In this instalment of Digging Your Own Well, I make some suggestions about what books someone interested in Daoism should read first.
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After a life time of reading, and, buying thousands of dollars worth of books the following are suggestions about what I think the basic library of Daoism should include for someone who is just starting out.
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The Tao Te Ching, translated by Ellen M. Chen, First Edition 1989, “New Era Books”, ISBN 1-55778-238-5 (pbk.)
Chen is an Chinese-born and trained scholar who taught at American universities. Her education immersed her in both Eastern and Western scholarly traditions, which means that she is able to at the same time understand the Laozi the way a Chinese person might, and also communicate it clearly to an educated native English speaker. What is even more important is that her translation comes with a commentary that explains the text according to her own personal Daoist worldview, which is religious. Chen sees Daoism as a religious movement aimed at integrating humanity into nature, which is identified as the Dao. As such she sees it as an outgrowth of the Shamanistic traditions of ancient pre-Chinese civilization. Moreover, she believes the appeal of Daoism for a modern audience is based on the pressing need to develop a modern worldview that will create a sustainable civilization. Having said the above, her commentary isn't preachy so much as insightful. She helps readers see some of the subtle complexity that is implied in the original text.
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Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu, translated by Victor H. Mair, First Edition 1994, “Bantam Books”, ISBN 0-553-37406-0.
Mair is a well-respected scholar, which is important. But one of the things I really like about this translation is the way he has made both the “loopiness”, and, the innate common sense of the Zhuangzi available to the ordinary reader. For example, look at these two translations of the first paragraph of the chapter titled “Kengsang Ch'u”---the first by Herbert A. Giles and the second by Mair.
Among the disciples of Lao Tzŭ was one named Kên Sang Ch'u. He alone had attained to the Tao of his Master. He lived up north, on the Wei-lei Mountains. Of his attendants, he dismissed those who were systematically clever or conventionally charitable. The useless remained with him; the incompetent served him. And in three years the district of Wei-lei was greatly benefited.
Among the servants of Old Longears, there was a Kengsang Ch'u who had gotten a partial understanding of the Way of Old Longears. With it, he went north to dwell in the Jagged Mountains. He dismissed his attendants who were ostentatiously knowledgeable and distanced himself from his concubines were were insistently humane. He dwelled with rustics and made busy bees his servants. After he had dwelled there for three years, there was a great harvest at Jagged. ---[Mair doesn't end his translated paragraph in the same place as Giles]Zhuangzi is supposed to be strange and startling to read. But in a lot of translations this doesn't come through. A simple thing like trying to translate the proper names into English makes a huge difference, as they are often meant to be bizarre and referential to the issue at hand. Mair's translation also gives readers a lot more information than Giles. For example compare “systematically clever” versus “ostentatiously knowledgeable”---what is wrong with being “systematically clever”? But we do know that “ostentatiously knowledgeable” means “pompous windbag”.
Also compare “The useless remained with him; the incompetent served him.” with “He dwelled with rustics and made busy bees his servants.” Obviously, Giles and Mair are both trying to translate something that is obscure in the original old Chinese, but Mair's version makes a sort of sense that Giles' doesn't. This is an important thing to remember. When you are translating an obscure, bizarre text---which the Zhuangzi is---the translator can easily fall into the trap of simply accepting anything that doesn't make immediate sense as being just “part of the paradox”. But are “rustics” “useless people”? And if pollinators are the limiting factor on your farm, wouldn't hiring country folk to manage bee hives help increase the harvest? Even if this isn't literally what the original ancient Chinese meant, Mair's decision to translate it this way makes for an excellent evocative metaphor for someone who sees something that the non-realized man would miss.
Follow Giles' example and translate obscure passages as “mystical mumbo jumbo”, and you end up with a book that reads like a fortune cookie. Mair, on the other hand, tries to make the seemingly strange and bizarre something that will make sense if you put effort into trying to understand it. As non-academics, none of us can actually read the original text and understand it. This means that we have to work with the translation in front of us. And I find that Mair's version of Zhuangzi is a valuable window into a very deep and profound way of looking at the world. Since I know that Mair is a respected academic and translator, I also know that there is at least a good argument for the way he has translated the text. If it is that hard to translate, I'll opt for the one that makes some sense to me rather than one that sounds like New Age snake oil.
