Tentative of a Philosophical Interpretation
of “Tao Te Ching”,
Chap. 1 - 7
By Prof. Dr. Horst Seidl (Pont. Lateran University, Rome)
a) The book Tao Te Ching as it presents
itself is the fruit of a “way of virtue” and invites the readers to follow this
path. It is not a book of theoretical discussion - as, instead, a philosophical
writing would be - but of practical teaching and advice, looking
upon all with a view which the Author possesses already. Obviously, he has
acquired a religious experience of the Divine which has completely changed his
view upon this visible world to a spiritual one. Hence we can distinguish two
perspectives or two states of mind:
- the state of the beginners, of everyday life,
with their senses and desires, where they are before manifold things, calling
them by determined names and struggling for them jealously, everyone with his
own interests;
- the state of the holy man, elevated above the
everyday affaires, living spiritually, free from desires and own interests,
concentrated to the nameless One Divine, seeing all in harmonious unity.
b) How can we refer philosophy to this
religious book? There is one interpretation saying that “the way” of Tao Te
Ching is not religious but philosophical concentrated on social relations,
experienced by Lao Tzu. In my understanding it is religious and only implicitly
philosophical-metaphysical because it goes beyond this visible world, but as
such experienced religiously, not reflected philosophically. Western
metaphysics - from where the term originates - already in Plato and Aristotle has arrived by
argumentation and demonstration to a first transcendent cause of all things of
the world and has identified it with “the God” worshiped in religion.
This
identification is no longer a part of metaphysics, but an addition made by the
religious interest of the philosophers to see their metaphysics in relation
with their religious faith. Indeed it is the same transcendent reality with
which the religious man has an immediate experience, and to which metaphysics,
starting from the things of this world, arrives in ultimate argumentations, by
demonstrations. However, a philosophy of religion can justify this identification.
c) The teaching of “the way” in Tao
Te Ching which leads to the holy state of mind is not philosophy but
religious-moral wisdom, in order that we become united with the Divine. What
is, then, religion? According to Western tradition, “religion” (which
etymologically derives from Latin re-ligio and means “being tied"
or "bound back to…”) is properly the disposition of the human soul being
related or bound back to the Divine, to God Creator, its Father, and
worshipping him.
Philosophy, instead, is the
cognitive-intellectual disposition, contemplating all things under common
aspects (in metaphysics under the aspect of their being) and researching the
common causes, in order to explain questionable phenomena of things through
their causes. This is the beginning of dialogue, argumentation and science.
Among the different philosophical
disciplines there is also that of a philosophy of religion (cfr. for instance
Plato’s Euthyphron and Aristotle’s On prayer). This discipline
consists of a historical and a systematic part. It defines what religion is,
drawing from the existing confessional world religions the common features of
their natural religious basis, comparing the existing world religions with each
other etc., elaborating criteria for what is authentic religious and what is
not but fantastic or magic, what is worship and what idolatry etc.
d) There are philosophical studies on
Taoist like those on Buddhist and Christian religion. In the case of the book Tao
Te Ching, a philosophical analysis (in Western sense) could clarify the
religious-moral meaning of “the way” and of earth and heaven, the starting
point and the final end of it; the structure of each chapter; the progress of
virtue and wisdom from chapter to chapter; the Author’s intention.
With the distinction of the two states
of mind or soul, indicated above - that of the beginner and that of
the Master who is speaking in the book - the interpretation should dispose
of the state of the Master, namely of his religious-moral wisdom.
We
have a parallel in the Christian Gospel which is religious wisdom. Jesus says
that only he who follows his teaching will comprehend it and recognize its
truth.
e) For the philosopher, studying a
certain religion, it is not necessary to be a believer of its doctrine, but he
should have religious piety in general in order to comprehend the religious
disposition as such, with its humble spirit vis-à-vis a Divine authority. As a
non-Taoist I cannot permit myself a judgment about the Tao Te Ching but,
in parallel with the Christian Gospel, I can have a help how to approach this
book, namely by an advanced religious-moral experience. Further I hope to
receive teaching from Taoist Masters who practices the religious-moral way.
An elevated end of the way of religious
experience is the illumination or ecstasy which is found in many Masters of
Buddhism, Pre-Christian (Plotinus) and Christian religion (Augustin, Master
Eckhart, Theresa of Avila and others). This illumination or ecstasy is no fancy
but reality, a common human experience of religious authenticity in which the
seer touches somewhat of the Divine lightful presence.
