WAYS OF UNIVERSAL LIFE: THE TAO, HUMAN HEARTEDNESS, AND ...

PHILOSOPHY AND WORLD PROBLEMS ? Ways of Universal Life: The Tao, Human heartedness, Zen and Jesus-John McMurtry

WAYS OF UNIVERSAL LIFE: THE TAO, HUMAN HEARTEDNESS, ZEN AND JESUS

John McMurtry University of Guelph,Guelph NIG 2W1, Canada

Keywords: aesthetic, being and non-being, body, Chuang Tzu, Confucianism, death, desires, Five Relations, good and evil, First Peoples, human nature, human heartedness, Jesus, koans, Legalism, Lao tzu, life needs/necessities, life-coherence principle, love, male/female, Mencius, Mo Tzu, mind, money, Nature, Neo-Confucianism, principles, propriety, self-other, subjectivist circle, Tao, translations, universal life, Wang-Yang Ming, wu-wei, Zen Buddhism

Contents

S 1. Non-Theist Religions: An Introduction

2. Ultimate Principles and the Life-Ground: A Prologue to Understanding the Tao

S R 3. Challenging All Orthodoxies by the Natural Way

4. Good and Bad Decoded: Nourishing Function versus Selfish Desires

S E 5. Testing the Limits of the Tao: The Problems of Evil and Knowledge L T 6. The Mandate of Heaven, the Confucian Moral Order, and the Mohist Heresy

7. Confucianism and the Golden Rule: The Inner logic of Equality and Inequality

O P 8. Between the Lines of Orthodoxy: The Unseen Radical Humanism of Mencius E A 9. The Universal Life of the Heart That Cannot Bear the Suffering of Others

10. The Infinite Here and Now: The Silent Zen-Buddhist Revolution and Its Limits

- H 11. East-West Synthesis: From Bodhidharma and the Sages to Jesus on the Kingdom of O Life C 12. The Deathless Way of Undivided Being: Universal Life Transcending All Divisions C 13. Beyond Internal Light: Liberating Embodied Life From Suffering and S E Discrimination

Glossary

L Bibligography E P Biographical Sketch UN M Summary A This philosophical analysis lays bare the defining and transformative principles of S Taoism, Confucianism, Mohism, and Zen Buddhism as spiritual philosophies with

contrasts and comparisons including the original Jesus. Explanation focuses on primary sources, principled capacities to relate to the eco-social life-ground and implied ways of universal life.

1. Non-Theist Religions: An Introduction

While major Indo-European and Middle-East religions are theist, the great religious philosophies from the Far East - Taoism, Confucianism and Zen ? have no God. In other words, their ultimate ontological principles do not conceive of Ultimate Being as separate from and prior to embodied life. Thus the ancient dualisms of man and God,

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PHILOSOPHY AND WORLD PROBLEMS ? Ways of Universal Life: The Tao, Human heartedness, Zen and Jesus-John McMurtry

matter and spirit do not arise. Where then do we find the transcendent in these spiritual philosophies? In Taoism, the transcendent is found in the invisible ordering mystery of the cosmic Tao. In Zen, the transcendent is the unmediated experience of the infinite in the Now. In Confucianism which is most widespread as a governing doctrine, Heaven refers to a self-subsistent moral law or Great Norm of cosmic harmony.

Again however life value as of ultimate concern remains only implicit, so philosophical analysis is required to lay bare its exact place and limits in these organizing visions of enlightenment. Coherent spiritual philosophies East and West remain distinguished by transcendence of material self interest and what is empirically established in the world. And both seek some ,,way of universal life that transforms all divisions including death itself into a higher unity of the Real, the True and the Good. Yet analysis must first move beyond life incoherent religion as explained in World Visions of Universal Being from Life incoherent Religion to Life-Coherent Spirituality. The explanation to follow does not deny that an absolute Ruler, Superior, or Master on earth may still emerge in

S these religions without God. Nor does it overlook how structures of life oppression may

continue to reign with first principles of social rule assumed as sacrosanct. Life-blind

S R conformity at the cost of peoples lives is again invariably the sign of life incoherent

religion, but not in the primary sources of the religion philosophies studied ahead except

S E when so flagged. L T 2. Ultimate Principles and Understanding the Tao O P Of all the religious philosophies, Taoism is the most life-grounded in principle. First E A articulated by Lao tzu or Lao tse or Laozi ? the English versions vary ? its author is - H recorded as born around 550 BCE, the elder of Confucius. Disputes about the dates

have, however, become a minor industry so that the entry of "Laozi" in the online

O C Stanford Encyclopedia discusses little else. As often occurs, undecidable scholastic

disputations replace coming to grips with profoundly challenging meanings. This

C analysis, in contrast, is concerned solely with the defining principles and arguments of S E the Tao-te Ching itself. Yet insofar as it is steeped in culture with a language of 45,000 L ideographic characters, we first require translations by scholars familiar with both for E life-value analysis to decode the underlying philosophical principles which the work P expresses. Wing tsit Chans translation in his definitive Sourcebook of Chinese N Philosophy is thus principally relied on along with the Feng-English version, and further U M cross-checked with An Accurate Translation of the Tao-te Ching by Derek Lin online. A Throughout the primary sources examined ahead, a general rule of meaning is applied. S The test of any underlying principle of explanation is that it is consistent with

authoritative translations and applies to all contexts. In this way, the philosophical principles explained are tested in both respects across the works in question. As in linguistic science looking for the deep structure underneath surface sentences, philosophical method identifies ultimately regulating principles which are confirmed in all instances to ensure the meta level of meaning that is defined.

