Taoism - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Definition

Taoism, a religion, a philosophy?

The term “taoism” recovers texts, authors, beliefs and practices, and even of the historical phenomena which could claim from/to each other, distributed over 2500 years of history; it is difficult to offer a unified portrait of outside of it.

The category “Taoism” was born under the Dynastie Han (- 200~200), well after the drafting of the first texts, the need to classify the funds of the princely and imperial libraries. Dào jiā 道家 or dào jiào 道教, “school taoist”, distinguishes at the time one of the philosophical schools of the period of the Kingdoms combatants (- 500~-220). School is here to hear in its Greek direction, even Pythagoricien, of a community of thought also devoting itself to a philosophical life; not to see there that a intellectual current is a modern anachronism. But this school was undoubtedly only virtual, because its authors, insofar as they really existed, did not know each other inevitably, and certain texts are allotted to various schools according to the catalogs. Moreover, authors brought together a posteriori under the same heading " Taoïsme" can have on their fundamental orientations of the completely opposite sights: Laozi contains the principles of a research of immortality whereas Zhuangzi criticism like a vanity; Laozi is partly made councils with the use of the Prince whereas Zhuangzi is very critical with regard to the political action, etc the Taoism is thus primarily plural.

During the period of the Three Kingdoms (220~265), the terms dào jiā 道家 and dào jiào 道教 diverge, the first indicating philosophy and the second the religion. Because the category quickly included beliefs and religious practices of various origin, as evokes it Isabelle Robinet in Histoire of the taoism: origins at the 14th century : “… the taoism forever be a unified religion and constantly was a combination of lesson based on various original revelations it can be seized only in its concrete demonstrations”.

Is the taoism a philosophy or a religion? Both, can one say. It in any case always had intellectual expressions very as much as pertaining to worship, but in various proportions according to the times, and especially, the social classes. The party of this article is initially to provide some historical reference marks over long time. Are evoked the ancient designs Zhuangzi ( Tchouang Tseu ) and CAD De Jing ( CAT You King ), because these texts continue to inspire to the Chinese thought, as well as the occident, with topics like CAD, the criticism of the dualistic thought, the technique, morals; in a praise of nature and spontaneousness. One will find also a talk on the practical taoists, concentrated on the the Middle Ages Chinese (six dynasties, 200~400). The period makes it possible to reveal techniques Mystique S, medical ideas, a Alchimie, Rite S collectives. Their development started well before and continued then, but this moment makes it possible to offer of it a richer table, and more attested. It results from it a panorama broad, founded on recent texts and comments, so that each one can be made its idea of the taoism as that was done in the past, but by privileging the most significant sources, most evocative. If the Taoism is a philosophy, it is obviously not in the direction where Socrate and the Greek philosophers can hear it, because the word even of philosophy, zhe xue, appears in the Chinese language only with the turning of the Japanese influences, at the beginning of the XX° century. If philosophy is a research of the truth by means of the verb, of the Logos, then the Taoism is not a philosophy because the truth is not its point of test card and the language is far from being its privileged instrument. On the other hand, if the philosophy term indicates a type of speech wrapping a vision of the world (broad direction), then biensur, the Taoism can be regarded as a philosophy. In many current polemics which agitate the sinological world, the " term; philosophie" is used as development or driving bolt. Thus the philosopher Feng You Lan had seen himself reproaching for wanting to make Chinese thought at all costs a philosophy, and more recently François Julien saw himself reproached for seeing absolutely separating the Chinese horizon from that of philosophy. The lighting of the question depends on the definition of the philosophy term to which one leans (narrow direction or broad direction). The same applies to the religion term which is far from being univocal. But if one intends oneself to say that the Taoism proposes exercises and a lifestyle which make it possible to connect or harmonize the yin and the yang, the ground and the sky, i.e. the visible one and the invisible one, then in this direction, it can be regarded as a religion. But it is obviously there a prompt response which disregards complex aspect of the religion term which wraps a complex network of questions: problem of the transcendence, a report/ratio to God or with Gods, problem of the revelation or an access to a revealed truth, problem of its dogmatic, problem of its organization or its hierarchical structure, etc

History

Sima Qian (- 145~-86) is the father of the Chinese history, he sought to inform the biography of all the mythical or real characters of the previous times, and among lives of emperors, this forward comment is in connection with the Saint S of the school of the Way (Zhuangzi, Laozi). It summarizes the difficulty in establishing a chronology of this teaching , because those which followed it as well ingénièrent to hide, that to scramble the dates and the names. The establishment of a history of the taoism satisfying Western criticism is a recent development.

In 1934, Marcel Granet wrote “to discover the Chinese thought, one has rather good information, but they could hardly authorize to compose a History of Philosophy comparable with that which it be possible to write for other countries but China. ”. At the same time, Henri Maspero starts to classify and analyze the immense corpus posterior taoist with antiquity, giving place to a posthumous edition in 1950. In 1963, max Kaltenmark can write Lao Tseu and the taoism , and poses into 1972 the stakes of Chinese philosophy in the 128 pages of a Which I know? (republished in 1994). In 1997, Anne Cheng finally carries to the knowledge of the public non-specialist a Histoire of the Chinese thought of 600 pages, which goes until of 1919, and fulfilling the requirements posed in 1934. In parallel, in 1991, Isabelle Robinet publishes a Histoire of the taoism: origins in XIVe century , very quoted abroad. These two last references were privileged to inform this section.

