by Guan Zi
As with all things
When plants and trees begin to grow
They are flexible and pliant
Yet, when dying
They become dry and rotten
Thus, hardness and inflexibility are the approach of death
While softness and pliancy are the approach of life
In 213 BC, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, ordered the burning of any books which might be used to prove his leadership unjust. Were it not for the 1978 AD discovery of a complete Dao De Jing (including all 81 chapters) in a tomb sealed in 168 BC, the earliest known copy of Lao Zi’s text to survive from this period would date from approximately 1 AD, in Yan Zun’s commentary, and even this only contains the De (Virtue) volume, and not the Dao (Way) volume. In 1993, an earlier copy containing only fragments of roughly a third of the chapters was discovered in the tomb of King Qingxian’s tutor, at Guodian, dated around 300 BC. Thus, it appears, Qin Shi Huang’s purging of texts was so thorough that only two copies of the Dao De Jing from that time period, both buried in tombs, survive to this day. [20]
Thankfully, the Guan Zi texts survived, possibly because of their technical practicality and association with Guan Zhong. This may have associated them with the Legalist school at the time, and spared them the fate of other philosophical texts.
Compiling the Guan Zi , circa 26 BC
The Guan Zi was compiled by Liu Xiang, beginning in 26 BC, and completed and submitted to the Emperor by his son, Liu Xin, around 6 BC. Though it was not compiled until this time, an existent corpus attributed to Guan Zi (Guan Zhong) was widely known to scholars by at least the time of Hanfei Zi, who wrote around 250 BC:
今境內之民皆言 治 , 藏 商 , 管之法者家有之
Today, the people of the state all discuss good governance, and everyone has a copy of the works on law by Shang (Yang) and Guan (Zhong) in his house. [21]
To compile an official encyclopedia of Guan Zi’s teachings, Liu Xiang gathered 564 book bundles, including 389 from the imperial library, and the rest from various government officials, [22] to be collated with the help of several scholars. Over a period of two decades, they “eliminated 484 duplicate bundles to make the standard text of 86 books.” [23]
There is no mention as to how many duplicates were found of the Bai Xin, Xin Shu, or Nei Ye , but with 6.5 times more duplicate bundles than what eventually made up the Guan Zi , it seems likely that these texts also had duplicates. It should be noted that Liu Xin had initially categorized the Guan Zi as part of the Daoist school of thought, [24] surely due in large part to the weight and content of the Xin Shu, Bai Xin, and Nei Ye , which scholars generally agree to be among the earliest texts included in the compilation. Though the Guan Zi was not categorized as a Legalist text until the Sui Dynasty (581-618 AD), [25] it is generally categorized as such to this day.
Liu Xiang (77-6 BC) was a Confucian scholar and distant relative of Liu Bang (256-195 BC), founder of the Han Dynasty. He was, thus, also a relative of Liu Bang’s grandson, Liu An (179-122 BC), who edited the Huainan Zi , an early compilation of Daoist thought, around 139 BC.
Liu Xin (Liu Xiang’s son, who finalized the Guan Zi soon after his father’s death) was a Confucian scholar, founder of the “Old Texts” Confucian school, and the imperial librarian under Xin Dynasty Emperor Wang Mang. Wang Mang leveraged his position and family connections in the Han Dynasty to briefly replace the Han Dynasty with the Xin Dynasty (9-23 AD), dividing the Han Dynasty into the “Western Han (206-9 BC)” and “Eastern Han (25-220 AD)” periods. Liu Xin may have had a considerable influence on Wang Mang, who sought to restore much of the ancient Zhou Dynasty systems and Confucian rites. While at the outset, Wang Mang’s ideals seemed to be in line with Daoist counsel – eliminating government excesses, sanctioning social equality, and abolishing slavery – his approach to handling affairs proved gratuitously meddlesome, restrictive, and lacking flexibility, ultimately leading to discontent, chaos, and defeat.