Passing now to the book Tao Te Ching
I limit my interpretation to the first seven chapters, using partly the
translation of Arthur Walley.[1]
Tao Te Ching
道可道，非常道；名可名， 非常名。
无名， 天地之始；有名，万物之母。
故常无欲，以观其妙；常有名， 以观其徼。
此两者， 同出而异名， 同谓之玄。
玄之又玄，众秒之门。
1 The way
which can be named (usually) the way, is the unusual way;
2 the name which can be named (usually) is the
unusual name.
3 Without name, heaven and earth have a
beginning;
4 with names, the mother of the manifold
things.
5 Hence, naturally, without desire there is a
glance to the wonderful (of all);
6 naturally, with desire there is a glance to
its limits.
7 These two here have the same origin but
different names,
8 the same saying covers dark mystery.
9 Again and again mysterious. The doorway of all
wonderful.
The
Author presents himself on a higher state of mind, above the lower one of
everyday life. He speaks from out a spiritual religious experience, different
from the everyday sensual experience:
Lines
1-2: We have here
two antithetic phrases, contrasting the ordinary meaning of ways and names with
an extraordinary, higher, spiritual meaning: The Author invites the reader to
pass from the usual meaning toward the unusual spiritual one so that the former
becomes the latter: the usual way the unusual way, the usual names the unusual
name. In my understanding fei 非 is not like bu 不 the
negation of the verb: "is not usual" (this translation takes away the
antithetic form of the phrase), but is the negation of the adjective chang
常:
"is the unusual".
Lines
3-4: Heaven and
earth have begun in the nameless sphere; the manifold things have their mother
(are generated) in the sphere determined by names. In my interpretation the two
spheres are referred to our mind which uses names or not. To these spheres,
now, two aspects of the world correspond, viewed by our mind in two different
ways, firstly with the senses, determined by names, in multiplicity, and then
with the spirit, without determined names, in unity.
Lines
5-6: These lines,
parallel to the foregoing ones, indicate again the two states of mind: this one
with desire and that one without desire, which convey two different views of
all things: the first one sees the wonderful “of it” (of all things, of the
world), the other one sees its limits (in many things).
Lines
7-9: The words
“These two” refer to the two aspects of all things (the world): with a
non-desiring view and with a desiring one. Although indicated by different
names (what is perceived by the senses, in multiplicity, and what is grasped by
spirit, in unity), they have mysteriously, religiously speaking, the same name,
because of the one origin.
天下皆知美之为美，斯恶己；皆知善之为善，斯不善己。
故有无相生，难易相成，长短相形，高下相倾，音声相和，前后相随。
是以圣人处无为之事，行不言之教，万物作焉而不辞，生而不有，
为而不恃，功成而弗居，夫唯弗居，是以不去。
1 All men under the heaven know beauty as beauty, (but) they know by this (also) the ugly itself;
2 all men know good behaviour as good, (but) they know by this (also) the non good behaviour.
3 Hence, having and not having (knowledge) is
born from each other;
4 difficulty and ease come from each
other,
5 long and short form from each other,
6 high and low turn to each other,
7 high and low tunes harmonize with each other,
8 front
and back follow each other.
9
Therefore it is the task of the holy man to dwell in non-activity,
10 by continuous non-speaking he is teaching,
11 manifold things are done by him but without
falling in disorder,
12 he brings them in life but does not possess
them,
13 working (on them) but not relying upon them,
14 he has successful achievements but does not
dwell in them.
15 Husband alone, without living together,
16 he is there without going.
The Chapter is, like the subsequent
also, structured symmetrically in two parts: the first (lines 1-8) contains a
general observation of which the second (lines 9-16) draws a consequence,
indicating the intention of the Author.
Lines 1-8: The
general observation is that every special knowledge of determined things leads
also to their opposites. All oppositions indicate a harmonious unity which, however,
only wisdom sees, going beyond every knowledge.
Lines
9-16: Consequently the intention of the Author is to comport himself in
front of the manifold things of the world in this way:
a) He
abandons teaching determined knowledge in many words and teaches, instead,
wisdom with few words (the one word “the way”) leading to the unity of all.
b)
Working on many things he does not bring himself - nor them - in
disorder, thanks to his wisdom which sees them in their unity and order.
c) He
brings forth things without the claim to possess them. Although engaged with
things he remains independent from them. Even in things in which he is
successful he does not abandon himself to them (does not dwell in them).