(-1500 ~ -500) mythical Times

The Chinese traditional chronology of Sima Qian in dynasties is obviously not very reliable as for the facts over the old periods. However, it provides a state of the representations of its time, as of the thinkers who preceded it. Confucius believed in the emperors Yao and Shun, CAD De Jing evokes them, more vaguely. This temporal line makes it possible to introduce some ideas of Chinese Mythologie which will have their importance in the continuation of the taoism.

Nostalgic of the origins, the taoism generally locates the golden age before the history and the emperors, supposing a soft country community without political order. CAD De Jing: “Of the king, the people of antiquity knew only that there existed” 17, now, “the people are hungry because the prince devours the tax. ” 75. Archeology notes that the valley of the yellow river is cultivated. One can suppose traces of Chamanisme (period Yangshao), these topics will find oneself much later (see the alchemist Ge Hong, 283~343).

The first mythical emperor of the Dynasty Xia, Huángdì (- 2697~-2598), is not verifiable. On the other hand, the myths allot an invention to him which one has trace after this time, the metallurgy. If he one believes of it the mode of transmission of the beliefs and practical alchemical, one can suppose that the first initiatory mysteries on fusion of metals started here (but the written echoes start with the Huanglao).

The Dynastie Shang (- 1751~-1111) leaves traces more some of a unit of culture, if not policy. The found writings make it possible to reconstitute a clannish company, with a royal family occupying the top of the hierarchy, and the chiefs of line which perpetuate the family worship. They maintain the soothsayers interpreting the cracks of carapaces of tortoise thrown to fire (Scapulomancie), from this practice the Sinogramme S, and thus, the writing are released.

Shang are reversed by the Zhou (-1000). This ethnos group installs an organization of the type Féodal E, even if the term is sometimes not granted to China. One finds in any case a movement of dissolution of fidélidé to the central royalty, whose nostalgia is preserved. The restoration of an ideal empire is a central theme of the posterior schools, but also of the project of civilization, to the first emperor Qin Shi Huang.

Then the Period comes from Springs and Falls (- 722~-481), name of the chronicle of the kingdom of Lu which covers these dates. Many lords with a language and a common culture witness a demographic, economic and cultural progression; but without the political unit. They trust the hereditary nobility less and less, opening their courses with itinerant intellectuals, from which the sources compiled in the five traditional results. One of them, the Yì Jīng, has a great influence on the taoism of our era. One supposes that at that time also the speculations of the Yin-Yang and the are worked out five elements, as well as the first practices of immortality.

From these times of anonymous creations and dubious dating one can thus retain: Shamanism, Huángdì, Sinogramme S, immortal, Yin-Yang, five elements; topics which persist and combine throughout the taoism.

(-500 ~ -220) Kingdoms combatants, intellectual budding and mystical taoists

Separation between this period and the preceding one are completely artificial, it preserves the same social characters of them, with however a pragmatic progression in the political concentration (seven kingdoms) which involves a crisis of the traditional cultural model (Confucius). It develops a intellectual class to with it mercenary who can live apart from the courses seigneuriales, by training the noble young people for public employment. It is the time of the hundred schools . Even if the number is too symbolic system to be exact, the period testifies to a intellectual promptness where concepts for many centuries were forged then.

Even if the natural persons of Laozi and Zhuangzi are dubious, just as the genealogy of their influences and their descent, the historical possibility of their work at that time is checked by the state of the language and the culture. The section designs of this article concentrates on these works. Sociologiquement, they prove an enough rich company to have hidden wise , well-read men educated without to aspire to a place and alive in the middle of the people. The political topics of the other schools are present, but one does not read the same intentions to flatter a prince, or to promise the decisive receipt. The policy seems to be a consequence of a truth Mystique and cosmological. In other words, the historical context helps to include/understand the words used, but is not enough to explain the composed sentences, which they, are properly taoists .

It is also at this period that develops in the courses royal and princely the Voie of the magicians and immortal the born in the countries of IQ and of Yan. By being surrounded specialists (fangshi) in ritual, magic and alchemy, the sovereigns hope to secure success and to escape death. The Yellow Sea bathing the shores of these two States of the Shandong and the doesn't Hebei shelter three islands where push grasses prolonging the life? The first Qin emperor and later Wudi of Han will send unfruitful forwardings to it, but the mythology of immortal and know-how of the magicians will keep their prestige and will be integrated in the taoism.

Economically, the comparison with the Greek miracle of the Sophistique is lighting. One finds itinerant scientists in competition being given to highest offerer. But there are basic differences of languages and political regimes. China of then was feudal, the logical argumentation is not the means of being right on its competitors, more especially as the language evokes more than it does not state. Marcel Granet attracts thus on the destiny of a school of the names which one moment tried to cultivate art to convince. These logical attempts were taken again by Zhuang Zi and Lao Zi, to retain of it only the Sophisme S and the Paradoxe S, and impossibility of reasoning on the essential things. --> Information which these paragraphs contain seems me to be preserved in the reorganization of the plan on the history (asked at the time of the proposal like article of quality). These lines are preserved in comments, so that them (S) author (S) can (NT) insert the direction of them in the current plan if he (S) thinks (NT) that something was missed. -- User: Glorious Frederic September 17th, 2006

At the time during which these philosophers would have lived (if as well is as they actually existed), existed a category of men of knowing mentioned by Zhuangzi, too quickly forgotten but who however played a crucial role in the formation of the taoism and his practices. They are the beings “with the extraordinary capacities” which practiced exercises gymnic and respiratory which are without any doubt at the origin of the exercises of daoyin such as they are still practiced today, though in a faded form. It is the period of the “specialists” or fangshi , coming from a very old shamanism, and immortal , figures of legend which ignited the imagination of followers and emperors lasting of the centuries. They are these same characters which one knows if little (the writing will be generalized only well later) which is also the ancestors of the Chinese hermits, that they are taoists or Buddhist, often in margin of all the doctrines, and which played a crucial role in the development of the techniques of longevity.

