Contemplative Transformation in Early Daoism (R Littlejohn): SOAS World Philosophies Lecture Series

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3 May 2022

Lecture Summary:
The foundations of classical Daoism rest upon a distinctive set of contemplative practices that we may call “inner training” or “inner cultivation.” The traces of these lived practices of Daoist adepts are evident textually in records making use of a recurring family of concepts including wuwei (無為, effortless action), wuxing (無形, formlessness), jimo (寂漠, silent stillness), jing (靜, tranquility, calm), and xu (虛, emptiness). In this talk, I offer a correction to bimodal readings of these experiences according to which some profound introvertive and mystical “knowing that” yields an extrovertive “knowing how” expressed in Daoism as “doing nothing, yet leaving nothing undone (wuwei er wu buwei 無為而無不為).” I argue for a reading that emphasizes a unity of consciousness such that the practitioner does not come to know something and then act, but is rather changed himself/herself. I take note of such reports in the hagiographies of the founders of various Daoist lineages up to and through the 12th Century. I show how there are close analogies between reports of Daoist transformative contemplative practice and those of other ancients, for example as in the practice of incubation (enkoimesis) among the Presocratic iatromantoi. Accordingly, language about “oneness with Dao,” should not be taken as referential in use, but rather as a report of an altered consciousness that has emerged as a result of contemplative practice. I conclude that there is nothing that is merged with as a result of this inner cultivation. There is only the transformation that comes by means of the practice itself. So, Dao is not something to believe in. It is not something to have a relationship with. It is not something to use. It is something to become.