Daoist critique of Christianity

"When everyone knows good as good, this is not good." Dao De Jing, Chapter 2, Thomas Cleary translation.

That's not a very literal translation but Cleary's was my first Dao De Jing, the one I was reading when I entered the stream.

A fairly literal translation would be:

"When all know the good (shan) good,
There is then the not good (pu shan)."(Chen translation)

This doesn't take into account any philosophical insight into how "good" or "not good" is understood but the meaning is pretty clear in the overall context. Opposites give rise to one another. You don't recognize good without an understanding of bad. These are distinctions in the mind. To transcend this leads to the realization that everything just "is" and any distinctions or labels are constructs of the human mind.

But Cleary's translation provides some penetrating insight. In terms of the culture at large, think of those things that become popular. Popular is somewhat akin to vulgur, common, base. In order for something to be popular it must be watered down, filtered, reduced to its lowest common denominator in order that it reach a mass audience.

The easiest example would be pop music. Heavy on hooks, light on substance. It reaches a mass audience. Think about "alternative" music or music that just isn't mainstream. It isn't "popular" in this sense. There may be many who like the music but in the end it has a limited audience. The more "popular" something becomes the lighter it becomes in order to do so. There may be exceptions to this rule but Top 40 captures this for a reason. Commercial radio today longs for this. In order to reach the largest audience it cannot have music that targets only the few. The advertisers on such a station want the same: maximum reach. In order to do this, it must seek to maintain a middle of the road presence, safe enough for everybody.

So "popular" is not necessarily a good word. It's akin to selling out which is a frequent criticism of bands who make it big. They compromise their essence and seek to "sell" a certain sound. In other words it is the selling, not the music, as such, that drives them. Bands that have been around for years with a steady following often have that one big album. Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA"; The Police's "Synchronicity"; J. Geils Band's "Freeze Frame". And then they never quite hit that level of popularity again. Thus the problem with seeking to be popular as there is no way to please everyone.

So it is with Christianity. The Jesus of today is popular. He is everywhere and everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a Jesus in mind, whether the fundamentalist variety, the buddy Jesus, the Muslim Jesus, the Gnostic Jesus or the Course in Miracles Jesus, the historical Jesus, the list goes on and on and on. In this sense, Jesus is certainly popular. But this isn't necessarily a good thing for it doesn't really answer the question: who was Jesus?

It turns Jesus into a pop star, someone we can mold into whatever image we see fit. We can elevate him only as far as is comfortable. And then we can leave him behind when he doesn't match our beliefs. This Jesus doesn't transform; this Jesus aligns with what we already believe.

I would make the argument that, as understood in this context, when everyone knows Jesus, this is not good. This isn't to say it is bad as, from a Daoist point of view, the bad contains the seed of the good. After all, Paul says that even if Christ is preached in contention, at least he is still being preached.

It simply means that the question still lingers, always pushing us further, always drawing us in, never leaving us at complete rest, just out of reach, until we truly answer: "Who do you say I am?"

Too much...

With all this free music available to download and well over 100 GB of music stored on various hard drives, is it any wonder I can't listen to any of it?

There's something Daoist about this notion...

A Youth Hostel and the Dao De Jing...

It's the middle of 1993. Working in the cell phone industry which was just becoming huge, I was a top sales rep, making top commission, having just won top prize in a three month sales contest. I was in tight with the Vice President and played the part. All the bills were paid, I traveled on a regular basis, was in great shape and had no problem with the ladies. I had it all.

Yet my soul was restless. I was miserable. Having recently quit drinking, I had taken up smoking weed. Lots of it. Loved it. Calmed the nerves, mellowed me out. It may have had a lot to do with my decision later that year to quit my job cold turkey with no real plan other than to go. I'm not sure it was the factor or if smoking the weed put me in a frame of mind where I was no longer afraid to do what I had already planned on doing. But I announced it in late 1993.

I can almost guarantee that more than a few folks thought I was a bit insane.

In short, I packed up my car full of way too much stuff and hit the road. I had plenty of money saved and enough weed to last me a while.

Leaving out more than a few details (which will hopefully come back as I continue digging...), in early 1994, I had made my way to a youth hostel in Kellogg, Idaho. Even back then I was exploring abandoned buildings having spent quite a bit of time looking through an abandoned school and abandoned hospital next door to each other. Sadly, I took no pictures. In fact, of my whole year on the road, I have about four rolls of film, very few of them of people. I had some serious, serious issues with relationships.