The philosophy of Laozi (CAD De Jing) and of Zhuangzi (Nanhua Zhenjing) of the Kingdoms Combatants (IVe century ~ 221 av. J.C.) was involved in other currents and the cosmogonic ideas with the schools with the Yin-Yang and Five Elements to give a movement “of ideas taoists” which proposed the thought of Laozi and -->

(-221 ~ 200) Empire, compilations, taoism esoteric

-221, Qin Shi Huang unifies the Empire. It institutes the imperial Bibliothèque, in order to preserve the official edition of the Classiques Chinese, to withdraw them at the schools and the old kingdoms. The selection was accompanied by persecutions on the intellectuals, of the books were burned, especially Confucéen S. During the Dynastie Han, a bibliographical work four centuries will establish the texts which reached us, while adding sometimes much to the originals, like this quotation drawn from the Zhuang Zi, certainly posterior.

When the world sank in the disorder, saints and wise hid and the CAD was divided, each one under the Sky took a piece of them to be put forward. It is like hearing, sight and sense of smell, which have each one their use but do not communicate: the hundred schools, in the expansion of their techniques, very count excellent the, useful ones for such or such moment, but none embraces globality.

The period is tried by a eclecticism which would reconcile all the wisdoms inherited the Royaumes combatants. Yang Xiong (- 53~18), the hermit of the court , illustrates the genius of this time, by its original imitations of the traditional ones. Its Fayan “words to guide” would attach it to the Confucianisme since it regains the shape of the Lúnyǔ “the talks of Confucius”; but it is also inspired by the Yì Jīng for the Taixuanjing “Book of the combinative supreme Mystery” developing ternary (Ground, Ciel, Homme) which had little posterity.

The current Huanglao is also very characteristic. Partly political philosophy of relationship legist, partly religion divinisant the mythical Yellow Emperor Huang di and wise the Lao Zi, the Western emperors of Han Wendi and Jingdi sought there a total philosophy, at the same time cosmic and political, justifying the existence of the empire and regulating their action. This confused construction, competed with as of Wudi by the Confucianism, contributed to the constitution of the compost taoist.

(200 ~ 400) Taocratie of the celestial Main

In 184, the brothers Zhang carry out the revolt of the Yellow Turbans in the name of the “Way of the Great peace” (Taiping CAD 太平道). The Dynastie Han (184) wavered, announcing one period of disorders, contemporary Grandes cruel migrations . In another part of China, parallel establishment of a church of the five bushels of the same proclamation a collective and organized expression taoism. The genealogies and the influences are complex and disputed, these traditions continue still today. One will however dare to indicate these popular religious phenomena under the same term: the celestial Main .

The mobilization of crowd is carried out around a Millénarisme announcing the nearest return of a golden age of morals and religion. Being exhausted empire, the active myth of a kingdom to come, nourished by the various local traditions (huanglao, fangxian, religions not Han etc.) and soon Buddhism, stimulates the reflection of the elites again.

The IIIe and IVe centuries allowed a intellectual revival in the aristocratic classes, by the practice of the “ pure talk ” qingtan on the Xuanxue “study of the mystery” (otherwise called néo-taoism). It releases from them more original authors than under the Empire: Wang Bi (226~249), Guo Xiang (252? ~312), Xi Kang (223~263).

Continuing practices of the court Han, the Alchimie is developed by the individual searchs for a Ge Xuan (164? ~244?) or of a Ge Hong (280~340), and the birth with Ge Chaofu (fine of IVe century) of a “school of the magic jewel” Lingbao feeds. This current absorbs celestial main influences and takes importance while becoming ritualistic.

Since the Three Kingdoms, the country is divided, in particular between North and the South. In North, Kou Qianzhi (365-448) tries to structure the celestial Masters - become a nebula of independent groups to the sometimes suspect activities - in a movement coherent and arranged hierarchically integrating morals confucéenne and the Buddhist monachism. At the beginning of the 4th century, the invasions move the court of the Jin and part of the celestial Masters towards the valley of the Yangzi Jiang where Lu Xiujing (406~477) will be their reformer. This displacement of the arts center has a durable effect whose the development testifies to the Shangqing.

