Chapter 14: Daoism
(reminder that he’s using Pinyin but adding Wade-Giles in parentheses where pertinent)
dao originally translated to “way” or “road,” and its meanings diversified over time (eg, used to refer to the way the heavens seem to rotate in the sky, with the North Star seen as the kind of origin of the power of Dao and with Dao seen as the force that orders all nature) and grew to be more and more abstract (a kind of impersonal, infinite, cosmic force standing behind all of nature; similar to Dharma in Indian subcontinent). and, as we discussed previously, Confucianism would eventually come to use “Dao” to refer to proper conduct/the “right” way for ppl to live.
like Confucianism, Daoism emerged in Warring States period, but slightly after Confucius’ life (and likely in response to Confucianism). both still exist today, but obvs they’ve both evolved quite a bit since their inception
Daoism evolved into 2 general branches, generally called Philosophical Daoism and Religious Daoism in English contexts; text focuses primarily on the former
Philosophical Daoism’s central teachings are found in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) and the Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu), both written in Zhou period. modern research generally indicates the Zhuang Zi is (slightly) older; however, the Dao De Jing is more succinct (and seemingly more directly connected to Confucianism), so we’re discussing it first.
Dao De Jing
relatively short text of some 5k Chinese characters, arranged into 81 brief “chapters” or verses (each only a few lines)
prolly originally an anthology of verses from various sources, then organized kinda arbitrarily into these “chapters” just because 9 was a lucky number (so 9×9 was extra lucky)
“The word Jing in the title refers to the fact that it was (and is) regarded as a classic work. Dao and De refer to what the work is all about. There are, in fact, two major parts to the Dao De Jing, one dealing with the art of governing, the other with right virtue. The word Dao in the title refers to the part dealing with governing, and De refers to the part dealing with right values” (p. 343).
supposedly written by someone called Lao Zi (Lao Tzu, meaning “the old master”), so this text is sometimes called the Lao Zi; unclear if such a dude ever existed, and there’s pretty much 0 evidence of his life, so he’s really just kind of a legend surrounded by myth—even Sima Qian, who compiled a buncha biographies in the 1st century BCE into a text called the Shih Chi, fully wrote “listen bruh i don’t know fuckin anything about this dude, there’s next to nothing in the historical archive to go off of” lmao
legend claims he was born ~600 BCE (a lil before Confucius) in what’s now Honan Province (just to W of Confucius) and worked as a minor bureaucrat (perhaps a historical record-keeper), which gave him access to Chinese literature; he knew a lot about Chinese history and culture but felt a great contempt for the intellectuals of his day, though, and he instead lived a simple, humble life, even though he got to be kinda famous among those contemporaries fascinated with ancient Chinese tradition.
claims that one day, he realized he was nearing death, so he decided he was gonna walk off to live the rest of his days out in the woods; “When he reached the frontier that led him off into the barbarian lands, the warden of the gate tearfully begged him not to leave” (p. 344), saying his wisdom was just too important to be forever lost, but bro was dead-set on his plan. in the end, he decided “out of compassion […] to leave behind a brief written account of his understanding of the Dao” (p. 344) and stayed a few days at the warden’s hut while the latter wrote down his insights as 81 verses before he finally vamoosed.
back to facts… more or less certain from the wildly different styles in different parts of the text that it was written by multiple authors, which is why modern scholars generally consider it an anthology of aphorisms (some of which might have been common in popular Chinese culture at the time they were written down)
general consensus that it was created in 4th century BCE (after the Zhuang Zi and thus Confucius)
very possibly compiled by a single person, though, who was perhaps called Lao Zi
similar to Confucius’ philosophy, this text is primarily concerned with what type of person ought to govern and how; also similar to Analects in that it’s addressed to the ruler as a kind of sage but ambiguous advice
super difficult to translate into modern Chinese (much less other modern languages), which just adds to the ambiguity because available translations differ wildly
so like… what is Dao?
like “Brahmin,” Dao is difficult to explain because it’s ineffable by definition; that said, it’s generally described as “the underlying reality that gives meaning to all that is” (p. 345), the “mother of the universe” (p. 345, quoting #25), the formless and perfect “thing” that existed before the birth of the universe and which is unchanging, infinite, omnipresent, etc (also like Brahmin)
can never be directly perceived—can only be observed through its workings (and everything is its play/working, which in turn is seen as spontaneous and harmonious)
“To be in accord with Dao is to be one with it, going with it, like the wind and the waving of the wheatfield” (p. 345).