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Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei-Yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism, translated by Harold D. Roth, first edition 1999, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-11564-3
This is a book that the vast majority of people interested in Daoism have probably never heard about. That's too bad, because it comes from the same source and time as the much more popular Laozi. Oddly enough, it has never actually been “lost” and rediscovered so much as it managed to “hide in plain sight” from Western scholars. The book was preserved as a chapter of the Guanzi. This is a large text that deals primarily with philosophical issues relating to state governance from distinctly non-Daoist points of view. People who wanted to read the Guanzi weren't interested in Daoist meditation techniques, and people interested in Daoist meditation would not have wanted to read the Guanzi. As a result, the book was invisible to scholars.
The fascinating thing is that it dates back to the same time as the Laozi and appears to have come from the same cultural source. People often naively assume that each of the key texts of Daoism was written by a single individual: Laozi, Zhuangzi, and, Liezi. But the fact of the matter is that all of them grew out of a conversation or dialectic within a segment of ancient Chinese society. In some cases, there seems to have been an oral tradition that then migrated to written. In all cases there were additions and subtractions as the texts went through different editions. In effect, there was a long process of “natural selection” that resulted in the texts we have today. So looking at the Nei-Yeh allows people to understand the context that the Laozi emerged from.
And, that context was one in which people actually followed specific meditation practices.
Those who can transform even a single thing, call them “numinous”;
Those who can alter even a single situation, call them “wise”.
But to transform without expending vital energy; to alter without expending wisdom:
Only exemplary persons who hold fast to the One are able to do this.
Hold fast to the One; do not lose it,
And you will be able to master the myriad things.
Exemplary persons act upon things,
And are not acted upon by them,
Because they grasp the guiding principle of the One.(Nei-yeh, Chapter IX, Harold D. Roth translator)
“Holding onto the One” is the idea that people should try to remember in each moment that the Dao pervades and permeates all of the world and everything we do. It is easy to forget the way things interact and the subtle relationships and laws that govern those interactions. We get “lost in the moment” and forget that we are living human beings that can choose to “buy into” or “disengage” with every opportunity we are presented with---even if it means simply reminding yourself that you have a choice to get angry or not about some unavoidable indignity that the world is imposing upon you. And when we forget about “the One” we forget the subtle yet profound influences that we can exert without exerting ourselves. The wise woman realizes that the right word or the little push in the right place can create a huge effect as it cascades through our environment---but she can only do this if she holds fast to the idea that this is possible if she is sensitive to the subtle world around her. This is “holding onto the One”.
This is where Kirkland's annoyance with the idea of “philosophical Daoism” comes from. If you look at the other key Daoist texts---Laozi, Zhuangzi, and, Liezi---you will see that spiritual practices are an essential element of the tradition. This is not the same thing as saying that all real Daoism is religious, however. It is possible to believe in mental discipline through regular practice without submitting to the control of an ecclesiastic hierarchy, and/or, blindly follow fundamentally obscure texts and traditions. But it is true that a lot of people in the West who call themselves “Daoists” totally reject the idea that to be a Daoist involves some sort of personal, regular spiritual program. The Nei-yeh is useful because it shows that spiritual practice is not some sort of “add on” that those awful religious Daoists stuck onto pristine “philosophical Daoism”, but rather something that was integral to the idea from the get-go.
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The Book of Lieh-tzŭ: A Classic of Tao, translated by A. C. Graham, first edition 1960, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-07236-8.
This is another book that most Westerners would not have heard of. I recall reading, however, that this is the classic book on Daoism that Chinese speakers would most likely know. That's worth something in itself. It is very much in the same mould as the Zhuangzi, indeed they both share some of the same stories. But it adds others that are equally biting in the way they attack conventional wisdom and suggest that people should pay more attention to the way things really are.
I'm suggesting the A. C. Graham version because as an academic translation it attempts to stay close to the original meaning of the book. To understand this point, compare these two versions. The first is from the most popular “translation”, the Shambhala book Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living by Eva Wong1.
Lieh-tzu left his home in Cheng and journeyed to the kingdom of Wei. While walking down a dusty road, he saw the remains of a skull lying by the wayside. Lieh-tzu saw that it was the skull of a human that was over a hundred years old. He picked up the bone, brushed the dirt off it, and looked at it for a while. Finally, he put the skull down, sighed, and said to his student who was standing nearby. “In this world only you and I understand life and death.” Turning to the skull he said, “Are you unfortunate to be dead and we fortunate to be alive? Maybe it is you who are fortunate and we who are unfortunate!”
Lieh-tzu then said to his student , “Many people sweat and toil, and feel satisfied that they have accomplished many things. However, in the end we are not all that much different from this polished piece of bone. In a hundred years, everyone we know will be just a pile of bones. What is there to gain in life, and what is there to lose in death?”
