Tao Te Ching (book)

THIS ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE PRINCIPLE OF WU WEI, SO IT IS BOTH UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND NOT UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

The Tao Te Ching, Daodejing, Dao De Jing, or Daodejing (simplified Chinese: 道德经; traditional Chinese: 道德經; pinyin: Dàodéjīng), also simply referred to as the Laozi (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ), is a Chinese classic text.

Background

Lao Tzu riding ox

Theosophical Commentaries on the Tao Te Ching

HPB

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Walter Old

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This version of the Tao Te Ching, derived from multiple translations, presages more contemporary versions such as those by Stephen Mitchell (1988), Ursula K. Le Guin (1998), and Wayne Dyer (2008).

C.H.A. Bjerregaard

Tao is ultimate thought, and dwells in Silence; hence Being cannot be defined. It is what It is.

In 1895-1899, Bjerregaard wrote an extensive series of 31 articles in The Metaphyscial Magazine on the topic of “Being.” The fourth article, Tao: The Chinese “Being,” begins:

The Tao-te-king, the Book of Tao, is one of the few remarkable books of the world. It contains, among other teachings, that of Being, as understood by the Chinese. Lao-tsze, who is the accredited founder of Taoism, or that mystical system which the Tao-te-king teaches, is also said to be the author of the book. He lived in the sixth century before Christ.

The word Tao has been translated the Way, the Reason, and the Word (Logos) ; but it means much more: Being. There are several English, German, and French translations of the book. Being (Tao), in this book as elsewhere, is to be understood in a double sense — esoterically and exoterically. Esoterically it can only be understood when we become entirely passive — as Taoism expresses it, remain wu wei; i.e., not-doing, non exerting, absolutely inactive, masterly inactive, or in inertia — and when this undisturbed condition at the same time embraces what Emerson would call “central spontaneity.”

Chuang-tsze, the successor to Lao-tsze, emphasized that the very effort to obtain possession of Tao defeats itself, for the simple reason that it is an effort. Porphyry, the Neo-Platonist, in his “Principles of the Theory of Intelligibles,” says: “By our intelligence we say many things of the Principle which is higher than the intelligence. But these things are divined much better by an absence of thought than by thought.” He means that, by allowing the divine faculty of the soul free sway, we shall know Being.

For the time being let us therefore now suspend rationalistic thinking and suppress our ordinary consciousness, which are only characteristics of the surface of the human soul. Below the ordinary consciousness lie large spheres of the soul — subconsciousness, unterbewustheit — as yet unknown to a large majority of people. Those spheres existed before our life on this globe, and they will exist after it has been forgotten. In the subconscious strata we live our true Being; there Being resides; there the Personal originates; there spring the instincts; there rise all our idiosyncrasies as well as all those unclear feelings, undefinable notions, fears, passions, loves, hatreds — all those emotions, longings, and psychic activities which influence us so strongly, yet which never utter themselves through or by means of our reflection.

Ordinary reason and consciousness see only parts of life — un coin de la vie; but Subconsciousness is the medium through which we connect with Being, with the Universe, with our race, and with mankind at large. Here the mystery of existence manifests itself. To understand Tao, let us therefore suspend Thought and suppress Desires, or, as the Tao-te-king recommends, let us have mystic communication with the abysses; then we shall have an apprehension of Tao.

He continues by listing Tao Te Ching verses that correlate to Esoteric and Exoteric teachings, followed by verses teaching the “Moral aspect and uses of Tao.” The footnote about Verse 14 references a theory first proposed in 1820 by J.P. Abel-Rémusat that “found a parallel between these three words, which in Chinese are I, Hi, and Wei, and the three Hebrew letters I, H, and V — Jehovah.” The second half of the article explains and compares Taoist concepts primarily with the teachings of mediæval Theosophist Jacob Boehme [Jakob Böhme] about the Abyss, and references German theologian Meister Eckardt [Meister Eckhart von Hochheim].

The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King

The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King was published in 1912 and consists of 15 chapters that first appeared as a series of articles in The Word, VIII-XI, 1908-10 (both published by The Theosophical Publishing Company of New York).

C. Jinarajadasa

By following the precepts of The Book of Tao the aspirant can make himself fit for the study of practical Occultism...and can strengthen himself for the tests of courage and endurance through which it is necessary to pass before Initiation.

In his 1915 compilation of lectures, Theosophy and Modern Thought, there is a brief section on Taoism (from lecture IV. The Search for Reality) which includes two excerpts from James Legge's Tao Teh King translation.

