In keeping with the Daoist romance of reclusion, these exemplars were said to live on high mountains, in secluded grottoes, or on faraway islands. According to Dutch Sinologist Kristopher Schipper, the Chinese word for immortal (hsien, or xian) is made out of the characters for “human being” and “mountain,” so immortals were human beings who traded in stale society for the vital rhythms of the natural world.41 As wanderers, they abstained from the five grains of settled agricultural life, on the theory that these grains nourished the “three worms” that sucked life out of the human body. Immortals subsisted instead on a special diet of roots, nuts, herbs, and other foods that could be gathered in the mountains, including resin and needles from pine trees whose evergreen properties were thought to be particularly conducive to immortality. In exceptional cases, immortals existed on no food at all. These exemplars were particularly adept at augmenting and retaining their qi. In a sort of “sexual vampirism,” males and females alike would take in qi from their partners and keep their own by steering clear of qi-depleting orgasms.42 Thanks to their vast storehouses of qi and their ability to balance their bodies’ yin and yang energies, immortals were said to defy not only mortality but also physical degeneration. They enjoyed youthful bodies with jet black hair, perfect teeth, and unblemished complexions. Their breathing was deep. They were impervious not only to heat and cold but also to the ravages of old age.
Stories about Daoist immortals read like superhero comics or tales of the extraordinary siddhis (supernatural powers) of Tibetan lamas. Immortals could run great distances at top speeds, disappear, shrink themselves, and shape-shift. They could change one object into another, heal wounds, fix broken bones, neutralize snake venom, exorcise demons, predict the future, and resurrect the dead. Though they exemplified the key Daoist virtue of naturalness, they were able to defy nature too. Water did not make them wet. Ice did not make them cold. Fire could not burn them. They lived in a Harry Potter sort of world, wielding swords of invisibility and able to apparate at will. And like Superman, they could fly. Their bodies were not only youthful, they were as light as birds.
Daoists used many techniques to achieve these powers, including special diets, sexual practices, breathing regimens, and meditative strategies. They avoided foods rich in heavy yin qi and ate foods rich in light yang qi. In a sexual practice called the “art of the bedchamber,” men and women exchanged qi during sexual intercourse but tried to avoid qi-depleting orgasms. While Roman Catholic teaching says that the husband should ejaculate only inside his wife’s vagina, these Daoists contended that the man should not spill his sperm at all but absorb its energies into his body instead. The point of this sexual practice was neither conception nor sexual stimulation but increased vitality. Meanwhile, women were encouraged to absorb their qi-rich menstrual fluids, and some succeeded in staunching their menstrual flows altogether.
The most controversial technique for immortality was outer alchemy, which sought to mix rare metals into elixirs of eternal life. Daoists believed that cinnabar, a reddish mineral thought to be particularly rich in yang qi, would bring vitality, longevity, and even immortality if mixed and imbibed in just the right manner. Many of these potions turned out to be dangerous. Cinnabar, which contains high levels of mercury, can kill you, and it doubtless killed many practitioners of outer alchemy, including some emperors. So roughly a millennium ago, Daoists reset their sites to inner alchemy, which sought to purify the body’s own flows and fluids into immortality elixirs. Now the body itself, so highly prized in Daoist thought and practice, became the laboratory. Instead of trying to mix an elixir of immortality with mortar and pestle, Daoists sought through a variety of self-cultivation practices to create an “immortal embryo” inside their own bodies.
Of course, few Daoists read immortality stories as blueprints for their own lives. Although the official line was usually that anyone can become an immortal, few ordinary Daoists imagined flying from mountaintop to mountaintop themselves. Rather than the ultimate goal of physical immortality, they hoped for the proximate goal of human flourishing: good health, long life, and vitality. Happily, many of the techniques utilized by aspiring immortals also advanced practitioners toward these more attainable goals. So they were by no means restricted to those who hoped to ride dragons to the moon.
The Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother of the West
Like the pantheon of Yoruba orishas, the society of Daoist deities is fabulously unwieldy, extending to deified human beings and divinized forces of nature who in this case act very much like China’s imperial bureaucracy.
Sitting atop this pantheon is a heavenly analog to the Chinese ruler known as the Jade Emperor (aka “Lord Heaven”). There is also a Daoist trinity of sorts that takes on different names in different periods and is associated with the three vital forces and the three vital centers in the human body. The most popular Daoist deities are divinized human beings known as the Eight Immortals, who are remembered today not only in Daoist temples but also in popular Chinese plays and folk tales. As bringers of good luck, their images are everywhere in China—“on the hems of women’s clothes, on bed curtains, on temple gates and roofs, on children’s bonnets.” 43 They also appear in films, television shows, comic books, and video games. Again like Catholic saints and Yoruba orishas, each of these Eight Immortals is seen as a patron of a different group of people: Iron-Crutch Li, for pharmacists; Cao, for actors; Lan, for florists; Old Man Zhang, for the elderly; Immortal Woman He, for storekeepers; Lu Dongbin, for barbers; Philosopher Han, for musicians; and Zhongli Quan, for soldiers. Also popular are a variety of household gods, many of whom were revered in ancient China. The most important of these, the stove god Zao Jun, was immortalized in the West in The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), a novel by the Chinese-American writer Amy Tan.
In sharp contrast to patriarchal Confucianism, this pantheon also includes a range of goddesses matched among the great religions only by Hinduism. Chief among these goddesses is the Queen Mother of the West, who embodies the mysterious feminine so highly prized among Daoists. This goddess assists in creation, mediates between Heaven and Earth, clears the path to immortality, serves as a matchmaker for marriages, aids women and recluses, and is intimate with both creation and destruction. Other goddesses include: Laozi’s mother, also known as Holy Mother Goddess; Doumu, who like Guanyin in Buddhism exemplifies and embodies unending compassion; a tenth-century woman later deified into Mazu the patroness of sailors, fishermen, and merchants; and Immortal Woman He, the only female among Daoism’s ubiquitous Eight Immortals.
The Orthodox and Unity Way
In the story of the rise of the gods and goddesses of popular Daoism, the key date is 142 C.E., the place is a cave in the Sichuan mountains, and the person is a Confucian named Zhang Daoling (Chang Tao-ling) (34–156). As a young man Zhang Daoling had read the Confucian classics, but as he grew older he was drawn to study a topic those classics ignored: longevity. So like any self-respecting Daoist, he moved to a mountain, where he immersed himself in the Daoist classics instead. One day Lord Lao, a deification of Laozi and of the Dao itself, appeared to him in a mountain cave. In Islam’s iconic cave moment, Allah spoke to Muhammad through an intermediary: the angel Gabriel. Here Lord Lao spoke directly to Zhang Daoling. He taught him the Way of the Celestial Masters, instructed him in morality, meditation, and medicine, and tapped him as the first Celestial Master. This initiation empowered him to heal. It convinced him that virtue is an essential ingredient in the recipe for longevity and that traditional blood sacrifices to ancestral spirits should give way to offerings of vegetables. It prompted him to write his own scripture, a commentary on the Daodejing. And it showed him that Laozi was not only divine but the Way itself. In this way the Dao was transformed from an impersonal principle to a personal divinity, and the textual Daoism of Laozi and Zhuangzi began to merge with the gods and goddesses of Chinese popular religion.
Through a series of political and military maneuvers, this sect, which surviv
es today as the Way of Orthodox Unity (Zhengyi dao), was officially recognized in 215 C.E. Its traditional headquarters is on Dragon-Tiger Mountain in Jiangxi province, but many of its members have lived in Taiwan since fleeing from the mainland in 1949. Today this group is led by the sixty-fifth Celestial Master, who is sometimes referred to as the “Daoist pope.” Although Orthodox Unity Daoists allow female clerics, the role of the Celestial Master is hereditary, passing from male heir to male heir. Because early followers of this sect were required to tithe five pecks of rice, it has also been known as the Five Pecks of Rice sect.