This period is an age of great fruitfulness for the taoism during which one can observe his expressions in all their variety; in this article, it is used as reference mark for the description of the practices. During the same period, the first truths religious movements emerged: Taiping CAD or Voie of the Great Peace was created by Zhang Jue starting from the Huanglao culture; Wudoumi CAD or École of the five bushels of rice was founded by Zhang Daoling, figure now legendary. This last current was organized around a “celestial” central figure who, like the emperor, reigned on a troop of followers while following the model of Laozi. The latter were to pay a tribute (five bushels of rice) to belong to the community whose practices were centered around the demons and of the diseases whose followers were to cure themselves using ritual and of talismans. This school, dismantled by CAD CAD, will give rise to the current Tianshi CAD of the Celestial Maîtres spread by the former members of the Five bushels . From the Dynasty Jin, they were gradually eclipsed by the current Lingbao centered like them on the ritual ones and the collective practices, and the current Shangqing rather centered on an individual practice of meditation and visualization which preceded the internal alchemy of Quanzhen (XIIe century). After a few centuries of silence, the line of the celestial Masters of the Zhang family remade surface in the neighborhoods of IXe century on the Longhu mount with the Jiangxi, being claimed of an uninterrupted succession since Zhang Daoling. The current representative resides at Taiwan.

Does this seem to me from now on well treated in the part on the practices? -- Glorious Frederic Parallel to these schools and currents had developed starting from the fangshi the alchemical practices which marked a turning in the life of the first followers taoists. It was a question of obtaining physical immortality by the asceticism on the one hand and the ingestion of mineral and vegetable products highly toxic, to form in the body a “elixir” or a “pill of made gold immortality” starting from Cinabre.

This current called Jindan (Gold Pill or Gold Elixir), very in sight under the Tang (618-907), constituted the premises of the Chimie. A little later into XIe-XIIe centuries, Jindan integrated internal practices (gymnic, méditatives, respiratory) or sexual, which ended up almost completely replacing the absorption of products. “External alchemy” thus made place with “internal alchemy” or Neidan (Internal Elixir). One developed to with it the energy centers called “Fields of Cinnabar” or dantian of freedom of movement of the IQ (vital energy/vital breath) in the body and of the méditatives techniques.

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(400 ~ 1800) three lesson

The assimilation of the Bouddhisme is a major phenomenon in the history of the Chinese ideas. Its presence starts with the I {{er}} century but the Indian ideas are wrongfully comparable with a form of taoism until the Ve century. Bodhidharma, the founder symbolic system of Buddhism Chan is an acceptable reference mark of the transition, but its supposed oral genius leaves less traces in the texts than for example Kumârajîva (344~413?), a missionary koutchéen having known to translate the original message Sanskrit into Chinese, or Xuanzang (602 - 664), Chinese who made the way reverses by bringing back of India the Sûtra of a religion declining in his ground of origin. The era of the three lesson ( sanjiao 三教) Confucianism, Buddhism and taoism begins; they are influenced mutually and it becomes even more difficult to release an innovation which would be specifically taoist.

The syncretism makes it possible the three lesson to cohabit, exchange, and also to avoid most of the time the wars of Religion, transformed into fights of influence near the emperor. The capacity awaits support of the three and in turn officializes one or the other while trying to work it according to its needs, causing an alliance objectifies of both others. Thus the Wu emperor of the Liang of the South (502-549) takes for model the large Buddhist sovereign Ashoka (- 273~-232). After the reunification, a patriarch taoist of the Shangqing “Purity supreme”, ensures Gaozu (566~635) which it received the celestial mandate as a descendant Laozi because they have same family name, Li (李). Gaozu founds the Dynastie Tang (618), adds CAD De Jing to the program of the examinations, makes compile a Canon official taoist and opens schools in all the empire to teach it. In 845, according to an inspiration confucéenne, the emperor Tang Wuzong illustrates himself by a persecution against all the contemplative religions and preaching the celibacy, threats for the economy, which aims at the taoism and Buddhism - and affects even a marginal presence of the Christianisme nestorien and Manicheism.

Thereafter, the currents gather and two Schools dominate the landscape starting from the dynasties Jin and Yuan ({{XIIe}} and 13th centuries): the Powerful alliance of the orthodoxe Unit, Zhengyi Mengwei, and the School of Complétude of Authentic, Quanzhen. The first is a federation of schools centered on the ritual ones and talismans chaired by the Celestial Masters, the second results from the fusion of two alchemical currents - or ascetic, because “internal” alchemy is on the way to replace “external” alchemy. Born at the end from the Song, it is about the school of North based in the Shaanxi by the eccentric Wang Chongyang on the bases of the alchemical tradition interns known as “Zhonglü” (name of the two immortal patriarchs Zhongli Quan and Lu Dongbin), Buddhism chan and benevolence confucéenne, and school of the South of Zhang Boduan founded in the Sichuan and very active in the south of Yangzi Jiang. There thus exist today two currents, Zhengyi rather ritualistic and secular, rather ascetic Quanzhen, centered around communities of the Buddhist type.

(1800 ~ 1949) modern China

The troubles of the taoism with the authorities started well before the advent of the Popular republic of China. Starting from second half of the Ming, its image was gradually degraded near the intellectuals and senior officials because of his bond with the popular religion. That the schools taoists were from time immemorial ideal structures for the development of the movements of opposition did not play either in its favor. Liang Qichao (1873 - 1929), lawyer of the social revival of China, even wrote that it was “humiliating” to have to include the taoism in the Chinese religious history, “because the country in forever drawn any advantage”.

The Mouvement of May 4th (1919) started a stressing of repression. In 1920 a law, little applied it is true, prohibited the temples dedicated to the divinities of the elements and the natural phenomena, as well as the use of the magic talismans and other protections. Only the temples devoted to famous and exemplary characters were authorized.

