Understanding of Taoist Passages Essay (Critical Writing)

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Updated: Mar 17th, 2024

Passage One

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” (Lao-tzu 1). Here is the quintessential component of Taoism: the belief in the limits of language and reason in understanding the nature of the universe. What this means is that a person who claims to know the Tao, and tells this knowledge, is in fact reporting a component of the Tao, but not the Tao in its eternal sense. That person is telling of something the Tao has produced, making that something of the Tao, but not the Tao in its infinite totality. This is restated in the next line of the passage: “The name that can be named is not the eternal name” (Lao-tzu 1). This repeat, fundamentally, the same idea, suggesting that by the time a thing comes into the realm of human perception, it has long since sprung from the eternal spirit of all that both is and animates. That is what is meant by the next line of the passage, “The named is the mother of ten thousand things” (Lao-tzu 1). What this communicates is the connection between what we can see and name, and all that named thing is responsible for its existence, all the way back to the Tao itself.

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From here, the passage changes its focus from describing the mystery of the Tao, to explaining how one’s perceptions are manipulated by want. “Ever desireless, once can see the mystery” (Lao-tzu 1). This is the next line of the passage. “The mystery” refers to what a person can recognize without desire; it is an element of the Tao. The mystery is what a person can appreciate when untainted by desire: the ineffable nature of all one can sense, but not fully grasp. However, “desiring, one sees the manifestations” (Lao-tzu 1). The manifestations are those things in the first part of the passage that can be told and named. The manifestations are those things that can be desired, which is why, while desiring, those manifestations are all that a person can see.

“These two springs from the same source, but differ in name; this appears as darkness” (Lao-tzu 1). “These two” are the manifestations and the mystery, and the source is the Tao. The fact that these two things spring from the same Tao, but differ, to a human is beyond what can be fully illuminated, which is why it “appears as darkness” (Lao-tzu 1) Darkness accepted and observed, darkness acknowledged and perceived, is “The gate to all mystery” (Lao-tzu 1). The mystery here refers to the shadows of our own reason—the innate contradictions in the language we use to classify and express all we sense—and the mystery this vale our reason in.

Passage Fifty-Three

“If I have just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it” (Lao-tzu 53). These lines refer to a phenomenon that can be witnessed today. Those of modest intelligence do not question what is mainstream. They “walk on the main road” and their major concern is not “straying” from that avenue. This is a very easy thing to accomplish, “But people love to be sidetracked” (Lau-tzu 53). The first four lines of this passage are a description of the irrational, unquestioning, and common ways of most people. Charging themselves with the simplest of tasks, they still allow themselves to be distracted in their pursuits of absolute normalcy. They want to blend into society as it is, and yet cannot help but become distracted in this most simple goal.

“When the court is arrayed in splendor / The fields are full of weeds” (Lao-tzu 53). These two lines continue what is developing into a critique of humans as they live in societies. When “the court” lives lavishly when the higher segments of society enjoy the most luxury, is when the lower segments of society suffer. That is when “The fields are full of weeds,” meaning that agriculture is suffering, and therefore so is the lower classes. Granaries are empty (Lao-tzu 53). The higher classes, when in plush villas, have performed a feat of theft. They steal the value produced by the working classes in the name of managing resources (the court also connotes the state), and in so doing see fit to accommodate themselves dishonestly. The more vanities in those with the most status, the more the concerns of the average are ignored. These vanities are described in the next few lines: “Some wear gorgeous clothes / Carry sharp swords / And indulge themselves with food and drink” (Lao-tzu 53). All of these actions are meaningless. They represent values that have no true substance. These people, displaying their unfair advantages and intoxicating themselves with all pleasures that can be imbibed, end up owning more than can be appreciated by any one person. These facts make these people thieves. They are living off of the work of the rest of the population—populations that must tend to these weed-filled fields and feel the consequences of an empty granary—which is why the next line refers to the higher classes of this passage as “robber barons.”

“This is certainly not the way of the Tao” (Lao-tzu 53). The last line of this passage is ironic in the sense that one would not expect it to be said. There is certainly no necessity for its existence. Anyone with a concept of what Taoism emphasizes knows that vanities such as described in this passage are in no way condoned or supported. “The way of the Tao” refers to fairness and a balance unapparent in such unequal stratifications of society. If the court is arrayed in splendor, one knows already that there is a breach in the way of the Tao, because the Tao does not and cannot allow for any taking of advantage by any person, or group, over another, for any great length of time without naturally correcting that imbalance.

Work Cited

Lao-tzu. “Tao Te Ching.” Online posting. 1995. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2024) 'Understanding of Taoist Passages'. 17 March.

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IvyPanda. 2024. "Understanding of Taoist Passages." March 17, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/understanding-of-taoist-passages/.

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