Complete Perfection Sect
The second main branch in this tradition is Quanzhen (Chuan-chen), which is usually translated as “Complete Perfection” or “Perfect Realization” Daoism. Founded in the twelfth century by a soldier-turned-ascetic named Wang Chongyang (1113–70), this tradition is now the official, state-sponsored monastic order on the mainland and China’s largest Daoist school.
Complete Perfection Daoism began when Wang, while wandering around in a drunken stupor at the age of forty-eight, received revelation from two immortals who led him to a new synthesis of Daoism, Chan Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, and old-fashioned asceticism. Wang styled himself a madman and proved it by digging a grave for himself and living in it for three years. Convinced that family life was a prison and the husband-wife bond a chain, he lived in seclusion for a decade before returning to the world to spread his message. Of all the Daoist ideals, Wang valued simplicity most highly. But he disparaged as foolish both the Daoist quest for physical immortality and the rituals they used to cultivate it. Because Complete Perfection Daoists rejected the magical talismans and laboratory elixirs others hoped would produce physical immortality, they have been compared with the Protestant Reformers of sixteenth-century Europe. The way to spiritual immortality, they argued, was not through the external manipulation of objects but through inner alchemy and self-cultivation.
Wang attracted seven disciples (six men and one woman), also known as the “Seven Immortals,” each of whom founded his or her own lineage. One of these followers, a female poet named Sun Buer, is now “the most famous woman Daoist.”44 Another, Qiu Chuji, met with the Mongol warlord Chinggis (Genghis) Khan and convinced him to give Complete Perfection monasteries the imprimatur of tax exemption. All these disciples and their lineages followed Wang in synthesizing Daoism with Chan Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism. They revered Lord Lao as an ancestor, the Buddha as a pathfinder, and Confucius as a sage. This sect is centered today on the White Cloud Monastery in Beijing. Whereas priests in the older Way of Orthodox Unity perform rituals at home altars, Complete Perfection rituals typically occur in monasteries.
Popular Daoism
Although these two groups have been the main institutional vessels into which Daoism has been poured, this tradition also spread throughout China and Chinese enclaves worldwide through a variety of folk practices. In fact, popular Daoism is so far-reaching that it is difficult to separate it from the folkways of the Chinese people.
Because of their ethic of social withdrawal, Daoists have drawn the ire of Confucians, who accuse them of being selfish, immature, anti-social, and irresponsible. But this same ethic has drawn Daoists for millennia to mountains, which they revere as particularly rich in qi. Some peaks are allied with particular Daoist schools (for example, Mount Longhu with the Celestial Masters and Mount Wutang with various martial arts). But all Daoists, and in fact all Chinese, share the “Five Sacred Peaks” of Mount Tai, Mount Hua, Mount Song, and two different Mount Hengs (one in Shanxi and the other in Hunan province). For millennia, sages-to-be like Laozi would withdraw to the mountains to seek vitality and perhaps immortality. Today, ordinary people make brief pilgrimages to these mountains, where they stop at temples that adorn them to pay homage to Daoist immortals, Buddhist bodhisattvas, and Confucian sages.
Popular Daoism also involves an array of religious practices, including celebrating the birthdays of deities and witnessing the inauguration of temples and the ordination of priests. These priests in turn bless villages and officiate at weddings and funerals. They also manipulate sacred objects, such as talismans and registers of the gods, in an effort to chase away demons or call down divine power. Daoist rituals vary from sect to sect but often include a combination of singing, chanting, prayers, sacrifices, offerings, and even dance.
Philosophical and Religious Daoism
Scholars have traditionally distinguished between two different Daoisms: the philosophical Daoism (daojia) of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi, and the religious Daoism (daojiao) of the Celestial Masters and the Complete Perfection sects. According to this view, philosophical Daoism, which developed in the Warring States Period (403–221 B.C.E.) is about accepting death, while religious Daoism, which developed in the later Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.), is about overcoming death via immortality. Unlike philosophical Daoism, religious Daoism borrows heavily from both Confucianism and Buddhism. It also takes on all sorts of trappings of organized religion unknown to Laozi and Zhuangzi and their contemporaries—from prayer to priests to polytheism. Religious Daoists also develop a wide range of spiritual techniques for longevity and immortality, including various contemplative practices and breathing exercises. Like philosophical Hinduism, which is tailor-made for renouncers, philosophical Daoism is for elites—mystics and recluses withdrawn from the exigencies of everyday life. Religious Daoism, by contrast, is for ordinary people.