(1949 ~ 1976) Revolution and persecutions

The monks of the mount Wudang collected the third Red Army and much of taoists showed patriotism during the Japanese invasion, but they were not saved by the Communists for as much. The principal monastery of the school Zhengyi on the Longhu mount with the Jiangxi was burnt in 1948, and its patriarch took refuge in Taiwan in 1950. The general policy with respect to the religions applied starting from 1949 to the taoism and the popular religion: no total suppression, but prohibition of new ordinations, repression of all the activities described as superstitious (talismans, divinations.) and anti-Marxists (hierarchical schools, temples and festivals of clan…) and confiscation of buildings. Certain sects were declared illegal and passed in clandestinity. Sometimes obliged to resort to illegal ways to collect funds, some their members are transfered associated with scandals, which did not arrange anything. In 1956, invaluable bronze statues of the Wudang mount were molten.

Within the framework of the Movement for three autonomies intended to put an end to the financial dependence, ideological and administrative of the religions of China with respect to foreign institutions, in 1957 was founded Chinese Association taoist. The government also hoped through it to better control the very divided whole of the schools. It was n the other hand committed to restore and be maintaining the most famous temples. In 1961, research, the publications and the formation of personnel showed under the impulse of the president, Chen Yingning, but the Cultural revolution quickly stopped any activity for the taoism as for the other religions. In 1966 association was dissolved, the closed or requisitioned temples, the returned monks and nuns. One regretted of many destruction, including 10.000 rollers of texts crowned with the Louguantai monastery with the Shaanxi, close to the master key by which Lao Zi left, the legend says, towards the West.

(1976 ~…) After Mao

It is in 1979 under Deng Xiao-ping that a certain activity began again. Association taoist, reconstituted in May 1980, held its third meeting in Baiyun Guan or Monastery of the white clouds of Beijing, temple principal of the school Quanzhen CAD, which reopened in 1984 as much like tourist place that religious. Local associations were reconstituted starting from some former Masters and of young completely inexperienced recruits.

The first theological training center opened in 1984 in Baiyun Guan of Beijing, and Quanzhen ordinations began again in 1989. In worse terms with the Communist government, Zhengyi had to await 1992 to see his recognized them and its principal monastery (Longhu) to open, first of all with the Chinese overseas areas as Taiwan where this school is well established. In 1994, one counted approximately 450 large temples and reopened and restored monasteries, partly with funds given by the taoists of overseas. The least large function it is true often more like tourist places where monks and nuns accommodate the visitors that like centers of study and religious practice. The most determined practitioners are made hermits.

The temples, monks or main taoists must obtain a formal authorization of exercise, necessary also for the public ceremonies. Nevertheless, in the rural regions, of many Masters married and alive within the company, often in mobility Zhengyi, more difficult to control than the monks, would exert way “sauvage".

The first meeting between the Taiwanese and continental clergies - first meeting between the Quanzhen sects and Zhengyi of the history of the taoism - proceeded in September 1992 with the temple of Louguantai. In November took place the first official visit in China of a delegation of the General association of the taoists of Taiwan.

Research on the taoism takes place in the departments of study of the religions of the Academy of social sciences, in particular with Beijing, Shanghai, with the Sichuan and the Jiangsu. Research institutes on the culture taoist were founded at Beijing (1989), Shanghai (1988) and Xi' year (1992). The Chinese Taoism , body of Association, publishes studies. From 1986 to 1993 one reprinted the Main part of the writings taoists , extracted from thirteen thousand texts engraved on wood of the Qing dynasty.

Designs: Principal milked

Before the Buddhism, and especially starting from the Han, the taoism was defined compared to its rival, the Confucianisme. However, these two currents of thought divide the heritage of the Chinese cultural bottom, which is much more important than what separates them, and are thus more complementary than antagonistic. The Chinese well-read men generally perceived them like two different means to arrive at the same goal: wisdom for oneself and the company. Each one is effective in its field, and one can very well, like says it the proverb, being “Confucianist the day and taoist the night”.

Two essential texts

The surest references are consisted “Canon taoist”, traditionally three books written towards the IVe front century J. - C. and compiled under Han: the CAD De Jing , the Zhuangzi and the Dregs Zi . With modern criticism one will draw aside this last, or Traditional Vrai of the perfect vacuum , because this later compilation brings little to both others.

the CAD De Jing (or CAT You Ching , Book of the Way and its Virtue ) is a short collection of obscure and poetic aphorisms allotted to the founding father and even divinized of the taoism: Laozi (Lao-tseu). The taoists did not cease reading it, by interpreting it very variously according to the centuries. For several currents, it was in the center of ceremonies, not exactly as delivers crowned, but rather like text of prayer. Other cultures discover it, its translation is a challenge in all the languages, to seek a direction there inspires many authors. The divergence of interpretations illustrates the fluid and fertile richness CAT ; a major text of humanity.
the Zhuangzi (Tchouang-tseu), of the name of its author, is a collection of dialogued, alive fables and of major teaching. The form seemingly more direct, pleasant and full with humor, draft at the bottom of rigorously felt philosophical topics. Generations of mandarins found there a consolation of the preoccupations with a their load in the figure of a saint without ambition, released of the social constraints. The modern ones seek there in the middle of the character or in the rate/rhythm of a history, an always current Chinese wisdom.

the Traditional True of the perfect vacuum , allotted to Dregs Zi, is a collection of anecdotes and fables whose majority are inspired by the taoism of Zhuang Zi. One finds there the intensity of the philosophical debates of the time.