“All things are born from it, yet it doesn’t create them. It pours itself into its work, yet it makes no claims. It nourishes infinite worlds, yet it doesn’t hold onto them” (p. 345, quoting #34).
“Daoism is founded on a deep love of nature, a love of the harmony and organic wholeness of nature. [Humankind] is seen to be an integral part of the natural order, and as such, human life is potentially a perfect expression of the play of Dao. The currents of human life are one with the currents of the sea, the flight of birds, the growth of grass and trees. From the movements of the stars to the movements of the tides, all is one awesome harmony—at least potentially. Humans, unfortunately, have the ability to get out of sync with the harmony of Dao. And then, all hell breaks loose. All of the suffering and tribulations of human life are the consequences of human society straying from the ‘way,’ the Dao. To the Daoist, restoring humanity’s proper harmony within the natural order thus becomes the only matter of real importance. As with a person who has become gravely ill, restoring health is the only thing that matters” (p. 346).
note here that this fundamental principle is actually in agreement with Confucianism; the difference, then, is simply in the proposed solution: Daoists vehemently disagreed with Confucius’ proposal that only enlightened (read: educated) ppl should govern, arguing that the complexity and formality of Confucius’ system was actually moving farther away from nature and would thus only make things worse
first line of text is “The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao” (p. 346, quoting #1), then elaborating that the true eternal reality is unnamable. it isn’t a discrete entity and can’t be singled out from the rest of life or examined as such, on its own. it’s the start and end of everything, “filled with infinite possibilities” (p. 347), and everything that exists is just an expression of it. (seemingly the only thing it can’t be is precisely defined/described.)
“The meaning of Dao lay beyond the power of words to describe; it is ineffable. We can only suggest, allude, imply. Once we grasp the intuitive sense of Dao, we can spontaneously move in harmony with it. To a Daoist, that is what life is all about—moving in harmony with Dao, not in conflict with it” (p. 347).
1st principle is Dao itself, and its ongoing expression is wu wei, which refers to how all of nature behaves (harmoniously, spontaneously, perfectly).
“The way grass grows is wu wei, so is the flowing of a river, the blowing of the wind, or even the laughing of a baby” (p. 347)
translates literally to “non-action” as in “not forcing,” but it generally carries with it connotations of flowing freely or of going with the flow
manifests, eg, as the “natural patternings of nature (eg, grain in wood), the way the clouds move in the sky, etc
not seen as a passive action but rather “expresses a lively interplay” (p. 347), like how fish often use the current to swim against the flow of a river.
“Consider a person in a motorboat and a person in a sailboat. Each wishes to get from Point A to Point B. The motorboat roars its way to Point B, overpowering everything in its path and probably gets there faster. But in the process it has created a general disruption of noise and pollution. The sailboat also reaches Point B, but without disrupting anything. It is designed to fit into the natural order of the environment, going with, not going against, the forces of nature. By skillful handling, the sailor, like the fish, uses the natural currents to get where he wants to go. This example is a good metaphor for the basic difference between the modern lifestyle and the Daoist lifestyle. The Daoists would say that sometimes we should stop and ask ourselves if ‘getting there faster’ is really all that important” (p. 348).