I wonder to how many of us it has ever occurred to ask how the millions of the vast Chinese Empire have found the Reality ? China has been a strong cultured nation for thousands of years; and how can a people ever be great, or continue from century to century, unless they have found Reality? This is what China did, and she owes her life specially to three Teachers—the Lord Buddha, Lao-Tze, and Confucius. The way to Reality through Buddhism I have already described. The way of Lao-Tze is the old old path of the divine sages of Atlantis, and persistent memories of this path appear in all the religions.

To Lao-Tze, the Reality is the Tao. The Tao — " the Way " — is the inmost essence of all things. It is the Cause of all causes. And yet, paradoxical as it sounds, the Tao does nothing, acts not at all ; in this Quiescence lies the power of the Tao. " The Great Tao has no bodily form, but It produced and nourishes heaven and earth. The Great Tao has no passions, but It causes the sun and the moon to revolve as they do. The Great Tao has no name, but It affects the growth and maintenance of all things." (Legge) The Tao is the heart of being, and whoever finds it finds Reality.

But it is the way of finding that is unique in the teaching of Lao-Tze. The way to the Tao is through utmost quiescence. "The Tao does nothing, so there is nothing it does not do." Thus imitating the Tao must men live, without ambitions, without officious interference of the neighbour, leaving all free to follow their inclinations ; then all live in virtue, growing " as the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air". We miss the Reality by too much striving, by our " culture," by too much Government, teaches Lao-Tze ; let men be, and they find the Tao.

There are three virtues that men need, Gentleness, Economy, and Humility or shrinking from taking precedence of others. " With Gentleness I can be bold ; with that Economy I can be liberal ; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour. It is the way of the Tao to act without thinking of acting, to conduct affairs without feeling the trouble of them ; to taste without discerning any flavour, to consider the small as great, and the few as many, and to recompense injury with kindness." (Legge)

To recompense injury with kindness, to live without ambitions, to act spontaneously with gentleness as the moment dictates, this is the Way in Taoism ; and all quietists and pietists in all religions attest to this day that whenever they retire thus within themselves, submitting themselves in humility and patience and meekness to God, or to Allah, or to the Tao, they find the Reality.

https://archive.org/details/theosophymodernt00jina

While not a verbatim translation of the Tao Te Ching, he writes about perceived aspects of Taoism in Adyar Pamphlet No. 180, The Book of Tao, from 1933. [While the "Editor" is uncredited, Jinarajadasa was editor of The Theosophist in 1933, so this is quite possibly his work.] The Prefatory Note states:

The Book of Tao is founded on the teaching of the esoteric schools of Chinese philosophy, both Buddhist and Taoist, and takes the form of a summary of their main principles. It is intended as a guide to those who aspire to Initiation into the Ancient Wisdom, and therefore deals rather with Mysticism than Occultism, for only by attaining a high degree of enlightenment can men prepare themselves for knowledge of the higher sciences, which would otherwise lead them into disaster. By following the precepts of The Book of Tao the aspirant can make himself fit for the study of practical Occultism — a dangerous weapon in the hands of those not properly trained — and can strengthen himself for the tests of courage and endurance through which it is necessary to pass before Initiation.

The work is divided into six sections, which treat of Non-attachment, Impersonality, Compassion, Renunciation, Self-reliance and Truth respectively, and to these I have added a number of footnotes to explain the Chinese words that are used in the text and to make the meaning of some obscure passages more intelligible. In most cases I have given the Sanskrit equivalents of the Chinese words, as students of Theosophy will be more familiar with them.

http://www.theosophical.ca/adyar_pamphlets/AdyarPamphlet_No180.pdf#

Virginia Hanson

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Joy Mills

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Baden Offord

The paradox, the spiritual fact of Tao, is that by non-interfering everything is accomplished.

The Theosophical Society has had a long acquaintance with the work of Lao Tzu, the beautiful and lucid Tao-Teh King. Not only have there been numerous articles in theosophical journals over the past 100 years, but Lao Tzu has been translated and published many times by the Theosophical Publishing Houses. As early as 1894, Walter Gorn Old brought out a version titled The Book of the Path of Virtue. Others published over the years include translations by C. Spurgeon Medhurst in 1905, Carl Bjerregaard in 1911, Isabella Meares in 1916 (still in print), as well as a recent edition by Henry Wei (Quest, 1984). Part of the reason there have been so many editions of the Tao-Teh King is that the philosophy presented in this masterpiece of literature includes many significant, timeless and profound insights. To this day, the Tao-Teh King remains one of the most translated and interpreted of all books. In any study of the Tao-Teh King, it becomes startlingly obvious that scholars have found no consensus on its meaning. To understand the Tao requires the reader to grasp it intuitively and freshly.

