TAOISM AS AN EARTH-BASED TRADITION

Copyright 1989 by John R. Mabry

What is Taoism?

This is the simplest of questions, and as a typical example of Taoist paradox, almost impossible to answer; mostly because there are many answers. Let's begin with what it is not.

-It is not new. Taoism is one of the most ancient traditions known to humankind. Documents containing its essence can be dated as far back as 5,000 B.C.E. (1)

-It is not a "fixed" or "solid" tradition. There are many versions of Taoism; for instance, there is popular Taoism as practiced today, which is a highly developed shamanistic religion, but like another great Eastern tradition, Tantric Buddhism, it is institutional (read: hierarchical) and has evolved right out of original Taoism's founding principles. There is also what Huston Smith calls Esoteric Taoism, which mutated largely into the ch'an (or zen in Japan) school of Buddhism. Esoteric Taoism is now extinct. (2) What we are left with, then, is Philosophical Taoism (synonymous with primitive Taoism), which is as close as we are likely to get the "original Taoism" mentioned above. Philosophic Taoism is what this paper is focused on, an ideal which has guided Chinese society for millennia.

-It is not Patriarchal. Chinese society certainly is, but, oddly, primitive Taoism is not. If anything, it is deeply feminine, as we shall soon see.

-It is not metaphysical. Completely absent from Taoism is any body/spirit dualism. Taoism neglects to speculate on anything that cannot be physically observed. It takes the body/mind/spirit as an inseparable whole without apology or explanation.

-It is not a "revealed" religion. Taoism is being awake to the painfully obvious. There is nothing hidden, nothing that any thoughtful, sensitive human being could not discover for him/herself.

To test primitive Taoism concerning its status as an Earth-based religion, I have used Starhawk's "Some common concepts of Earth-based Traditions":

-Spirit embodied in the world, nature and the earth sacred.

-All is interconnected.

-Reverence for the cycles of death, birth, growth and

regeneration.

-Focus on community, collective balance and health.

-The concept of the community extends beyond death,

reverence for the ancestors and the unborn.

-Ethic of integrity, personal responsibility and

accountability to the community, rather than sin or

punishment.

-Focus on ritual, ceremony, vision and direct experience

rather than recieved texts or dogma.

-The sacred circle, medicine wheel, and the four sacred

directions.

-Inclusive, not proselytizing.

-Each tradition has experienced repression and resisted it

to survive.

I will follow her order of criteria for our structure, since the stream of thought is easily followed and logically sequenced.

Spirit embodied in the world, nature and the earth sacred.

The Tao Te Ching says

Do you want to improve the world?

I don't think it can be done.

The world is sacred.

It can't be improved.

If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.

If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.(3)

The Taoist master sees the world as a place of awesome mystery, dripping with the divine, and indeed, everything that is is divine.

The great Tao flows everywhere.

All things are born from it,

yet it doesn't create them.

It nourishes infinite worlds,

yet doesn't hold on to them.(4)

In early Taoist mythology, Heaven is conceived as the Father of all creatures and Earth as the mother.(5) Other myths picture various versions of the goddess and god and the subsequent birthing of the cosmos and still other stories envision the birthing of the earth herself from an egg, reminiscent of early Vedic mythology.(6) Earth herself is not distinctly targeted as the goddess, but as part of the goddess, which most accurately can only be nominative of the Tao.

The Tao is a difficult concept for most Westerners; a very alien conception. It, as the first verse of the Tao Te Ching warns us, cannot be described in words (7) but only intuitively grasped. It is not a personal god, as are most Western gods, but an amoral force that promises nothing less than divine harmony and nothing more than glorious chaos (they are one in the same). Alan Watts notes that

"...it must be clear from the start that Tao

cannot be understood as "God" in the sense of

the ruler, monarch, commander, architect,

and maker of the universe. The image of the

military and political overlord, or of a

creator external to nature, has no place in

the Tao."(8)

Lao Tzu (legendary author of the Tao Te Ching) confirms this, saying "[The Tao] nourishes all things, but doesn't lord it over them."(9)

That this force is erotic is attested to in a myriad of writings, especially Lao Tzu's. Watts notes that his imagery is of the Tao as maternal, not paternal. It is the power of passivity for which women have always been celebrated.(10)

"The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inex-haustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds."(11) Another translation renders this "This is called the mysterious female. The gateway of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth."(12) The master, who is anyone who sincerely embraces the Tao, is exhorted by Lao Tzu to manifest this feminine energy in his/her life when he says "know the male, but keep to the female."(13) Lao Tzu, not at all modest in confidence of his relationship to the Tao, illustrates this relationship by saying "I am different from ordinary people. I drink from the Great Mother's breasts."(14)

All is interconnected.

