Mark Saltveit

Ken Wilber? Daniel Ingram? Punk Buddhist guy? Alan Watts? At least Watts wrote one book on Daoism (and a ton on Buddhism). I'd say those guys are American Buddhists at best. Americans who've actually written books (and get disparaged) are Benjamin Hoff (Tao of Pooh), Wayne Dyer (though he seems off his Tao kick now and on to the next New Age subject), Ursula Le Guin (translation of DDJ and some science fiction novels and stories influenced by Daoism, such as Lathe of Heaven and The Trouble with Omelas) and Stephen Mitchell (did most popular version of the DDJ). I like Le Guin, Hoff is cute but pretty approximate, don't see much value in Dyer or Mitchell. (What the hell is "The Second Book of the Dao"? He's not even really trying to be accurate at this point, if he ever was.)

I'm American, Taoist, and successful (hey, I'm the world palindrome champion!) Where do I collect my billions? Because in my experience you can't even count on thousands going along with the territory of success.

Deer antlers are also famed for growing rapidly (on the deer), and have been found to be a natural source of IGF-1 (insulin growh factor), an HGH-like hormone that is banned in the NFL under its steroids policy. There was a big controversy before the Super Bowl about a deer antler spray company that said Ray Lewis and other football stars (including most of Alabama's championship football team) were using their product.

Damn right! I am not responding to you so hard right now. Can you feel the burn?

Well, I don't think Marblehead or I quarrel either, by that definition. But we do like to mix it up in the playground of ideas. And that is exactly what I see in Chuang Tzu, especially his jousting with Huizi (e.g. "The Joy of Fishes"), what Chad Hansens describes as "two like-minded but disagreeing intellectual companions engaged in the joys of productive philosophical argument." Of course each of us probably thinks we're Zhuangzi and our colleague is Huizi. :-) Zhuangzi could also be pretty scathing, as in "Owl and Phoenix," where Huizi is presented as the Prime Minister of Liang, fretting that Zhuanzi coveted his position. He tries to have him arrested, and ZZ evades the police but shows up in person, and tells Huizi a parable about an exquisite phoenix who "eats only the most exquisite rare fruit, drinks only from the clearest springs." He tells Hui, "Once an owl chewing a dead rat, already half decayed, saw the phoenix fly over, looked up, and screeched with alarm, clutching the rat to himself in fear and dismay." "Why are you so frantic, clinging to your ministry and screeching at me in dismay?"

Thanks, dawei, and no, you're not jumping into our discussion. If I wanted to send a private message to Stigweard, I simply would have. Your point is very well taken; I'm also very interested in pre-Apostolic (or maybe I should say, pre-Paul, or pre-Roman) Christianity. In Kerala province of India, there is a tradition that the apostle Peter traveled there after Jesus' death, and was buried there. I'm not sure how their Christianity might differ from orthodox Roman Catholicism, but I do know that whenever I see a passage from the New Testament that offends me -- about wives obeying their husbands, for example -- it's inevitably from the pen of Paul, who never saw Jesus. Who appointed him God? I would love to hear more about the Shenzi. I thought it was a lost book, known only from quotes in other sources?

Aren't you quarreling with Marblehead right there? :-)

This snake doesn't need any more friends like that.

I'm all for negativity, in case that's not apparent. :-) When it's appropriate. But I'm also for honesty and sincerity. If Takaaki wants to ridicule American Daoists, s/he should have the integrity to just come out and say it. Creating a "character" that's a straw man idiot American is passive-aggressive and only works if the character is dead-on accurate, which Takaaki's is certainly not. (It comes off more like a fundamentalist Southern prosperity gospel preacher who suddenly decided to switch teams to Daoism.) That's probably just me being a typically yang American male, though.