Anyhow, I spent a night or two at the youth hostel, venturing up to Sun Valley to see about skiing (which I can't remember whether or not I did...).

One of the evenings, I was sitting on rocking chair on the balcony of the second floor reading a copy of Tom Cleary's translation of the Tao Te Ching, looking down a long with a granarie on the left and nothing but empty road beyond it. The sun was setting and it cast a rather peaceful glow on a quiet evening in a small town in Idaho.

I had picked up this book several months prior, prompted by I know nowt what but I was compelled to buy it. Might have been because I had found the Yin Yang symbol to be quite cool and was attracted to the philosophy behind. Might've been because it was exotic, somehow 'other' than what I knew. Could be that the drugs had been expanding my mind in that bent, gravitating toward the 'eastern' worldview, the exotica, the off the wall films and music that permeate drug culture.

I had left the heavy/hair metal music behind me and was drawn to such bands as Mazzy Star and Morphine, branching well beyond the usual fluff that makes its way into small town Midwest America.

So I have this book that I've been reading and it really doesn't make much sense but I try it and keep revisiting it periodically. I'm exhausted, having been on the road non-stop for months at a time, staying with friends, youth hostels, rest areas or camping. And I'm reading, rocking, staring off into the sunset, and all of a sudden I get it. Insight. The book makes complete sense. The entire thing. At once.

It was as if my entire soul just opened up and I stepped outside of myself and could see clearly what the book meant. It was the openness that enable me to grasp it. Once I was back inside myself and sought to understand it, the moment was gone. I was able to make sense of it now, the seed had been planted, but it was not the awe inspiring awareness of the totality of it that had come for those few moments while rocking in the chair in the sunset.

It was a pivotal moment. Something had changed in that instant. Having always been a "deep" thinker, I had never really been spiritual/religious, somewhat repulsed by the whole charade with the hucksters and jokers that inhabited the media landscape. But here I was, drawn to this little book, and my entire world changed.

But, as with many things in the spiritual walk, life did not get better from this point. We are often deluded into believing that somehow when we get 'religion' our lives will suddenly become betters, like waving a magic wand to remove all the troubles.

No, sometimes when we get such insight our troubles really begin because we see clearly. The openness leaves us vulnerable to change. We can no longer hide as we once did; we are no longer so innocent. We are now responsible. And we must face what it is from what we once hid.

But this is hindsight. It would be more than a few years until I would really "get it" and take the necessary steps to begin to change my life. But that moment was one that provided fuel and strength in order to do it. It was something of a "born again" or "new is creation" moment in the sense that I suddenly had a differnt lens through which to filter information and thus see and interpret the world.

At the time, it was sheer joy, total and complete bliss. And I was sober.

Zen Christian connection...

Just musing on this at work today. I have plenty of time. Imagine putting a part on a machine press, pushing a button, taking the part off and putting it in a box and doing it over and over again for eight hours. The mind tends to drift. Fortunately, it drifts toward positive things.

My epiphany at the top of Yosemite Falls was in the context of immersion in the Dao De Jing. Not exactly Zen but I was well on my way.

I have healed in the context of the Christian path and was thinking about the similarity/difference. From my Christian point of view, I think of it as the light shining in darkness and exposing it, a bright light yielding insight and clarity that comes in a flash. Though I can't process the entirety of it, I "see" it.

In the context of the Dao or Zen, it isn't a light, as such, but a moment of insight and clarity that comes "in a flash." No light. It just is.

In Zen we find there is no "thing" there. It is a stripping away of the layers and layers and years and years of accumulation, of attachment and desires.

In Christianity there is some "thing" there and that "thing" is a Person. We might say we find some "one" there.

But is this 'person' merely a projection of our deepest needs and desires collectively? Is it personalizing the impersonal? Or is there a real person there to whom we conform?

Is this what makes people uncomfortable (or comfortable)?

In Christ, our nature is replaced, admittedly broken.

In Zen, there is no new nature, merely dusting off the original one. There is no admittance of broken. There is nothing to be separated from. There is no relationship.