The last
verse is like summarising his whole comportment, pointing out its static
aspect: he is - in the very sense of being - without
going (i.e. moving himself).
不尚贤，使民不争；不贵难得之货，使民不为盗；
不见可欲，使民心不乱。
是以圣人之治，虚其心，实其腹；
弱其志，强其骨。
常使民无知无欲，使夫知者不敢为也。为无为，则无不治。
1 Not esteeming the potent men, this induces people
not to contend;
2 not making
expensive goods, difficult to obtain, induces people not to steal;
3 not
showing what one can desire induces people to bring their heart not
in disorder.
4 Therefore the holy man rules, emptying people’s heart, satisfying
their stomach,
reducing their aspirations,
strengthening their bones.
5 Naturally he induces people not to
know and to desire (the many things),
he induces also the knowing man not to
dare interfere.
6 If not by his actionless activity, he rules
not.
As the foregoing Chapters also Chap. 3
is structured symmetrically in two parts of which the second, as consequence of
the first, begins again with the words “Therefore the holy man…”
Lines
1-3 makes attention
to those conditions in the society which favour just behaviour of the people.
Lines
4-6 give
instructions for the wise, holy man who will preserve people from evil doing.
The Way is obviously the life-way of virtue (cfr. the title of the book).
道冲而用之，或不盈。
渊兮，以万物之宗。
（挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。）
湛兮，似或存。
吾不知谁之子，象蒂之先。
1 The way is (like) flushing water and use of
it, yet not having been filled.
2 A deep
pool like an ancestor of innumerable things.
3 What is
sharp becomes blunted, what is confused becomes resolved,
4 what is
glare becomes tempered, what is dust becomes likewise (tempered).
5
Profoundness, yet like existence.
6 We do not know whose child (the way) is, it
is before the image of the God.
The way, if identical with the life-way of virtue, can be understood quite
well by the features attributed to it here: by the image of spring water, like
a fountain (not as an “empty vessel”，as Walley
translates), being the middle way between the extreme states of things and of
the soul.
However, it is not the first
Divine cause of all which exists, because this virtue-way itself exists. It is
not the God, but its divine image.
天地不仁，以万物为刍狗；圣人不仁，以百姓为刍狗。
天地之间，其犹橐龠乎！虚而不屈。
多言数穷，不如守中。
1 Heaven and earth are rootless, therefore the innumerable things come out as
straw dogs; the holy man is rootless, therefore hundred family names come out
as straw dogs.
2 What is between heaven and earth: look its
content just as in a bellows!
It is
empty but does not fail to support. It works but comes out recovered.
3 Many
words, countless, are spent finally, if there is no observance of the centre.
Line 1: That heaven and earth are “rootless” means:
they are not generated from a “kernel” or seed as are, on the contrary, the
manifold things, like for instance grass which grows from a seed, but, then,
becomes fade and dry so that one can make straw dogs out of it. Similarly
people who are generated - by generations of families - become,
then, fade like grass. Yet he who is a holy man is in a higher state of a
spiritual existence, ingenerated, like heaven and earth.
Line 2: The manifold things, when seen in their
totality enclosed between heaven and earth, are compared with manifold musical
melodies coming out from a pair of bellows which are themselves empty but
supporting what is coming out.
Line 3: As from heaven and earth the manifold
things come forth, so the many words, made by people, come forth from the
centre, the heart or the spirit, when it is observed in the way of virtue. The
doctrine of this Chapter joins completely that of the foregoing ones and shows
the same intention.
谷神不死，是谓玄牝。
玄牝之门，是谓天地根。
绵绵者存，用之不勤。
1 The
spirit of the valley does not die, this will say a female mystery.
2 The doorway of the mysterious female: will
say the root of heaven and earth.
3 Continuously it exists, using it is no hard
work.
Line 1-2: In this Chapter spirit is introduced as
attributed to the “valley”. It is ingenerated and incorruptible. Since the
profound mysterious origin of heaven and earth is obviously considered as male
and female, because generating all things, the valley indicates the “female
mystery”, the mother of all things, to which spirit is coordinated.
Line 3: That the spirit exists means that it is not
the first origin or cause of all, but nevertheless “continuously” timeless
being. That its use is no hard work reminds us perhaps to that “actionless
activity”, of which Chap. 3 speaks with regard to the holy man. Action, work in
time, differs from timeless being.