“Wu wei is the way of living of a [person] who is in harmony with Dao—accepting, yielding, always flexible, more like bamboo than an oak, more like water than a rock. The oak and the rock may seem to be much stronger, but in the long run, bamboo and water will win out every time; they can yield and spring back” (p. 348). says folk should all be like skilled artists, who develop their instincts so well that they can perform their craft intuitively, no longer feeling the need to ruminate on and overanalyse their every move and instead “act[ing] instinctively and spontaneously and, without knowing why, achiev[ing] success” (p. 348).
a person who achieves this is described as De, a term which “refers to the power of expression of Dao. Wu wei has to do with the flow of Dao; De refers to what that flow produces. For example, the way grass grows, naturally and spontaneously, is a wonderful expression of wu wei in action, but the power of the earth and the seeds to germinate and grow as grass is De” (p. 348).
popular analogy for De is called “the analogy of the uncultivated field” and describes how an uncultivated field looks dead (to us) through the wintertime but blooms with life in the spring, even without human intervention; even though we as humans don’t generally see or recognize that field’s potential, the field still effortlessly nourishes life.
concept is particularly important in terms of conceptualising how ppl ought to act. Dao De Jing expresses that technology and civilization themselves aren’t necessarily the cause of humanity’s disharmony with nature, but rather their exaggeration is. eg, a simple craftsperson can live a life totally in harmony with Dao, so long as they’re still in harmony with nature.
so in the end, like Confucius, the Daoists aimed to fashion a new person; unlike Confucius’ “Superior Man,” though, the Daoists pushed for a return to more ancient ways of living that they believed used to exist but with which humans had grown out of touch “in the progress of civilization” (p. 349). goal was to restore that harmony.
Dao De Jing remains intentionally obscure about what makes a person truly Daoist, saying, “Those who know, don’t speak. Those who speak, don’t know” (p. 249), that is, a Daoist isn’t someone who claims to be so but someone who acts so (and who doesn’t explain it… smh). that said, it describes a Daoist as “a [sage] master of […] the art of living” (p. 349); someone who lives a simple life, having few possessions (only those that are absolutely necessary, and not being attached to them); modest; cheerful; generous; flexible; not controlling; and natural and spontaneous in their approach to life.
text emphasizes the importance of society living simply and close to the earth, but also recognizes governance as a necessary evil. in the case of government, too, it’s treated as an art (and a particularly important one at that), and only a master artist (one who lives fully in harmony with Dao) is fit to govern. biggest disagreement with Confucianist thought was the idea that leaders should be a “superior,” well-mannered, well-educated elite—Daoism instead proposed that leaders should do as little as possible and leave most issues to the judgment of smaller, mostly self-sufficient communities of farmers and craftspeople. leaders’ principal job was to lead by example rather than control and to shape society so as to be in line with the natural order of the world. “The secret of success is self-restraint, yielding control, going with the Dao” (p. 351).
“Lao Zi and the Daoists believed that the world could be restored to health and harmony and that the sickness of greed, violence, and human suffering could largely be healed. It all depended on returning to the simple life that is natural to mankind. And the role of the leader was to gently assist this process of reform” (p. 351).
but basically proposed that the most natural state of order for humans was the agricultural community
at its most basic, Daoism argues that “[t]he ‘good life’ for every [person] is the perfectly natural life—that is to say, becoming one with the Dao. Such a person does not try to forcibly control [their[ environment and to pile up worldly wealth and honor. Goals such as these are ignorant delusions that lead inevitably to unhappiness, and, all too often, to violence as well. Instead of trying to become great rocks, we are encouraged to become like water—accepting, yielding, moving spontaneously with the currents of nature, ‘seeking the lowest place.’ The Dao De Jing tells us in many ways that the simple life is the secret of happiness—the simpler the better” (p. 352). thus, a genuine Daoist, is modest, humble, and ordinary; they ask for nothing and are content with whatever life gives them; they live life with a childlike, carefree spontaneity and cheerfulness.
