Daily Daodejing, Part 7

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

For information of what this thread is about, see the parent thread

Heaven is everlasting, and Earth is endless. That they can last forever and go on without end is because they do not try to exist for themselves.

If one exists for oneself, he will contend with others, but if he does not exist for himself, others will come to him in submission.

Since reality is constantly in flux, it is not the thing-itself that is of importance, but rather the context that the thing exists in. The human that I am not is completely different then the person I was five years ago – we think differently, we look different, we are even made up of different cells. However, because of my human relationships, there exists a continuity of the self despite these dramatic changes. Similarly, my physical self has a continuity because, though the actual parts may be different, those that have changed have been replaced by parts made from the same template and remain in contact with older parts. In this way, we are ever-new and ever-changing but also the same.

Thus they can exist forever. As such, the sage places himself in the rear yet finds himself in front. He puts aside his person, yet his person is preserved. Is this not because he is utterly free of self-interest? This is how he can achieve self-fulfillment.

To be utterly free of self-interest [wusi] means to make no conscious effort for one’s own sake. Such a person will always find himself in front and his self preserved. This the text says, “He can achieve self-fulfillment.”

I think that Huainanzi, a philosopher commonly recognized as being a bridge between classical Daoism (such as the Daodejing) and Neo-Daoism (such as Wang Bi’s commentary), explained the linking of the microcosm and the macrocosm elegantly when he said,

–From Wing-tsit Chan’s A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy p. 308

By recognizing the unity of the macrocosm and the microcosm, the sage is said to be “selfless” because he is able to recognize himself in the macrocosm and he works tirelessly to benefit the whole and in this way tends to himself.

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Heaven is a delusion of man.

Without pain,sacrifice and suffering there is nothing.

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A Daoist would argue that they are meaningful precisely because they are nothing/empty. Pain, suffering, and sacrifice are all things which can provide the vessel for the self. Even if we seek purely to avoid these things (as Yangzi argued) we are defining ourselves by them.

4

Joker,

And when you see that all is contained in nothing, there is no longer pain, sacrifice, and suffering. Seeing only the manifestations of duality is our suffering.

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What does all that mean beyond the metaphor?

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Pain,sacrifice and suffering is the trail extending towards nothingness upon death.

I agree that seeing duality is our suffering. One reason why I reject morality.

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Joker,

It isn’t seeing duality that is suffering, it is in only seeing one side of duality that creates the ‘somethingness’ that is suffering. When one grasps both sides and all between, then everything changes as it remains the same. That is nothingness. Birth? Death? They are the same, just different manifestations.

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I would suggest that you read the rest of the DDJ threads, and possibly the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Wang Bi (which can be found in the parent thread). That should answer your question as to what it means beyond metaphor.

9

I realize that perhaps I was dismissive in my comment. I did not mean to be, I just felt that I had clarified what Wang Bi’s vision of emptiness entails effectively in other threads from this series.

The point of emptiness is like that of a cup. A cup is useful because it is empty; indeed, it is the empty nature of a cup that gives it its utility. Within this emptiness, we can place a variety of different things and those things become, for a time, the substance of the cup. However, these things that we fill the cup with are transitory, after all, in the very use of these things that we have filled the cup with, the things will exhaust themselves and we will return to emptiness. In this way, the self-renewing nature of emptiness is the only real constant.

What does this mean beyond metaphor? Well, if ourselves is the cup and the emotions and experiences are the things we are filling them with, it proposes a vibrant way of nurturing ourselves. If we place undue value on our emotions and our experiences, we will invariably be disappointed when they run their (natural) course. At the same time, we completely reject these transitory elements, all we are left with is a cup unable to fulfill its purpose, which would be mere nihilism.

The example with pain and suffering would be that we should recognize that pain and suffering are and will be a part of our lives. But so will pleasure and joy. Both extremes are ultimately transitory and should not merely be understood as such, but embraced as such. Defining our lives by pain and suffering (even if we define our lives by them in the quest of avoiding them such as in Yangism/Epicurianism) is like defining a glass that is only for orange juice or, even stranger, for only not-orange juice. It would be silly to do such a thing, especially if orange juice’s eventual presence or absence in the glass was inevitable.

My solution to this is to try to follow the Doctrine of the Mean. This is a Confucian, not a Daoist text, but many people consider the essence of the two traditions to be similar. Wang Bi and other Neo-Daoists certainly did, so I do not feel it is out of place to invoke it in this context: