ABSTRACT
As Socrates discovered two and a half millennia ago, trying to define terms which play a key role in intellectual and cultural life can be a frustrating business. And for contemporary postmodern theorists, it smacks of the discredited quest for forbidden essences and impossible foundations. The case of Daoism proves especially troublesome. Almost any book on this subject begins by confessing that it is very difficult to say what Daoism is. Julia Ching, the historian of Chinese religions, concedes that it ‘may designate anything and everything’, that it is ‘an umbrella term for everything from the practice of ch’i kung (breathing exercises) to religious beliefs in gods and spirits as well as religious rituals, sometimes including shamanic practices’ (1993: 85; 1997: 108). Another writer laments that it is ‘nothing more specific than a state of mind’ (Sivin 1978: 304), and yet another that ‘even among the philosophies commonly called ‘mystical’, there can hardly be one more resistant to an analytical approach than Daoism’, and goes on to say that ‘by mocking reason and delighting in the impossibility of putting his message into words, the Daoist seems to withdraw beyond the reach of discussion and criticism’ (Graham 1983: 5). The sinologist Holmes Welch is more explicit but equally confusing when he tells us that Daoism is a very broad term which embraces ‘the science of alchemy; maritime expeditions in the Isles of the Blest; an indigenous Chinese form of yoga; a cult of wine and poetry; collective sexual orgies; church armies defending a theocratic state; revolutionary secret societies; and the philosophy of Lao Tzu’ (1957: 88). For some, ‘a Daoist is by definition a man who seeks immortality in the present life, so that in death he or she may be “wafted up into the realms of the immortals in broad
daylight”’, whereas for others Daoism is nothing more than ‘a wise and merry philosophy of living’ (Saso 1990: 3; Lin 1938: 6). It is certainly true to say that ‘There is still no consensus of opinion amongst scholars specializing in Daoism as to what it really is’, and hence that ‘it is almost impossible to lay down a clearcut definition’ (Kimura 1974: iii).1 This uncertainty is indeed indicative of the interpretative struggle that, as we shall see throughout this book, has characterised the West’s encounter with this ancient Chinese tradition.