Certainly
we would be inclined to see in texts like these a philosophical reflection on
being. However, it does not offer a systematic argumentation, nor does it show
a theoretical interest but a practical, morally religious one.
天长地久。
天地所以能长且久者，以其不自生，故能长生，
是以圣人后其身而身先，外其身而身存，
非以其无私邪？故能成其私。
1 The heaven is wide, the earth is long.
2
Heaven and earth can be wide and even long because they came not
themselves to life, therefore they
can have long life.
3 This is the reason why the holy man puts
himself in the background,
but is to the fore; he remains outside, but
is there.
4
Is it not by this reason that he is not in troubles? Therefore he can
have
personal success.
Line 1-2: I would not like to translate (with Walley)
“wide” and “long”, regarding heaven and earth, as “eternal”, but rather as
unlimited wide and endless long; indeed they are ingenerated.
Line 3-4: These lines characterize the
paradox in the religious-moral behaviour of the holy man. He arrives to the
perfect state: having the first rank, being inside the affaires, at the
decisive place, coming to the very end of all practice, in happiness, properly
because not striving after it. It must be given as a consequence of the
virtue-way, and cannot be acquired by personal intentions.
When we pass now to the evaluation of
the texts, analyzed above, from the Western standpoint, we must state that they
do not offer philosophy which is dialogical argumentation, putting questions
and resolving them systematically, by solidified principles. Rather they offer
wise religious-moral sentences or aphorisms as we find them in popular moral
wisdom, but also in religious literature, for instance in the Holy Bible (Proverbs,
Jesus Sirach and others). In the following I try to evaluate the present
texts under philosophical and theological aspects.
Since philosophical ethics relies on
“natural” insights which people gain already in everyday life, it is reasonable
to compare some of Lao Tsu’s insights with those which return, for instance, in
Aristotle’s Nicom. Ethics as object of this discipline.
In Chap. 1 we find
implicitly philosophical insights which Western traditional philosophy has made
explicit by systematic reflections: One concerns the important distinction between
the external appearance of manifold things, on the one side, and their
essential features, on the other, which only spirit can grasp. All the more,
when the Author is hinting to a Divine origin of all things.
Certainly, as a religious
man the Author hints to this origin only as a nameless mystery of which he
speaks rather in images, not in determined concepts. On the contrary, Western
metaphysics and theology will clarify this origin by precise concepts,
definitions and arguments.
Another important point is
the distinction between the two states of spirit with desire and without
desire, which Chap. 1 sets out without argumentation, whereas the same
distinction is found again in Plato’s and Aristotle’s Ethics and Psychology and
their Western traditions, but with systematic arguments and explanations.
Indeed, “desire” here means a faculty influenced by the senses, by passions.
Differently from “desire”, spirit - in its state “without desire” - has its
will, directed to the Divine One.
In Chap. 2 the last
verse is like a summary of the holy man’s entire comportment, pointing out its
static aspect: He is or exists without going, without moving himself in
external actions. The ontological aspect, implicit in this text, will be set
out explicitly in Western ontology or metaphysics which gives priority to being
in contrast to every movement, action and becoming.
In Chap. 3 the
expression of “actionless activity” is a beautiful religious intuition,
containing implicitly also a philosophical aspect which we find explicitly in
Aristotle’s Nicom. Ethics where he distinguishes between action (praxis)
and being or life, like between movement and actual being, activity (energeia,
which is, together with dynamis, a metaphysical term). Indeed, life is not
the sum of actions but actual being (a complete unity in itself, at any
moment), whereas action is like movement a process with beginning, intermediate
phases and end. Life is the mode of being of living beings (Thomas Aquinas: vivere
est esse viventibus). Action presupposes already being (Thomas: agere
sequitur esse).
In Chap. 4 the
representation of the virtue-way as the middle between extreme states of the
soul, is found again in Aristotle’s Nicom. Ethics. In itself the
image of the middle way expresses a human popular wisdom in East and West. Also
Aristotle joins it, but works it out, then, in philosophical ethical
reflection, arriving to a definition of what virtue is.
Chap. 6 regards
again man’s being, different from his actions; see above my comment on Chap.
3.
Chap. 7 leads to the
insight that the final end of life, in perfection and happiness, cannot be any
longer an object of determinate actions with their particular aims. Rather,
when our individual actions are done well they will have an effect back to our
soul. Aristotle says: by doing just actions we become just, we gain the virtue
of justice. And when gaining all virtues we become happy. On the contrary,
striving after happiness, we never become happy.
