CHAPTER TWO
Dao: Where It All Begins
Only a mind empty of content can follow Dao freely.3
It is absurd to try to write about the Dao. The Dao is a subject, a reality, so all-encompassing, so difficult to understand – even conceptually – that it is impossible to put into words. The best I can do is to share some of the metaphors used to describe the Dao. Maybe, by circling around the subject, we will get inspired to experience it ourselves. That would be the only way to know what it is – by experiencing it.
I can still remember my introduction to an English translation of the Daodéjing back in 1969 or 1970. I found it mysterious yet alluring. It seemed to be a collection of paradoxical sayings, yet they somehow made sense to me. It was as if I were discovering a voice that expressed my innermost soul, and reading the book made me feel balanced and at peace.
Attributed to Laozi, which literally means “the old man,” the Daodéjing probably dates from about the fourth or third century BCE. It isn’t known whether these passages were written by a person named Laozi or if they are an anonymous collection of wisdom sayings handed down for generations before they were first published.
The title means the classic (jing) of Dao and dé (te). Dao is ultimate emptiness, non-being, non-existence, the eternal formless reality that precedes the creation and yet pervades it; it is eternal. In western religions, the level of non-being would be what precedes the existence of the creator, or God. From non-being or ultimate emptiness is projected being – existence. Being brings forth the myriad things of the creation, which the Daodéjing literally calls “the 10,000 things.”
Existence is produced from non-existence. The physical world of forms originates in the non-physical formless realm. Existence and non-existence are both present simultaneously, but at different levels of awareness or consciousness. Our awareness or consciousness is not stable; it is always in flux, so sometimes we experience only the level of existence, of being, and sometimes we approach an experience of non-existence or non-being – a level of higher consciousness that contains no trace of the physical or material realms.
Dao also means “the way.” So Dao is not only the flow of the spiritual power or essence from the state of nothingness, of formlessness, to its manifestation in the “myriad things” of creation. It is also the path of return to the origin or source of creation. From the standpoint of the individual human being, Dao is both the source of the creation and the inner path back to the source. One could also say that Dao is higher spiritual consciousness, which pervades and encompasses all. It cannot be apprehended on the physical or material plane but can be experienced only through one’s higher spiritual consciousness. Yet it is present everywhere.
Dé (the second character in the book’s title) is best described as the Dao when manifested in the creation, at the level of being; it is the intrinsic spiritual nature of every person, creature, and thing. Everything and everyone has its own dé. A person’s dé is the essential nature of that person, how the Dao manifests in him or her. Sometimes dé is translated as potency, intrinsic power, or even virtue, but potency is an older and better translation.
Dé is the innate potential in a seed that compels it to become a tree. The sunflower faces the sun every day. That is its dé when manifested. The dé of human beings is the essential, inherent spiritual nature which instills in each person the pull towards realization of its divine impulse within. The dé could be thought of as the Dao when manifested in the realm of being. A human being is true to his or her dé when acting in accord with Dao, in harmony with Dao. Dé follows nature. The Dao is ineffable and abstract, yet concrete when expressed as dé. It is the abstract become concrete. By virtue of the Dao everything finds its dé, its intrinsic nature – its inner compulsion to become what it was created or programmed to be.
The Daodéjing
The Daodéjing is the classic guidebook for anyone who wishes to understand how the Daoists of ancient times viewed life. Although they experienced Dao as the vast spiritual emptiness, totally unknowable and abstract, it is a paradox of human nature that we want to understand the unknowable intellectually, by reducing it to words, rather than experiencing the spiritual reality.
Here are a few lines that may seem paradoxical but which come close to explaining what the Dao is. By saying what it is not, we can get a feeling for what it is. The following is from Chapter One of the Daodéjing, which introduces us to the idea that the Dao is the great origin or source – nothingness – beyond being. From Dao came the Creator, the mother or origin of all creation.
The Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.The Nameless is the beginning of Creation.
The named is the mother of myriad beings.To contemplate the subtlety of Dao,
one has to be constant, free of yearnings
and non-existent.
Being constantly existent and with yearnings,
one perceives the boundaries
of the manifestations of Dao.Both subtlety (Dao) and manifestation
originate from the same source,
but differ in name.
That same source is called the mysterious.It is the mysterious beyond mysterious.
It is the pathway between the multiplicity
(of the creation) and the subtlety (of Dao).4
What does this mean?
The Dao is the uncreated and unmanifested void or emptiness. No words can describe it. No name can define it. It is constant, unchanging, and eternal. It is nameless. We call it Dao because we have to refer to it somehow.
The nameless is the beginning and the origin of the Creator, which is the creative power; Dao precedes the Creator and all things and beings in the creation that the Creator has brought about.
The named is the Creator. The named, which we call Being, is the origin of heaven and earth, and all things and beings in the creation. It is the mother of all things.
Nothingness, or non-being – extreme emptiness – is the hidden, unrevealed aspect of Dao. Being, or existence, is the Dao revealed, in the process of becoming concrete.
In Chapter Forty of the Daodéjing, this point is made clear: “Myriad things in the universe are created by existence (Being). Existence is created by non-existence.”
Returning to the first chapter of Daodéjing we read that to understand the subtlety of Dao, one must become like Dao, constant and eternal, empty, free of aspirations and desires. “Constant” means calm and tranquil, aloof from reaction, desire, and personal motive, not attached to physical existence. This is the goal of Daoist meditation – self-purification, which allows one’s empty vessel to be filled with spirit.
However, if one is constantly beset by aspirations and desires – which come from attachment to one’s physical existence – then one stays within the limitations of the manifested creation. One remains impure.
Non-existence and existence both share the same source, called “the mysterious.”
The mysterious is the gateway or opening to both the multiplicity of existence in the creation, on the one hand, and the extreme subtlety of non-existence on the other. The gateway is hidden – it can’t be seen with the physical eyes. On one side of the opening is the gross material creation, and on the other is pure, subtle, unmanifested Dao.
As Master Meng explained during our meeting:
The world of Dao is beyond the physical world, and it is the original state of man, of heaven and earth and the myriad things (the multiplicity of creation), the same as in human beings. Our physical body belongs to the physical world. It is a vehicle. But our original, true nature is not this physical body and is formless. The formless part is the spiritual part.
This means that the Dao is all-pervading, but not on a physical level. If we could see beyond our life in the physical world, we would see that the Dao is everywhere, in every object and being, and that through Dao everything is connected. As a scholar wrote, “Dao alone is the absolute nothingness that penetrates all beings.”5
One could say that Dao is like an electrical vibration that courses through everything. Vibrations are always in subtle motion, so although we say that Dao is unchanging and eternal, paradoxically it is also in constant motion. It is the continuous vibration of the universe.
Chapter Forty of the Daodéjing says: “Reversion is the movement towards (or of) Dao.” This means that while the Dao is vibrating in an outward motion, it is also returning, or reverting inwards. In human terms, as the Dao becomes manifest in the creation by entering the level of being, so it is always returning, withdrawing from the physical back to its source in the great void or emptiness. It is in constant cyclical or circular motion.
Ellen M. Chen, a translator and interpreter of the Daodéjing, points out that wu (nothing) and yu (being) are in constant cyclical movement towards each other and away from each other. That is the primal principle. There is mutual dependency, as together they are one dynamic whole. That is the essence of the constant vibration.
Some Daoists call the Dao “earlier Heaven,” from which “later heaven” (the realm of the creation – the duality of heaven and earth) has manifested. Dao is nameless, but when it gives rise to existence (the material creation) it becomes named. Heaven represents yang (active, masculine, firm, outward) and earth represents yin (passive, feminine, yielding, inward). These are the two poles of duality. Each contains the potential for the other, and that dynamic energy is always flowing from one to the other and returning back again.
The yin-yang symbol illustrates this dynamic. In the dark half there is a spot of white; in the white half, there is a spot of black, showing the potential for each to become, or transform into, the other. The hint of the opposite reality represents the link between the two poles.
