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tiānrén-héyī --- Humanity's union with Dao

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#tiānrén-héyī #yijing #IChing tiānrén-héyī -- Humanity's Union with  Dào Pleco's definitions for   tiānrén-héyī include: Heaven and humans are identical Humans are an integral part of Nature Oneness of Heaven and Humanity the theory that humans are an integral part of Nature First off, we need to grapple with the concept of " tiān ." Ames and Hall declare the “ tiān ” in tiānrén-héyī is poorly translated as “Heaven” since that word in English is so heavily connotated with Western civilization’s definitions, which have little to do with Chinese philosophy and Daoism in particular. For starters, A&H explain they leave tiān untranslated in their translations in part because the word is often used as shorthand for “Heaven and Earth” ( tiāndì ) since the two concepts are so closely related. The Dào is everything, and Heaven and Earth are interrelated manifestations of Dào , the former as energy that initiates ongoing change, the latter as the response through “subst...
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Life and Death in Daoism

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shēn  This entry is a continuation of the discussion of the concept of the "soul" covered in the previous blog posting, and I'm going to "go into the weeds" a bit to discuss nuances I'm learning from my readings from the three seminal works from the fourth to sixth centuries BCE that lay out the foundational, traditional beliefs of Daoism. (I've provided hyperlinks for all three of these books in the first installment of my introductory ten-part series.) (And once again, my disclaimer: I am NOT a Daoist master but rather no more than a serious student of Daoism, practicing Way-Making.) Life and Death in Daoist Tradition I repeat some passages from the works cited above, which already appear in part seven so you have them handy, largely offering my own translations when the original Chinese characters are available. I'm using the free Project Gutenberg press text for the  Daodejing , which I downloaded through Google Play Books; the James Legge editio...
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Way-Making through Daily Rituals

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yíshì -- "rituals"  #practicingdaoism #stdyingdoaism Way-Making through Daily Rituals  (in for a penny, in for a pound) This is the final installment in a ten-part blog series about Way-Making and the Dao.  What are next steps if seriously interested in Daoism? IN FOR A PENNY ... Daoism has evolved into two available avenues: 1. A Religion 2. A Philosophy for Living I've found Daoism to be something of a conundrum: Its origins are steeped in counter-cultural ideas that an entire culture eventually came to adopt. The result was an organized religion, much of which is the historical influence of Confucianism. But the philosophy itself remains counter-cultural and independent of religious trappings. I've personally chosen the philosophy avenue. I've never been much of a "joiner," but I've always been a life-long self-learner, and I'm comfortable with finding my own way and I've always found myself disciplined enough to follow through. Only you c...
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Daoist Teachings about the "Soul"

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húnpò -- "the soul" #daoism "#soul   Number Seven in an Eight-Part series on Daoism. Daoist Teachings about the "Soul" T he Daoist interpretation of the soul and the afterlife are quite different from those offered in Western civilization.  In The Scholar Warrior , Chapter 12 "Returning to the Source: The Ultimate Wisdom," contemporary Daoist Master Deng Ming-Dao minces no words on the subject: "[Y]in and yang constitute all known phenomena in the universe....They include feeling, perception, impulse, and consciousness" (455-56). Wait! "Consciousness," too? The first three phenomena included above, I get: These all refer to ways I recognize and interpret the realm of wanwu ("everything that is happening" in the cosmos around me). But adding in consciousness as well seems to pretty much characterize everything I consider to be my personality--in fact, my whole sense of Self. Ming-Dao continues, "[T]he world of phenome...
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Daoist Cosmogony

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Wuji  #DaoistCosmogony #Way-MakingtheDao Daoist Cosmogony (Wuji, Taiji, Wuwan) Cosmogony : a creation story (Disclaimer: As I mentioned in the first entry of this series, I am *not* a Daoist Master, but rather a student of Daoism. Thei following contains what I've studied, discovered, and attempted to assemble about the intent of the Daoist Creation Story as I thread the needle of Way-Making.) Daoism defies Western dualism. It's all Dào , everywhere, all the time. The Daodejing 's very first chapter explains the conundrum of understanding  Dào . 道可道， 非常道。 名可名, 非常名。 (In pinyin: Dào kě Dào, fēicháng dào. míng kě míng, fēicháng míng .) "The  Dào  we refer to as  Dào , is not really the  Dào . The name we use, is not really its name." (my translation) In other words, the term " Dào " can never be more than a placeholder for something that remains beyond our comprehension, beyond our definitions. That said, Daoism does talk about the constant, transfomative m...
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It's about time!

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  shíjiān -- "time" #Daoist-time #shijian #daoism #yijing #IChing It's about time (and timing)! Perhaps the most significant realization I've experienced about the Daoist worldview is that we live in a world not of nouns but instead a world of verbals . For example: In Western languages, we call objects--rocks, birds, people, etc.--nouns. But we can also turn action words--verbs--into nouns by adding "-ing" to the end. So "to stand" is a verb action, but "standing" acts as a noun to describe the ongoing state of that verb by turning it into a noun--i.e., a verbal. From this perspective, I'm not really Mark, rather I'm "Marking," the snapshot-now version of me in the current moment of my ongoing transformation from womb to tomb, just as everyone and everything around me does the same. Why is such a perspective shift important? Because it alters our awareness to recognize the constantly animating energy of qi manifesting t...
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Yijing, or The Book of Changes

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Yìjīng  -- The Book of Changes  #iching #Book of Changes #Yijing Yìjīng (or "I Ching") Because of the Western preoccupation with Yijing , I've intentionally delayed this discussion. Is it important to the Daoist tradition? Absolutely.  Should you read and study it? Again, absolutely. But the Yijing needs context within the tradition, and Daoism is so much more than the rap The Book of Changes gets solely as a divination tool. (Below, I reproduce the links to resources and introductory comments I make from  the first post in this series .     *  The I Ching or Book of Changes , by trans. Richard Wilhelm (from Chinese to German) and Carey Baynes (that German to English), contains the First and Second Wings ( Tuàn   Zhuàn ) by King Wen and the Duke of Zhou, and the Fifth and Sixth Wings ( Xiàng   Zhuàn ) by Confucius.      *  The Complete I Ching , trans. by Daoist Master Alfred Huang, for the essential Seventh Wing ( ...
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