Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

by Robert N. Bellah

  Daoism

  So far in this chapter we have rather blithely used such terms as “Confucianism,” “Mohism,” and “Daoism” as if they represented something like the doctrinal schools we are used to hearing about in Western classical philosophyPlatonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and so on. It is probably a mistake to reify the Greco-Roman schools any more than the Chinese ones. Each contained great diversity, conflicting student-teacher lineages that might even be called “isms,” and markedly changing fortunes over time. We have already noted that in the Warring States period only Confucianism and Mohism could really be called schools. Now we must even qualify that assertion. If we think of doctrine as the primary basis for the definition of a “school,” perhaps only Mohism would really count.

  What we translate as Confucianism is in Chinese Rujia, perhaps more accurately translated as Scholarly School. There is some dispute over the meaning of Ru-some have imagined that it was a pre-Confucian term meaning “ritual specialists,” of whom Confucius was supposedly one. Robert Eno, however, has argued convincingly that there are no pre-Confucian references to Ru, and that the Rujia was always connected to Confucius. He writes: “In sum, groups of men professionally skilled in ceremonial practice in ways similar to Confucius and his followers unquestionably existed prior to Confucius’ time: however, virtually no evidence is found to suggest that the term `ru’was ever used to describe them. The term seems to have been an innovation originally intended to denote the new sect founded by Confucius.“115

  But the idea of the Rujia as the Scholarly School rather than “Confucianism” makes sense if we remember that Confucius defined himself as a transmitter rather than a creator, and that the Five Classics were at the center of the Ru tradition, namely, the Odes (Shi), the Documents (Shu), the three Rites (Li) canon, The Changes (Yt), and the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chungiu), with the possible inclusion of a sixth classic, the lost Music (Yue). Note that neither the Analects nor the Mencius was among the Five Classics, though very much later, from the Song dynasty on, they became two of the Four Books that came near to replacing the Five Classics as the central texts of the Confucian tradition.”’ Although the Classics throughout Chinese history were absolutely central texts, some knowledge of which was essential to pass the examinations that were the gateway to office in imperial times, and the Analects was not among them, there was still a very strong relation between the Classics and Confucius, as evidenced in the words of Lu Jia at the very beginning of the Han dynasty: “The later ages declined and fell to waste. Thereupon, the later sage [i.e., Confucius] established the Five Classics and clarified the six arts to correspond to Heaven, govern Earth, and probe affairs.” ii7 Confucius may have been the “uncrowned king,” but because he did not actually rule, he handed down the Five Classics to keep alive the forms of right order for a time when they could again be implemented. The Confucians were more deeply concerned with the preservation of the ancient Chinese tradition than any other school, so it is not surprising that they were known as the Scholarly School, or we might even say the Classicists. Even so, we have to remember that Confucius was always the patron saint of scholars in the classical tradition, so it is far from completely wrong to speak of the Rujia as Confucianism.

  Harold Roth has a suggestion that will help clarify the way we should think of the various strands of Warring States thought. He holds that preHan schools should be defined in terms of practices or techniques (he uses these terms interchangeably) rather than doctrine. I would argue that Mohism is a partial exception, the one “school” that really was dogmatic. Roth describes these “techniques” as follows: “Broadly stated … for the Confucians, maintaining proper ritual in the family and the state; for the Mohists, economizing state and family expenditures to maximize the benefit of available resources; for the Legalists, establishing the rule of law and the methods of maintaining adherence to it … and, for the Daoists, the advocacy of mystical cultivation leading to uniting with the Way as the essential element of rulership.“118 Within the schools the primary form of organization was teacher-student lineages, leading to considerable diversity. Even the later Mohists were split into three mutually unfriendly sects. The differences between Mencius and Xunzi are only the most obvious of the many different tendencies in the Confucian school. The Daoists, who were not even called by that term until middle Han times, were always divided between followers of different teachers and the texts they took as central.