Yet sometimes a textual meaning still evades clear definition. Thus the Tao- te Ching cautions in its first line: "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao". The first level of this meaning is that we must not equate words with what they refer to. The later Zen saying that "the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon" derives from this

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PHILOSOPHY AND WORLD PROBLEMS ? Ways of Universal Life: The Tao, Human heartedness, Zen and Jesus-John McMurtry

original insight. The moon is, however, a more direct experience than the edgeless Way of Nature to which Tao refers. The Tao is claimed to be too "deep and profound" for any concept to represent without partiality of meaning. For concepts by their nature exclude all they do not refer to. Thus the concept of "table" excludes all that is nottable. The harmonizing way of cosmic reality ? the Tao ? has, in contrast, no lines of division or confinement. Words draw boundaries of demarcation where no real boundaries exist.

The Upanishads of India emphasize this basic point in a more mystical way. Name and form, nama and rupa, draw lines of division when there is only one underlying reality, "the One without a second". This is the Supreme Being and only It ultimately exists according to this philosophy. Reconnection to the One occurs by withdrawing the senses and consciousness from the world to behold "the Real" from within, "face to face" - the divine infinite of the inner Atman which is opened to by yogic introspection. Lao tzu, however, goes in an opposite direction ? not away from, but to the surrounding

S world and universe which hosts all life as the Way of Nature. S R The Tao-te Ching (literally "the book of the Way of all functions") finds the Tao in the

principles of the natural cosmos which apply to all beings ? for example, the rising and

S E falling moments of all life in diverse cycles of return. The cycles themselves become L T intrinsic to the sages experience of the world, the depths of the present in perpetual

transformation. Thus the Tao-te Ching says "Hold onto to the Tao of old to master the

O P things of the present. This is the bond of Tao" (Chapter 14). That is, there is an

immutable pattern of the worlds changes and the sage dwells in it to understand the

E A manifold states it expresses in the present of its cyclic turning. The Natural Way is to - H live in natural life function (te) within a universe of natural functions in attuned

consciousness to its recurring patterns. This grounding of way of life in Nature

O C characterizes much First Peoples philosophy as well, but this connection is little

recognized. A difference is that the Tao is what governs the myriad beings of the one

C ecological whole, but it also includes more primarily the "Non-Being" from which all S E beings come and from which it differs in that it "can never be worn out". "Let there L always be Non-Being, Lao says in his first lines, "so we may see the subtlety of things, E but let there always be Being so we see their outcome". Tao is "empty as well as full". P Laos philosophy is earthy, but never earth bound. For infinitely behind, around and inN between beings is the empty space of "non-being". This apparently empty space within U M and around all that exists includes the heavens and its invisible laws from which the A cosmos manifests, but it is also what enables beings to function as embodied beings ? S from the space within the cup or bowl that enables its function to the space in between

creatures that allows them to move and function to the sky above all that exists. Thus Being and Non-Being are inseparable and complementary within the one Tao, and this is why Lao says what is otherwise indecipherable: "The two are the same". That is, they are inseparable aspects of the One Tao.

Throughout Lao implies the yin (receptive) and yang (active) tendencies within the Tao whose interaction produces all processes and outcomes ? for example, day and night, the seasons, and species life cycles. Much of the Tao-te Ching is in the rhythm of this yin-yang interaction producing change with each function of the Tao manifesting in accordance with this law-governed dynamic of the whole. "The Tao produced the One"

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? that is, the invisible natural laws and energy (ch'i) which precipitate into the cosmos and its perpetual changes and cycles. "The One produced the two" ? that is, the yin and yang tendencies in interrelation. "The two produced the three" ? that is, the process of transformative becoming - and "the three produced the ten thousand things" (the timeless Chinese metaphor for all entities that exist). Together all of this constitutes the "grand harmony" ? an all-embracing concept which crosses the Taoist and Confucian thought systems as an ultimate onto-ethical norm. Within its eternal ordering, every life and form of being finds its proper (Confucian) or natural (Taoist) place. All beings arise, reach their limit, and revert back. The Taoist sage does not detach from the changes as in Buddhism, but "rides the transformations of the elements" as Chuang Tzu puts it, and lives one with the Tao across the endless advances and returns of all beings ? the Taoist way of universal life. "Being great means functioning everywhere", Lao says in Chapter 25. Taoisms notion of the "grand harmony" expresses the ultimate idea of all Chinese philosophy. Even the class warrior Mao tse Tung declares it the ultimate goal of revolutionary Communism.