Further on, virtuous actions of men with
the subsequent virtues aim not only to their own benefit but also to that of
the others, to a common good, in individual and in public life.
As we have stated above, the book Tao
Te Ching offers to the reader a collection of wise aphorisms, a form of
doctrine of the religious holy man, as we find them expressed also in the Bible (Jesus Sirach,
Proverbia, Liber sapientiae). The image of the “way” is a common religious
one, also in the Bible. The Apostles of Christ called the doctrine of their
Master equally “The way”. See Acta Apost. Chap. 2, 28:
“Ways of life”, referring to Psalm 16; Chap. 18, 25-26: the
Gospel as “the Way of the Lord”. Obviously in consequence of the Lord’s word
who declared himself as “the way, the truth and the life”. Hence also his
doctrine is “the way”.
The aphoristic literature likes to speak
often in antithetic sentences, using the same word in double sense, a literal
and a spiritual one, what constrains the hearer to change his sensual
mentality. It does not clarify the words by philosophic-al reflection upon
them, but remains in obscure utterances, stressing rather on the nameless mystery.
Take for instance Jesus Christ’s sentence: “He who wishes to conserve his life
will lose it”, where life in the first meaning is the sensual life, in the
second the spiritual life, nourished by God’s grace.
Jesus likes to speak in parables,
challenging the hearers: He who is not ready to change his worldly intentions
toward spiritual heavenly ones, “will hear and yet not hear”.
Regarding the image in Chap. 4,
also in the Psalms of the Bible the human generations, which follow each
other, are compared with the grass, which grows in the morning and fades in the
evening. In contrast with the human generations which succeed through the
course of times, God is eternal, the Lord of time and history.
In general, the Author of Tao Te
Ching reveals the religious experience of ecstasy, which is testified by
religious men also in Western world. In Plotinus we find, by exception, not
only a fervent mystical man (according to Porphyrius he underwent several times
in his life the ecstasy), but also a keen thinker who analyzes philosophically
the phenomenon of ecstasy. He avoids the false interpretation of others
according to whom the soul becomes identical with God substantially (immerged
in the divine life). On the contrary, for Plotinus the soul is unified with
God, remaining substantially different from God, like in the union between the
lover and the beloved who remain substantially two. The misinterpretation is
caused by the fact that the soul in the mystical vision of the Divine does no
longer distinguish between itself and the Divine, being abandoned totally to
the vision. All distinctions vanish in that moment.[2]
In a certain sense, in ever practicing
religious man there is some ecstatic feature in his prayer, when abandoned to
God, he enters in a self-forgotten moment, losing all distinctions, enjoying
all in harmonious unity, in the presence of God. Indeed, “ecstasy” means “going
out” of the ordinary state of consciousness and entering in an extraordinary
higher state of it.
The statement in Chap. 7 that
heaven and earth are wide and long, will say without generation and corruption,
must not mean, in my view, that they are eternal. Indeed, we find a deep
reflection already in Aristotle, with regard to the essence of things and to
the whole world, that it must be ingenerated. Nevertheless the question remains
open whether it is eternal or not. The essence of generated things cannot have
been generated again. Aristotle states (Metaphysics, VII 8, VIII 3) that
it must be when it is, and not be when it is not, “without generation and
corruption”, that is: it does not come to be from previous matter (like
generated things), nor from a form, immanent in other things. The same holds
with regard to the whole world outside of which there is no matter again, nor a
form, immanent in other things.
St. Augustin has introduced the term creatio,
in contrast to generatio, in order to indicate the other mode of coming
to be, from no previous matter, ex nihilo. Thomas Aquinas has taken up
the term creatio and has worked out the doctrine of creation of the
world. Hence, the world had to be created by a first transcendent cause, which - under religious aspect - is identical with God. The religious man is,
from the beginning, in contact with God and is interested in coming in
communion with him. Being conscious that God is the Creator of all things and
the Father of man’s soul, he is not interested in a rational explanation of the
act of the creation as such, nor in the mode how the world, with heaven and
earth and all things, has come into being. Rather such questions lead to
metaphysics and theology.
[1] I use it in the Wordsworth Edition (World
Classics): Tao Te Ching 道德经 Lao Tsu 老子, Cumberland 1997.
[2] See my article: L’union mystique dans l’explication philosophique de
Plotin, in: Revue Thomiste (1985) 93 (vol.85),
253-264.