A Taoist mandala


WHY YOU SHOULD STUDY THE TAO

Lack of mutual understanding may be the ultimate death of Asia




I have noticed that the People’s Republic of China and Bangladesh are apparently going through a phase of getting closer in terms of trade and transport.

Furthermore, over here in the United Kingdom, the Chinese community is acquiring a greater and greater significance almost by the month because of Mainland China’s rising prominence as an industrial centre.

That being apparently so, I submit that our readers owe it to themselves to look at, investigate even, the spirit of the Chinese people, to delve into what makes the Chinese tick, as it were.

You can take it from me that in my understanding there are three major traditional strands to Chinese philosophy and religion. These are (excluding Communism) Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism

Somehow or other this side of the Chinese mind is associated in the United Kingdom with the various martial arts. Perhaps this is because most non-Chinese who live on the British islands have little or no contact with Chinese people or Chinese culture other than going to their eateries and attending martial arts classes.

I really do not know whether Taoism has an influence on Chinese cuisine and am not prepared to enquire. However, I have studied both Japanese martial arts and tai chi (which is Chinese by derivation) and have noticed that the spirit of the Tao permeates them, particularly tai chi.

The Japanese martial arts have relatively dilute Taoist influences, although they are there. The Chinese ones are heavily influenced, however.

Several years ago, when I was at my previous job preceding my harness to this organ, I was a member of Keith Robertson’s Yang style tai chi class in London. He is arguably the topmost Yang style teacher in the UK.

One evening Keith interrupted our class instruction, which emphasised heavily the learning of the Long Form, to tell us a story:

One upon a time, he said, there was a wise monk in China who was meditating in a forest and while doing so he was disturbed by a noise. Opening his eyes he saw that there was a fight going on between a bird and a snake. It was a long and a terrible fight with the bird doing everything it could to overpower the snake and the snake coiling itself around the bird to throttle it.

The movements made by these two animals were carefully noted by the monk and formed the basis of the future fighting arts of the Chinese people.

Elsewhere, I have learnt that in ancient times in China, as in India, it was customary for monks to contemplate for hours on end in the forests of their respective countries.

However, in China the abbots were concerned that their monks were leading physically inactive lives and were out of condition. Therefore, they made them do exercises based on the movements of the animals of the forests and mountains where they studied and meditated.

At first they were simply exercises to condition the body but later developed fighting aspects.

Thus, if I have informed you correctly, the martial arts and the spirit side of the Chinese way of life were and are intertwined.

The religion and philosophy of these monks was, I am sure, heavily influenced by Taoism, the soul of the Chinese race.

Howard Chuck who teaches tai chi (Yang style) in California has this to say: “The tai chi has similarities with the practice of Taoism. Taoism has a lot of yin and yang and that has a lot to do with tai chi.

“Also in tai chi we do the standing meditation and that has a lot to do with Taoism.

“The object of tai chi is a little bit different from Taoism. Tai chi is about health, not about going to heaven.”

Tao (pronounced "Dow") can be roughly translated into English as “path”, or “the way.” It is basically indefinable. It has to be experienced. It refers to a power which envelops, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. It embodies the harmony of opposites (i.e. there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female).
The founder of Taoism is believed to be Lao-Tse 604-531 BCE (alternative spellings: Lao Tze, Lao Tsu, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Laotze, etc.). He was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted society during his lifetime. The result was his book: Tao-te-Ching (aka Daodejing).
Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religious faith in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion.
Taoism, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, became one of the three great religions of China. With the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in 1911, state support for Taoism ended. A great deal of the Taoist heritage was destroyed during the next period of warlordism.
After the Communist victory in 1949, religious freedom was severely restricted. The new government put monks to manual labour, confiscated temples, and plundered treasures. Several million monks were reduced to fewer than 50,000 by 1960.
During the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, a great deal of the remaining Taoist heritage was destroyed. Some religious tolerance has been restored under Deng Xiao-ping from 1982 to the present time.
Taoism now has about 20 million followers, and is primarily centred in Taiwan. About 30,000 Taoists live in North America and 1,720 in Canada (1991 census). Taoism has had a significant impact on North American culture in the fields of acupuncture, herbalism, holistic medicine, meditation and the martial arts.
The basic creed of Taoism can be (imperfectly) summarised with the following statements:
"Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river." - Lao Tse
"Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world." - Alan Watts, from his book: "Tao: The Watercourse Way."
"We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature. We place our trust and our lives in the Tao, that we may live in peace and balance with the Universe, both in this mortal life and beyond." – the creed of the Western Reform Taoist Congregation.

The yin yang diagram is a well-known Taoist symbol. It represents the balance of opposites in the universe. When they are equally present, all is calm. When one is outweighed by the other there is confusion and disarray.
One source explains that it was derived from astronomical observations which recorded the shadow of the sun throughout a full year. The two swirling shapes inside the symbol give the impression of change - the only constant factor in the universe. One tradition states that Yin (or Ying; the dark side) represents the breath that formed the earth. Yang (the light side) symbolizes the breath that formed the heavens.
One source states: "The most traditional view is that 'yin' represents aspects of the feminine: being soft, cool, calm, introspective, and healing... and ‘yang’ the masculine: being hard, hot, energetic, moving, and sometimes aggressive. Another view has the 'yin' representing night and 'yang' day.
Another source offers a different definition: A common misconception in the west is that "...yin is soft and passive and yang is hard and energetic. Really it is yang that is soft and yin that is hard, this is because yang is energetic and yin is passive. Yin is like a rock and yang is like water or air, rock is heavy and hard and air is soft and energetic."
Allan Watts describes the yin and yang as negative and positive energy poles: "The ideograms indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill.... They are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking the spicy and the bland."
However, since nothing in nature is purely black or purely white, the symbol includes a small black spot in the white swirl, and a corresponding white spot in the black swirl.
Ultimately, the “yin” and “yang” can symbolize any two polarized forces in nature. Taoists believe that humans often intervene in nature and upset the balance of Yin and Yang.
Should you want to go deeper into this I suggest you read The Water Margin (a Chinese classic) and the Tao Te ching by Lao-tzu. You can do so by going to the web site: http://www.sacred-texts.com/ and it begins:
“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring andunchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring andunchanging name.”

What if you don’t? Well, I have noticed to my grief that Asians of different races and cultures react against each other, unlike Europeans. Since there are economies of scale in human relations as well as in industrial processes it seems to me that we have the stark choice of either perishing separately or surviving together.

THE END

This article was published in the 2nd November issue of the Bangla Mirror, the first English language weekly for the United Kingdom's Bangladeshis - read everywhere from the Arctic to the sub-Antarctic.