Central to Toaism is the concept of connectedness. Nothing exists in a vacuum and if one object, regardless how small, is affected, the universe as a whole benefits or suffers. This is because the Tao is not only the source of all things, but the habitation of all things as well.

The Tao gives birth to all beings,

nourishes them, maintains them,

cares for them, comforts them, protects them,

takes them back to itself,

creating without possessing,

acting without expecting,

guiding without interfering. (15)

Common to most Eastern philosophies is the doctrine of "oneness". According to Hindu belief, the world of apparent individualities is "maya", illusion.(16) There is really no division between now and then, here and there, you and me, joy or sorrow. All is one. Chuang Tzu says "The universe came into being with us together; with us, all things are one."(17) It is a perspective that has incredible implications to the thinking person. For instance, If you and I are one, how can we be enemies? In fact, Huai Nan Tzu Chu Shih says "heaven, earth, and the universe are the body of one man."(18) The universe, then, is a single organism in which sickness in one part may well affect the health of the whole. It doesn't get much more connected. Now that we've established that the Tao includes all that is and is one, how does the Taoist deal with the self, the ego? Lao Tzu answers this way:

See the world as your self.

Have faith in the way things are.

Love the world as your self;

then you can care for all things.(19)

This sense of connectedness goes beyond the physical and temporal as well; it also determines existence itself. The cliche Zen koan "If a tree falls in the forest when there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a perfect example. The world is transactional, or as Watts states it, "there is no environment without organisms. Every thing-event is what it is only in relation to all others. The sun would not be light without eyes, nor would the universe 'exist' without conciousness--and vice versa."(20) From this we must realize at once our relative insignificance and our incredible importance, whose consciousness allows the universe to reflect upon and admire itself. Nikos Kazantzakis wrote "Earth rises up in your brains and sees her entire body for the first time."(21) Our connectedness is not only necessary for the maintenance of cosmic balance but also for existence itself.

Because the web of existence is so perfectly spun, all of being will harmonize by itself, in spite of humankinds' ego which convinces us that we can do better. The "arbitrary, artificial and abstract notion of order" we insist on, into which the earth fits awkwardly at best, can only be destructive. We do not limit this order to things, either. Time, too, we have distorted: "The notion of causality is simply a lame way of connecting the various stages of an event which we have distinguished and separated for purposes of description; so that, beguiled by our own words, we come to think of these as different events which must be stuck together again by the glue of causality. In fact, the only single event is the universe itself....All things will harmonize if left alone....without external compulsion".(22) All our attempts at gridding the universe are ill fated. As Lao Tzu wrote:

When man interferes with the Tao,

the sky becomes filthy,

the earth becomes depleted,

the equilibrium crumbles,

creatures become extinct.(23)

The answer, as the Taoist sees it, is to let things go their own way. Man gets in trouble by trying to force things, when, in fact, everything is perfect just the way it is--including humans! "When heaven and man exert their powers in concert, all transformations have their commencements determined."(24)

Reverence for the cycles of death, birth, growth and regeneration.

It is typical of Earth-based and native spiritualities to value death as one of many stages of life, and not the end of life as most of Western society perceives it. Taoism is no different. For the Taoist, at the extreme of Yin is Yang, and at the extreme of Yang is Yin; an endless cycle of transformation and becoming. We in the West fear death above all things; it is the end. For Taoism, however, and other native spiritualities as well, "death is but an aspect of existence, as life is. It is the exchange of one form of existence for another"(25); again, Yang changing into Yin, etc. As Chuang Tzu has written "Life and death are one."(26)

Religion scholar N.J. Girardot has much to say about the nature of chaos in early Taoism. Of death he writes:

