A Daoist way of being: clarity and stillness as embodied practice*

Daoism, especially classical Daoism, is often constructed as a ‘philosophy,’ ‘set of ideas,’ or ‘system of thought.’ This is particularly the case in studies of Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy. The present article draws attention to the central importance of clarity and stillness (qingjing 清靜) as a Daoist form of meditative practice, contemplative experience, and way of being. Examining historical precedents in classical Daoism, the article gives particular attention to the Tang dynasty (618–907) ‘Clarity-and-Stillness Literature,’ specifically the eighth-century Qingjing jing 清靜經 (Scripture on Clarity and Stillness; DZ 620). In the process, one finds that qingjing is one of the major connective strands throughout the Daoist tradition, a connective strand that reveals the central importance of embodied, experiential, and applied dimensions of human being from a Daoist perspective.     

Cosmic Justice and Sanctioned Violence: The Huangdi Yinfujing and the Legitimacy of War in Religious Daoism

《黄帝阴符经》或《阴符经》是道教传统中一部极为主要的文本。虽然文本作者不详,而且篇幅短小、语义晦涩,但自唐代以来一直被当作奇书,引发多种注释与解读:内丹修炼抑或兵家谋略。本文以(唐)李荃注释本为主,阐述《阴符经》有关阴阳、生杀、机时、五贼、三盗等所涵盖的道家/道教的本体-宇宙观,并以此论述就有关暴力与战争议题所展示的道教伦理观。笔者认为,《阴符经》在重玄思辨中,强调道教"治身治国"的理念,其暗含的"义战"思想亦带有一定的黄老印记。     

道教生命学浅议——从陈撄宁的仙学谈起

From the modern point of view, the Daoist regimen culture in China is actually a kind of oriental bionomy. Although it is less developed than the Western life sciences in terms of details and techniques, it has unique advantages in terms of its comprehensive grasp and dynamic observation of life, as well as its emphasis on the development of life potentiality and on the self adjustment and improvement of living bodies. Chen Yingning reestablished a Daoist bionomy through Xianxue 仙学 (Philosophy of Immortals) which involves religious faith, philosophy and sciences, leaving us a valuable legacy. To establish a new bionomy system required by the modern society through learning from the Daoist bionomy, the academic circle has to seriously explore the four issues: (1) at the level of faith, to turn the Daoist faith in deities and gods into a pursuit of ideal personality; (2) with respect to the principles of regimen, to extend the dual cultivation into a kind of universal concept; (3) as with the way of regimen, to learn from the regimen thought of Daoism and combine the inner cultivation with the outer one, and static exercise with dynamic exercise; and (4) with regard to the ways of treatment of diseases, to combine the Daoist medicine with the Western medicine. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Wenshizhe 文史哲 (Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy), 2005, (2): 40–44     

What is it Like to be a Butterfly? A Philosophical Interpretation of Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream

This paper attempts to recast Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream within the larger normative context of the ‘Inner Chapters’ and early Daoism in terms of its moral significance, particularly in the way that it prescribes how a Daoist should live through the ‘significant symbol’ of the butterfly. This normative reading of the passage will be contrasted with two recent interpretations of the passage—one by Robert Allinson and the other by Harold Roth—that tend to focus more on the epistemological and mystical concerns of the text. As will be argued, the undue emphasis on the epistemological and mystical significance of the passage not only comes to grief when considered in light of philosophical and textual concerns but also obscures the moral dimensions of the passage that are more congruent with the ‘Inner Chapters’ as a whole.     

Religious Characteristics,Spirituality, and Depressive Symptoms Among 10th- to 12th-Graders Living in a Buddhist or Daoist Culture: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

This study examines changes in and the relationship among religiosity, spiritual well-being, and depressive symptoms in primarily Buddhist or Daoist Taiwanese adolescents. A total of 2,239 16- to 18-year-old adolescents from 4 high schools were randomly selected and completed a questionnaire at baseline and at 6-month follow-up. Half of the Taiwanese adolescents reported being religious (50%), with Buddhism or Daoism predominating in terms of religious affiliation. Around 80% of adolescents believed in a God, but less than 40% believed that religion is important. Mixed models found no significant relationships between religiosity and spirituality or between religiosity and depressive symptoms. Self-efficacy and life scheme are valid domains for the spirituality construct, and a reciprocal relationship was found between spiritual well-being and depressive symptoms. This reciprocal relationship in adolescents is discussed in terms of a Buddhist or Daoist cultural context.     

