Lao-Tzu- Te-Tao Ching

by Robert G Henricks

  The opening lines of chapter 16 seem to lay out what must be done with the mind and the senses in meditation and then describe what can be seen by the adept with the mind emptied and the body stilled—the Taoist has insight into the true nature of things, seeing that all things come from and return to the Tao.

  1 Take emptiness to the limit;

  2 Maintain tranquility in the center.

  3 The ten thousand things—side-by-side they arise;

  4 And by this I see their return.

  5 Things [come forth] in great numbers;

  6 Each one returns to its root.

  Emptying the mind of all thoughts and perceptions so that the mind can be filled with new insight is not only commonly done in meditation, it seems to be something that Chuang-tzu advocated as well. In chapter 4 of the work that bears his name we find a description of the process of “mind fasting” (hsin-chai), which goes: “Make your will one! Don’t listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don’t listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.” It is also of interest that the word in line 4 above that I translate as “see” is kuan, and kuan in Chinese has this sense of seeing into the true nature of something, having an insight. With the development of Buddhism later in China it was this kuan that was chosen to translate vipaśyanā, the “insight” that follows upon the “stopping” (śa-matha; chih in Chinese) of the mind’s normal functions.

  The intent of the opening lines of chapter 10 is more difficult to sort out. The lines in question are these:

  1 In nourishing the soul and embracing the One—can you do it without letting them leave?

  2 In concentrating your breath and making it soft—can you [make it like that of] a child?

  3 In cultivating and cleaning your profound mirror—can you do it so that it has no blemish?

  That the mind is like a bright-shining mirror that must be wiped clean of all false thoughts and passions (by concentration and mental effort) so that it can reflect things as they really are—such notions are integral to certain types of meditation and closely resemble ideas attributed to Shen-hsiu, the founder of the Northern School of Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism at the turn of the eighth century in China. But while line 3 might show us that early Taoists did indeed practice some kind of insight meditation, lines 1 and 2 probably allude to Taoist longevity techniques. It is difficult not to read later Taoist notions into the text at this point. For one important type of meditation in later Taoism is known as shou-i, “maintaining the one” or “maintaining the three ones” (though our phrase here is pao-i, “embrace the one”), where the Taoist was to visualize three supreme deities in the three “fields of cinnabar” in the body to keep them inside the body: if they leave, the practitioner dies. And there are many types of meditation in later Taoism that have as their goal passing pure breath (ch’i) through the body, in this way making the flesh light, and learning to breathe again like an infant, since baby’s breath is unstained by the world and still full of life. Thus the breathing practices and concentration alluded to here in lines 1 and 2 of chapter 10 are not so much the means to an end (mystical insight) as they are the end in itself. They maintain the health and long life of the body.

  Finally on the notion of “return” it seems clear that Lao-tzu wants people as adults to return to some things they all possessed more fully as children—namely genuineness, sincerity, and spontaneity. Such “natural” qualities are destroyed in a sense by education and acculturation. As children grow up, they “learn” from their parents and from others in society that some things and some types of behavior are “good” while others are “bad,” some things are “beautiful” while others are “ugly,” and some things are of “value” while others are not. But the appropriation of such sets of values, and the conscious striving to be “good” and not “bad” (of which Confucians approve) do not lead in the end, feel the Taoists, to “good” people and to peace and order in society. They lead rather to wrangling and disagreement (about what is right and what is wrong) and competition, to self-dissatisfaction, and to hypocrisy as people “act” in ways that they think others will approve of and value, rather than saying and doing what they genuinely feel. The important Taoist term wu-wei (“nonaction,” literally “without action”) in one sense stands for spontaneity and genuineness: it does not mean literally to do nothing, but rather “to act without acting” to spontaneously say and do what is genuinely felt rather than putting on a show for others (“acting”).

  Thus, at the start of chapter 38 Lao-tzu notes that the truly virtuous person is the one who does the good thing spontaneously, unaware of and unconcerned with the fact that this is what others approve of as “virtue.” He says, “The highest virtue is not virtuous; therefore it truly has virtue. The lowest virtue never loses sight of its virtue; therefore it has no true virtue.” And in chapter 19, having noted in chapter 18 that people are aware of the Confucian virtues of humanity (jen) and righteousness (i) only after the Great Tao declines, and that the advocacy of knowledge and wisdom simply leads to hypocrisy, Lao-tzu urges people to “Eliminate sageliness, throw away knowledge; And the people will benefit a hundredfold,” and “Eliminate humanity, throw away righteousness; And the people will return to filial piety and compassion.” Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu both talk as though there were a time in the beginning when everyone lived in accord with the Way and no distinctions were made between right and wrong. The Confucian advocacy of certain values—humanity, righteousness, filial piety (hsiao), loyalty (chung), and propriety (li)—was either the result of or the cause of a decline in the Way.

