man" (Watson, 125).

Neither the early Confucians (including Mencius) nor Mozi mention Laozi. Yang Ju, who is considered to be a forerunner of Daoism, is mentioned by Mencius. Strong evidence then for a legendary contemporary of Confucius. The same ancient historian from whom most all of our material comes could not present a consistent account of his person. "In all probability Laozi was not a historical figure at all," says D. C. Lau (his own DDJ, p. 11).

Laozi’s miraculous conception seems to have been borrowed from the life of the Buddha. His mother was impregnated by a falling star, and was born out of her armpit. She was pregnant for 80 years and gave birth to an "Old Master" (lit. meaning of Laozi), with a full head of white hair. He had very long ears (again like the Buddha) and was given the personal name Erh, meaning ear in Chinese. Like the Buddha he was born near a tree, a plum (li) tree, so his surname was Li. According to one account, when he died he became like the cosmic man Panku: his left became the sun, his right eye the moon, and his head became the Gunlun Mountains (Chen, 14). See Kristopher Schipper's TheTaoist Body (p. 120) for the full text of Laozi's miraculous birth.

According to Schipper, Daoism is unique in eliminating the father's role from the birth of their savior. In Indian religion we find that the father simply makes a copy of himself to place in the passive womb for nourishment and maturity. In contrast Laozi is his own mother: "The body of the Dao is first a woman, then a child, whereas the father is entirely absent from this genesis" (Schipper, 124). Schipper does admit that some texts indicate that an "Old Lord" (Laojun) transforms Laozi's mother's womb, but he says that jun doesn't necessarily male, because the word usually indicates female deities. But Schipper does allow the interpretation that this "Old Lord" is Laozi before his conception, so it might be that Daoism is indeed consistent with the Savior becoming father of himself. Schipper goes on to point out that ancient China was the only place where women were in control of the sexual education of their husbands. Just part and parcel of Daoism's preference for the feminine (see especially chap. 28); and the one time (2nd Century CE) religious Daoist practice of having equal numbers of male and female masters.

Legend has it that Laozi worked at the imperial archives at Loyang during the time of Confucius, and Confucius met him there during his famous visit. Laozi said to his junior by 50 years: "What you are talking about concerns merely the words left by people who have rotted along with their bones. . . . Rid yourself of your arrogance and your lustfulness, your ingratiating manners and your excessive ambition. These are all detrimental to your person. This is all I have to say to you" (D. C. Lau trans, his DDJ, p. 8). Confucius was apparently more positive in his impression, comparing Laozi to a dragon who could not be snared, caught in a net, or shot with arrows.

Legend has it that he lived nearly 200 years, or 129 years after the death of Confucius. After retiring from the imperial archive, he headed west over a mountain pass. The warden of the pass asked him to write a book for his enlightenment. Laozi obliged and the Daodejing (DDJ) in two books was the result. Book I of 37 chapters entitled the Daojing and Book II of 44 chapters named the Dejing. These titles are simply derived from the first words of each book respectively.

THE ORIGINS OF THE TEXT

It was not called jing (classic) until the Han emperor Jing (156-141 BCE) called it so. After the elevation of the text the elevation of Laozi was not too far behind: by 165 CE under emperor Huan he was said to be coeternal with the sun, moon, and the stars. The text was not called Daodejing until 741 CE.

In his The Tao of the Tao Te Ching (SUNY Press, 1992), Michael Lafargue contends that the DDJ began as a oral tradition and transmission among disaffected shi idealists, i.e., scribes, clerks, and other minor administrators attached to the governments of the various states. LaFargue describes them as "drawn from downwardly mobile, dispossessed nobility, and upwardly mobile, ambitious peasantry" (191). These shi idealists passed on bits and pieces of "Laoist" (after Laozi) wisdom, mostly in the form of what LaFargue calls "polemic aphorisms. The other form of sayings was "celebratory," i.e., praising the ideal of Laoist self-cultivation. Yet another form of saying is cosmological in nature. These independent sayings were eventually put together by later editors as a book, or at least an "anthology" of 81 "composed" chapters, in the 3rd Century BCE. What these composers added is placed in italics in LaFargue's translation. What he thinks these editors borrowed from other sources is put in double quotation marks.

The Laoists, like other shi idealists such as Mencius, were alienated from the social and political norms of the day. This was not to say that they did not believe in government or have any social responsibility at all. Like Mencius they were not revolutionaries and did not want to topple the then current governmental structures.

Victor Mair dates the oral composition during a 300 year period from 650-350 BCE. The first written DDJ was at the end of the 3rd Century with another rewrite about 500 years later. LaFargue, by the way, does not agree with Mair that the recent textual discoveries that place it nearer the first writing are superior to the second writings. LaFargue believes that the Ma Wangdui manuscripts discovered in 1974 are more corrupt than the later editions of the DDJ. Ellen Chen, citing other authorities, contends that the Ma Wangdui texts do not add anything substantive or revolutionary to our understanding of the text.

THE QI COSMOLOGY: DAOIST VERSION

Refined qi= Gods and spirits (shen)

The human hun "soul"

The Ten Thousand Things

Particularized qi (=de)

Manifested as the Five Planets, the 36 stars, the Five Elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth), the Five Viscera (lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, spleen), Five Flavors, and Five Colors.

The human po soul

gui ("hungry ghosts"--hungry for a body)

Gross qi (material things)

The whole of this universe could be called Dao and the parts called De expressions of that Dao. Roger Ames' field-focus, one-many, Dao-de ontology.

Chan on the De of Dao (his DDJ, 11-12)

De lit. means "to obtain," "to get"—lit. what one has obtained from the Dao. A Confucian parallel: de is what is received from tian.

But like the Greek areté, every thing of the 10,000 things has its own de—its own essence, function capacity to do or be some thing.

Han Feizi: de is the perfection of personality. Parallels Mair’s translation of de as "integrity."

De is the principle of individuation of the Dao. Webster’s International Dictionary: virtue "is active quality or power; capacity or power adequate to a production of a given effect."

Rectification of Names aims at univocal use of all terms. Must be same meaning in every instance or confusion will arise.

The DDJ deliberately uses many meanings—equivocal meanings. Polyvalent meanings, polymorphously perverse poetic language. Lafargue (p. 23): shen does not have a consistent meaning. Actually natural to the Chinese logic of punning, e.g., ren is ren*.

Major "thesis" of DDJ wu-you vs. you-you

non being        being

no desire        desire

no intention intention

Hsu’s Article "Lao Tzu’s Conception of Ultimate Reality" (IPQ, June, 1976)

Confucius’ moral use of the Dao: my Dao is ren* (4:15). Laozi’s metaphysical use of Dao, although the Zhong-Yong is already headed in this direction.

EMANATION THEORY OF CREATION (Chaps. 40 AND 42)

D₀>>>>>    D₁>>>>>>> D₂ >>>>>>> D₃>>>>>>>>> . . . D_10,000

non-being   being   Heaven-yang     human beings

wu            you          Earth-yin

wu ming    one

(nameless)  mother

(nameable)

Di = God

Vedanta Philosophy of Hinduism

nirguna <—————————> saguna

Brahman  (Godhead)                     Brahman

without qualities                   full of qualities