Proto-Daoism in the Guan Zi
As touched upon earlier, the proto-Daiost texts in the Guan Zi often read as a repudiation of the surging Legalist philosophy that ushered in the Qin Dynasty. Legalism is characterized by a reliance on staunch adherence to laws, rewards, and punishments. It also values virtues such as righteousness and benevolence, but does not trust in them as Confucius and his followers did. Though Legalism appreciates a leader’s duty to display virtuous qualities in order to influence those below them, it holds reliable demonstrations of rewards and punishments as the primary determinant in human behaviour, provided these rewards and punishments match the likes and dislikes of their recipients. While this strategy has predictable short-term effects, the proto-Daoist philosophers point out its inability to bring about true transformation of the population’s inner virtue, a limitation that would in fact make the people more deceitful and beguiling, leading to further disorder, and distortions of their true nature. The Bai Xin , lines 144-150, describes the situation as follows:
Affairs have suitable and unsuitable (solutions). For example, it is suitable to use an ivory bodkin to untie (knots). What cannot be untied is then untied.
As for those who excel at improving situations, when the nation’s people cannot figure out how to “untie” (a situation), they apply their skill but do not hold onto the situation without letting go. This would be unskillful, for it submerges the situation in laws and punishment. Such ability is not skillful. Attain trustworthiness (xin 信 ) and then stop.
Humanity’s true nature, the proto-Daoists explain, is the easiest and most trustworthy state of being that rulers can bring about, if the ruler first cultivates this simplicity, economy of desires, and sincerity of personality in himself. Allowing people to return to this natural simplicity would ensure an abundance of resources and communal harmony; while the power of the ruler’s virtue, and that of his people, would eventually win the hearts of those in other states, ensuring strong alliances and pervasive loyalty.
Relying on virtue rather than law may resemble Confucius’ approach to political order, however, a defining difference between Confucianism and Daoism is that Confucius advocated adherence to rules of conduct much as Legalists demanded adherence to laws. These adjustments, in the view of Daoists, were external and too easily fabricated, despite Confucius’ emphasis that virtue must come from within. Thus, the Daoists called for leaving off any externally imposed restrictions, and a realization, or re-awakening, of the true heart. Reaching to this true heart, all else will follow, just as water allowed to sit undisturbed will eventually purify, of itself.
The authors of the Guan Zi also try to impart that law is much greater than the rules and precepts decided by lawmakers. They explain that there are natural laws in the universe which govern the success or failure of all things, regardless of what the human powers that be may demand. For example, in Bai Xin ( Purifying the Heart-Mind ), lines 102-118, we find:
… for human beings.
There is something that governs them.
Their laws, like rolling drums of thunder
Cannot incite themselves.
There is something always inciting them.
What is this constant thing? It is present at all times.
Looking for it with the eyes, it will not be seen.
Listening for it with the ears, it will not be heard.
Scattered throughout, it fills all under Heaven.
Though not seen on the surface,
It is collected in the harmonious shape of the face.
It is known in the muscles and the skin.
Dutifully, it comes and goes,
Yet no one knows its timing.
So small, it is (within) the square (of Earth).
So expansive, it is (exceeds) the circle (of Heaven).
Expanding and expanding, no one can reach its gate.
The Bai Xin goes on to explain the futility of ruling only with laws, and simply trying to gain control of a population by heaping
more and more laws upon them. As lines 144-151 of the Bai Xin illustrate, this is like trying to untie a knot by continuing to pull at the string, rather than employing a bodkin (an analogy for a sage) to untie it. Bai Xin, lines 34-37, even argue that people would be better off if “the correct man” simply stopped telling people how to act so that they could find the true righteousness and filial piety that reside in them naturally, and stop competing with each other over who displays these traits the most.