S 3. Challenging All Orthodoxies by the Natural Way S R Unlike fundamentalist and life incoherent religions, there is no supernatural being or S E magic thinking in the Tao-te Ching - although these have been variously superimposed L T since. Perhaps because it continuously calls into question ruling beliefs which are

normally taboo to confront, it has been mystified, caricatured, and appropriated for 2500

O P years. To anyone thinking in terms of conventional givens, its lines may simply not

make sense. Yet Laos profound challenges of inherited ways of seeing apply more than

E A ever to globalization today, and may constitute the most critical reflection on - H civilization that exists. The Tao-te Ching can only be decoded from a standpoint that

thinks through natural every image and step. Like the First Peoples spiritual philosophy

O C of North America, it is in deep accord with Nature and inimical to artificial norms and

prohibitions. "The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world", Lao says, "the

C poorer are the people" (Chapter 57). In fact Lao confronts conventional life bindings at S E every turn from the start, beginning with his affirmation of "non-being" as primary. L Much Confucian reading of this onto-axiology sees it as an ,,irresponsible worship of E nothingness ? just as was seen in Buddhism which replaced Taoism in China before P itself radically declining. The "abyss" and "great emptiness" do not resonate with social N convention. As the Tao-te Ching shifts parameters of meaning so that non-being and U M receptivity become primary and artificial ordering by rank and ambition are rejected, A conventional "propriety" and "the great hypocrisy" are left behind. When it says that S "the wise greet both favor and disgrace with apprehension, and of these favor is

considered inferior" (Chapter 12,) Confucian scholars cannot make sense of what it means and even change its words. How could anyone regard favor as worse than disgrace?

This position, however, follows from the Tao-te Ching's repudiation of Confucian conventions which bind natural life function and ordering. Thus if one is favored by such artificial and life-repressive standards, then this approval is inferior from the standpoint of the natural way. Lao makes the point more emphatic later in Chapter 41. "Great purity", he says, "appears like disgrace". In other words, the one who does follow the natural way appears to be unworthy through the eyes of propriety. One thinks

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here of Diogenes in Greek civilization who also preferred to live outside conventional society and was called "the cynic". Elsewhere Lao goes even further. He repudiates the very cornerstones of Confucian morality, saying "abandon humanity and discard righteousness" (Chapter 19). The Tao-te Ching does not mean inhumanity or amorality as many interpret it. Rather as throughout this last testament ?Lao tzu repudiates the airs, roles and hypocrisies of "humanity" and "righteousness" but not their life substance.

We need to bear in mind that the Tao-te Ching ardently condemns war, militarization and capital punishment. To speak against the military institution and capital punishment over two millennia ago ? as it does in Chapters 46 and 27 respectively ? shows true humanity and righteousness far ahead of its time. What it opposes are the pretenses of "humanity and righteousness" endemic in official society and Confucian propriety. The Tao-te Ching even provocatively asserts in the same chapter, "abandon sageliness and discard wisdom". Again it means the hypocrisies and pomposity, not the life substance.

S In fact, the Tao-te Ching goes further than any work for millennia when it calls for

mutual education rather than punishment as the way to deal with wrong-doers (Chapter

S R 46). In short, learning is of ultimate importance, the reality of wisdom not role display

of it. What is abhorred is the self-serving role playing of "humanity", "morality" and

S E "wisdom" as the masks for repressing and harming life. In particular state killing of L T wrongdoers as "justice" is deplored. "There is always the master executioner [of the

Tao] which "misses nothing", he says in Chapter 74, and "whoever undertakes to hew

O P wood for the master carpenter rarely escapes injuring his own hands". Rather than

losing ones life within the countless rules of conduct and ceremony while social

E A climbing the hierarchy in which ceremonial killing displaces deep social learning, the - H Tao-te Ching argues for the natural way of life function. O C In Chapters 18 and 38 especially, explanation moves through the primary Confucian

values of "superior virtue", "humanity", "propriety", and "filial piety", and presses the

C distinction between their real and "substantial" versus "superficial" forms as well as the S E "ulterior motive" of ambition and power behind their moralist disguises. Here as L elsewhere the Tao-te Ching always conceives of authentic virtue as grounded in doing E what nourishes life in its natural mode. While it deplores hypocritically coercive P moralism, it does so for opposite reasons than the freedom of the ?bermensch N ("superman") in Nietzschean theory. Life serving action from behind with no ulterior U M motive or show is the standard throughout. The sage thus "does not claim credit" but A "performs his function and then withdraws"(Chapters 2, 17). The choral idea is "to S produce but not take possession" ? the defining principle of the Tao and the sage at

once. The Tao-te Ching asserts that declarations of moral virtues are in fact hypocritical. Only when real "virtue", "humanity" and "righteousness" have been lost does "the doctrine" of each arise (Chapter 38). On the other hand, to sincerely "rule people and serve heaven, there is nothing better than frugality"(59). In short, the Tao-te Ching repudiates all morality not nourishing life function.

3.1. The Taoist Aesthetic of Nature

The life-value critique of the Tao-te Ching also reaches into the domains of the official arts and ceremonies. Consider these initially paradoxical but categorical declarations in

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