So there is a point in which experience, at the depths of two traditions, seem to bare similarities. And yet there are differences. The two opposing poles of similarity and difference swirling around the strange attractor beyond which can only be experienced.

Theism and Daoism...

My interest in it seems to be waning. Does that mean I don't believe it? Or is it that my old notions of it are fading? I used to think of God as this mean ogre, this judgmental, punishing "being" always out to get me. As I've healed, and the feelings of guilt with it, the idea of God has taken on a new life. Less an intellectual construct now, less a childish image of "the big guy in the sky" kind of idea, 'God' is now something real, something present, transcendent yet immanent.

It is in this construct where both Theism and Daoism coalesce because we are moving out of the realm of ideas and imagery and into the real the New Testament calls the light that no man can approach and what the DDJ calls the gateway of marvels, the entrance into the mystery.

Perhaps at this Planckish point it doesn't matter. Perhaps what matters is the path leading up to this point. Perhaps it is in the realm of the imagery that guides us to this point that matters more than the actual point itself. For if the path is wrong, so too will the point be wrong and getting to the point without a path won't happen as every point arrived at is done so via a journey.

The other thing that I have noticed is that I tire of all the debates that occur in theistic faiths. I suppose the same has been done and even is done in non-theistic faiths (Daoism vs. Confucianism, for example), but the fighting over picayune details and the divisions that have occurred in Christianity (though Islam, Judaism and any other theism is not exempt from the same thing) over these details reminds me of what the Dao says about names. As soon as things splinter and are given names, we should stop as it will only get worse.

I am a Daoist at heart in the sense that I realize the limitations and trappings (and idolatry, if you will) of names, label, ideas and concepts. Ultimately we are fighting over the words, not what they mean. We are fighting over the flower or surface and not the fruit or substance (DDJ 38).

I'm sure there are Biblical injunctions to the same effect but can't recall any at the moment.

The Dao and Christianity: Compatible?

In short, no.

Sure there are parallel sayings and on a philosophical and generic "religious" level similarities. To deny this is foolish. In fact, I often find the two merging at various points.

However, there is a big difference: in Christianity, God is personal. You pray to God, God communicates with people. God expects obedience. God expects a life devoted to Him. These expectations are absent from the overall framework of Daoism.

In Daoism, the Dao is impersonal. The Dao just is. You don't communicate with it, you don't pray to it, you don't hear its voice.

"We listen to it but do not hear it..." (14)

It is to your detriment if you don't follow the Dao but, though men exalt it, neither this nor obedience is ever commanded (51). In Christianity, obedience is expected and there are consequences established in the divine law established by a personal Creator. In Daoism, disobedience leads to destruction not from the consequences of a divine law but as a result of the "natural" order.

The closest parallel to this notion is the idea that there is a way "that seems good to man but its end is the way of death" (Prov 14:12, 16:25). As Wisdom the two share kinship.

And yet...

"This is called the formless form,

The substanceless image..." (14)

Sound familiar?

"Who is the image of the invisible God..." (Colossians 1:15)

"Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person..." (Hebrews 2:2)

It is easy to see why those Christians who study Daoism and view it favorably contend that what Laozi and Zhuangzi were longing for is Christ, whose light shone through Daoism but whose time had not yet come. Laozi and Zhuangzi would have recognized the Christ of faith. In other words, Christianity adds "personality" to the Dao.

From the point of view of Daosim, however, all of Christian theology is, in the end, just words. Lots of them. He who knows does not say; he who says, does not know (56). So the more words, the more likely it is that less is being said. Words serve a purpose; however, I think Daoism provides a necessary corrective to the tendency in theistic theologies to idolize words and theories (though philosophizing, including the Daoist kind, in general has the same tendency).

Daoism is ultimately nameless (cf. Ch 32); Christianity believes that a name is essential (cf. Acts 4:12).

In the experience at the point where self is abandoned perhaps it could be argued that there is kinship which then dissolves into discussions of the perennial philosophy which may not be an essence but something ascended toward, i.e. it is a conclusion not a presupposition.

In Daoism there is no salvation, only return; in Christianity, there is no return, only salvation (though, perhaps the "born again" idea in Christianity is similar in the sense that we must "return" to a state of innocence to experience the true Way).

