Good Confucianism book (pdf) - Department of Physics

76 OpponentsThe second text, the Zhuangzi , seems to have been written after theLaozi as it refers to the Laozi . We know little about its author, Zhuangzi.He may have been called Zhuang Zhou 4 and had an official post. There arestories about Zhuang Zhou in the Zhuangzi but, like most of the storiesin the text, they are too humorous in intent to be useful in a biography.As you might guess, the Daoists talk about the Dao. But their view ofthe Dao is quite different from Confucius ’ . The Dao pointed to in the Laoziis natural and spontaneous. We cannot hear, see, or touch it.Language is not capable of accurately describing the Dao, so the authorsof the Laozi can only point to it, suggest images for it, and describe itthrough analogy. One of the reasons that the text is so terse and difficultis that the authors are trying to talk about something that cannot, in theend, be talked about. The word “ Dao, ” meaning “ Way ” or “ road, ” is onlya shorthand reference for something language cannot really adequately talkabout.The ambiguous language and phrases in the text, plus the idea thathuman language is not able to adequately talk about the Dao, has ledmany readers to see the text as “ mystical. ” This view is reinforced by thetext ’ s identification of the Dao with non - being. Daoists see the workings ofthe Dao as the interaction of being and non - being, and given that humanlanguage, and indeed human thought, are inadequate to capture the Dao,Daoists prefer to talk about the Dao in negative terms. This does not necessarilymake the text “ mystical. ” 5The Dao gives birth to all the things in the universe. While these thingspass in and out of existence, the Dao is eternal. The Dao itself is not athing – it is a process, a process of birth, death, movement, and stillness.The Dao is described as weak, non - contending, not acting, and withoutan ego. The Dao will not argue with you, it does not have rules, it doesnot have plans. It acts naturally and spontaneously. But, if you are foolishenough to decide to row across an ocean with no experience, no equipment,and no regard for the weather, the Dao will kill you. That will happen,not because the Dao hates you – the Dao has no emotions – but just fromthe natural course of events. Everything that goes against the Dao dies. Acreature who plans to work against the natural actions of the Dao will notbe successful – or at least not successful in the long term.One of the images the Laozi uses to describe the Dao is the image ofwater. Water is weak: you can easily put your hand under cool waterflowing from a tap and not be harmed. Water flows naturally to the lowestplace: like the Dao, it does not show off. Water, however, in the rightcircumstances, can drown people, smash roads and bridges, and obliteratewhole cities. Water does not plan on doing any of these things; it does sonaturally and spontaneously. We can die from disregarding the power ofwater.