Chapter Four of the Daodéjing says:
Dao is absolute, ultimate emptiness;
yet in use, it is inexhaustible.
Fathomless, it seems to be the ancestor
of ten thousand (myriad) beings.It blunts the sharp,
unties the entangled,
harmonizes the bright,
mixes the dust.
Dark,
It seems perhaps to exist.I do not know whose child it is.
It is an image (xiang)
of what precedes God (Di).6
In its nothingness, Dao has no limitations; it is infinite and inexhaustible – it has the potential for all creation to emerge from it. Being emerges from Dao, the undifferentiated primal emptiness or source. Being gives rise to the myriad things of creation, and to the cyclical process of the Dao returning and merging back into emptiness. This is the rhythm of life itself. Dao unceasingly pours out from itself, inexhaustible. One cannot fathom its depth because it is never depleted. The constant cyclical motion of the Dao is the rhythm of life.
So, Dao is eternal stillness and also the eternal process of self-creation – the movement from being to non-being and back to being. Dao is not a static entity but rather vibrating movement itself.
In the passage just cited, Laozi lists several examples of opposites, the extremes of duality, which Dao harmonizes and unites within itself. The opposites interact and merge within the Dao, absorbed in it. Therefore, he says, the Dao “blunts the sharp, unties the entangled,” and so forth. Because the Dao penetrates all and encompasses all, it unifies all opposites – they become one.
When he says in this passage that the Dao only “seems” to exist, he is saying that it is so abstract, so imperceptible, that it can only be experienced. Though it is undetectable, it is “the mother of all things.” In its emptiness, it is the ultimate origin; nothing precedes it, not even God.
Chapter Twenty-five of the Daodéjing goes into more detail about the state preceding creation. It alludes to the very first hint of creation even before heaven and earth were created, before duality manifested. It tells us that this was a state prior to change; it is ultimate emptiness. But in its emptiness, it is the source of all.
This entity, it is undifferentiated,
existent before heaven and earth.
Desolate and still, it stands independent
of all else, ever unchanging.
The perfect and complete creative power
that is inexhaustible
is truly the mother of all things.I do not know its name. I call it the Dao.
This name is imposed on it to describe its greatness.To call it great is to portray
that it is far reaching.
To say it is far reaching is to explain
that it is deep and profound.
To express its depth and profundity
is to illustrate that it is returning inward
(withdrawing from the world).Therefore the Dao is great,
heaven is great, earth is great,
and the saint is also great.
Of the four greats (in all the realms),
the saint is at the top.
The human being emulates (derives from) earth.
Earth emulates heaven.
Heaven emulates Dao.
Dao emulates itself –
exists by virtue of itself,
self-existent (ziran – true to itself).7
In other words, Dao emerges from itself – it is what it is and doesn’t exist in relation to anything else. This process is ongoing. As Master Meng emphasized, Dao is ziran, totally self-sufficient, self-absorbed, isolated, silent. Ziran is the essential quality of Dao – meaning that it cannot be explained or described in relation to anything else. It is not influenced by anything else, nor does it derive from anything else. It simply is. It has no qualities; it is beyond time.
In Daoist literature, Dao is not personified as he or she, or as god or goddess, or as any being with a gender. But Dao as the source of all is sometimes compared to a loving mother – always giving, the infinite source from which all creation emerges. Dao is inexhaustible, allowing everything to exist without judgment, limitation, or boundaries.
The mother, the feminine yin, metaphorically is the creative womb from which the masculine yang, the father, originates. In Chapter Six of the Daodéjing, the feminine principle or fertile mother is expressed as the “valley spirit” and the “dark mare.”
The valley spirit is deathless;
it is called the dark mare.