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The unwrought simplicity of Lao Tzu is the embodiment of wisdom, and in that delicate embrace of the subtle and paradoxical there is quiet and understanding beyond words—aptly contained in the austere but precise symbol of Tao. To approach the study of the Tao-Teh King you have to be somewhat of a Taoist to begin with. In a preamble to the study of the Koran, a similar requirement is asked of the reader: "Inwardly we have to be empty, and if we want to have insight and greater opening, then the approach is to be completely empty of notions, expectations and reactions."

This is how we ought to approach the study of the Tao-Teh King or any book of wisdom or virtue. Such a study is a theosophical exploration so long as there is that vital quality of discernment, of intelligence in that exploration. A theosophist seeks what the Taoist seeks – an uncomplicated nature capable of wisdom and insight, simple in the sense of selfless. The Tao is not Tao unless it can be laughed at.

Robert S. Ellwood

You can learn a lot through silence and meditation, which is one of the messages of the Tao Te Ching.

Westerners have appreciated the fundamental writings of philosophical Taoism, the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu (traditionally dated sixth century B.C.E.) and the book of Chuang Tzu (369-286 B.C.E.?). These books convey the essential Taoist themes of deep naturalism, inwardness, and gaining through giving. Further, they sparkle with humor and humanity as they direct one's gaze to the folly of solemnity and the wisdom of folly.

The most momentous religious event of the millennium beginning around the fifth century B.C.E. Was the life and work of the great religious founders. Only a half-dozen or so persons have filled this awesome vocation, becoming the pivotal figure of religions embracing hundreds of millions of persons, washing over vast geographical areas, and lasting fifteen to twenty-five centuries. They are Zoroaster, the Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tze, Jesus, and Muhammad. (Others, especially the Hebrew lawgivers and prophets, and the Vedic sages of India, have had a comparable role within their traditions.) Although their stories are encrusted with myth and legend, with the possible exception of Lao-tze they were undoubtedly real persons, and all incarnate in the way in which the person – though he may point beyond himself – has become the central focus of a new religious style.

The Dao de jing makes ready use of feminine symbolism to describe the Dao. The Dao is the creative source, which is potential itself and out of which flows existence – an existence sustained by the Dao "stream," just as a mother gives birth out of her womb to a child, who is nourished at her breast.

The breath of life moves through a deathless valley
Of mysterious motherhood
Which conceives and bears the universal seed,
The seeming of a world never to end,
Breath for men to draw from as they will:
And the more they take of it, the more remains.

Because the feminine symbolism is so pervasive in Daoism, some scholars, such as Ellen Marie Chen, have concluded that Daoism has ties to an ancient Mother Goddess and the Dao itself is the Great Mother.

Richard Brooks

Certainly a compassionate, humble, nonjudgmental, open-minded attitude is important for anyone to adopt towards others. Certainly, attempting to still the mind with daily meditation is highly desirable.

Many Theosophists have fallen in love with the little Chinese classic known as the Tao Te Ching and ascribed to the sage Lao Tzu. We see in it an echo of many familiar Theosophical ideas. Others share our enthusiasm, however, since it has been translated into English more often than any other book except the Bhagavad Gita. But what, exactly, is the nature of this little book? And why does it fascinate people?

First of all, it is a short "classic" (ching). It is traditionally divided into eighty-one chapters, which are further organized into two sections, one dealing with tao (literally "way") and one dealing with te (usually translated "virtue," but conveying the idea of "moral force"). There are several different versions of the text, but each contains about five thousand Chinese characters. That makes it a manageable task for a reader.

Second, it is often cryptic. Many passages are susceptible of quite different translations. Not only does this offer a challenge to any translator or reader, it also leads to a feeling, on the part of many, that they know what it really means, whereas others have missed the point. In fact, Lao Tzu even encourages this attitude, when he says:

My words are easy to understand and easy to practice,
Yet no one under Heaven understands or practices them.
My words have an ancestor, my deeds have a lord.
Precisely because men do not understand this, they do not understand me.
Because those who understand me are few, I am greatly valued.
Therefore, the Sage wears a coarse woolen coat, and carries his jade underneath it. [ch. 70]

To have an "ancestor" and a "lord" was to be part of the social order, that is to say, not to be a wild man. Here it is a metaphorical way of claiming that the Tao Te Ching has a coherent teaching. The last line is a metaphor to say that the teaching is, however, hidden under an apparently rough exterior guise. These lines make an important point for those who cannot read Chinese: one should always be cautious about citing any translation uncritically. And that applies to those in this essay, which are all my own.

