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Prophets and priests teach the form of Tao.
Tao’s essence cannot be taught.
It is latent,
And cannot be known by learning.
| “The Hill” Luo Erchun 1985 Oil on canvas 51" x 45" Luo Erchun was born in Hunan province in
South Central China in 1929 and graduated from the Suzhou Fine Arts
Institute in 1951. He served as editor for the People’s Publishing
House of Fine Arts and from 1959 to 1964 was an attending lecturer at
the Fine Arts Department of Beijing Art College. He has lectured
extensively on oil painting at academies throughout China and makes
yearly trips to Paris to paint and plan exhibitions of his work. He is
currently a professor in the Oil Painting Department at the Central
Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.
Luo Erchun still prefers to paint scenes from his homeland, Hunan Province, even though he has lived most of his life in Beijing and sometimes in Paris. He feels a passion for this and is particularly interested in the color of the soil there which he still remembers from his childhood. His painting "The Hill" is full of the colors of the Hunan landscape. image used with permission |
| Stanford Studies on Daoism Definition of “Daoism” The Origins of Daoism • Attitudinal Daoism I: Anarchism • Attitudinal Daoism II: Authoritarian latentism • Pre-Laozi Daoist Theory Attitudinal Daoism II: Authoritarian latentism Others credited as precursors of Daoism seemed to share with Mencius the confidence that they had achieved some non-linguistic or intuitive access to a dao guide that resists "ordinary" formulation (and vitiates the need for interpretation with its associated inconstancies). The Confucian value of ren humanity may be the first instance of this tendency. Anti-language intuitionists disagreed with each other about who else had such access, about what the intuited dao required and about the best method of cultivating this special access to dao guidance. Some scholars cite evidence of early interests in breath control, fasting, hallucinogenic drugs and perhaps even meditation. Others suggest that Yogic techniques were already transmitted from India. The epistemic commitment these hypotheses impute to their proto-Daoists, however, is that these techniques help achieve superlative epistemic access to the correct normative dao guide. Usually this access was direct and unmediated by language or culture. So they might echo the anarchists rejection of rules or principles but for quite different reasons, i.e., that they can neither formulate nor inferentially defend the intuitively "correct" dao. These seemingly contradictory attitudinal streams leading to Daoism may come together in being equally compatible with the anarchist, egalitarian and even philosophically skeptical Daoism. One strategy is to treat the skeptical passages as directed at "ordinary" or Confucian or linguistic claims to access, not at the mystical, direct, transcendent or otherwise superlative access of Daoist sages. It may further reduce the tension by taking the mystical dao to be an egalitarian or anti-authoritarian one. No doubt a general trend of "authoritarian intuitionism" does have roots in classical thinking — clearly evidenced in Warring States Confucians (Mencius and Xunzi) as well as sections of proto-Legalists such as the Guanzi (Nei-ye Inner work and Xin-shu heart-mind arts) and arguably a component of Huang-Lao ruler worship. Religious interpretations take these to be the real forerunners of Daoism. The argument could be bolstered with evidence of experimentation with techniques that produce strange experiences. The attraction to special or supernatural access to knowledge of dao could coexist, as noted above, with a disinclination to claim special implicit authority — to treat the insight as shared by all humans. When combined with an assumption of privileged access and when it claims authority, the esoteric special access position frees the "master" of an inner cultivation technique from accountability. He need neither defend nor answer for his judgment nor need he justify imposing his dao on the rest of us. A characteristically religious excuse for coercive indoctrination is available. After "proper cultivation," the rebellious person would "see" and appreciate their wisdom in thus coercing him. Thus the Huang-Lao tradition could mesh with the authoritarian Confucian and Legalist elites who dominated the Han. With the Mawang Dui discovery came more evidence of Huang-Lao theory. Just how far back its history extends into the classical period remains controversial. It was highly influential in the Qin and Han, when it seemed to be highly favored by the superstitious rulers. Han historians categorized many of the figures in the Daoist history as students of Huang-Lao. Many scholars have come to believe the Laozi stems from forerunners of this cult. The arguments are inconclusive, necessarily so since Laozi remains (for most) a mythical figure. Neither the Laozi nor the Zhuangzi ever clearly grounds its reasoning on claims of a direct mystical access or insight. In any case, the ambiguous style of both texts comports poorly with the implicit authoritarianism of the religious movement. We have little reason to think any proto-yogic techniques could have initiated or explained the sophisticated philosophical understanding of dao. Ultimately, the question is whether assertions of Daoist intuitionism would or would not be refuted by the skeptical arguments that Zhuangzi directed against the Confucians. Given their similarities, it’s difficult to imagine how these religious conclusions could escape his analysis. Modern champions of irrationalist Daoism would not be disturbed by this inconsistency, of course, since, they allege, that Daoists refuse to think logically. |