  For convenience, I will organize my discussion of the major tendencies in Warring States Daoism using a typology developed by Harold Roth, even though the chronology he applies to it is contested.`9 Roth sees all strands of Daoism as being defined by mystical cultivation, but developing in three stages with respect to the social implications of their position: (1) “Individualist” because of its “virtual absence of social and political thought” (in my own view, no Chinese tradition can be called “individualist” in our sense of that term-here the meaning is that the focus is on self-cultivation without much concern for the social context); (2) “Primitivist” because of its advocacy of “a simple society and politic”; and (3) “Syncretist,” because its teaching is “commended to the ruler as a technique of government, the emphasis on the precise coordination of the political and cosmic orders by the thusenlightened ruler, and a syncretic social and political philosophy that borrows relevant ideas from the earlier Legalist and the Confucian

  The Neiye Chapter of the Guanzi

  According to Harold Roth, the Neiye chapter of the collective work, Guanzi, represents the earliest phase of what will come to be known as Daoism. Whether it is the earliest work in the Daoist tradition is disputed, but it surely represents the first of Roth’s types, what he calls “Individualist,” and which I would prefer to call the “Inner Cultivation” tradition, in that it contains almost no ethical or political references and is entirely concerned with the practice of self-cultivation. The text of the Neiye is in verse and may well represent teachings that were originally handed down orally. Roth follows Brooks in holding that the transition from oral to literate took place approximately in the middle of the fourth century BCE, which may indicate a rough date for this text.121 If the text is indeed this early, the technical vocabulary concerning cosmology and mystical practice may have been just developing, so that we need to be careful not to read into it later meanings of some key terms.

  Without getting into too many technical details, we need to consider three important terms and their relation to the central term, Dao, itself. Selfcultivation is concerned with three aspects of the cosmos in which humans participate. The first is qi, a term so basic but so foreign to Western thought that it is usually left untranslated, which in the Neiye may still be understood as breath in humans and air in the natural world, but is already beginning to have the more general meaning of the “vital fluid” (sometimes translated as “ether” or “energy”) out of which all things are made, but with different levels of refinement. The second term is jing, the “vital essence” of qi, which it is the purpose of meditation practices to nurture. Finally there is shen, originally meaning the spirits or divinities, but in the Neiye, according to Roth, having the more adjectival meaning of “numinous,” a kind of fulfillment resulting from the cultivation of the jing.122 However, all these terms are subsumed in the idea of the Dao, which has now become a central cosmological expression for the underlying unity of all reality. As noted above, Dao, literally “way,” is to be found everywhere in early Chinese thought. It is generally said that in Confucian texts Dao points to the teachings of the school or the practices it advocates, although there are occasions where Confucian texts seem to carry cosmological meaning as well.

  The Neiye has, according to Roth, more to say about the techniques of self-cultivation than more familiar texts such as the Daodejing or the Zhuangzi. Proper alignment of the body, involving stable sitting with limbs in order, and breathing techniques, are basic, but practices of mental concentration are
also described.123 If pursued diligently, these practices will lead to spiritual fulfillment, traditionally thought of in ancient China as becoming a sage, “sheng, “which Graham says is “for all the schools the ideal of the wisest

  To give an idea of the teachings of the Neiye I will quote what Roth considers to be the first poem in the sequence:

  In another poem, the fifteenth in Roth’s edition, there is a pairing of the Dao, the Way, with the xin, which Roth translates as “mind,” often also translated as “heart” or “heart/mind,” and which he explains “is, for the early Chinese, the locus of the entire range of conscious experience, including perception, thought, emotion, desire and The xin is where the Dao “happens,” as it were, at least for the individual, and is an important term in subsequent Confucian as well as Daoist thought:

  Roth suggests that Dao, as “this one word,” may have functioned as a mantra does in Indian forms of meditation-the word and the thing become fused.

  The Neiye is concerned solely with cosmological ideas and practices of selfcultivation, but these ideas and practices are present in all other expressions of what can loosely be called the Daoist tradition, whatever else is added to them.