  C. Health, Long Life, and Immortality

  In a number of places in the text, Lao-tzu makes the claim that the Taoist is “free from danger” or “free from harm” throughout his lifetime. In chapter 16 this is said of one who is one with the Tao; in chapters 32 and 44 it is said of one who knows to “stop in time”; and in chapter 52 it is said of one who understands the children (of the Tao) yet clings to the Mother.

  The “danger” or “harm” alluded to here need not be understood in a literal, physical way. One could argue that one who knows the Tao and is content remains safe and secure no matter what happens to his or her body. But the word that is used here for danger—tai—tends to mean physical danger, and given all that Lao-tzu tells us of the sage in his text, it makes good sense that such a person would not suffer harm in a physical way. The Taoist sage is someone who puts himself in the background and does not compete; hence he will presumably have fewer enemies than one who aggressively strives for wealth and fame. Moreover we are told that the Taoist sage values calmness and tranquility and “has few desires” or “lessens his desires.” He would seem to avoid, therefore, the anxieties and emotions that physically waste others away.

  Moreover, it is evident that life itself is a value in Taoism: To live out one’s natural years in peace, contentment, and tranquility is the goal. And Lao-tzu asks at the start of chapter 44, “Fame or your body—which is more dear? Your body or possessions—which is worth more?” Clearly Lao-tzu sees that in some cases a choice must be made between wealth and fame and one’s life. But we must hasten to add that Lao-tzu would also say, paradoxically, that it is precisely the person who is unconcerned, in a way, with matters of life and death who stands the best chance of living out his natural years. Obsessive clinging to life at all costs makes people vulnerable. As he says at the beginning of chapter 50, the reason many people move toward death in their actions is “because they regard life as LIFE.”

  The second part of chapter 50 has sometimes been understood as showing that Taoists remain free from harm because they are somehow physically invulnerable; their bodies cannot be harmed. Those lines read:

  7 You’ve no doubt heard of those who are good at holding on to life:

  8 When walking through h
ills, they don’t avoid rhinos and tigers;

  9 When they go into battle, they don’t put on armor or shields;

  10 The rhino has no place to probe with its horn;

  11 The tiger finds no place to put its claws.

  12 And weapons find no place to hold their blades.

  13 Now, why is this so?

  14 Because there is no place for death in them.

  While “no place for death in them” might later mean that the physical stuff of the Taoist has changed and is now matter that cannot be damaged or harmed, it is more likely that Lao-tzu means by these words that the one who is “good at holding on to life” is the one who is unconcerned about death (and in this way has “no place for death in him”), since he identifies with and values the Tao, that reality that transcends life and death.

  These thoughts bring us to the issue of immortality in the thought of Lao-tzu. While it seems clear that health and long life—living out one’s natural years—are two of the benefits enjoyed by the Taoist, is there more? Is there a notion of immortality here? Later in the Taoist religion, immortality is understood as a physical immortality: one normally becomes an immortal (hsien) through a process of “transubstantiation” in which one changes the substance of his or her body from gross, heavy, easily decaying matter into matter that is light, pure, and refined and capable of lasting a long time if not forever. There seems to be little in the Lao-tzu to support such later views unless we understand things said in chapters 50 and 55 in this way.

  But are there indications of some kind of “spiritual” immortality for the Taoist? Lao-tzu says nothing straightforwardly and unambiguously about immortality of any kind, nor does Chuang-tzu. Chuang-tzu in fact repeatedly tells us that we cannot know what lies beyond death; we can only “know” the state or condition we are in at present.

  The issue of immortality in the Lao-tzu can be approached in two different ways—theoretically and textually. Theoretically we could certainly argue that insofar as the Tao is that one reality that existed before all other things and is an eternally existing reality, and insofar as the Taoist in some way becomes one with the Tao during his or her lifetime, that at death the Taoist realizes this oneness in the fullest possible way and enjoys the immortality of the Tao. This is an argument that would see Taoist mysticism as parallel in a sense to the Indian mysticism of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-gita.

  One could also argue in theory, however, that insofar as the Tao is not only the one reality that existed before all other things but is also in some way identified with the continuous process of change in the universe of things, and insofar as the Taoist is in some way one with this Tao, then at death his matter and energies are reabsorbed into the cosmic storehouse of matter and energy that is the Tao, to be reused later on in producing new things. This is a view that finds support in the Chuang-tzu, where one of his characters addresses a friend who is about to die with the words, “How marvelous the Creator [= the Tao] is! What is he going to make of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat’s liver? Will he make you into a bug’s arm?” This may or may not be a type of immortality that people find appealing; nonetheless it is a kind of immortality.

  Three passages in the text are relevant to the immortality issue. First of all, in the standard text of Lao-tzu (but not in the Ma-wang-tui texts) at the end of chapter 16 we are told that someone who is one with the Tao is “everlasting,” and in chapters 44 and 59 the Taoist is said to be someone who “long endures.” For some readers these words imply a kind of immortality. But the words themselves (chiu in the first case, ch’ang-chiu in the second) literally mean no more than lasts “a long time” and “a very long time.”