The door of the dark mare
is called the root of heaven and earth;
Continuous, it seems to exist,
yet in use it is inexhaustible.8
Here the Dao acquires two new names – valley spirit and dark mare – symbols of fertility and feminine power. Translator Ellen Chen says that the valley is the place where the spirit is nourished and never dies, constantly renewing itself; it is the primal source of fertility, giving birth to and nourishing all beings. The dark mare is a symbol of the invisible mystical womb from which all beings are born.9
Valley spirit or dark mare, which is the inexhaustible creative function that produces without end, is the root of heaven and earth, of being that verges on non-being, thus only seeming to exist.10
Being, the creative function, is everlasting, while the physical will perish. Because the Dao – the eternal primal vibration – is constantly renewing itself and is thus inexhaustible, it can’t exist physically. It verges on non-being, thus we have only a hint of it, an impression. It only seems to exist.
Zhuangzi
Another source of insight into how the ancients taught the Dao is found in the Zhuangzi – a collection of parables, tales, jokes, and riddles. Many of these selections can give us intuitive flashes of understanding – what some have called the “Aha” moment of recognition. We recognize what we seem to already know, without knowing exactly how we know it.
This first passage demonstrates that Dao is found everywhere, even in the least likely or most distasteful part of the creation. You can’t really measure Dao – it is in the least of things and in the largest – in the part and the totality. The reality of Dao is one. It can’t be divided, diminished, or augmented.
Master Dongguo asked Zhuang:
“Show me where the Dao is found.”
Zhuangzi replied:
“There is nowhere it is not to be found.”
The former insisted:
“Show me at least some definite place
Where Dao is found.”
“It is in the ant,” said Zhuang.
“Is it in some lesser being?”
“It is in the weeds.”
“Can you go further down the scale of things?”
“It is in this piece of tile.”
“Further?”
“It is in this turd.”
At this Dongguo had nothing more to say.
But Zhuang continued: “None of your questions
Are to the point. They are like the questions
Of inspectors in the market,
Testing the weight of pigs
By prodding them in their thinnest parts.Why look for Dao by going ‘down
the scale of being’
As if that which we call ‘least’
Had less of Dao?
Dao is great in all things,
Complete in all, Universal in all,
Whole in all. These three aspects
Are distinct, but the Reality is One.Therefore come with me
To the palace of Nowhere
Where all the many things are One:
There at last we might speak
Of what has no limitation and no end.
Come with me to the land of non-doing (wu-wei):
What shall we there say – that Dao
Is simplicity, stillness,
Indifference, purity,
Harmony and ease?
All these names leave me indifferent
For their distinctions have disappeared.
My will is aimless there.”11
The “palace of Nowhere” is the void, the realm of nothingness. There is only Dao there, beyond the realm of being. Emptiness is where the myriad things that make up the creation merge and become one – all and nothing. Emptiness is the source of being, from which the creation has emerged. There is no limit to emptiness; it is where there is only non-action, non-doing. It is prior to existence, so it precedes even simplicity, stillness, and other subtle qualities associated with existence. There are no distinctions in the “palace of Nowhere”; all is one, or nothing. At that level, there is no purpose, will, or motive to act.
But then the interlocutor asks: How can I experience this? How can I be aware of it, if it is nowhere and nothing?
If it is nowhere, how should I be aware of it?
If it goes and returns, I know not
Where it has been resting. If it wanders
Here then there, I know not where it will end.
The mind remains undetermined in the great Void.
Here the highest knowledge
Is unbounded. That which gives things
Their thusness (ziran) cannot be
delimited by things.So when we speak of “limits,” we remain confined
To limited things.
The limit of the unlimited is called “fullness.”
The limitlessness of the limited
is called “emptiness.”
Dao is the source of both (fullness and emptiness).
But it is itself
Neither fullness nor emptiness.Dao produces both renewal and decay,
But is neither renewal nor decay.
It causes being and non-being
But is neither being nor non-being.
Dao assembles and it destroys,
But it is neither the Totality nor the Void.12
We can’t define the Dao; it is what it is; it can’t be described in terms of anything else. As the Daodéjing says, it is ziran, true to itself. The Dao is unbounded, the great void. The highest spiritual knowledge can be attained when the mind is not limited, as then it can roam freely without boundaries. Dao produces both the opposites of renewal and decay, yang and yin, but it is neither. Dao is the source of both fullness and emptiness, but it is neither. One cannot explain Dao, as it contains all and produces all, yet it is not there; it has no substance.