The ancients knew that life cannot go on forever, and death is not the end of everything. Therefore, they are not excited by the event of life nor depressed by the occurrance of death. Birth and death are part of the natural cycle of things. Only those who can see through the illusions of life and death can be renewed with heaven and earth and age with the sun, moon and stars.
Liezi, “translated” by Eva Wong, from the first chapter
Now let's look at Graham's version.
When Lieh-tzŭ was eating at the roadside on a journey to Wei, he saw a skull a hundred years old. He picked a stalk, pointed at it, and said, turning to hi disciple Pai-feng:
“Only he and I know that you were never born and will never die. Is it he who is truly miserable, is it we who are truly happy?
“Within the seeds of things there are germs. When they find water they develop in successive stages. Reaching water on the edge of land, they become a scum. Breeding on the bank, they become the plantain. When the plantain reaches dung, it becomes the crowfoot. The root of the crowfoot becomes woodlice, the leaves become butterflies. The butterfly suddenly changes into an insect which breeds under the stove and looks as though it has shed its skin, named the ch'ü-to. After a thousand days the ch'ü-to changes into a bird named the kan-yü-ku. The saliva of the kan-yü-ku becomes the ssŭ-mi, which becomes the vinegar animalcula yi-lu, which begets the animalcula huang-k'uang, which begets the chiu-yu, which begets the gnat, which begets the firefly.
[etc, etc, more and more transformations, ending in---]
The yang-hsi, combining with an old bamboo which has not put forth shoots, begets the ch'ing-ning. This begets the leopard, which begets the horse, which begets man. Man in due course returns to the germs. All the myriad things come out of germs and go back to germs.
Liezi, “Heaven's Gifts”, A. C. Graham translator
Compare these two passages. It's obvious that Wong is trying to simplify the text to make it more appealing to the general reader. But she takes huge liberties with it. For example, in her version Liezi picks up the skull and makes a comment saying that only Liezi and the student know about life and death. In Graham's version, Liezi says only he and the skull know. This is an enormous difference!
Things get worse after that. Wong dispenses with the original's long blah-blah-blah about transformations. But by doing so, it totally changes the meaning of the text. In Wong's version Liezi makes the vague statement that “death is not the end of everything”---which could mean that he supports some sort of immortality, or, that he is simply saying that just because you die doesn't mean that everyone else does too. She ends with another vague bromide: “Only those who can see through the illusions of life and death can be renewed with heaven and earth and age with the sun, moon and stars.” What exactly does this mean?
In Graham's version Liezi goes on about “transformation” (which is a tremendously important Daoist concept.) It is hard to understand exactly what he is talking about, because his knowledge of biology is so primitive compared to our own. Is he implying some sort of evolutionary theory? Or is he suggesting some sort of atomic theory whereby matter gets absorbed into the bodies of other creatures through the process of growth and decay? It is very clear, however, that what he is talking about is material and scientific in nature, not some sort of spiritual or metaphysical process of life after death.
Wong is an example of someone who practices Daoism and is a native Chinese speaker but who doesn't have the scholarly education to understand the ancient Chinese text and the complex constellation of ideas that it emerged from. As a result, she can't “tease out” the important subtleties that Graham does. The result is a “fortune cookie” translation that sounds profound, but really doesn't give the reader anything useful.
Another point. The four books I've mentioned so far are all obviously linked together in some way or another. We know this because they share sections. The passage from the Liezi is almost exactly the same in Mair's translation of Zhuangzi. You wouldn't know this if you had only read Wong's version. This is an important thing to learn. Daoism was an actual movement in ancient China and modern Western readers need to remember this. A lot of people are content to just read and re-read the Laozi over and over again without even attempting to study anything else. This is silly. There are other texts out there that people can learn from, so why not?
One last point about the Liezi. Graham's translation can be a bit of a hard slog for the general reader. It varies widely in readability and the translator intrudes a lot to explain things. Unfortunately, this is because the original text really is widely variable in quality. But the effort is worth it, because some of the passages are really interesting. For example:
There was a man who lost his axe, and suspected the boy next door. He watched the boy walking: he had stolen the axe! His expression, his talk, his behaviour, his manner, everything about him betrayed that he had stolen the axe.
Soon afterwards the man was digging in his garden and found the axe. On another day he saw the boy next door again; nothing in his behaviour and manner suggested that he would steal an axe.
Liezi, “Explaining Conjunctions”, A. C. Graham translator
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1Oddly enough, Eva Wong is a fellow initiate into the same Temple as I---although we have never met.
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