  Secondly, in chapters 16 and 52 we find the words mo-shen pu-tai, which literally mean “end-life no-harm,” and these are the words that are often translated as “to the end of his days he suffers no harm.” However, these four characters can also mean “lose-body not-end,” and they could be read as saying, therefore, that even though the Taoist at death loses his body, he does not come to a total and final end. Arthur Waley reads these characters in this way at the end of chapter 16, where he translates: “Tao is forever and he that possesses it, Though his body ceases, is not destroyed.”

  Finally, at the end of chapter 33 of the Lao-tzu, we find the line ssu-erh-pu-wang-che shou, which Wing-tsit Chan translates as “He who dies but does not really perish enjoys long life.” Clearly the question here is what does Lao-tzu mean by “perish”? And one of the things “perish” can mean is to be “totally wiped out” and “destroyed.” Thus this line really could say that true long life is to continue on in some way after death, since one is not totally destroyed. But the word “perish” (wang) is also often understood to mean “to come to an unnatural end,” to die before one’s time, in which case this says nothing about immortality. D. C. Lau understands the line in this way, translating, “He who lives out his days has had a long life.”

  Importantly, the Ma-wang-tui texts of the Lao-tzu do not have this wang (“to perish”) in the text but rather the wang that means “to forget.” They would appear to say, therefore, “To die but not be forgotten—that’s true long life.”

  * The dates of the former Han dynasty were 206 B.C.-A.D. 5.

  * One map shows troop deployment in and around Changsha in the early Han. One of the charts illustrates forty-four positions assumed in therapeutic calisthenics (tao-yin), the kinds of exercise that were later to play a prominent role in Taoist longevity techniques.

  * But there are many important chapters on the Way in part II as well, and good chapters on governing in part I.

  * The “ten thousand things” is a collective designation in Chinese for the various genera and species of living things—the varieties of plants, animals, insects, and so forth (though on occasion the term might refer to inorganic phenomena as well). Man is simply one of the ten thousand things. Note that “Heaven and Earth” are not clearly indicated as coming from the Tao in line 3 in chapter 1 of the Ma-wang-tui texts of Lao-tzu (as they are in other versions of the text). Nonetheless, that “Heaven and Earth” come from the Tao is still clearly noted in chapters 6 and 25.

  * To “have a name” (yu-ming) in classical Chinese means as well “to be famous.” Thus we would expect anything that accomplishes its tasks and completes its affairs to be famous and well known, and yet that is not true for the Tao.

  * This line is slightly different in the Ma-wang-tui texts than in the standard text. See the “Comments and Notes” on chapter 80.

  PART ONE

  TRANSLATION

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  Because readers of the Te-tao ching fall into two groups with different levels of expertise, I have repeated the translation in two independent segments.

  Part One, “The Translation,” is a straightforward presentation of the entire text with the corrections and emendations noted in Part Two. It is intended for the general reader.

  Part Two, “Text, Commentary, and Notes,” is aimed at the specialist reader, and repeats the translation. However, it is accompanied by notes which indicate the differences between Text A and Text B, discuss how each line of texts A and B differs from the received text, and add anything else which seems relevant to an understanding of the Ma-wang-tui silk manuscripts. For readers of Chinese, Part Two also includes corrected Chinese transcriptions of Text A and Text B.

  The translation which appears in both Part One and Part Two is primarily a translation of Text B of the Ma-wang-tui texts: the Text A version of a chapter is used in seventeen cases—for chapters 1, 31, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52, 56, 61, 62, 63, 69, 76, and 79. In those cases, what remains of Text A—the older of the two manuscripts—is more complete, and therefore more readily translated, than what remains of Text B.

  The sequence of the translation is the sequence we find in the Ma-wang-tui texts. However, to facilitate reading and comparison, chapter divisions are made, and chapter numbers indicated
, where they occur in modern texts. Chapter numbers are in brackets, to remind the reader that these numbers are not found in the original.

  TE

  (VIRTUE)

  [CHAPTER 38]

  The highest virtue is not virtuous; therefore it truly has virtue.

  The lowest virtue never loses sight of its virtue; therefore it has no true virtue.

  The highest virtue takes no action, yet it has no reason for acting this way;

  The highest humanity takes action, yet it has no reason for acting this way;

  The highest righteousness takes action, and it has its reasons for acting this way;

  The highest propriety takes action, and when no one responds to it, then it angrily rolls up its sleeves and forces people to comply.

  Therefore, when the Way is lost, only then do we have virtue;

  When virtue is lost, only then do we have humanity;

  When humanity is lost, only then do we have righteousness;

  And when righteousness is lost, only then do we have propriety.

  As for propriety, it’s but the thin edge of loyalty and sincerity, and the beginning of disorder.

  And foreknowledge is but the flower of the Way, and the beginning of stupidity.

  Therefore the Great Man

  Dwells in the thick and doesn’t dwell in the thin;

  Dwells in the fruit and doesn’t dwell in the flower.

  Therefore, he rejects that and takes this.

  [CHAPTER 39]

  Of those in the past that attained the One—