The Zhuangzi calls Dao “the music of the earth,” which is played through every living thing; its sound comes through the “thousand holes,” just as the music that human beings create is played through flutes and other instruments. But the music of the Great Beginning is the power behind all this – it is the music of the Dao, the primal sound before sound.
The next passage takes the form of a discussion between two mystics, Ziyu and Ziqi. Ziqi introduces the subject:
When great Nature sighs, we hear the winds
Which, noiseless in themselves,
Awaken voices from other beings,
Blowing on them.
From every opening
Loud voices sound. Have you not heard
This rush of tones?There stands the overhanging wood
On the steep mountain:
Old trees with holes and cracks
Like snouts, maws, and ears,
Like beam-sockets, like goblets,
Grooves in the wood, hollows full of water:
You hear mooing and roaring, whistling,
Shouts of command, grumblings,
Deep drones, sad flutes.
One call awakens another in dialogue.
Gentle winds sing timidly;
Strong ones blast on without restraint.
Then the wind dies down. The openings
Empty out their last sound.Have you not observed how all then
trembles and subsides?
Ziyu replied: I understand:
The music of earth sings through a thousand holes.
The music of man is made on flutes
and instruments.
What makes the music of heaven?Master Ziqi said:
Something is blowing on a thousand different holes.
Some power stands behind all this
and makes the sounds die down.
What is this power?13
The passage ends with a pregnant question: What is this power? That is what we cannot know – we can only experience it. It is the Dao.
Following is another beautiful passage from the Zhuangzi: When we are immersed in Dao, we have great spiritual knowledge, but when our mind fragments into duality, in the creation, we see only the many – multiplicity and diversity. At that point we get caught up in mundane activity and lose our peace of mind. Yet, he concludes: there must be a true Master (God) behind it all. It has no form that we can identify, but we can see its actions.
Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy. Great words are clear and limpid; little words are shrill and quarrelsome. In sleep, men’s spirits go visiting; in waking hours, their bodies hustle. With everything they meet they become entangled.
Day after day they use their minds in strife, sometimes grandiose, sometimes sly, sometimes petty. Their little fears are mean and trembly; their great fears are stunned and overwhelming. They bound off like an arrow or a crossbow pellet, certain that they are the arbiters of right and wrong. They cling to their position as though they had sworn before the gods, sure that they are holding on to victory.
They fade like fall and winter – such is the way they dwindle day by day. They drown in what they do – you cannot make them turn back. They grow dark, as though scaled with seals – such are the excesses of their old age. And when their minds draw near to death, nothing can restore them to the light.
Joy, anger, grief, delight, worry, regret, fickleness, inflexibility, modesty, willfulness, candor, insolence – music from empty holes, mushrooms springing up in dampness, day and night replacing each other before us, and no one knows where they sprout from. Let it be! Let it be!
[It is enough that] morning and evening we have them (emotions), and they are the means by which we live. Without them we would not exist; without us they would have nothing to take hold of. This comes close to the matter. But I do not know what makes them the way they are. It would seem as though they have some True Master, and yet I find no trace of him. He can act – that is certain. Yet I cannot see his form. He has identity but no form.14
Huainanzi
The Huainanzi, a text from the second century BCE,* shares an evocative metaphor for the Dao and its all-pervading, nurturing presence. It describes Dao as a never-ending flow of gushing water – a continuous waterfall. Although Dao itself has no qualities, this metaphor evokes the essential quality of Dao as an eternal flow of divine power that absorbs and sustains all.
As for Dao: …
Flowing from its source it becomes
a gushing spring.
What was empty slowly becomes full;
first turbid and then surging forward,
What was murky slowly becomes clear.15
Water is both yin and yang. Water dissolves all opposites, all hard and unyielding qualities. Water is pliant and yielding, yet it is strong in its surging power, its ability to wear away even the hardest stone.