Returning to the condition of either infancy

or death is homologous with the cosmic

return to the chaos condition...The life of

a man passes through four great changes or

transformations--infancy, youth, old age, and

death. But in this scheme, infancy and death

are symbolically equivalent. Death from the

perspective of the cosmic life of the Tao is,

therefore, but a return to the condition of

infancy where "one's energies are concentrated

and one's inclinations are unified--the

ultimate of harmony." When a man dies it is a

return to the beginning...Here it is said

that when a man dies, "he goes to his rest,

rises again to his zenith."(27)

Here we see another frequent concept found in earth-based religions, reincarnation. But unlike up-and-coming Buddhism, Taoism's reincarnation is not viewed as a tragedy, but as yet another symbol of the Tao, the Way Things Are. No escape is sought, for knowledge of the working of the Tao assures one of continued life, and if lived in accordance with the Tao, of continued bliss. Taoism is ambiguous concerning survival of the personality (as is Buddhism), but it is safe to say with Raymond Van Over, that "death and life are looked on as but a transformation: the myriad creation is all of a kind, there is a kinship through all. Being one in essence with the fundamental of the Great Purity he moves in the realm of the formless. He does not pollute the essence, nor abuse the spirit...The soul is a living part of a whole universe, and is placed in an environment of great clarity."(28)

With such a perspective, man is sure of his proper place in the universe: one small part, yet one with the whole. He is not, as Western man is, anthropocentric and insensitive. Instead, the Taoist has engaged in an "anthropo-centering", finding peace in his proper place as a part of Creation. Lao Tzu says "If powerful men and women could center themselves in [the Tao], the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms."(29)

Focus on community, collective balance and health.

Philosophical Taoism calls for health-filled living, by living life in the Tao. If this is done, man and woman with be healthy in mind and body, as would the community, local and cosmic. "If" is the operative word here, because philosophical Taoism assumes that this is not being done. At the time of the writing of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu (so the legend goes) was riding a yak into the wilderness because he was fed up with and had given up on the human race. There is then, within Taoism as we know it, a sort of "fall". This doesn't carry the same guilt-inflected sin=death fatalism of Christianity, however. Taoism holds that once the universe was in harmony, but then humankind alone began to "tamper" and now we descendants are faced with the responsibility to live healthy lives of compassion and reverence for the Tao or else experience one frustrating jam-up after another until our deaths. "The idea of a kind of original sin or mistake is never taken to the extent of indication a permanent and universal internal corruption of human nature."(30) There are no personal "eternal consequences", just an annoying, unfulfilled existence for you and the community that touches and is touched by you.

As Lao Tzu tells it:

When the great Tao declined,

The doctrine of humanity and righteousness arose.

When knowledge and wisdom appeared,

There emerged great hypocrisy.

When the six family relationships are not in harmony,

There will be the advocacy of filial piety*

and deep love to children.

When a country is in disorder,

There will be [the praise of] loyal ministers.(31)

Lao Tzu also articulates his vision of a well-en"Tao"ed community:

Let there be a small country with few people.

Let there be ten times and a hundred times as many

utensils

But let them not be used.

Let the people value their lives highly and not migrate

far.

Even if there are ships and carriages, none will ride

in them.

Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display

them.

Let the people again knot cords and use them (in place

of writing).

Let them relish their food, beautify their clothing, be

content with their homes, and delight in their

customs.

Though neighboring communities overlook one another and

the crowing of cocks and barking of dogs can be

heard,

Yet the people there may grow old and die without ever

visiting one another.(32)

In dwelling, live close to the ground.

In thinking, keep to the simple.

In conflict, be fair and generous.

In governing, don't try to control.

In work, do what you enjoy.

In family life, be completely present.(33)

Much of the Tao Te Ching in fact, is addressed to an Emperor, with instructions (like the ones above) on how to not only live a harmonious personal life, but also how to lead a harmonious country, and especially, to set a ______________________

*This is perhaps a dig at Lao Tzu's legendary arch-nemesis,

Confucius, whose whole philosophy consisted of an incred-

ibly complex moral and etiquettary legal code.

For the Taoist, everything is a microcosm of the Universe: The solitary life, the national life and the village life, all should mirror the Tao as a perfect representation of "collective balance and health".