Zhuang Zi
this text is named after another purported dude. traditional Daoist view accepted both men as real, living people and placed Zhuang Zi as coming chronologically after Lao Zi; however, historical evidence suggests the opposite and that both produced their texts in the 4th century BCE, and modern scholars believe both texts were likely anthologies of texts written by multiple people, not a cohesive work by a single person. we’ll the purported compiler Zhuang Zi, as we did with Lao Zi.
where the Dao De Jing is “terse and cryptic” in style, the Zhuang Zi is “a much fuller exposition of Daoist themes” written in a “down-to-earth prose style that reads like a conversation […], often amusing and full of anecdotes” (p. 353)
most well-known excerpt is called The Butterfly Dream, wherein Zhuang Zi describes dreaming he was a butterfly and then waking up and being like “but what if this is actually the dream and i really am the butterfly?” which seems like a bad trip tbh akjsljsdahfs
this text is all about right living and doesn’t really focus much at all on governance, meaning it serves as a more general life philosophy that normal-ass ppl can adopt and practice
Zhuang Zi agreed with Confucius that self-indulgence and hedonism won’t help folk feel happy and fulfilled in life, but he vehemently disagreed with Confucius’ junzi/“Superior Man,” which he basically saw as reinventing the ruling elite (just based on demonstrate knowledge and compassion instead of birth[right] and wealth). he thought it was ridiculous to suggest that these “modest men” serving as kind and selfless leaders would somehow ~magically~ awaken the goodness in commoners’ hearts. instead proposed that man is neither good nor evil by nature: “Both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are both concepts. If man is naturally good, then he must also be naturally evil. The two concepts are intimately bound together. You can’t have one without the other; they are the two sides of one conceptual coin. To the Daoist, the very defining of a ‘good’ man necessarily gives rise to the ‘evil’ man; they arise mutually: ‘When people see some things as good, other things become bad’” (p. 353).
“This is a very subtle point, but it is an essential element of the Daoist philosophy of life. It strikes at the human tendency to conceptualize the realities that we encounter in daily life and then substitute the concept for the reality it represents. For example, happiness is a state of mind that we experience from time to time; it is an integral part of certain situations, such as being with a friend or eating a good dinner. To mentally abstract this condition of happiness, as if it were a something in itself, and then make it an object of desire is a fatal mistake. But that’s what we humans do all the time. ‘Happiness’ thus becomes an external object, as it were—something to be attained—just as ‘unhappiness’ is a thing to be avoided. The same can be said for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and so on. In Zhuang Zi’s view, this was the problem with Confucius’s concept of junzi; it was a concept. In other words, the problem with seeking to junzi was in the very seeking itself. One can only truly seek that which is external to oneself. Confucius, admittedly with the best of intentions, had mistakenly conceptualized the notion of a Superior Man, thus making it an external object which could never be realized. At best, Zhuang Zi would argue, the man of junzi would be only a well-behaved, intellectually cultivated person, but never a man of real fulfillment. He would see only the effects of Dao, but not its essence” (pp. 353-4).
central Dao teaching, coming from Zhuang Zi, is that “fulfillment in life is not to be found by seeking it” because that leads to people trying to control their environment, but rather it is to be found “through not-seeking, through letting go of the self altogether. Only by letting go of our precious, but artificial, conceptual world do we discover true freedom” (p. 354).
so basically, we’re socialized to adopt “conventional values” that tell us that certain things are good and other (generally opposite) things are bad, but that’s all just conceptual—there’s nothing inherently good or bad or anything else about any “thing” in life (and he includes the examples of war, poverty, injustice, disease, and death? 🤨). it’s only because we believe that there is that we experience life as if there is (and thus suffer when we inevitably can’t achieve that “goodness” because “goodness” isn’t a reality). says freedom lies in abandoning “the struggle to achieve [those] conceptual goals” (p. 354): “If man would once forsake his habit of labeling things as good or bad, desirable or undesirable, then the man-made ills, which are the product of man’s purposeful and value-ridden actions, would disappear and the natural ills that remain would no longer be seen as ills, but as an inevitable part of the course of life” (p. 355, quoting Watson). only once the struggle to achieve “goodness” ends are folk free to live in full harmony with Dao and to embody wu wei, letting oneself “be a free and spontaneous expression of the movement of the natural world. In doing this, one will intuitively come to see the ificent [sic] unity of nature” (p. 355).