  The Zhuangzi

  The Zhuangzi is a far greater book than the Neiye, and, though there are significant parallels in contents, it is a very different book.128 Like the Neiye, it is very much concerned with inner cultivation, but like the Daodejing it shows strong evidence of the Primitivist tendency. Zhuangzi is a book of great complexity and sophistication. It pushes the idea of the Way to an extreme and, in that it questions every aspect of given reality, it is clearly axial in its meaning. Yet in its refusal to be pinned down, its tendency to speak of the Way and then undercut the very way it speaks of the Way, it seems to be a Chinese version of negative theology. It calls in question every given reality, yet it quietly affirms the most mundane realities. To treat it adequately would transgress the limits of this chapter. What I will do instead is give a few of its many stories, allegories, parables, so that the flavor of the book may perhaps lead the reader unfamiliar with it to the text itself.

  If the Neiye is a response to Confucianism, it is so silently, by its exclusive emphasis on inner cultivation and its lack of concern for ethics or politics. With the Zhuangzi (and the Daodejing) Confucius and his teaching are a frequent reference point, a butt of humor, or a source of error. The following story illustrates Zhuangzi’s view of death and his opposition to Confucian teaching at the same time:

  The three men, Master Sanghu, Meng Zifan and Master Qinzhang, were talking together. “Which of us can be with where there is no being with, be for where there is no being for?‘29 Which of us are able to climb the sky and roam the mists and go whirling into the infinite, living forgetful of each other for ever and ever?”

  The three men looked at each other and smiled, and none was reluctant in his heart. So they became friends.

  After they had been living quietly for a while Master Sanghu died. Before he was buried, Confucius heard about it and sent Zigong to assist at the funeral. One of the men was plaiting frames for silkworms, the other strumming a zither, and they sang in unison

  “What men are these? The decencies of conduct are nothing to them, they treat the very bones of their bodies as outside them. They sing with the corpse right there at their feet, and not a change in the look on their faces. I have no words to name them. What men are these?”

  “They are the sort that roam beyond the guidelines,” said Confucius. “I am the sort that roams within the guidelines. Beyond and within have nothing in common, and to send you to mourn was stupid on my parC‘13o

  The three friends are surely among the “untroubled idlers” that Zhuangzi commended, and they shared his sense of the unity of life and death. In a similar passage Zhuangzi’s friend Huishi criticized him when, after the death of his beloved wife, he was found “squatting with his knees out, drumming on a pot and singing.” Zhuangzi explained that his wife was now “companion with spring and autumn, winter and summer, in the procession of the four seasons,” and that she was “about to lie down and sleep in the greatest of mansions.“131 In short, for those who “roam beyond the guidelines” the formalities of mourning can be ignored. Indeed, such formalities are a limitation, a sign of a lack of understanding of the Way. In this passage Zhuangzi says that before we were born we were within the Dao, after we die we return to the Dao, and during our life, if we only knew it, we are also within the Dao, so what is there to worry about?

  In both the Zhuangzi and the Daodejing there is a strong sense that things started out well when humans were merged with nature, but began to go downhill when culture was invented. In a variety of forms this expresses the Primitivist vision. Zhuangzi discusses the early human condition as a time of what Burton Watson translates as “Perfect Virtue.” “Virtue” here translates de, a term discussed above in the section on Confucianism. As with the term “way” (dao), which in Confucianism usually referred to human beliefs and behavior, de (power, potency, virtue, in Confucianism) in the Daoist texts takes on a cosmological reference. Thus Zhuangzi says that in the earliest time,

  the people have their constant inborn nature. To weave for their clothing, to till for their food-this is the Virtue (de) they share.132 They are one in it and not partisan, and it is called the Emancipation of Heaven. Therefore in a time of Perfect Virtue the gait of men is slow and ambling; their gaze is steady and mild. In such an age mountains have no paths or trails, lakes no boats or bridges … In this age of Perfect Virtue men live the same as birds and beasts, group themselves side by side with the ten thousand things. Who then knows anything about “gentleman” [junzi] or “petty man” [xiaoren]? Dull and unwitting, men have no wisdom, thus their Virtue does not depart from

  Then along comes the sage, huffing and puffing after benevolence [ren], reaching on tiptoe for righteousness [yi], and the world for the first time has doubts.133

  From there it is all downhill.