Other shared ideas would be that desire is the root cause of all evils in the world. In Daoism, as in Christianity, the true leader is the servant; true greatness comes in the least greatness; he who wishes to be first must find himself last; one must be soft and yielding in order to truly be firm and grounded.

Daoism's emphasis on these things might be a good reminder of the same ideas found in the Christian tradition as Christianity contains these ideas and then some though often these ideas seem to take a back seat as men, even Christians, seek power.

And the power sought by men in the world is a danger. Both Daoism and Christianity find agreement there. This world is only temporary. Better is it not to get bogged down in the temporal and superficial trappings of being human.

Love in the Dao?

"I have Three Treasures;
Guard them and keep them safe:
The first is Love.
The second is, Never too much.
The third is, Never be first in the world." (67, Yutang translation)

Other translations speak of compassion, rather than filial love, though this is merely another angle of the meaning of the term. Mothers have compassion on their children, no matter what they do.

"Through Love, one has no fear..."

"For love is victorious in attack."

How? Becuase they are other focused. The common people's hearts and minds are that of the person of the Dao. So too in warfare. Not the attacker, not the initiator of warfare, merely the one in defense. It is in the yielding where victory comes as by yielding one's self, the Dao may be made manifest and the "other" may come to realization on his own.

"The best of men is like water;
Water benefits all things
And does not compete with them.
It dwells in (the lowly) places that all disdain --
Wherein it comes near to Dao." (8)

"The softest substance of the world
Goes through the hardest." (43)

A solitary drip of water will, over time, penetrate and break down a solid rock.

"There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard.
For which there is no substitute.
That weakness overcomes strength
And gentleness overcomes rigidity,
No one does not know;
No one can put it into practice" (78)

And thus the paradox. Even Jesus speaks the same idea. And yet look at how difficult it is for men to lay aside the lust for power. But those who have used this approach have overturned empires, bringing those in power to their knees without the assertion of power in return.

Reversion is the action of the Dao...

I kind of burned out on the whole religion thing. I found myself reading Lin Yutang's translation of the Dao De Jing. I have about ten other translations, his is one I do not have. I think it had to do with the fact that he was a Christian (as was Wing Tsit Chan). Why would that matter? I suppose I was concerned with bias. And I can see traces of it in his translation (the terms 'God' and 'prophets' are found and seem out of place). However, that being said, his is a very elucidating translation.

"Rule a kingdom by the Normal.
Fight a battle by (abormal) tactics of surprise.
Win the world by doing nothing." (57)

Reading this I realized that fighting a battle is a concession. In other words, the idea of fighting a battle using tactics of surprise (what some call 'deceit') is not glorified as a command. The Normal is to rule a kingdom by by doing nothing.

"I do nothing and the people are reformed of themselves."

In other words, it is by moral influence (i.e. wu wei) that people are transformed.

The word for 'tactics of surprise' is ch'i, the same word translated as 'cunning' later in this passage:

"The more skills of technique,
The more cunning things are produced."

So in a state of warfare, things are abnormal and thus abnormal techniques are to be used. Chapter 30 breaks down the use of force quite succinctly. Force, weapons and soldiers are bad. However, they are sometimes a "regrettable necessity" (30). When soldiers are used the "best policy is calm restraint" (30). The goal is not territory, not power, not anything other than things returning to Normal. So the ruler/general must effect his purpose but that is all.

In conjunction with Chapter 69 it is quite clear that the use of force, though shunned, is for self defence only.

"I dare not to be the first to invade, but rather to be invaded.
Dare not press forward an inch, but rather retreat a foot." (69)

Yutang calls Chapter 60 'Camouflage' which is quite appropriate. This is not calling for passivitiy.

"There is no greater catastrophe than to underestimate the enemy." (69)

The call is for humility, not boasting, not aggression, not selfish motives. In keeping with the spirit of the Dao, by not contending, no one is able to contend. It is by displaying this humility, by yielding (which is not the same as surrendering or giving in), that one "wins" a conflict.

When an agressor attacks by displaying this yielding it tempers the desire of the enemy. When one fights back aggressively, the two energies feed on one another and a battle for power ensues.

Though there is a hint of Christianese in his translation of verse 67, it is quite fitting. The love here is not the same as the Biblical idea of love but is the love a mother has toward her children, a filial love. In that sense, there is a hint of affection of Heaven toward her children. And it is this that is passed on to others.