Certainly Stigweard. I apologize for missing your nuance; it certainly wasn't my intention to twist or distort anything. These are very subtle ideas with a very imprecise terminology describing them, both in English and in Chinese. I think that a lot of the dissension in Daoist circles comes from imprecise terms that obscure the true meaning, which makes sense because I see the first line of the Daodejing as a warning against precisely this phenomenon. In particular, I think a lot of problems come from the many meanings of the word "Daoist" which is why I think Sivin's article that you linked is so important. Another very good one along the same lines is "On the Very Idea of Religions (In the Modern West and in Early Medieval China)" by Robert Campany, where he disects how the metaphors we use to describes relgiions and philosophies (as a living organism, say, or an army conquering new lands) distort the realities they describe. As for the traditions you mention, first I think it is clear that we simply don't know what Daoism looked like in pre-Han times. Perhaps the Celestial Masters were exactly like every Daoist before them; perhaps they radically altered it. Who can tell? It seems likely to me that pre-Han Daoism and esoteric practices were distinct strands of Chinese culture that were braided together into Han daojia, but that's just a guess. I could not agree with your personal statement in your last post more -- a personal distaste for trappings, but a desire to respect everyone from different schools of Daoism and see what they have to offer. In particular, with a tradition/religion/philosophy that starts with a critique of words as a vehicle for transmitting meaning, there's a strong argument that non-verbal transmission is at least as valuable, whether that's learning a form of physical practice, or simply being around and quietly observing someone who understands Dao on a very deep level (say, in a monastery). This topic started with Komjathy's rather exclusionary arguments prefering religious forms of Daoism (such as his own) over different approaches, especially in the U.S. I'm probably unfairly viewing your comments in that light and projecting his arguments onto yours. My apologies.

In other words, Takaaki's a troll? Sounds about right.

Very interesting points, Dawei, and thanks for that. My last point was a specific response to Stigweard, who was arguing that Zhuangzi's mention of the old esoteric practices (even if critical) puts them in the same tradition. But you're right, criticism doesn't imply being out of the same tradition. If anything, people seem to criticize those from the same tradition who are "doing it wrong" far more. Why, that might even happen here on TTB from time to time. :-)

You cited the classic article by Sivin as your main source, and I quoted you chapter and verse from that very article in response. It seems like my good faith efforts would merit a response. If I'm missing two or more fundamental points, how difficult can it be to mention them? Or at least to provide a pointer to the previous comments you believe I missed? I'll go back to the rest of your post, after you mentioned Sivin: OK, but as far as we know, the early sects did not appear until 400-500 years after the oldest copies of the DDJ and ZZ that we've found, and those texts may be decades or centuries older than that. So the question is not, "when did the earliest sects arise?," but "what was the understanding of Lao Zhuang (and related) thought in the long period before the sects arose?" If you have solid evidence of Daoist sects before the Celestial Masters, I would love to hear about it. So what you've established here is that Han synthesists, many centuries after Laozi and Zhuangzi, considered them related to other, even earlier Chinese works. That's not surprising, since they arose from the same culture, but that doesn't mean that all ancient Chinese thought is Daoist. Is Confucianism Daoist? Zhuangzi quotes him, too -- and favorably! (But I don't think it's meant to be taken literally. It strikes me as more of a mischievous teasing.) Call me simple, but the fact that Zhuangzi is critical of the old esoteric practices seems like strong evidence that they are something different than Daoism, even if later writers disagreed. All of it fits under the very broad of historical Daoism, but that umbrella covers many wildly contradictory ideas. I don't see why any Daoist is "obligated" to accept all of it, if they even could. Would you argue that any believer in the way of Jesus must accept the teachings of Mormons and neo-Nazi "Identity Christians," since they all fit under the broader Christian umbrella? I have trouble accepting that.

The question is, how do they get "on the ball?" Probably not by dreaming of how much money they're going to win.

By not telling you the answer. BOOM! No, I think you employ it by mastering something so deeply that you no longer have to think about doing it. Think of a musician learning scales for years until they can improvise intuititively, or a master woodcarver. You are getting to wu wei about the time you can't explain how you do it, any more. Here's a simple example -- throwing a frisbee. I taught my nephew when he was about 6. There's a lot of technique actually, planting your feet a certain way, turning your body, curling your arm, the spin. But I had to slow step through it and watch myself before I could remember how to reduce my motion back down into mere words.

Thanks, Stig, for linking that classic article. (It cracks me up that he seems to describe Taoism as "this young discipline" but I think he really means Western scholarly study of Taoism.) Sivin has a fairly nuanced view, esp. about the issues of this discussion. He criticizes Needham for blurring the difference "between the metaphysical poetry of Lao Tzu and the sacerdotal rites of the Celestial Masters" (p308) He also starts by warning about ":the tendency, many centuries old, to regard as 'Taoist' practices and beliefs which originated in popular religion and were very widely distributed. This often happens even in circumstances where no connection to Taoist organizations or writings can be demonstrated." It seems to me that the latter happens a lot with regard to the Neiye, Yijing, Liezi and others. It's a tautology; "Look these other practices are at least as old as the DDJ, and Daoist sects practice them, so they must be Daoist." Not really. It's like the old argument about marijuana leading to harder drugs: "85% of hard drug users smoked marijuana first!" Yeah, but 99% of them drank milk first; doesn't mean either was the original source of the problem.