To connect with the highest law, the Way (Dao), the Daoists counsel finding peace and order within oneself so as to first see clearly from the vantage point of peace and order before trying to guide the world towards it. In doing so, these writers employ guidance which likely comes from a formerly obscure tradition of internal cultivation. Always looking to the source to see how things come about, the Daoists learned how to cultivate one’s kingdom by understanding how to cultivate oneself, and they understood how to cultivating oneself by looking at the source of every person: Heaven and Earth. With a body as stable as the Earth, and a mind as vast as the Heavens, the Daoists sought transcendence of the seeming limitations of existence. Not only this, but they also found in Heaven and Earth the manifestations of Dao, and the laws by which all things proceed. The Daoists therefore modeled their behaviour on Heaven and Earth in order to achieve ultimate longevity, and advised kings to abide by these same principles in order to preserve their kingdoms. In Xin Shu Xia ( Art of the Heart-Mind, lower volume ), we find in lines 18-20:
Therefore, sages resemble Heaven during such times. They are without thought of self when sitting above all.
They resemble Earth during such times. They are without thought of self when supporting all.
As for thought of self, it puts the world in chaos.
In the Xin Shu Xia , we also find a contradiction of one of the Legalists’ greatest faiths: the ultimate power of rewards and punishments. Lines 92-99 retort:
The ancient enlightened kings’ love for all under Heaven
Allowed the world to depend on them.
The violent kings’ hatred of all under Heaven
Caused the world to abandon them.
Thus, rewards are not enough to demonstrate love,
And punishments are not enough to demonstrate fierceness
For this love will end with the rewards,
And this fierceness will end with the punishments.
Thus, it appears that the proto-Daoist Guan Zi texts, though found in what is generally considered a Legalist compilation, were in large part written in response to the Legalist ideologies of Shang Yang, prevalent at the time it was most likely written, around 350 BC. The writers’ attempts to warn Legalists of the imbalances that would result from such stringent adherence to their doctrines turned prophetic when the Qin Dynasty, bolstered by the Legalist policies of Shang Yang earlier on, swept all of China by 221 BC, and then fell in 206 BC, only 15 years after unification.
Much of the Guan Zi contains advice more closely resembling that of Confucius and Lao Zi than the advice of Shang Yang. The writers of the Guan Zi advise considering the welfare of the people as most important, and instilling righteousness, benevolence, frugality, and simplicity in them, rather than simply manipulating them with rewards and punishments, laws, and even poverty as Shang Yang does. While the Bai Xin, Xin Shu (Shang and Xia), and Nei Ye are its only texts on Daoist internal cultivation, a great deal of the writings on statecraft in Guan Zi seem to heed Lao Zi’s teachings in the Dao De Jing , though they may have been transcribed at an earlier date. If we are to faithfully ascribe these writings to Guan Zi and Lao Zi, Guan Zi (720-645 BC) would have written his texts some 100 years before Lao Zi wrote the Dao De Jing . Perhaps, as suggested earlier, the historical thread of these teachings goes back even further to the shamans and sages of the Shang (1600-1046 BC) or Xia (2070-1600 BC) Dynasties.
Because of Qin Shi Huang’s order to burn all philosophical books in 213 BC, it is difficult to say with any certainty when the Daoist approach to government first appeared in writing. The influence of Zhou rites and culture on King Zhuang of Chu shows that such ideals for government, and virtuous rule, were in place long before Confucius’ time, even if fidelity to these ideals was not constant throughout the Zhou Dynasty. Confucius, who helped to revitalize these ideals, was likely a product of the zeitgeist of his time, realizing the precipitous nature of an empire losing its principles while its states had begun declaring themselves kingdoms. Though the virtuous rule touted in the Guan Zi is considered Confucian in many respects, Confucius was a teacher of Zhou culture, and the philosophy and rites of Zhou are what Li Er (aka Li Dan, Lao Zi) is said to have taught while working in the Zhou imperial library. Seeing this blend of Confucianism and Daoism in the Guan Zi , then, one has to question if this approach to government is not simply a product of studying Zhou culture, a subject which comprised the education of the nobility for hundreds of years prior to Confucius. That Confucius did not even leave his home state of Lu until he was in his 50s, and yet still knew so much about Zhou culture, shows that the influence of Zhou-centered education was widespread, and likely well documented until “the burning of the books” during the Qin Dynasty.