"If one forsakes love and fearlessness,
forsakes restraint and reserve power,
forsakes following behind and rushes in front,
He is doomed!

For love if victorious in attack,
And invulnerable in defense.
Heaven arms with love
Those it would not see destroyed." (67)

I fell into the stream of the Dao sometime in the early 90s. Here I am, over a decade letter, still captivated.

The Dao of distraction...

My first truly "spiritual" experience was framed within the context of the Dao. I had been studying the Dao De Jing for a few years, quite intensely for several months, when I had an epiphany at the top of Yosemite Falls. Never had I been so alone yet never had I felt so completely at one with in the universe, as hippy dippy as that sounds. It was my entry into the path.

As I have learned, post epiphany was downhill. Why? Because I was more in tune with a deeper reality and had to shed the superficiality in which I was living. I did not realize just how much of a hold this had on me. And I'm not just talking about "stuff". I have never placed much emphasis on "stuff". I drive cars until they fall apart, wear clothes until they fall of my body, and eat pretty much the same boring thing day after day. I'm not glamorizing this as if I'm all saintly. No, I've never really much cared a whole lot. As long as I had the freedom to come and go as I pleased, that was enough for me. But even this can be a superficial hold, a distraction from reality.

And it is distraction that has been my biggest hurdle in terms of a truly spiritual life.

Even intellectualism can be a distraction, the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake nothing but distraction from dealing with life on life's terms.

So today I am distracted by my distractions. They have as of late cancelled each other out and I am left with empty space. I'm not used to the silence.

Day 1

I can't believe I'm actually doing this. Blogging. I suppose it was inevitable. Got thoughts, lots of them, lots of thoughts that won't come up in normal conversation. What to do? Publish them for the anonymous masses to peruse, displaying what McLuhan hinted at when he said that our media are really our insides turned out.

I have come to realize that I am a mutt and proudly so. I tend not to be bound by convention. I'm no longer trying to be rebellious as a rebel is often slave to the very thing from which he rebels.

I am currently immersed in the midst of a spiritual/religious phase that has been ongoing most of my life, though more intensely so since circa 1996 as at that point I committed myself to (attempting to) be a Christian. But, as with most things, it wasn't too much longer after that that I found I had issues with the group think required to belong. So I'm on the outside of the inside looking in.

If I were to trace my interest in spirituality it would probably go back to hearing of God from childhood and living the majority of my life with fear, not reverence, associated with the word, as if "God" was out to get me, to punish me for being the mischievous person I was. In hindsight I realize that my self loathing and self absorption were manifestations of a narcissism that led me to believe that God was out to get me.

Self loathing and its manifestation as, in my case, depression were and are ultimately egoistic grasps at attention, sucking life out of the universe to satisfy in insatiable inner need, a bottomless vortex, akin to arrogance, both cries for help, both self-absorption to a distorted degree. I'm not sure when it started but at some point I found myself drawn to the eastern (from my western location) religions. This was probably more out of the appearance of being exotic, the hippy-dippy kind of thing I found myself gravitating toward.

In the late 80s I began stepping out of my comfort zone, aching for opportunities to break free from the suburban cultural Wonderbread in which I had been living. I was introduced to "New Age" music which, at the time, was a far cry from the big hair bands as the approved form of rebellion in suburbia. Such artists as Jean Michael Jarre, Kitaro and the Windham Hill catalogue became staples. In hindsight, these were as white bread as the big hair bands.

Eventually, circa 1991 or so, I would find the Dao De Jing, purchasing it because it seemed exotic, mysterious, enigmatic, cool. I would carry it with me, read it on the john, never really getting it. It was during this time that my drinking got heavier and I rendered myself an alcoholic, going cold turkey, substituting various chemicals in its stead. This would lead to a break with reality (i.e. leaving a $50,000 a year job to hit the road...literally). The little DDJ accompanied me in my travels.

Sitting in a rocking chair on a balcony at a youth hostel in Idaho one evening, the sun setting, in a moment, the entire book made sense. It was truly an epiphany. I can't remember which chapter I was reading but it was as if a flood gate opened. Quite literally, in that moment, I "got" it. The book suddenly made complete sense. I would be forever changed, my struggling in the confines of duality rendered asunder.