INTERLUDE

The Way of theTao

There is an ancient spiritual tradition very different from the Christian one, yet which is the complement to it, the feminine balance to our masculine solar consciousness, one of the few cultural legacies which point to the deep intelligence of lunar culture. I was fortunate enough to have as a god-father a man who had lived for decades in China and I was able to spend many hours with him on my return from my journeys to the East. In his old age, he even looked like a Chinese sage and he taught me about Taoism, showing me many precious manuscripts and paintings he had brought back from his sojourn in China. I cherished the words he spoke to me as he told me never to forget the wisdom of the Taoist sages.
           In particular, he mentioned the genius of a poet of the T’ang dynasty called Wang Wei. He explained to me that the Taoist sages had discovered how to develop the mind without losing touch with the soul and this is why an understanding of their philosophy — China’s inestimable gift to humanity — was so important. Whereas the West imagined the creative ground of being in the image of a transcendent Father, Taoism, more subtly and comprehensively than any other spiritual tradition, nurtured the quintessence of the Feminine as a Primordial Mother, keeping alive the ancient feeling of relationship with Nature as the manifest expression of this mysterious ground.

           The elusive essence of Taoism is expressed in the Tao Teh Ching, the only known work of the great sage Lao Tzu (born ca. 604 BC.), whom legend says was persuaded to write down the eighty-one sayings by one of his disciples when, reaching the end of his life, he had embarked on his last journey to the mountains of the West. The word Tao means the fathomless Source, the One, the Deep. Teh is the way the Tao comes into being, growing organically like a plant from the deep ground or source of life, from within outwards. Ching is the slow, patient shaping of that growth through the activity of a creative intelligence within nature that is expressed as the organic patterning of all instinctual life, a kind of DNA of the universe. “The Tao does nothing, yet nothing is left undone.”
           The origins of Taoism come from the shamanic practices and the oral traditions which were developed perhaps as long ago as the Neolithic era. Its earliest written expression was the Book of Changes or I Ching, a book of divination consisting of sixty-four oracles, thought to date to 3000-1200 BC and still consulted today. The tradition of  Taoism was transmitted from master to pupil by a succession of shaman-sages, many of whom were sublime artists and poets.
           From the source which is both everything and nothing, and whose image is the circle, came heaven and earth, yin and yang—the male and female principles whose dynamic interaction brings into being the world we see and maintains it in balance. The Tao is both the source and the creative process of life that flows from it, imagined as a Mother who is the root of heaven and earth, beyond all yet within all, giving birth to all, containing all, nurturing all.
           The Way of Tao is to reconnect with the Mother source or ground, to be in it, like a bird in the air or a fish in the sea, in touch with it, while living in the midst of the myriad forms that the source takes in manifestation. It is to become aware of the presence of the Tao in everything, to discover and observe its rhythm and its dance, learning to trust it, no longer interfering with the flow of life by manipulating, directing, resisting, controlling. It is to develop a relationship with and intuitive awareness of a mystery which only gradually unveils itself.
           Following the Way of Tao requires a turning towards the hidden within-ness of things, a receptivity to the unseen through contemplation of the seen, enough time to reflect on what is inconceivable and indescribable, beyond the reach of mind or intellect, that can only be felt, intuited, experienced at ever deeper depth. Action taken from this position of balance and freedom will be aligned to the harmony of the Tao and will therefore embody its mysterious power and wisdom, enabling it to act in the world without attachment to action.
           Enlightenment, according to Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, two of Taoism's greatest sages, uncovers unknown powers of the mind. which lie beyond the threshold of normal consciousness. Sudden enlightenment breaks through the habitual structure of consciousness and opens the mind to the powers and insight imprisoned in the depth of the unconscious.
          The Taoists never separated nature from spirit, consciously preserving the instinctive knowledge that although it manifests as a duality, life is One. No people observed Nature more passionately and minutely than these Chinese sages or reached so deeply into the hidden heart of life, describing the life and form of insects, animals, birds, flowers, trees, wind, water, planets and stars. They felt the continuous flow and flux of life as an underlying energy that was without beginning or end, that was, like water, never static, never still, never fixed in separate things or events, but always in a state of movement, a state of changing, becoming and relating.
           They called the art of going with the flow of this energy Wu Wei—not-doing (Wu means not or non, Wei means doing, making, striving after goals), understanding it as the art of relinquishing control, not trying to force or manipulate life but, through an act of conscious observation and connection , attuning themselves to the underlying rhythm and ever-changing modes of its being. The Taoists would never have entertained the idea of targets or goals, other than the mastery of the medium through which they expressed their understanding of the Tao.
           The stilling of the surface mind that is preoccupied with the ten thousand things brings into being a deeper, more complete mind and a meditative state of consciousness and creative power that they named Te which enabled them not to interfere with life but, in their words, to “enter the forest without moving the grass; to enter the water without raising a ripple.”