The concept of the community extends beyond death, reverence for the ancestors and the unborn.

Taoism tends to be a very here-and-now religion and little time is spent by the greater philosophers speculating on post-mortem personality survival. Perhaps it didn't seem important to them, having reached a spiritual state where concern for personal after-death experience has died with one's ego, but we can be pretty sure the common-folk deemed it important, if surviving religious practices are any gauge.

The Chinese today, whether Taoist or Buddhist practice "a melange of animism, Tao-Buddhist scraps and patches, folk-myth and magic."(34) Central to this belief is the relationship of the Chinese toward their dead. In fact, there are no other peoples who are as involved with their dead as are the Chinese.(35) Geoffrey Parrinder confirms that the Chinese folk of old did indeed remain very involved with their ancestors. "The dead were asked for guidance in matters of conduct [and] their 'mana' (their inherent power) was invoked in ensuring the fertility of men and women, crops and beasts."(36) One doubts that the relationship ends there and is that simple, though. Frena Bloomfield, a British reporter stationed for many years in China and Hong Kong, relates that it is

"...truer to say that the [families] pay attention to their dead partly from respect, but even more because they fear them. Chinese life at one level has always been, and for many still is, a continuing struggle against the powers of the dead. The living see themselves as besieged by the dead--a great army of

churning, restless and potentially trouble-making

spirits who could--and do--make life unbearable for

the living if they fail to keep their dead happy."(37)

It is not hard to imagine that if this is normal, post-westernized Chinese behaviour--and it is--that it is not unlikely that similar customs prevailed during the formative years of primitive Taoism. It is not a happy picture and must to some degree be psychologically destructive to believe that your dead mother-in-law is breathing down your shirt as you fix supper or even make love. But though it may be a less than ideal arrangement, the dead are there and extremely active in the lives of their living descendents.

Ethic of integrity, personal responsibility and accountability to the community, rather than sin or punishment.

In the age when life on earth was full, no

one paid any special attention to worthy

men...they were honest and righteous without

realizing that they were "doing their duty".

They loved each other and did not` know that

this was "love of neighbor". They deceived no

one yet they did not know that they were "men

to be trusted". They were reliable and did

not know that this was "good faith". They

lived freely together giving and taking, and

did not know that they were generous. For this

reason their deeds have not been narrated.

They made no history.(38)

Chuang Tzu's description of China's ancient society, above, might seem a trifle utopian, but it was an unanimously

held historical view. Again and again the great Chinese mystics refer to the days of old when all things, including mankind, followed the Tao. To our great misfortune, however, humankind has forgotten that dance, and so Lao Tzu and others after him have sought to put us back on the track. what seems so odd is that what they have to say is not so terribly astounding, really. In fact, it's the most common of sense that most of us trip on it without even noticing it. The supreme virtue, says Lao Tzu, is "Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control."(39) Control is a big issue, or at least, it shouldn't be a big issue. Control is what screws most of us up. There is an old Zen koan which asks "Does a dog have the Buddha nature?" The answer, of course, is YES. D.T. Suzuki, in Zen and Parapsychology, writes

Let us observe the dog and see how it devours

its food. When he is hungry and smells some-

thing to eat he goes right to it and finishes

it in no time...When finished he goes away.

No saying "Thank you." He has asserted his

natural rights, no more, no less, and he has

nothing further to worry about--not only his

being but the entire world around him He is

perfect. The idea of sin is an altogether

unnecessary blemish, whether intellectual,

moral or spiritual, on his being what he is.

He comes directly from God. He might declare...

"I alone am the most honored one on earth." In

truth, he does not require any such "ego-

centered" statement It is enough for him just

to bark and run away from any sin-conscious

human beings who try to do harm to this

"innocent" creature still fresh from the Garden

of Eden.(40)

Not to be this way is what sets the universe off balance, and is the closest Taoism gets to a concept of sin. If everyone behaved this way, i.e. doing only what comes naturally; following your gut, the unbelievable result is that they would be far more sociable and civilized than those that follow laws.(41) The rational behind this, according to Lieh Tzu, is to

Let the ear hear what it longs to hear, the

eye see what it longs to see, the nose smell

what it likes to smell, the mouth speak what

it wants to speak, let the body have every

comfort that it craves, let the mind do as it

will. Now what the ear wants to hear is music,

and to deprive it of this is to cramp the

sense of hearing....

