Dao: The Way to Live
by This Daoist paper is written in a similar style to the Zhuangzi and brings up a variety of the main topics of Daoism through a narrative writing. This was written for the Daoist Philosophies course at Muhlenberg College on May 6, 2009.
I was walking through a path in the woods when I came upon a man sitting under a tree. ‘Sir, why are you sitting under this tree? There are benches not so far away.’
He replied, ‘I sit here to learn about myself. Rén, or humanity is rooted in tien, nature, so why not learn about humanity while sitting up on the roots of nature. You may consider why this is the case but you are looking at the specifics. First ask yourself why does humanity want to learn. Then you can look at why we should learn from nature.’
‘Humanity is in constant flux and turmoil. We should be looking to learn to make humanity flourish. Nature itself is flourishing so it would then be beneficial to observe nature and then act like it. But can we look at all of nature and will this lead us to a flourishing life? What will we learn from nature?’
‘You are correct in asking if we should observe all of nature. This tree is growing tall, healthy and strong; it is a good example to learn from in its flourishing. They say that embodiment is the natural mode of learning just as a baby imitates its parents to learn rudimentary skills. Even with this mode of learning we can see that not everything we embody from our observations of nature will be natural for humanity. We are to live as the animals we are, humans, not like the monkey or other living things, such as this tree. We are to learn from nature what is zìrán for humans.’
‘May I ask, how will zìrán come about from learning from nature?’
‘Confucians believe that through rituals one will believe. In this way Daoists, by embodying nature, will gain natural processes which become chóng or regular, as you may say, a habit. This will become continuous in humanity and, following that there is a cycle to nature, the continuity will allow us to return to what is humanities zìrán.’
‘Sir, I must say this all sounds so wonderful though I am still troubled. You have taught me the way to Dao though does this really help all of humanity?’
‘You have posed a fair question and are correct in asking how this will help all of humanity. Most are unable to stop to learn from nature as we are doing. Instead they are completely involved with society. From society we know that humans are very influential. In this way, if you do your part in helping humanity find its way back to nature you will influence others to do the same. From doing this you are being natural and nature teaches without speaking, as we learned through our observations of her.’
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