Which certainly exists! I am certain Christ would be horrified by "The Book of Jabez" and the prosperity gospel, but that book sold 3 million copies. Well, here's the question. Did the DDJ and ZZ describe something that is real and true about the universe? If they did, there's no reason someone from another culture (even America -- Emerson, perhaps, or Thoreau) couldn't access it independently. Neither book had been translated into English in time for them to read it, AFAIK. If you say that Daoism is intrinsically part of Chinese culture, that implies it is not true or universal. Ironically, you're belittling it and making it a cultural artifact, just some intellectual trend that lasted longer than most. Like individualism in the U.S., perhaps.

Zhuangzi -- when the skilled archer shoots for prize money, he loses his aim. I don't think the point is to not make money; it's to forget that the money is there and act as if it weren't, just as you would react to petty insults, jealousy, etc.

Good points, Dawei. And yet, all human thought is built on previous human thought. It may be fundamentally wrong to chop it into isms and schools of thought, but if you don't, it kind of all flows together. No one has trouble discussing Aristotelian thought, or Hegelian concepts. Daoism strikes me as rather more distinctive and unique than those examples. It also has a certain hard logical (well, anti-logical) purity, internally consistent and endlessly flowering, that I personally just don't find in other schools of thought. Compare the Bible and Buddhism, which are roughly contemporary with it -- the former has some great lines and some compelling dramas, like a Hollywood movie, but is a complete mishmash of styles, attitudes and theologies. The latter seems far too abstract and intellectual, removed from life. I think the concept of philosophical Daoism keeps recurring because of this sense of purity, a hard simplicity that proves paradoxically fruitful. We know that aspect was there in the Warring States period. We don't have any solid evidence of the religious aspects going back that far. I don't think we have any proof they don't, but there's at least a solid circumstantial case that they came later. Do you see shamanism in the later Daoist sects, or just in the older prehistory?

Yes. It's only practiced by Vampire/Lizards though, so it wouldn't be appropriate for any Tao Bums.

Well, my latest post on Taoish.org is precisely about that debate, hopefully a somewhat nuanced view, splitting the baby in half as it were. And -- as I suggested in the comments, discoursing with a Tao Bum who chimed in there -- I would love to see a one-on-one debate between you two, specifically, on this subject. Not sure how technical details would work, probably email responses sent to me, to paste into one continuous post -- we can discuss that. What do you say? I like the idea of literal dialogues. "Warriors, come out to play-y-ay!"

Do Vampire/Lizards walk among us? No. That was easy! Next question?

I don't know what "Chinese like" would mean, but here are some I enjoy. Many translations only include the first 7 (Inner) chapters, which are most likely to have been written by Zhuangzi himself. Thomas Merton's abridged version is elegant and very clear for an American. He also chooses very judiciously outside the Inner Chapters and finds many gems there. David Hinton's translation (Inner Chapters only) is tasty and includes translations of the clearly constructed names, which is unique. Two new ones I haven't seen but look interesting, and I look forward to. Brook Ziporyn's is the latest and highly regarded, selections with commentaries from over the years. http://www.amazon.com/Zhuangzi-Essential-Selections-Traditional-Commentaries/dp/0872209121/ref=sr_1_1 Livia Kohn, a highly regarded scholar and Daoist practitioner, also published in 2011 a "fresh, modern translation of key selections" called "Chuang-tzu: The Tao of Perfect Happiness." Chapter 1 is online: http://liviakohn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Chapter1.pdf

Stig: I would never claim that the Tianshi Dao were based purely on the ZZ & DDJ. The question to me though is, was there a coherent Daoism or school of Daoist thought before them, which was dramatically changed with the addition of these other influences? Catholicism incorporated lots of elements from other religions, Lupercalia for Christmas, Tonantzin for the Lady of Guadelupe, etc. Zen combined Buddhism and Daoism, and there is considerable evidence of cross-fertilization between those two, so it wouldn't be the first time. That doesn't mean its wrong, but it might be different. And people can prefer one or the other version.

Depending on the person. There was some case years ago where a guy was terrorizing his town, killing raping and beating people. One day a large crowd assembled, he ended up dead, no witnesses. Someone told a reporter, "Some people just need killing."