He goes on to describe how, if any of these members of our sensual anatomy are deprived, they are "cramped", and "not a good thing". This lecture ends with him saying: "Tyrants and oppressors cramp us in every one of these ways. Let us depose them and wait happily for death to come."(42)

Now, to us, this has to sound like anarchy. But it is not anarchy as we usually associate it today, with neo-Nazi groups, etc., but in fact it is what anarchy has historically trying to establish: a peaceful community with no government to impose on private lives and be generally obtrusive and annoying and corrupt. Lao Tzu tells us that "The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. Therefore the Master says: I let go of the law and people become honest."(43) As history has made obvious, legalism does in fact breed crime, in fact, the most heinous crimes imaginable.

To Western minds, the whole problem of good and evil, as seen by light of the Tao is almost incomprehensible, precisely because the problem of good and evil is, to the Taoist, not a problem. They are one and the same. "The Tao doesn't take sides" instructs Lao Tzu, "It gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn't take sides; she welcomes saints and sinners."(44) Mankind's shadow side has a place in Taoism; quite a novelty among the world's religions. Even today the Chinese will label you as "very sick" if it appears that you have been too "good" or responsible. Mistakes and turbulence and occasional violence has a traditional place among the Chinese, so there is little sleep lost, unless of course your son or daughter is behaving too well. What's a mother to do?

Throw away holiness and wisdom,

and people will be a hundred times happier.

throw away morality and justice,

and people will do the right thing.

Throw away industry and profit,

and there won't be any thieves.(45)

Taoism is the ultimate religion of tolerance, and this is congruent with the deepest understanding of the Tao; the soft conquers the hard; step out of the way when met with force; let be and let go. The Tao certainly does not hold grudges or practice any form of estrangement. The reason for wanting humankind to follow the Tao is not so that the universe will be balanced. The universe could care less. And balance will occur in spite of us.

The Tao is the center of the universe,

the good man's treasure, the bad man's

refuge. And when you make a mistake, you

are forgiven. That is why everyone loves

[the Tao].(46)

Focus on ritual, ceremony, vision and direct experience rather than received texts or dogma.

This is a sticky question, because this is an either/or question, whereas Taoism is more neither/nor. Yes, there are texts, but they are not "received" texts in the sense of being received from a god; they make no claims toward inerrancy or inspiration other than just being about the observable world around us. Nor is there a hierarchical religious structure (except for much later, popular Taoism, which did develop a priestly caste), or a set of creedal formulas or laws. "What is important" Alan Watts writes, "is not belief in the right doctrine but attainment of the true experience."(47) Geoffrey Parrinder believes that Taoism relied much more heavily on visions obtained in a shamanic trance-state rather than any of the existing writings.(48) One explanation for this might be that Philosophical Taoism is too far beyond man's linear style of reasoning to make a creedal formulation or legal system downright impossible without distorting it beyond recognition. This is not, after all, an anthropocentric religion. It doesn't conform to us, nor do we need to conform to it (although life promises to be a tad easier if we do).

N.J. Girardot approaches this problem by forming a new definition of tradition:

The idea of a historical tradition is not that

there is a fixed intellectual content indepen-

dent of time and space, but that there is always

a constantly changing series of interpretations

and forms relative to a nuclear set of a few

basic, and open-ended, religious convictions.(49)

This is a definition form-fit for Taoism. It is even doubtful that Taoism's greatest mystic, Lao Tzu, would even consider it possible for the Tao to be the object of a religion, regardless of how loose-knit the fabric of this religion seemed to be. One reason for this is that when you have a religion, it implies that you do something. Taoism only asks one to be.

When they lose their sense of awe,

people turn to religion.

When they no longer trust themselves,

they begin to depend upon authority.

Therefore the Master steps back

so that people won't be confused.

