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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 edition of the Zhuangzi, which includes the original Chinese text; and Lionel Gile's edition of the Liezi which, alas, is only a translation.
This entry delves more deeply into the topic of the seventh entry in my eight-part series, entitled "Daoist Teachings about the Soul," which explains the two aspects of the concept of the soul in Daoist philosophy: the "pò" (the mortal soul) and the "hún" (the immortal soul), which in Chinese are often described by compounding the two concepts into "húnpò."
But we need context to understand the implications--and limitations--of this sense of "soul." Three concepts in Daoist cosmology are at play here:
yì 易
'Yì" is the Chinese word used to represent one of the most important concepts in Daoist philosophy: cyclical changes in the cosmos, encapsuling the underlying principle of transformation in all things. The modern Chinese logograph is a stylized image of a chameleon, a lizard capable of changing its color. The original jīn wén inscriptions on ancient bronze objects from the Zhou dynasty portrayed a more flowing representation (pictured to the right). yīnyáng 阴阳
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| yīnyáng |
"Yángyīn" is the key primordial energy that drives change at all levels within the cosmos through the interplay of this force, which does not consist of opposites but rather represent the same force that continuously transforms its qualities in a way that appear to be opposite--tranquility and agitation, firm and yielding, light and dark, etc.--all states that are merely the potential extreme expressions of the same quality on a sliding scale.
wànwù 万物
"Wànwù" is the collective term used to represent everything that is in the cosmos as well as everything that has happened and everything that is still happening in the cosmos. Although everything is Dao, wànwù is a manifestation of Dao as this cosmos. But all these things and everything that is happening are still subject to the laws of change driven by the continuous interplay of yīnyáng.
Chapter 42 of Laozi's Daodejing sets the stage for this interplay of Yì, Yīnyáng, and Wànwù:
The Way (Wuji) begets one (dao),
One begets two (i.e., yángyīn as yáng and yīn; i.e., the Daoist Taiji; i.e., the modern cosmology of the Big Bang),
Two begets three (i.e., Heaven, Earth, and humanity),
Three begets everything that is happening (wànwù).
Everything that is happening carries yin and embraces yang,
using the flooding force of vital energy to facilitate harmony.
Daoists make a clear distinction about the role of the two aspects of húnpò during our time as part of wànwù.
Fourth-Century BCE Daoist sage Liè Yǔkòu writes, "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, but his corporeal frame by Earth" (Liezi, Book 1 "Cosmogony," pp. 7, 8; trans. Lionel Giles).
In Chapter 10 of the Daodejing, Laozi discusses the need to be able to hold all of húnpò in one’s mind as a Daoist: “Can you truly function while simultaneously embracing both your mortal soul (pò) as well as your cosmic oneness (hún), can you do this without separating?”
"Separating" refers to the transformation/transition at the moment of death, as Daoist sage Zhuang Zhou explains in his Zhuangzi's Chapter "The Way of Heaven":
"Those who know Heaven's joy
conduct lives according to Heaven;
They also die like all things;
And in their stillness they become like Yin,
while in their movement they flow with surging waves of Yang."
The Daodejing passage first cited explains what one needs to learn how to do as described in the first two lines of that Zhuangzi passage directly above, which then turns in lines three to five to what happens at “separation”–i.e., the transformation at the moment of death: The pò returns to the "stillness" that's part of Earth's essential Yin while the hún moves on to reunite with the Yang energy of Dào.
So we do, in a sense, have an immortal "soul." But the most important aspect in this discussion concerns the "shēn" or, in simplified Chinese characters, the 身.
According to Daoist wisdom, shēn is that portion of our being that contains our sense of presence, insight, and self-knowing--our personality, self-awareness, and, therefore, our sense of consciousness, of "who we think we are"--and which is most closely associated with hún. Shēn also contains our most attuned and developed sense of the spiritual, which makes sense as the context for Liè Yǔkòu's pronouncement above, "Things that have been endowed with life die, but that which produces life itself never comes to an end."
So at the separation of húnpò at death, our consciousness (our shēn) is that part of "who we think we are"--"that which produces life itself"--and that part travels with hún to be reunited with the yang energy of the Dao.
Although this entire blog focuses on Daoist philosophy rather than its institutionalized counterpart, Daoist religion, it's worth noting rituals such as “召魂复魄” (zhàohún fùpò, “summoning the hún and returning the pò”) designed to recall or return, respectively, these spiritual elements to their proper places at the time of death, of separation.
Our first citation above, Chapter 42 of Laozi's Daodejing, raises another interesting question, however: Why is Humanity grouped with Heaven and Earth in the creation story? The answer: the Daoist concept of the role of humanity in Way-Making, tiānrén-héyī 天人合一.
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