Another question raised by the seemingly Daoist centered approach to government in Guan Zi , pertains to its relationship to Daoist meditation. Much of the Dao De Jing and the proto-Daoist texts in Guan Zi use metaphors of pacifying the nation when describing how to bring about inner peace. These writings suggest that by bringing order and peace to oneself through non-effort, minimizing desires, and utilizing the course of nature, one will then understand how to bring order and peace to a nation. Though this process begins by finding inner peace, it is nonetheless difficult to say for certain if this approach to meditation inspired the corresponding approach to government, or if the corresponding approach to government enlightened the Sages as to its facility in cultivating the inner domain.
Much of the inter-textual analysis in Thread of Dao focuses on the complementary relationship between the Dao De Jing and proto-Daoist Guan Zi texts, as they expound in subtler and more overt ways on the same principles of statecraft and internal cultivation. [26] It appears, at times, that the Dao De Jing pre-supposed a familiarity with the concepts and principles in the Guan Zi , and was written to clarify the relationship between statecraft and internal cultivation. At other times, it appears that the Dao De Jing describes, more esoterically, elements of statecraft that the Guan Zi texts present more clearly as elements of internal cultivation. This, again, makes it difficult to determine which application of these principles came first – the skillful application of Dao and De in statecraft, or internal cultivation.
Internal Cultivation in the Guan Zi
Bai Xin (Purifying the Heart-Mind)
Though, at least, fragments of the Dao De Jing may predate them, the Bai Xin, Xin Shu, and Nei Ye are the earliest available examples of Daoist methods for internal cultivation. Given its emphasis on more external matters of leadership, the Bai Xin may be the earliest of these four texts. Of the proto-Daoist Guan Zi texts, the Bai Xin is also closest to the language in some of the more definitive chapters of the Dao De Jing , especially chapters one, two, five, and nine, offering important insights into how Lao Zi’s subtleties would have been received by those privy to the early oral traditions from which they arose. The Bai Xin also dismisses the modern notion that early Daoists had no belief in the supernatural, unlike the Daoist religion and the rest of Chinese society at the time, when it explains in lines 41-44:
The success of an army follows good fortune, and the approach of virtue depends on the individual. This is why it is said that omens and apparitions (gui) (arrive to defend) the righteousness of others. (Thus) an army must never lack righteousness.
And in line 143:
To those who are righteous towards others, the spirits (shen, deities, gods) bring good fortune.
If the Bai Xin pre-dates the Xin Shu Xia and Nei Ye , it is also the first to pr
escribe a physical bearing for meditation, a technique given more emphasis in the Xin Shu Xia when it speaks of aligning the body. Lines 201-207 read:
Left, right, front, and back, (running) full circle, they return to the place (at the center).
Holding to a ceremonious outward appearance ( 執儀服 象 ), respectfully welcome that which approaches ( 敬迎來 者 ).
Those today who seek its approach require this method to (invite) Dao.
Without soaring (into the sky), without spilling over, the destined life-force (ming) will be extended.
Harmonize by returning to the center, where both body and pure nature (xing) are preserved.
Be unified and without (doubt or) division. [27] This is called “knowing Dao.”
Wishing to be enveloped by it, you must unify to the furthest extent, and solidify that which is protected within.
“Holding to a ceremonious outward appearance ( 執儀服 象 ), respectfully welcome that which approaches ( 敬迎來 者 ),” means to take the appearance of someone welcoming a respected guest, and demonstrate refined conduct. Doing so, the posture would be upright yet relaxed and dignified. As the comment on this section in Thread of Dao states: