Daoist Teachings about the "Soul"

húnpò -- "the soul"
#daoism "#soul 

Number Seven in an Eight-Part series on Daoism.

Daoist Teachings about the "Soul"



The 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 phenomena ... is empty of any inherent reality" so "[w]ithin ourselves, there is no abiding, absolute self. There are only phenomena" (458).

Human identity, mind, and awareness are parts of the "ten thousand things" produced by Dao's transformations, animating the force of qi through yin and yang, as the previous blog entry discusses in the Daodejing's Chapter One creation story.

Similarly, in Ch 2, "The Adjustments of Controversy," Section 13, the Zhuanzi states:
天地與我並生，而萬物與我為一。
"Heaven, Earth, and I came into existence together, and all things in the cosmos and I are one." (my translation)

"Heaven, Earth, and I" constitute wanwu, and the Zhuangzi text states above that "all things in the cosmos" and "I are one," so all part of the same phenomena. But what about my sense of self, my consciousness, my "soul"?

Daoist texts make frequent mention of two subtle spiritual distinctions: "hún" (魂, ethereal soul, yang) and "pò" (魄, corporeal soul, yin). The two occur in Chinese as the compound word húnpò, suggesting these two spiritual distinctions are intrinsically bound together in life. But according to Daoist beliefs, at death that bond ends.

The Zhuangzi Chapter "The Way of Heaven" explains the transformation:
故曰：知天樂者，其生也天行，其死也物化；靜而與陰同德，動而與陽同波。
"Hence it is said, 'Those who know the joy of Heaven during their life, act like Heaven, and at death undergo transformation like (other) things; in their stillness they possess the quality of the Yin, and in their movement they flow abroad as the Yang'" (162-63; James Legge's translation).

The above passage describes how the "pò" (魄, corporeal soul, yin) is laid to rest, while the "hún" (魂, ethereal soul, yang) moves on to unite again with the Dao. 

Lieh Yü-ko confirms this concept in the fifth century BCE in the Liezi: "Things that have been endowed with life die; but that which produces life itself never comes to an end....The spiritual element in man is allotted to him by Heaven, his corporeal frame by Earth" (7. 8; Lionel Giles translation).

It's almost as though our body and pò soul are like a completely autonomous "smart car," capable of decisions and actions with resulting consequences, while the Dao within us--the hún soul--provides the animating qi of life within us but in the role of an observant yet non-interfering passenger. At death, Way-Making at an end, the smart car/pò  return to the yin/yang elements of wànwù while the silent qì-animating passenger/hún returns to be at one with the Dào.

I'm still struggling to reconcile this Daoist interpretation of the afterlife with my attachment to who I think (thought?) I am. Yes, a part of me is immortal, the part that returns to the Dao. But what about the part of me that's "who-I-think-I-am?" Fortunately, there's more to this story, and it's all about a concept called "shen." 

The Zhoungzi chapter "The Great and Honored Master," Section 18, perhaps gives the best advice in response to my whiny, personal dilemma:
造適不及笑，獻笑不及排，安排而去化，乃入於寥天一。
"When one rests in what has been arranged, and puts away all thought of the transformation, he is in unity with the mysterious Heaven" (89; Legge's translation).

After all, that's what Way-Making is all about: working to be "in unity with the mysterious Heaven."

The next post continues the discussion, adding the concept of shen to help us figure out just who does "go" at the moment of transition from life to death.. 


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