Tao chia
Tao chia
The Taoist school, the followers of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, etc., who “urged men to unity of spirit, teaching that all activities should be in harmony with the unseen (Tao), with abundant liberality toward all things in nature. As to method, they accept the orderly sequence of nature from the Yin Yang school, select the good points of Confucianists and Mohists, and combine with these the important points of the Logicians and Legalists. In accordance with the changes of the seasons, they respond to the development of natural objects.”
“By studying the principles of success and failure, preservation and destruction, calamity and prosperity from ancient to recent times, they learn how to hold what is essential and to grasp the fundamental. They guard themselves with purity and emptiness, in humility and weakness they maintain themselves . . . Afterwards those who act without restraint desired to reject learning and the rules of propriety, and at the same time, discard benevolence and righteousness. They said that the world could be governed simply by purity and emptiness.”
“To regard the fundamental as the refined essence and to regard things as its coarse embodiment; to regard accumulation as deficiency; to dwell quietly and alone with the spiritual and the intelligent; these were some aspects of the system of Tao of the ancients . . . They built their system upon the principle the eternal Non-Being and centered it upon the idea of Ultimate Unity. Their outward expression was weakness and humility. Pure emptiness without injury to objective things was for them true substance. Kuan Yin said, “Establish nothing in regard to oneself. Let things be what they are; move like water; be tranquil like a mirror; respond like an echo. Pass quickly like the non-existent; be quiet like purity . . .’ Lao Tan (Lao Tzu) said, ‘Know manhood (active force), and preserve womanhood (passive force); become the ravine of the world. Know whiteness (glory); endure blackness (disgrace); become a model of the world.’ Men all seek the first; he alone took the last . . . Men all seek for happiness; he alone sought contentment in adaptation . . . He regarded the deep as the fundamental, moderation as the rule . . .
“Silent and therefore formless, changing and therefore impermanent, now dead, now living, equal with Heaven and Earth, moving with the spiritual and the intelligent, disappearing — where? Suddenly — whither? . . . — These were some aspects of the system of Tao of the ancients. Chuang Chow (Chuang Tzu) heard of them and was delighted . . . He had personal communion with the spirit of Heaven and Earth but no sense of pride in his superiority to all things. He did not condemn either right or wrong, so he was at ease with the world . . . Above he roams with the Creator; below he makes friends of those who transcend beginning and end and make no distinctions between life and death . . .” — W.T.C.