论归隐思想与《周易》中归隐思想的学派归属

隐遁或归隐思想是中国文化中的奇葩。通常都是把隐遁与老庄联系在一起,其实,隐遁行为产生于儒、道思想形成之前,无所谓属于道家或者儒家。传说的最早的隐遁者是许由、务光、巢父,乃是庄子的创造;有明文记载的最早的隐遁者是稍晚的有殷周之际的箕子、微子、伯夷、叔齐等人。对于他们的归隐思想,儒家和道家各自作了不同的解释。儒家的归隐思想有三个要素:守志、待时、致命,其必要条件是与政治的联系。守道而不惜其身是儒家的重要特征;道家的归隐思想则是守身,坚守心灵的自由。道家主要是以庄子论,老子与庄子又有不同。《周易》经传中的归隐思想是儒家性质的。     

论《周易参同契》的“变形而仙”说

魏伯阳所撰《周易参同契》是运用《周易》原理来支撑金丹之道的滥觞。它以《周易》的变易原理作为道教神仙存在学说的理论基础,通过论说"物性可变",进而说明人也可变。人通过服炼金丹能够变化自己的身体而为神仙之体,即"変形而仙",从而可以超越生死。"变形而仙"思想并非《参同契》独创,而是有所本的。这一思想对后世道教产生了巨大而深远的影响,如葛洪、陶弘景、沈汾等人皆明显继承了《参同契》的"变形而仙"说。     

Of Alchemy and Authenticity: Teaching About Daoism Today

Abstract. The authors discuss the complexities and responsibilities of teaching about Daoism in contemporary North American colleges and universities. Expanding and revising the findings of Kirkland (1998) , they argue that enough has changed in educational and cultural contexts to warrant new strategies for teaching about Daoism. Textbooks are now available that offer more accurate and responsible presentations of Daoist history, and this enables a richer appreciation of Daoist culture and religion, and its significance within broader areas of Chinese culture such as art, politics, and science. On the other hand, students have a far greater possibility of interacting outside the classroom with North Americans of Chinese and European background who claim affiliation to the Daoist tradition especially through techniques of moving meditation such as Qigong and internal alchemy. This situation poses challenges in the classroom concerning claims of authenticity, tradition, and representation. Rather than shying away from these contemporary North American cultural forms, the authors argue that the skilled teacher can use these interactions to facilitate a deeper inquiry into questions of authenticity and tradition. Moreover, the authors discuss the use of an interactive website designed specifically to assist in reflecting on these issues in the classroom.     

道家道德的普世情怀

Daoism has often been misunderstood as moral nihilism or anti-moralism, but the true Daoism indeed adopts a positive attitude towards morality. At the foundation of its universal sentiment is an affirmation of morality. Daoism takes all things as the starting point of its values in moral philosophy, and ziran 自然 (sponstaneously so) as the foundation of its philosophy with the universal commitment. Daoism hopes to use “Dao to create the best environment for survival, and to fulfill individual responsibility for all things in the world. This is a universal and open attitude towards values. The attraction of Daoist universal sentiment is that it takes ziran as its path, and “objectless desire, “unprincipled knowing, “non-coercive action as ways and means to ensure the transfer of the universal value to all things, while ensuring that they realize their true values and make contributions to the whole society.     

Approaching Laozi.Comparing a Syncretic Reading to a Synthetic One

Is Laozi a syncretic text whose primary body of ideas were cobbled together from multiple and various sources,none of which can reasonably be identified as Daoist,or is it a synthetic text whose ideas emerged from a single source that for all intents embodies the core elements of a tradition that meets the standards of inclusion for a tradition of early Daoism? The present work examines the key points of Hongkyung Kim's sophisticated account of Laozi's origins as a syncretic text.It then goes on to present the key points of what would have to be involved in its original circulations as a synthetic text.It concludes by suggesting a middle ground that is able to explain why an originally synthetic Laozi is all too easily read by modern scholars as a syncretic text.     