Daoism sees no separation between humanity and nature—humans are part of nature
“Far from seeking to be at the center of things (controlling, governing—even governing righteously, as would the Confucian Superior Man), the genuine Daoist values solitude, sometimes to the point of being a recluse. Above all, the Daoist inclines to a lifestyle that permits the contemplation of nature, not just nature in the sense of ‘woods and wildlife,’ but that grand order of nature that encompasses all, including the self. The joy derived from that awareness banishes all fear and suffering. Cosmic awareness reduces the trivial problems of life to the point of being meaningless. Even the once monstrous fear of death dissolves in the contemplation of the natural order. It is seen to be, like everything else, a perfectly natural event” (pp. 355-6).
“That does not mean that the Daoist chooses a life of inaction, of torpor. That is a misunderstanding of wu wei. [They are] like the grass or drifting clouds only in the sense that the energy of Dao plays through [them] naturally, without forcing or trying to control. Nature is so beautifully regulated that once in accord with it, one doesn’t have to do anything, in the sense of pushing it around. Just go with it, like the grass grows” (p. 356).
“The true Daoist is a skilled artist. [Their] instrument might be the keyboard of a piano or the keyboard of a computer, the brush of a painter, or the scalpel of a surgeon. It could be anything; the art is in the effortless way that the person becomes on with the work: that is wu wei. […] The ultimate art is life itself. When one’s daily life becomes an expression of wu wei, the perfection of Daoism is achieved” (p. 356).
“There is a popular story in the Zhuang Zi that makes the point beautifully. It’s known as Three in the Morning. A man acquired a small group of monkeys, and he planned to give them four measures of chestnuts in the morning and three measures of chestnuts in the evening. The monkeys, however, complained loudly when they heard about this, so he changed his plan and gave them three measures in the morning and four measures in the evening. Now everyone was satisfied. So, what’s the moral of the story? […] The point is that [the keeper] was wise enough to see that stubbornly insisting that the monkeys were being unreasonable would solve nothing; he would only become unreasonable himself. Since his goal was to provide the monkeys with adequate nourishment, he was willing to yield with regard to the means for achieving it. He became like water seeking the lowest place. So long as he reached the lowest place, he was perfectly willing to yield to the boulder in his path and go around it” (p. 357).
religious Daoism
in Ye Olden Days (TM), ppl didn’t have the same scientific explanations for worldly phenomena, so lotta cultures in lotta places and times have attributed to spirits that which was otherwise inexplicable (and many still do); shamans (by various local names) came next, who are folk who can communicate with spirits and thus hopefully reduce human suffering by influencing what the spirits do. (China has long-ass history of shamanism (as so many cultures do).) especially important w/r/t illness (though also played other roles—eg, divination, interpreting omens/dreams, rain-making—but likely only aristocracy could afford to focus on that kinda shit), but obvs play(ed) other roles, too. largely a way to try to predict and impact the future.
aristocracy particularly interested in divination, and thus divination was once a highly-refined art in China. archaeologists, eg, have found a buncha oracle bones (usually made of ox’s sternum), which were heated over a fire until they cracked; the cracks were then read to predict the future
founded on premise that the whole world is interconnected, and everything impacts everything else, but usually in such subtle ways that it can’t be seen (except by shamans, who are specially gifted to do so)
other fascination among aristocracy was longevity (specifically they wanted immortality, smh); thus another of shamans’ specialities was “a ‘science’ of longevity” (p. 358), which involved things like special diets, potions, charms, breathing exercises, even sexual exercises. “Only members of the privileged class had the necessary wealth and leisure time to pursue that sort of thing, and apparently many of them did. By the time of the late Zhou dynasty, a secret cult of immortality had developed” (p. 358).