In the world there is nothing more pliant
and weak than water
And yet it is great beyond reckoning
and deep beyond fathoming….16
The downward flow of water as rain also reverses itself. When it evaporates it transforms into the cloudy mist, and then flows down to earth again as rain and dew. It is a never-ending cycle of the downward and outward flow and the upward and inward return.
Going up to the heavens it becomes rain and dew;
going down to the earth it becomes moisture.17
Water is generous. It sustains and revitalizes all – even the smallest creatures. Water gives without favoring anyone or anything, just as the Dao, like a mother, nourishes all and is never exhausted. Dao cannot be limited, injured or diminished in any way, nor can it be divided. It can penetrate all solid objects and is stronger than any substance.
Having given to the world, it is nevertheless
not exhausted in its riches;
Having bestowed on the people,
it finds this to have cost nothing to its bounty.
It is ever flowing, yet we can never see it
reaching its end;
It is tiny, yet we can never hold it in our grasp….
Hack at it and you will not sever it;
Put fire to it and you will not burn it.
Being fluid it flows and follows
its own inclinations;
Mixing and coalescing,
it cannot be divided up.
Its sharpness is such
that it can penetrate metal and stone;
Its strength is such
that it can give succor to the entire world.18
“It can give succor to the entire world” – water mimics the spiritual, nourishing character of the Dao itself; it is boundless and cannot be contained or limited, but gives to all objectively, without favouring anyone – it is like the mother of all. It never coerces but allows all to develop according to their own intrinsic nature.
It moves into the realm of the formless
and soars above the elusive and ethereal;
It meanders through the river valleys
and swells over into the vast wilderness.
In its abundance and insufficiency
it allows the world to take from and give to it,
Dispensing to the myriad things
without favoring anyone.19
The Dao, like water, true to its nature, flows quietly sometimes and at others wildly, violently, with a loud, thunderous noise. It flows to the level of being, the realm of creation, the world of myriad things, where it manifests as dé, the inner nature or potency that characterizes all created beings.
Now the well-known Daoist principle is quoted: the weak will always overcome the strong; the flexible will overcome the rigid. This is because receptivity, which is soft and moist, is alive and stronger than the dry and brittle, which is death-like. When we become dry and brittle, we start to die.
The author concludes this section with an ode to the formless nature of the origin of all – the realm of non-being, of emptiness – here called the great ancestor of things.
Whatever is audible to our physical ears originates in the silent and soundless. In that way, light and water, which have form, both originate in the formless.
The formless is the great ancestor of things, and the soundless is the great ancestor of the audible. Light is the son, and water is the grandson of the formless, and both are born out of it.20
Flowing outward from the origin, the Dao gives birth to the material realm of being. Returning to Dao, the formless, means death, as it is a return to the source. Here the Huainanzi evokes the eternal flow from non-being to being and back to non-being – from the unmanifested Dao to the dé manifested in the creation and its cyclical return.
Chapter Fifteen of the Daodéjing presents this same reversive, cyclical process. The natural and pure, undifferentiated state of Dao is likened to an uncarved block of wood. The impure state of life in the world, where human beings interfere in the natural process of life and become artificial, is compared to the impure and muddy state of water that has been churned up. Yet each state is in the process of constant transformation. The impure gradually settles and becomes clear and pure, and the settled or clear, like water, gets stirred up and becomes impure.
Simple, like a block of uncarved wood (pu);
Open, like an empty valley (gu).
Murky like muddy water,
The muddy, being stilled, slowly becomes clear.
The settled, being stirred, slowly comes to life.21
The Huainanzi emphasizes that this process of transformation is hidden from us but is always going on – it is “godlike” in that the process of change is natural and underlies all, though it is concealed.
Its movements are hidden from sight,
And its changes and transformations are godlike;
It does not leave any traces behind in its progress;
It is ever in the lead
though always coming behind.22
The Dao is the mystical truth of creation and return, and from it comes the dé – the Dao in practical application to living in this world – the abstract Dao manifested in being.
| * | The Huainanzi was compiled under the auspices of, and probably with the active participation of Liu An (179?–122 BCE), the king of Huainan. |