  Both the Zhuangzi and the Daodejing define their teachings in opposition to those of the Confucians, very much on the grounds that the latter officiously interfere with the natural functioning of life by trying to regulate people with rules and norms. Opposed to such interference, they teach wuwei (nonaction, or “Do Nothing,” as we saw above). Actually the term wuwei appears in the Analects in a late passage cited above, and Edward Slingerland argues that the idea, as opposed to the term, is pervasive in the Analects, where it points, not, as in Daoism, to an original position, but to the result of long training so that one does what one ought to do “naturally,” without thinking, so to speak. So nonaction is another of those terms that pervades all of early Chinese thought, though meaning different things in different contexts.134

  In one of his vivid parables Zhuangzi makes the case for wuwei. The story is about Hundun, who, Hans-Georg Moeller says, “had a perfect and permanent life at the center of the world, but was devoid of personal features-he had no face.“135 The passage at the end of book 7 of the Zhuangzi is as follows:

  The Emperor of the South Sea was Fast, the Emperor of the North Sea was Furious, the emperor of the centre was Hundun. Fast and Furious met from time to time in the land of Hundun, who treated them very generously. Fast and Furious were discussing how to repay Hundun’s generosity.

  “All men have seven holes through which they look, listen, eat, breathe; he alone doesn’t have any. Let’s try boring them.”

  Every day they tried boring one hole. On the seventh day Hundun died.136

  Moeller adds, “Guo Xian comments laconically on this story: Activism killed

  The Daodejing

  The most famous of all “Daoist” texts is surely the Daodejing, purportedly written by Laozi, for whom the text is also often named. It is the most often translated of Chinese texts and one of the most often translated texts in the world. It is usually paired with the Zhuangzi and has been so from the Han dynasty. In the Warring States period, however, it was
transmitted and discussed separately from the Zhuangzi. In spite of their, to us, similar teachings, and their parallels with the Neiye, they were apparently transmitted by different lineages and not seen as parts of a single tradition until a considerably later time.138 Formally the Zhuangzi is closer to the Analects than to the Daodejing: it has poetic moments but is mostly prose; it contains anecdotes and conversations similar to, though considerably more developed than, the Analects. Unlike the Mozi, with its continuity of argument, but similar to the Analects, each segment of the text stands alone. If it has a consistent teaching, it is built up from a variety of insights from various points of view, not by sustained argument. Like almost all early Chinese texts, with the exception of the Mozi and possibly the Xunzi, it is hazardous to try to find a “system” in thought that prefers to move from insight to insight rather than through systematic reflection.

  In these respects, the Daodejing is similar to the Zhuangzi, but in other ways it is quite different. For one thing, like the Neiye it is entirely poetic; it could even be considered one long poem, though from early on it has been divided into two parts and 81 chapters. Rather than stories, allegories, and parables, in which the Zhuangzi revels, its teaching is largely expressed in a series of striking images or metaphors, metaphors that have become emblematic of “Daoism” throughout the world.

  Hans-Georg Moeller makes the point that the Daodejing is not a “book” as we think of a book, that is, writing intended to be read silently, with a beginning, middle, and end, and remembered or forgotten as we happen to feel. Rather, even after the text was written down, and its earliest versions were probably oral, it was intended to be listened to, ultimately memorizedinternalized-by those for whom it was formative. Its texture is recursive rather than linear, which means one can start anywhere and find connections with everything else in the text.139 In most of these regards the Daodejing is similar to the other texts treated in this chapter, indeed to many of the texts treated in this book. But in its dense network of images and metaphors the Daodejing does express a power that many readers have found unique. Within the constraints of this chapter, I can give the reader only a hint of the richness and complexity of the original.