“The general picture, then, is of a large complex society, mostly agricultural, which included a heterogeneous population of shamans. That was a perfectly normal situation; it was the responsibility of the shamans to deal with all those mysterious problems and worries which might somehow have a connection to the spirit world. In a way, they served a religious function. That was an essential part of early Chinese society, and there are those who play that role even to this day. Most of the things the shamans did were pretty mundane—healing, fortune-telling, etc. But some of their arts, especially those dealing with the quest for immortality, were more specialized” (p. 358).
this connects to Daoism because, somewhere down the line, “the lexicon of Daoism was adopted by the shamanistic ‘religious’ element within Chinese society, giving the impression that the two were really one tradition. Undoubtedly, there were some common points, but the Daoism of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi was clearly distinct from the shamanistic tradition and the cult of immortality. Some would argue that Daoist terms were hijacked in order to lend respectability to the more decidedly religious tradition. In any case, during the time of the early Han dynasty, as the shamanistic tradition coalesced into something of a native Chinese religion, the terminology of Daoism became widely used. These new ‘Daoists’—referred to in modern times as Religious Daoists, or Magical Daoists—even went so far as to claim spiritual descent from Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi, both of whom were deified. […] Thus, the history of Daoism is divided into two quite different traditions: Philosophical Daoism (Dao Jia) and Religious Daoism (Dao Jiao)” (p. 359).
Han emperors were totally down with the religious version because they, too, wanted to be immortal (smh), so they basically abandoned the old system of having court shamans and turned to a new group of more sophisticated itinerant shamans called Fang Shi, who specialized in occult arts (and esp the quest for immortality)
the problem, though, was that a lotta ppl thought these new Fang Shi were just a buncha charlatans, especially because of some of their weird-ass recommended practices (eg, “it was suggested by some that a man seeking immortality should have sexual intercourse with 1,200 girls sixteen or seventeen years of age” (p. 359)… bad!), which is basically why they started appropriating Philosophical Daoist stuff to make themselves seem more respectable/legit
“I don’t want to leave the impression that these men were nothing more than a group of schemers who contrived to steal the name and reputation of others. It’s quite possible that they honestly perceived some essential relationship between their teachings and that of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi. Let’s remember that the word Dao had wide applications in Chinese culture; it was not coined by the Philosophical Daoists” (p. 359).
“All of nature exhibits a wonderful harmony. The harmony results from the interworking of the basic forces of nature, which the Daoists refer to as yin&yang. The movement of Dao is manifest in the interplay of yin&yang. Derived originally from the Chinese words for moon and sun, yin&yang stand symbolically for the dual forces of nature that are the most elementary of all. Yin, the passive force, associated with the feminine principle, is the force that maintains and regulates. Yang, the active force, associated with the male principle, is the force that initiates action. One could say that a modern expression of yin&yang is energy and entropy. One can’t exist without the other, nor is anything ever purely an expression of one as opposed to the other” (p. 359).
“Everything is like that; you and I are like that. Yang keeps trying out new forms of being, and yin is always there to gradually dismantle them. Thus does the unfolding of nature progresses [sic] through time. Eventually thus we are told, the force of yin will return the entire universe to the state of amorphous dust from which it began. But that is not an ultimate victory of yin over yang, because yang is ever there ready when the time is right to start the game all over again with a new Big Bang” (p. 360).
(note the similarity with the gunas in Hinduism; differently, though, Hinduism conceptualised the active force with the feminine and the passive force with the masculine)
Daoists don’t conceptualize yin and yang as being in conflict with e/o, as we do in the Eurowest because of our binaries and dichotomies; rather, they complement each other, working together to achieve balance and harmony, not to dominate one another. “Thus, to the Daoist, the goal of human life is not to conquer the natural world and bend it to our purposes, but rather to go with the natural world, finding the ‘way’ that achieves harmony with the whole” (p. 360).
interplay of yin and yang is discussed in Yi Jing (I Ching), meaning “Book of Changes;” likely started out as “a manual of prophecy” (p. 361), but has since evolved into a guidebook of traditional Chinese wisdom and culture (and thus a guidebook on how to live one’s life in harmony with Dao).