--> These texts make it possible to release some topics taoists, but one will prevent that for the history of the Chinese ideas, they are as common places as Raison or Culture for the Western Philosophie. The contemporaries of Laozi and Zhuangzi also employed them, though interpreted differently and without the same importance. Comprehension that we have some from now on, depend largely on the centuries of interpretation who followed, in particular in the néo- Confucianisme of the Dynastie Song (Xe and XIe century). In other words, it is necessary to start with there, but to avoid deducing some from the too strict categories between what would be taoist, and what would not be it.

To follow the Way

The research of wisdom in China is based mainly on the harmony. The harmony, for the taoists, is while placing its heart (and its spirit, the Chinese character of the heart indicates the two entities) in the Way (CAT), i.e. in the same way as nature. In turning over to the paramount and natural authenticity, by imitating the fertile passivity of the nature which spontaneously produces the “ten thousand beings”, the man can release himself from the constraints and its spirit can “overlap the clouds”. Preaching a kind of Quiétisme naturalist (Granet), the taoism is an ideal of unconcern, spontaneousness, individual freedom, refusal of the rigors of the social life and extatic communion with the cosmic forces. This taoism of the great mystical rides was used as refuge to the well-read men marginal, or marginalized by a banishment with the steps of the Empire, the forgotten poets, the painters recluse… and fascine today many Westerners.

To release itself from the social constraints, the taoist can flee the city and withdraw himself in the mountains, or live as a peasant. In the Talks with Confucius, one finds already this opposition between on the one hand those which assume the life in society and seek to improve it (Confucianists) and, on the other hand, those which consider that it is impossible and dangerous to improve the company, which is not that an artificial framework preventing the naturalness from expressing itself (taoists), dialectical perhaps similar to the question of the engagement of the intellectual. Zhuangzi has striking images: a twisted tree, whose carpenter cannot make boards, will live of its beautiful life at the edge of the way, while a quite right tree will be cut in boards then sold by the logger. Uselessness is guarantor of serenity, of long life. In the same way the occupant of a boat will be made insult copiously if it comes to obstruct a large boat, but, if the boat is empty , the large boat will be arranged simply to avoid it. It is thus advisable to be useless, empty, without qualities, transparency, “to vomit its intelligence”, not to have not preconceived ideas and less opinions possible. Having made the vacuum in oneself, the wise one is entirely available and is let carry like a sheet died in the current of the life, i.e.: freely “to play about in the Way”.

Plenitude of the vacuum and other paradoxes

The plenitude of the vacuum could pass for a purely formal paradox, a pure word game. Chapter 11 of CAD De Jing provides lighting analogies: does the wheel turn by the vacuum of the hub, the earthenware jar contains more especially as it is hollow, without the holes of the doors and windows, for what is used a house? The page is concluded by a formula that one can translate: “of full, the means; vacuum, the effect”. This voluntarily abstract interpretation finds an application universal, for example, the military strategy. the Art of the war of Sunzi has a chapter “of full and vacuum” where he explains very concretely how a general must have the place of battle (the full one) like a potential (means), master keys or entries (of the vacuums) where he attracts the adversary of full sound liking to beat it with the least effort (the effect). The fable of the fighting cock of Zhuangzi (19) which will overcome without combat is another illustration of the supposed virtue of the vacuum intérieur. This comment is likely to increase the effect of blur symbolic system around the DDJ, the more so as this passage finds also interpretations more precise, in the form of mystical technique.

It is the part Yin, the obscure bottom of the valleys, the female sex which have the capacity to create, to multiply beings (DDJ 6). In this vacuum which is not the theoretical Vide physicists, are in germ all the possibilities of the existence.

By making the vacuum in oneself, the limpid thoughts can circulate. It is thanks to the “white” of paper that the features of the brush can recreate with grace and sincerity of the mountains, the rivers, the trees or the bamboos. This fruitfulness of the vacuum is in the middle of the CAD De Jing and of all the thought taoist. -->

Social uselessness, the absence of effective qualities which is presence in power of all possible qualities, the vacuity of a released heart of any concern society men, are the most current aspirations of the way taoist. One can withdraw world to approach some, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient. To carry out this release, “to find the Way”, one of the means possible of the Paradoxe S. There is the use is much in CAD De Jing : it is without leaving at home that the world is known, it is by not knowing that one knows, it is when one acts the least which its action is most effective, the weakness is stronger than the force, stupidity marks the supreme intelligence, or the Civilization is a Décadence. The goal of these paradoxes initially seems to break the conventional thought, to break the logical chains and to break the direction of the words, as Buddhism Chan will cultivate it later. It is also a polemical weapon against the doctrines which are instituted, for example the Confucianism. But there is certainly also, as for the paradox of the vacuum, a manner of practicing these paradoxes which brings an effectiveness, justifying the interest still carried to this text. Its secrecy seems an alive mystery, not a mechanics vide. This taoism is not a subjectivism. The thinking subject (the I ), far from being placed at the center of prospect for the world, is regarded as an ultimate constraint making screen with Nature and spontaneousness. The taoism is not either a integral Relativisme: only the statutory values are rejected like artificial and the eigenvalues with the life are sought, thus the flexibility, the agility, the availability, the fertility. -->