The Fractal Self and the Organization of Nature: The Daoist Sage and Chaos Theory

The interconnections between self and surroundings in Daoist thought have been explored in the past in a variety of contexts. This paper, however, explores the Daoist version of the relational self from the general perspective of chaos theory and, more specifically, examines the role of the self in creating emergent form and dynamism in nature and society. The fractal self and world merge through the disciplined effort of the sage until the effort becomes effortless. Both self and world are transformed and become one through the emergent moment. This moment represents a new opportunity for subsequent patterns, or attractors, to emerge. We suggest that the self folds itself into the world, creating and being created by a new attractor, or pattern, in the organization of nature, which we argue is Dao . Our current investigation addresses the following aspects of chaos theory and its relation to Daoism: (1) the Daoist notion of wuwei as perfect congruence; (2) yin and yang at the edge of chaos; (3) the emergent nature of the myriad things; and (4) a Daoist warning against fractal disconnections in the world. Finally, we conclude that the self has the potential to become the world. To approach this amplified condition, the self must dedicate itself to and risk open engagement with events across the complexity of nature. Through openly engaging the world, the self is transformed, leaving the world forever changed.     

Daoism and Chinese Martial Arts

The now-global phenomenon of Asian martial arts traces back to something that began in China. The idea the Chinese communicated was the dual cultivation of the spiritual and the martial, each perfected in the other, with the proof of perfection being an effortless mastery of violence. I look at one phase of the interaction between Asian martial arts and Chinese thought, with a reading of the Zhuangzi 莊子 and the Daodejing 道德經 from a martial arts perspective. I do not claim that the authors knew about martial arts. It was not Daoist masters who took up martial arts, but martial arts masters who, at a specific time, turned to Daoism to explain the significance of their art. Today, though, Daoist concepts are ubiquitous in martial arts literature, and a reading of these classics from a martial arts perspective shows how they lend themselves to philosophical thinking about this practice.     

Justice as the Practice of Non-Coercive Action: A Study of John Dewey and Classical Daoism

In this essay, I will argue for an understanding of justice that is grounded in our imperfect world by drawing upon the works of John Dewey and the Classical Daoist philosophers. It will require a reconstructed understanding of persons as a field/continuum of interrelations and an updated understanding of human action and agency. This understanding of justice takes the form of non-coercive action, interaction that respects the particularity of each lived situation. The practice culminates in an ability to respond to the environment considered to be ziran (自然) or ‘self-so’ by the Daoist Philosophers. As described in the Dao De Jing, it is the cultivation of the ‘Three Jewels of the Dao’, the most central of them being compassion making, this practice of justice as non-coercive action also understandable as the practice of compassion as described by the Classical Daoist philosophers.     

The Networking of Differences That Makes a Difference: Theology and the Unity of the Church

Abstract : What does the church mean when it confesses through the Creeds its oneness? My aim is to reflect on how and why theology needs to bring to the fore a hidden dimension in the discourse on the unity of the church, that is, its tendency to fall into a “solid” and “totalizing” disciplinary technology, i.e., an ideology. I will approach the theme following these basic theological pointers: (a) a biblical primary symbol as it emerges to unveil a new existence and practice—Paul's metaphor of the body in 1 Corinthians 12; (b) a secondary symbol through which the church understood itself to be lodged—the trinitarian understanding of being as a communicative relationship; (c) the regulative principle of law and promise as guiding a discursive practice that supports different levels of decentering and centering that signals a breakthrough of the eschaton—Luther's understanding of law and gospel. These overlapping theological dimensions allow a different metaphorization of the oneness and unity of the church.     