Third, where one finds general agreement among translators on the meaning of certain passages, the philosophic viewpoint that the Tao Te Ching offers is so strikingly different from our normal way of thinking that it causes us to sit back and reassess our own viewpoint--especially in the realms of metaphysics and interpersonal behavior. Again, Lao Tzu alludes to this when he writes:

When the best student hears of the Way (tao),
He practices it diligently.
When the average student hears of the Way,
He half believes, half disbelieves it.
When the foolish student hears of the way,
He laughs out loud.
If he didn’t laugh, it couldn’t be considered the Way! [ch.41]

That is true of most really profound teachings. And that is why Theosophists find the Tao Te Ching a book well worth careful, repeated study. But that’s just the beginning. We still haven’t answered the question what is its nature? The answer to this question is crucial to any translation, since it will color how certain important words, and even whole passages, are translated.

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Although important metaphysical ideas are scattered throughout the Tao Te Ching, most of them can be found in the tao or first section of the book (chs. 1–37). The first idea is that Nature is unitary—one coherent, mysterious, interrelated ground of being, such that it cannot be delineated or described in language, but can only be apprehended in a desire-free, transcendental, unitive experience (clearly a Theosophical idea):

Something there is mysteriously formed,
Existing before Heaven and Earth,
Silent, still, standing alone, unchanging,
All-pervading, unfailing,
It may be regarded as the mother of Heaven and Earth.
I do not know its name; I call it tao. 
If forced to give it a name, I call it Great (ta). 
Being great, it flows out; 
Flowing out means far-reaching; 
Being far-reaching, it is said to return. [ch. 25] 

The tao that can be told of is not the unvarying tao; 
The name that can be named is not the unvarying name. 
The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth;
The named is the Mother of the ten thousand things.
Therefore, ever desireless one sees its essence,
But ever desiring one sees its manifestations.
These two are the same, 
But after being produced have different names.
This may be called a mystery: 
A mystery within a mystery,
The gateway to all essences. [ch. 1]

The second idea, as already alluded to above, is that nature or tao is cyclic:

Returning is the movement of tao;
Weakness [or yielding] is the method of tao;
The ten thousand things are born from Being;
And Being is born of Nonbeing. [ch. 40]

This too is a common Theosophical idea. So also is the third characteristic of Nature: it is impersonal, not partial to humans or any other beings:

Heaven and, Earth are not humane (jên);
They regard the ten thousand things as straw dogs.
The Sage is not humane (jên); 
He regards the hundred families as straw dogs. [ch. 5]

"The ten thousand things" in Chinese means "all things"; and "the hundred families" means "all people." The Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu (about 369–286 BC prior to the compilation of the Tao Te Ching) reports that certain ancient ceremonies in China used dogs woven of straw; during the ceremony these straw dogs were treated with the greatest respect, but after they had served their purpose in the ceremony they were discarded and trampled on. This idea ofthe impersonality of Nature runs through all the major philosophical Taoist writings, and it is echoed in letter 10 (88 in the chronological series) of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett:

Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering[and] death, and destroys what she has created. . . . The butterfly devoured by a bird becomes that bird, and the little bird killed byan animal goes into a higher form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal fitness of things, and hence cannot be called Evil in Nature.

Fourth, manifested Nature is dual, having two aspects. These are indicated, in one passage, by the familiar terms yang (more frequently called Heaven or t’ien in thetext) and yin (more frequently called Earth or ti). But a closer reading of the text also shows that the two are but different aspects of a more fundamental energy, termed ch’i:

The ten thousand things carry yin on their backs and embrace yang in their arms,
And by blending the ch’i achieve harmony. [ch. 42]

The Secret Doctrine (1:14–5) has passages in which the"one absolute Reality" ("rootless root," "Be-ness," or "Parabrahman") is called"that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence" and is said to have two aspects, "abstract Space" and "abstract Motion," the latter also called the "Great Breath." H. P. Blavatsky further says that once one passes from this level of abstraction, "duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object." Yang, then, would be equivalent metaphorically to Spirit and yin to Matter, although they are often interpreted more literally as just "sky" and "earth."