Laissez-faire

CAD De Jing is also a handbook of policy magico-mystic. If one “lets make” nature and his ten thousand beings, they grow and multiply. If one does not seek to control the men, they car-organize better possible way spontaneously. This idea which can seem Libertaire must be given in context. On a side, it is based on the antique chamanic belief of an effective action of the Prince by the play of the correspondences between the Microcosme S and the Macrocosme. Thus the simple fact for that which has the Mandat of the Sky to describe in its house the continuation of the seasons by regularly moving from one room to another, ensures that the rain will come at its hour to fertilize the fields, that the winter will last wanted time, etc apparent inaction does not prevent the effective action. If seasonal circulation in its house ensures the good walk of the empire, it is because there is “resonance” and domino effect - or of gears - between the house of the Prince and his empire. I.e. the house of the Prince is designed like a homothetic representation world. Moreover, the eclipses, famines or floods are interpreted at once like a dissolute moral in the house of the Prince. In addition, this idea of an effective inaction could be preached by more rational thinkers, when they wished to contain the whims of the princes and to limit their damage on the people.

“Laissez-faire” or wu-wei , within the individual, has a great range and the taoism attempts to cultivate the particular effectiveness which rises from the absence of intentions. The activity of certain craftsmen is thoroughly described by Zhuang Zi. It shows a butcher or a cartwright who acquired the greatest control of their art after years of training, but especially, they can forget the rules and the matter which they work, led by CAT . They leave the gestures and their body to only operate, without intention conscious of the will. The humblest art makes it possible all to reach an absolute. The Confucianisme preferred to restore the hierarchies: “Even subordinates, all arts and the places are sizeable. There but with too much wanting to seek, one is locked up there. The honest man will not have a trade. ” Entretiens with Confucius 19:4 One meets the every day of the situations which show that to want it can interfere with the action of the body and produce missed works. A share of “unconsciousness” is often necessary to paint, write, carve, sing. Who wants to make well arrives as well as possible only at the poor one. For a creator, to aspire to the Beautiful leads often only to works which feel sweat and the adhesive. Here are one of the human paradoxes of most fertile detected by the taoism, and all the Chinese Art, like its criticism, feel some.

Civilization like disease

Whereas the majority of the characters of the Chinese Mythologie are of the civilizing heroes, who gave to the men the inventions (Agriculture, Irrigation, Médecine or the writing), the taoism continues against the technique. To illustrate it, a Parabole of Zhuang Zi puts in scene a peasant taoist who, although knowing the use of the Chadouf (which would save to him much time and energy to sprinkle its fields), would have “shame to make use of it” because this artificial technique goes against nature. Going in the same direction, paragraph 80 of CAD De Jing proposes a “return to the tied cords” (ancestors of the written forms). This same text goes further: of the villagers do not meet all their life the villagers of the hamlet which is with range of sight. If this teaching is followed, the company proposed by Lao Zi as ideal of simplicity is a constellation of autonomous villages without bonds between them and of human without curiosity neither for the tools allowing to facilitate the life to them, nor even for the outside world. One does not know what in the intention holds of the paradox with the calculated provocation, an individual choice, or really of a political project. It is also possible not to literally take the writings of Lao Zi, but rather in the spirit: thus, " of the villagers do not meet all their life of the villagers of the hamlet which is with range of vue". That can mean that it is possible to meet the other in oneself, and to establish a bond much major, of " human nature with nature humaine" , that while visiting him the every day. One meets the other in the secrecy of his own heart. -->

Thus paragraph 3 in the European translations invite to read “To empty the heads, to fill the bellies”, like a council with the prince according to the purest ideology reactionary, since the return to the called upon past is that of a Mythe. The ignorance of the people would ensure an invisible and active capacity without anything to make. But to translate of so old poetic Chinese often holds of the interpretation, influenced by the heritage of a tradition, here, confucéenne. The complete sentence was also read in the taoists mediums like a mystical technique: “the saint acts by emptying his heart, nourishing the navel; he gives up to want it, to strengthen his bones”. Heart and head are the same character, abdominal breathing is supposed to nourish the navel, practices clearly allowed then like contributing to longevity: the persistence of the bones. This small example indicates the limits of a closed interpretation of the texts taoists, and that it is necessary to accept polysemia, initially in the European languages, but also for Chinese.

Interpretations

The most careful attitude with regard to Zhuangzi and especially of the Laozi is to read them like enigmas. The direction was not exhausted in many centuries of Chinese tradition, the occident comes with its keys, which open new doors on its own landscapes, but they do not make it possible more to include/understand them definitively, which is clean alive texts.

The reading of CAD De Jing was continues, with a long story of comments, but also practices different from the text. Like the traditional confucéens, it was sometimes with the program of the mandarinaux contests, therefore in charge of a comment scholastic reflecting one time the political concerns. In addition the destiny of recognized works but with the margin, to be been useful by individual geniuses, a little like the Yi Jing. Lastly, there is a very singular use for the Histoire of the religions of books, the text is crowned, but not divine author. Some grant to him the capacities of a magic, without to hide it in a esotericism since it is also read publicly. This prestige in any case inspired all the posterior taoism.

Practical: the search of immortality

The search of immortality is an organizing principle of the multiple practices of the taoism. Several millenia, a continent, clergies variously organized and sometimes in conflict; even pressed on specialists (Maspero, Tap), this simplification requires justification.