The veil and its materiality: Muslim women’s digital narratives about the burkini ban

ABSTRACT

In the summer of 2016, around 30 French cities banned the burkini—swimwear used by Muslim women that covers the entire body and head—from public beaches. French authorities supported the ban by claiming that the burkini was unhygienic, a uniform of Islamic extremism, and a symbol of women’s oppression. Muslim head-coverings, including the burkini, are religious objects whose materiality points to complex semantic meanings often mediated in Internet discourses. Through a qualitative analysis of visual and textual narratives against the burkini ban circulated by Muslim women, this article looks at the way digital media practices help counteract stereotypes and gain control of visual representations. Muslim women focus on two main topics: 1) they challenge the idea of Muslims being ‘aggressors’ by describing the burkini as a comfortable swimsuit not connected with terrorism; 2) they refuse to be considered ‘victims’ by showing that the burkini holds different meanings that do not necessarily entail women’s submission. Muslim women’s digital narratives positively associate the materiality of the burkini with safety and freedom and focus on secular values rather than religious meanings.     

Nature, Interthing Intersubjectivity, and the Environment: A Comparative Analysis of Kant and Daoism

The Kantian philosophy, for many, largely represents the Modern West’s anthropocentric dominance of nature in its instrumental-rationalist orientation. Recently, some scholars have argued that Kant’s aesthetics offers significant resources for environmental ethics, while others believe that Kant’s flawed dualistic views in the second Critique severely undermine any environmental promise that aesthetic judgments may hold in Kant’s third Critique. This article first examines the meanings of nature in Kant’s three Critiques. It concludes that Kant’s aesthetic view toward sensible nature is indeed inconsistent. The article, however, also suggests that the “I” as “transcendental apperception” discussed in the paralogisms of the first Critique holds some promise of “interthing intersubjective” thinking. The second half of the article demonstrates that Daoism with a dialectic concern similar to Kant’s has something insightful to offer in its idea of interthingness based on a phenomenal account of nature. The article investigates important Daoist ideas of interthing analogical experience, qi, spiritual exercise, and wuwei in its dialect relation to zizan. By bringing Daoism and Kant into dialogue, the author hopes to bring forth a synthetic approach that is better suited to today’s environmental concerns.     

《易传》与道家哲学的可通约性

<易传>和道家是先秦哲学中最具形上学思维能力的哲学流派.尽管<易传>的"尚刚"和道家的"贵柔"代表了中国传统哲学的两大方向,体现了儒道二家各自的价值取向和人生态度,然而,当<易传>和道家哲学在寻求终极性的形上学根源时,却不约而同地运用了类似的思想方法,即在形而上的"道"论中走到了一起.本文从传统形上学的本原论、本体论和体用论等方面,试图阐释这两家哲学的可通约性.<易传>和道家的形上学之所以能够相互贯通,是因为<易传>和道家的哲学处在同一个层次上以阐释其价值观念和政治理想,也就是说,"性与天道"是道家的形上学,也是儒家的形上学,不是那一家的"专利".正因为这样,儒道二家才有可能在魏晋玄学和宋代理学中走向新的沟通和融合.     

American Medicine as Religious Practice: Care of the Sick as a Sacred Obligation and the Unholy Descent into Secularization

Modern medicine serves a religious function for modern Americans as a conduit through which science can be applied directly to the human body. The first half of this paper will focus on the theoretical foundations for viewing medicine as a religious practice arguing that just as a hierarchical structured authoritarian church historically mediated access to God, contemporary Western medicine provides a conduit by which the universalizable truths of science can be applied to the human being thereby functioning as a new established religion. I will then illustrate the many parallels between medicine and religion through an analysis of rituals and symbols surrounding and embedded within the modern practice of medicine. This analysis will pay special attention to the primacy placed on secret interior knowledge of the human body. I will end by responding to the hope for a “secularization of American medicine,” exploring some of the negative consequences of secularization, and arguing that, rather than seeking to secularize, American medicine should strive to use its religious features to offer hope and healing to the sick, in keeping with its historically religious legacy.     

从《周易参同契》看易学在道教中的传播与影响

<周易参同契>作为道教易学的重要代表作,其最重要的特色是会归"大易"、"黄老"和"炉火"三家之理,借<周易>言黄老说炼丹.本文将<周易参同契>置于汉代易学的背景下,从黄老道家哲学与道教仙学的发展中,来探讨<周易参同契>如何托<周易>卦爻象为象征符号来隐喻金丹道之内涵,以展示易学在道教中的传播与影响.