Finally, Lao Tzu mentions a trinitarian aspect to Nature. The manifested one not only gives rise to two, but two, in turn, gives rise to three--thence to the "ten thousand things":

Tao gives birth to one;
One gives birth to two;
Two gives birth to three;
Three gives birth to the ten thousand things. [ch. 42]

Such a trinitarian aspect of the creative, manifesting side of Nature is a common theme in several of the world’s religions. The Secret Doctrine (1:16) also identifies three logoi, the third of which is called "the Universal World-Soul, the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature," which sounds very much like the same idea expressed cryptically above. There is one other passage from the Tao TeChing which some Theosophists have thought even suggests influence from or upon Hindu and Judeo-Christian theology:

We look at it but do not see it: it is
    termed elusive (or evanescent, minute,
    formless, invisible) (yi);
 
We listen to it but do not hear it: it is
    termed inaudible (or rarefied) (hsi);
 
We touch it but do not feel it: it is termed
    intangible (or subtle, infinitesimal) (wei). [ch. 14]

The three words used here to characterize tao are yi, hsi, and wei in Chinese, suggesting a trinitarian parallel with yod, he, and vau or YHV of the Hebrew Divine Name transliterated as Jehovah, or, i, sha, and va of the Hindu "Isvara." But since philosophical Taoism is naturalistic, not theistic, these parallels are more probably a linguistic coincidence. Theosophists shouldn’t make too much of them. In fact, H. P. Blavatsky quotes Max Müller in pointing out that this is, in his phrase, a false analogy (SD 1:472).

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There is much of interest [to Theosophists] in this little book, the Tao Te Ching, much of which is of immediate relevance to our own dealings with other people. Certainly a compassionate, humble, nonjudgmental, open-minded attitude is important for anyone to adopt towards others. Certainly, attempting to still the mind with daily meditation is highly desirable. And we could all benefit from practicing “yielding” when in a confrontational, hostile situation since meeting hostility with hostility accomplishes very little, if indeed anything worthwhile at all. It certainly does not resolve a tense situation. And even if we prevail,the person we prevail over is surely left with resentment, as the Tao Te Ching points out:

When great enemies make peace,
Some hostility is bound to remain. [ch. 79]

But that is not to say that we will agree with everything in this little classic. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Way it recommends is in its concept of the ideal State or form of government. The latter has already been hinted at in the quotations from chapters 37 and 48 above on the concept of wu wei. It is a policy of laissez faire, in which there is little or no government interference in the lives of citizens. Perhaps the most quaint expression of this idea is in the first line of chapter 60: “Ruling a large state is like cooking a small fish.” That is, as commentators explain, too much handling will spoil it! Or as the following lines put it:

The more prohibitions a state has,
The poorer the people will be. . . . 
The more laws and edicts there are,
The more theft and fraud there will be. [ch. 57]

Certainly, as the Mahatmas point out in their letters to A. P. Sinnett, human free will is inviolable, and must not be subjected to the will of another. But the Tao Te Ching seems to imply that people only steal and defraud when they are aware of laws against such things – that, otherwise, they would be naturally free of such self-centered, acquisitive impulses. That seems to border on the naive.It also fails to take into account that, as Theosophy teaches, humans presently are at very different stages of evolution as far as intelligence and morality are concerned; what greatly troubles one person’s conscience does not bother another’s at all. Furthermore, the above passage fails to distinguish between criminal law and civil law. Surely, one would want some sort of general rules about which side of the road to drive on (whether in an oxcart or an automobile), which days are workdays and which holidays, how streets are to be laid out and cared for, and so on. An orderly society needs such general organizing rules just as much as it needs prohibitions against murder and theft.

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Ideas compatible with Theosophy outnumber those at variance with it. And,of course, there is much more that has not been discussed at all. Perhaps the foregoing will serve to whet the appetites of those unfamiliar with the Tao Te Ching to find several translations, such as those in the reference list below, and begin their own meditative study of it.

Theosophical Publications

• Walter R. Old (1894)

• Walter G. Old (1904, 1913) ?

• C. Spurgeon Medhurst ([1905], 1972)

• C.H.A. Bjerregaard (1912)

• Mears ([1916], 1922, 1949, 1971, 1983)

• Charles H. Mackintosh (Wheaton, Illinois: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1926, Reprinted 1945, 1968, 1971)

• Henry Wei (1982)