64 sections, each titled (eg, “Following” or “Deliverance”) and each containing a brief commentary on the titular subject
written as personal advice, but usually cryptic, so only skilled interpreters can figure out wtf it means
“One approaches the Yi Jing as one would a sage or an oracle, to receive its guidance. That advice may be in the form of an answer to a specific question, or, more likely, general guidance relevant to harmonizing one’s life with Dao” (p. 361).
specific rituals/ceremonies around the Yi Jing. most traditional involves casting 50 yarrow stalks to the ground and reading them (broken = yin, solid = yang; 3 parallel lines = trigram, pair of trigrams = hexagram), with total of 64 possible hexagrams, each corresponding to one of the sections of the text; read that section for advice; this interpretation is an art in itself.
“Defenders of the Yi Jing argue that it is in no way to be confused with fortune-telling or fortune cookies; it is not magic, not a Chinese version of the ouija board. The Yi Jing, they maintain, evolved out of the same worldview that produced the ‘oracle bones’ in ancient times; it is a conviction that the entire cosmos is one interconnected whole. One part affects all parts. The human mind is an internal state that reflects the external state of the universe. The sagely advice of the Yi Jing prods the mind to bring forth of itself solutions to the seeming dilemmas of life. The hexagram is something like a Rorschach Inkblot; it is the individual’s own struggle for meaning, together with the ancient wisdom contained in the text, that creates the guidance” (pp. 361-2).
“In addition to Dao and yin&yang, there is a third fundamental element in the theoretical basis of Religious Daoism” (p. 362), which is called qi (ch’i)
similar to Hindu prana, as “both refer to a vital energy that permeates all of space and is responsible for life. Like prana, the amount, or fullness, of qi can vary in a given individual. The greater the fullness of qi, the stronger the health and vitality of that person; depletion of qi was believed to result in sickness, and, ultimately, death” (p. 362); thus Religious Daoists spent a lotta time and energy on practices meant to increase and maintain healthy qi levels
increase/decrease in qi attributed to yin and yang in Religious Daoism, so studying yin and yang was seen as the key to learning how to manage qi; thus, some Fang Shi were dedicated to the quest to fully understand yin and yang so that they could increase folks’ qi and make them live forever.
and the idea that immortality was possible was not at all a doubt, fwiw. folk fully believed it was not only possible but that there were immortal ppl out there, some ppl who were supposedly eternally young and who lived in some far-away paradise, which was sometimes claimed to be mountains far to the west, but the best of the best lived in the Isles of the Blessed—some mythical, mountainous islands just a little ways into the eastern seas, where supposedly grew some kinda drug of immortality—and several emperors actually sent crews out to sea to try to find these islands (but supposedly when they were be just about to reach the shore, their boats were swept away by the wind).
^ this, actually, is what spawned Chinese alchemy :0
where European alchemists were obsessed with the “philosopher’s stone” that would turn ordinary elements into gold, Chinese alchemists were obsessed with this drug that would supposedly stop qi from waning
modern scholars use 2 broad categories to conceptualise historical Chinese alchemy: “external” and “internal” alchemy. external came earlier, and internal largely developed out of external
external alchemists “put their faith in a substance, external to the body, which possessed properties that, when ingested, would confer immortality” (p. 3623), and their quest was to find this supposed elixir of life; these searches turned up some wild shit (eg, it led to the purely accidental discovery of gunpowder 💀 which was originally used only for pyrotechnics but eventually (especially in the Eurowest) was applied to warfare)
principle text Zandonji listed a buncha substances that they claimed were promising, including lead, mercury, sulphur, zinc, nickel, gold, silver, and cinnabar (AKA mercuric oxide, which was a fav lmao); alchemists would carefully mix these chemicals into potions that eager subjects then tested (often resulting in death 💀) (or on condemned criminals??? why would you want a potentially immortal criminal smh)
obvs this shit didn’t work, so ppl grew more and more sus abt alchemy, and the practice was nearly dead by the late Han; Tang dynasty, however, saw a revival because they were willing to fund a new research programme based on the new claim of “the pill,” a purported pellet that would naturally form under certain rocks in perfect conditions (specifically, only under rocks that had absorbed the perfect concentration of yin and yang vapours from the sunlight and moonlight, which supposedly took 4320 years to do, during which those rocks supposedly transformed lead into mercury into a tiny cinnabar crystal “pill”).