Unfortunately, this typology is more useful for polemics than for analysis. Christians, Confucians, and communists alike have used this distinction to disparage contemporary Daoism as “superstition” for the illiterate masses. Just as Protestants have caricatured Catholics as corruptors of the true Christianity of the Bible, partisans of philosophical Daoism have caricatured religious Daoists as corruptors of the true Daoism of the ancient classics, bastard children of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi.45
The other major flaw of this typology is that it misses many continuities between earlier and later Daoism. First, so-called philosophical Daoism is not as secular as it may seem. Its concerns are at least as mystical as they are political. And while the Dao in the Daodejing is admittedly impersonal, it is nonetheless deeply spiritual—ineffable, mysterious, nondual, and creative beyond imagining. Second, so-called religious Daoism is not as religious as it may seem. Like philosophical Daoism, it shows almost no interest in what many regard as the religious challenge par excellence—the problem of life after death. Religious Daoism also draws heavily on the early classics. Almost every key concept from philosophical Daoism, including Dao, de, and wu wei, carries over into religious Daoism. Religious Daoists also revere Laozi as both a founder and god—“Saint Ancestor Great Tao Mysterious Primary Emperor”—and regard not only the Daodejing but many subsequent Daoist scriptures as revelations from him.46
Religious Daoists are often distinguished from philosophical Daoists by their quest for physical immortality. But both the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi speak of immortals. The first chapter of the Zhuangzi tells of mountain-dwelling immortals overflowing with qi, which endows them not only with long life but also with extraordinary powers. One such holy man, as gentle as a virgin, lives on a faraway mountain, possesses the power of healing, eschews the five grains of settled agricultural communities, and drives flying dragons. The Zhuangzi’s next chapter tells of an immortal who cannot be burned by fire or chilled by ice, is unfrightened by the most frightful thunder and lightning, and “moves with the clouds, soars above the sun and the moon and wanders beyond the four seas.”47
Of course, Daoism changes over time. All religions do. It takes on Confucian and Buddhist elements, making peace with Confucian ideals such as filial piety, human-heartedness, and propriety, and adapting Buddhist meditation techniques for its own purposes. All these transformations, however, can be understood as developments inside a religious tradition unafraid of change. In the end, there is far more continuity than discontinuity between earlier and
later Daoism. Throughout its long history, from the Daodejing to The Tao of Pooh, Daoism has seen lifelessness as its problem and flourishing as its goal.
Change and Disappearance
In my home on Cape Cod there is a small piece of paper taped to the refrigerator with the word “Change.” I usually read this sign in the imperative voice—as a command to make life anew. But that isn’t very wu wei of me—to take aim at this change and to expend all sorts of energy to make it happen. A more Daoist interpretation would read “Change” as an observation. We live as if things are unchanging—our jobs, our families, our loves, our bodies. But in fact all these things are changing every day.
One of the most famous stories in the Zhuangzi is also one of the most vexing. It is set just after the death of Zhuangzi’s wife. When a friend comes by to console him, he finds Zhuangzi beating a tub and singing with joy. Jewish law explicitly prohibits the making of music for thirty days after the death of a spouse, but Zhuangzi’s singing and playing is also an affront to Confucian propriety, and to our own. We don’t mourn much in the modern West. The things we cannot control are shrinking every day, but death remains one of them. So we don’t want to linger over it. Still, for most of us, the few hours that Zhuangzi gave over to grief seem a trifle. When his friend criticized him, Zhuangzi replied coolly that change is unavoidable and death nothing to fear. As the four seasons progress from spring to summer to fall to winter, transformation comes to all things, he said. Why should any of us be exempt from this natural process? So do not be repelled from death or attracted to life, but treat both with equanimity and indifference.48 And do not be afraid to respond to sickness and death and fear itself with laughter and music and play.
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