He teaches without a teaching,

so that people will have nothing to learn.(50)

Lao Tzu's disciple, Chuang Tzu, comments further on humanities insistence on ceremony and dogma:

And those who seek to satisfy the mind of

man by fussing with ceremonies and music

and preaching charity and duty to one's

neighbor, thereby destroy the intrinsic

nature of things.(51)

This is in a way hard to hear. It seems impossible to most to have a religion completely void of any institutional or even congregational trappings; void, too, of dogma or even simple order. That may be because, according to the Tao, order only has meaning when it is synonymous with chaos. Chaos is an order, the order of the Tao.

The sacred circle, medicine wheel, and the four sacred directions.

Here is yet another slippery spot for Taoism. It is entirely earth-based, but unlike other earth-based religions, Taoism neglects to impose even such obvious points of reference as the directions or seasons. The closest Taoism comes is in a verse from the Tao Te Ching:

The Tao gives birth to One.

One gives birth to Two.

Two gives birth to Three.

Three gives birth to all things.(52)

This cryptic verse gives us little to go on, yet some sense can be made. The "One" of line one is the primal Tao, unrefracted, pre-distinctive; what scientists like Stephan Hawking would call a singularity. This singularity divides itself (by itself) into the Two of line two. The result of this mitosis is equal and opposite halves, which we have named Yang and Yin. Now, as the result of some seeming slight-of-hand, the Two instantaneously create the third: the Whole. Now there is the Yang, the Yin and the Tao (the union of Yang and Yin). One way of illustrating this is by looking at, for Western convenience, a marriage. A marriage consists of three people, not two. There is the person of the man, the person of the woman and a separate but equal person of The Relationship. This unseen third person is often the One to which both the man and the woman devote most of their energy, for it is only through the third person that they have their union. A similar case can be made for the Trinity, the Holy Spirit being the unseen Third. Now, regardless of what the Yang, and Yin do/become, the Tao presides and balances all. So, emerging from the singularity, the Two enter/create a universe of glorious chaos, in which line four's "all things" come to be.

Later Taoist commentators, during the Popular Taoism age,

suggest that the Third is Man, but I find this anthropocentric divide unlikely at best. Girardot concurs, saying "it is probably wrong to attribute any particularly human characteristic to the idea of the 'three'."(53)

There is one scrap from an ancient mystic, Huai Nan Tzu, that rings an almost apocalyptic note as he relates a myth in which man tried to wrest control of the universe from the Tao: "There was a rupture of the connection between Yin and Yang and the succession of the four seasons failed. Thunder brought destruction."(54)

The Three is about as close as we come to a medicine wheel or a sacred circle, and it really does serve when one sees that everything in existence is a manifestation of the Tao, and is somehow aligned with the Yang or Yin or their relationship.

Inclusive, not proselytizing.

One of the largest ideological gaps between Buddhism and Taoism is their concern for missions and new converts. One reason that Buddhism is one of the largest three religions on the planet is due to a history of aggressive proselytization. The Taoist would perceive this as a form of force and have nothing to do with it. The Tao alone is sufficient to convince the sensitive person of its power and presence. The idea of preaching in the hopes of converting the multitudes is antithetical to Taoisms most basic teachings. The Tao Te Ching says

The Master acts without doing anything

and teaches without doing anything.

Things arise and she lets them come;

things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn't possess,

acts but doesn't expect.

When her work is done, she forgets it.

That is why it lasts forever.(55)

Parrinder notes that "Confucianism and Taoism have been thought of by the Chinese themselves as manifestations par excellence of the national ethos, and not` specifically as religious faiths inviting conversion, membership and personal commitment."(56)* Lao Tzu never makes note (nor does Chuang Tzu of him) of seeking out new sheep.

What he does speak of, though, is the sheep seeking him out, and as frequently as not going away more confused than they had come. Converts were not an important figuring in early Taoism, for it could not really seek them out and continue to be Taoism--though it has metamorphosed into schools such and Ch'an or Zen.

Each tradition has experienced repression and resisted it to survive.

Taoism has from the beginning been a popular, people's religion, with a grass-roots following and support, in both its philosophical and shamanistic forms. History even tells us of a revolt led and inspired by Taoist principles and vision of the universe.(57) It was called the Revolt of the Yellow Turbans because it's followers had a vision that the currently reigning "blue heaven" would be replaced by the new "yellow heaven"by approximately 184 AD. So the rebels wore yellow turbans and rose up against their oppressors

in the hopes of establishing a Taoist state. One of the things this bit of information supplies for us is a gauge on the popularity and widespread acceptance of Taoism, in whatever its form. There is evidence however that this popularity may have been Taoism's own worst enemy as its philosophical precepts were replaced by hierarchical institutionalism and sorceries.