The mind of man searches outward all day
The further it reaches,
The more it opposes itself.
Only those who look inward
Can censor their passions,
And cease their thoughts.
Being able to cease their thoughts,
Their minds become tranquil.
To tranquillize the mind is to nourish one’s spirit.
To nourish the spirit is to return to Nature.
                     
          Tao The Ching 52, trans. Chang Chung-Yuan (1)

           They cherished the Tao with their brushstrokes, observing how it flowed into the patterns of cloud and mist between earth and mountain peak, or the changing rhythm of air currents and the eddying water of rivers and streams, the exquisite opening of plum blossom in spring, the rustling dance of bamboo and willow. They listened to the sounds that can only be heard in the silence. They expressed their experience of the Tao in their paintings, their poetry, their temples, remote mountain retreats and gardens and in their way of living which was essentially one of withdrawal from the world to a sanctuary in the heart of nature where they could live a simple, contemplative life, concentrating on perfecting their brush strokes in calligraphy and painting and their subtlety of expression in the art of poetry. Humility, reverence, patience, insight and wisdom were the qualities that they sought to cultivate.

           The Taoist artist or poet intuitively reached into the secret essence of what he was observing, making himself one with it, then inviting it to speak through him, so releasing the dynamic harmony within it. He imposed nothing of himself on it but reflected the soul of what he was observing through the highly developed skills that he had cultivated over a lifetime of practice. Through the perfection of his art, he did not define or explain the Tao which, as Chuang-Tzu said, cannot be conveyed either by words or by silence, but called it into being so that it could be experienced by the beholder. The Tao flows through the whole work as cosmic Presence, at once transcendent in its mystery and immanent in its form. The distillation of what the Taoist sages discovered is bequeathed to us in the beauty and wisdom of their painting, poetry and philosophy, and in their profound understanding of the relationship between observer and observed and the eternal ground that underlies and enfolds them.
           In A Treatise on Painting, Chuang Huai writes:

Only he who reaches Reality can follow Nature’s spontaneity and be aware of the subtlety of things, and his mind will be absorbed by them. His brush will secretly be in harmony with movement and quiescence and all forms will issue forth. Appearances and substance are caught in one motion as the life breath reverberates through them. He who is ignorant of Reality becomes a slave of passion and his nature will be distorted by externalities. He sinks into confusion and is disturbed by thoughts of gain or loss. He is nothing more than a prisoner of brush and ink. How can he speak of genuine works of Heaven and Earth? (3)

           Whenever I look at one of the great Taoist paintings of the T'ang or Sung dynasties or read a Taoist poem, I find myself subtly transformed by them, permeated by their vision. They evoke a state of calm, helping me to let go of the things that normally distract the mind — the preoccupation with the ten thousand things that they called “dust.” They relate me instantaneously to the source or ground which unites everything.
           To let go of the need for striving and control, to rest in the quietness of mind and humility of heart that the Taoist sage embodies, is to live in a state of instinctive spontaneity that they named Tzu Jan—a being-in-the-moment that can only exist, as in earliest childhood, when the effort to adapt to collective values is of no importance. What exists is what is. There is no need to change it by imposing the will or trying to manipulate circumstances. Change will come about by changing the quality of one's own being, by consciously re-connecting, moment by moment, with the presence of the source, particularly in moments of confusion or stress. To feel what needs to be said without striving to say it, to speak from the heart in as few words as possible, to act when action is required, responding to the needs of the moment without attachment to the fruits of action, this was the essence of the Taoist shamanic vision. It is a response to life that is essentially gentle, balanced, dynamic and wise. It is still reflected today in the faces and demeanor of modern sages who live in the mountains of China where, for centuries, retreats have been built as places of contemplation in the midst of a landscape of utter stillness and breathtaking beauty.

moonrise

The wide pond expands like a mirror
The heavenly light and cloud shadows play upon it.
How does such clarity occur?
It is because it contains the living stream
from the fountain. Chu Hsi (4)

Notes
1. Chang Chung-Yuan, Creativity and Taoism, Wildwood House, London 1963
2. from Wen Fu: The Art of Writing translated by Sam Hamill
3. Chuang Huai, A Treatise on Painting
4. from Chang Chung-Yuan, Creativity and Taoism

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