alchemists claimed they could make synthetic versions of this pill in labs, though, at much faster rates, as long as they had a special cauldron, which served as both furnace and cooling chamber, so as to replicate “the yang heat of the sun and the yin cooling of the moonlight. Fire and water represent the activities of the sun and moon; these would be used alternatively in a carefully balanced fashion. And, all of this had to be precisely timed in accord with a very complex schedule that duplicated the movements of the sun and moon and stars. Further, it was essential that the ingredients be mixed with great precision. Even a tiny mistake here could ruin the whole batch, to say nothing of what it did to the body of the hopeful imbiber. Mistakes did occur, but even if they didn’t, the result was a poisonous mixture whose effects were far more likely to confer death than immortality” (p. 364).
so yeah obvs this ^ didn’t work either (and even killed a few emperors), so this also went out of vogue. ppl still wanted to live forever, though, so they turned to new potential methods in the Song dynasty, where the new “internal” approach was born, turning to the body’s internal store of qi rather than ingesting random external shit.
some argued ppl are born with a full supply of qi, which depleted over the lifetime; when it ran out, you died, so the goal was to make that supply last as long as possible. proponents argued stillness was the greatest virtue—any activity, even sensory activity, supposedly drained that supply, so you wanted to do as fuckin little as possible (physically, mentally, sensorially…). “Some emperors went so far as to wear an unusual headdress with a fringe of tiny pearls covering the ears and eyes. This reduced sensory involvement and thus, or so they believed, added years to their lives” (p. 365).
others (more commonly) argued that the goal was actually to replenish qi, which, though difficult, was still considered possible; “Activity did indeed reduce the original supply, and some qi could simply leak away through bad mental and physical habits, but special steps could be taken to restore it and thus achieve longer life” (p. 365), so followers developed bodily practices to both maximize the amount of qi in the body and “to facilitate its optimal distribution and uses by the body and mind” (p. 365). earlier Religious Daoists had been fascinated by Indian Yogic practices, and that fascination came back full force here, with a new dedication to things like diet, breathing exercises, and even Tantric sex (as arousal was seen to increase qi but ejaculation was seen to more than dissipate that increase for men, so the goal was sexual arousal without ejaculation), all heavily influenced by Hindu and Buddhist practices.
“In a way, [the techniques of external alchemy] were transposed metaphorically into the practices of internal alchemy. The body itself became the alchemist’s cauldron. The yin&yang of fire and water became the interplay of body heat and perspiration. As in the cauldron, the process carefully burned away the impure dross, leaving only the ‘golden elixir’ of pure qi” (p. 366).
“Over time, the scope of Religious Daoism broadened as it evolved into something more like a genuine religion. The heavy emphasis on shamanistic practices continued, but there was room for other things as well. To some degree, the teachings of Philosophical Daoism, emphasizing [humans’] relationship to the natural world, were integrated in fact as well as in name” (p. 366).
Daoism ended up having a massive influence on Buddhism when it arrived in China, largely “ground[ing] Buddhism in more deeply in a love of nature and, especially in a dedication to the belief that for a human society to be healthy, it must live in harmony with the natural order. Daoism helped to soften some of the still-too-sacred and ritualistic edges of Indian Buddhism; in other words, it made Buddhism more ‘human’” (p. 366), which is especially noticeable in Chan Buddhism (and its Japanese descendent, Zen Buddhism).
furthermore, Daoism had a massive impact on broader Chinese culture (eg in its art, which has a common theme of humans’ harmonious relationship with nature—a theme that spread to other East Asian cultures, too). has also impacted environmental movements, the concept of Feng Shui, New Age movements, etc.
as for immortality, it largely transformed into a more metaphorical and metaphysical concept, wherein immortals are supposedly those who make use of their natural talents; who live simple, spontaneous, and harm- and care-free lives; and who recognizes the oneness of Dao.