________________

*I would beg to differ with Parrinder on his evaluation of Confucianism being non-prosylitory. On the contrary, early Confucianism insisted that all must conform to its legal system or one would be forced to do so.

Is Taoism a Native Tradition?

One of the most fascinating elements of research for this project was the discovery that the most basic Taoism, philosophical, was not an original religion founded by Lao Tzu or anyone else. Lao Tzu often spoke of "olden times" when the Tao was the order for all things, including humankind. This is China's mythic "Golden Period" that we have touched on above, which almost all of Chinese literature recalls and its loss bemoans. Lao Tzu's role, then, should not be seen as a founder of Taoism, but as the reclaimer of a much older, mostly tragically lost tradition, similar to the reclaiming of Europe's native tradition being done today. Therefore, to the same extent that the modern "Wicca" movement can be considered as Europe's Native Tradition, however metamorphosed by a thousand years of oral transmission, Taoism can likewise be seen as China's native tradition, similarly metamorphosed. It is my hope that in the preceding pages and comparisons that this will be clearly evident, and that Taoism should find its proper place as a recognized (though idiosyncratic) Native Tradition.

Notes

1. Frena Bloomfield, The Book of Chinese Beliefs

(New York: Ballentine, 1983), p. 124-125.

2. Huston Smith, The Religion of Man (New York: Harper and

Row, 1958), p. 203.

3. Stephen Mitchell,trans. Tao Te Ching, A New English

Version (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), p. 29.

4. Mitchell, p. 34.

5. N.J. Girardot, Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 57.

6. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, trans. The Rig Veda (New York:

Viking Penguin Inc., 1981), p. 27.

7. Mitchell, p. 1.

8. Alan Watts, Tao The Watercourse Way, p. 40.

9. Watts, p. 40.

10. Watts, p. 41.

11. Mitchell, p.6.

12. D.C. Lau, Lao Tzu-Tao Te Ching (New York: Viking Penguin

Inc., 1963), p. 28.

13. Watts, p. 41.

14. Mitchell, p. 20.

15. Mitchell, p. 15.

16. Smith, p. 82.

17. Watts, p. 55.

18. Girardot, p. 155.

19. Mitchell, p. 13.

20. Watts, pps. 43, 53.

21. Nikos Kasantzakis, The Saviours of God: Spiritual

Exercises (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1960), p. 81.

22. Watts, p. 44.

23. Mitchell, p. 39.

24. Raymond Van Over, ed. Chinese Mystics (New York: Harper

and Row, 1973), p. 84.

25. Geoffrey Parrinder, ed. World Religions (New York:

Facts On File, 1971), p. 333.

26. Parrinder, p. 333.

27. Parrinder, p. 333.

28. Van Over, p. 109.

29. Mitchell, p. 37.

30. Girardot, p. 69.

31. Girardot, p. 70.

32. Girardot, p. 68.

33. Mitchell, p. 8.

34. Bloomfield, p. 30.

35. Bloomfield, 55.

36. Parrinder, p. 306.

37. Bloomfield, p. 55-56.

38. Thomas Merton, trans. The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York:

New Directions, 1965), p. 76.

39. Mitchell, p. 10.

40. Raymond M. Smullyan, The Tao is Silent (New York: Harper

and Row, 1977), p. 121.

41. Watts, p. 122.

42. Watts, p. 116-117.

43. Mitchell, p. 57.

44. Mitchell, p. 5.

45. Mitchell, p. 19.

46. Mitchell, p. 62.

47. Watts, p. 119.

48. Parrinder, p. 328.

49. Girardot, p. 277.

50. Mitchell, p. 72.

51. Watts, p. 110.

52. Mitchell, p. 42.

53. Girardot, p. 58.

54. Girardot, p. 154.

55. Mitchell, p. 2.

56. Parrinder, p. 305.

57. Parrinder, p. 338.