Archeology and the texts confirm the ruinous expenditure of mourning, the worship of the ancestors, and the belief in the spirits. The the Pantheon of Chinese varied much, but almost all believed that deaths continued an existence, that the alive ones owed them of the offerings, to hope for a better life. Confucius taught wisdom not to fear the phantoms, to respect the rites in the intention, without to sacrifice its fortune to it. “Mourning must carry until the affliction but not more”, “the Master never spoke about strange, nor of the spirits”. The Bouddhisme brought the Saṃsāra (the cycle of the rebirths) whose Nirvāna releases. The first translations of the Buddhist texts are precisely revealing, because for lack of an adapted vocabulary, they borrow taoists terms. The reincarnation is ignored, but the message of the Buddha is retained, because it saves of any death, therefore initially of the first. The nirvana is interpreted like immortality, Buddhism is compared to a whole of receipts taoists: food regulations and morals, concentration and meditation. The force of the Buddhist clergy, the unit of its message, the continuous surge Indian missionaries with the sources of the doctrines reversed the report/ratio of assimilation; the Syncrétisme Chinese ended up melting what there would be the specific one to the taoism. So however illustrating religious practices specifically taoists, one will agree with the specialists to concentrate over the period of the six dynasties (200-400) between the Han and the Tang, very prolific in techniques of longevity.

Quite former (IVe front century J. - C.), CAD De Jing and the Zhuang Zi share also this search, but by giving him a framework Métaphysique. These texts result from an experimental step, not measurable, or observable, but well of a total experiment of the individual: the Mystical . With the manner of the Yoga will sutra but with other conclusions, these Masters confronted their directions with their language, discovering without influence of the spiritual universals, and the characteristic of the intuitions of their culture. Thus the speculations on IQ suppose technically a Monisme Vitaliste or naturalist which does not distinguish the Esprit from the Matière. Consequently the Individu is not known like a Dualisme of only one heart and only one body, but of many principles only maintained together by the life, that death separates. Consequently personal immortality will not be done without the body, which retains the experiment and the memory of it, it enters the great concern taoist: to nourish the vital principle .

The objective is clarified, but one is then struck by the immense variety of the regulations. The Confucianism recalled to the spirit of old and was contained with the Classique rites. The organization of the Buddhist practices resisted Chinese inventiveness after a fashion. The taoism expresses a plethoric religious genius so that the first task of the follower is to travel through China, to find the Master who agrees with his way and his advance, by keeping impostors or too dangerous practices for his rank. Modern criticism makes it possible all the same to classify specificities.

To nourish the body: dietetics, alchemy, breathing, gymnastics, sexuality, medicine
To nourish the spirit: morals, the Pantheon, exorcism, divination, ceremonies

To nourish the body: the Transmutation

“and the alive ones will not die, the days when you ate what died you made of it alive” Évangile of Thomas 11.

This quotation of a Gospel apocryphal book could have been appropriate word for word for a taoist, but in an interpretation very different from Christianity. A religion must make that one does not die, by explaining how.

The life is nourished with death, the follower also notes it, and wonders especially: how to become immortal by eating things which will die? Sometimes harmful body practices with health result from this logic, to transform the flesh into imputrescible life. By the Asceticism, the follower seeks to awake the embryo which would reside in its navel. To this force of growth and generation, it lends the virtue of the snake, to be able to moult. The current skin is transitory, another the more durable can succeed to him, at least if one nourishes oneself sufficiently well: the vital principle .

Dietetics

coarse food
thin food
sober food
absorption of the Gasoline
absorption of the ivory (?)
absorption of the Light
absorption of the breath
absorption of the Original Breath
Embryonic Food
Maspero, COp cit., note 260, original quotation of the Xuanmen dalun . This enumeration summarizes the stages of progession in the mode ideal taoist, until the light, the air, and the self-sufficiency.

The food mode prescribes to become good taoist is very severe, it results from a reasoning. To become immortal, the immortal one should be nourished. In addition to ritual Fast S, the taoists would like to do without any mortal food, “Work, not for the food which perishes, but for that which remains for the eternal life”, without to be satisfied of a metaphor like spiritual foods. The taoists hope to spiritualize food itself.

They start by drawing aside the fermented mets, like the cheese, which points out too the rot, then the meat. The follower passes then the test to do without the cereals (the human food base) supposed to nourish the three worms , of the demons which eat the body with the inside and make it age. The texts do not hide the momentary difficulty and evils which one crosses.

Did such a mode should have decimated the followers, where find their calories then? One brings back many decoctions and drugs having to mitigate the most obvious deficiencies, and there was the alcohol. The wine and intoxication are a traditional topic of poetry taoist (Li Bai, 701~762), one can for example suppose that it was the food base of Xi Kang (223~262) towards the end of his life. That joined this popular figure of immortal merry and drunk, with perpetuity. However, the wine was expensive, it is an ideal inaccessible in the majority. Moreover, it is fought by the Bouddhisme, which influenced the later practices taoists.

Alchemy

This introduction by the food gives a context to anecdotes of alchemists poisoning of the emperors with their receipts. To become immortal, it is not only necessary to keep death, but also to change interior to become imputrescible. Followers tried to introduce Plomb or Or liquid to agree to a notation symbolic of the body in correspondence with metals. The Cinabre had even more favor. This mercury ore passes by several colors to fusion, illustrating the Transmutation. It was the object of a ruinous search, which explains why external alchemy was then used as analogy with a reflected form, the internal alchemy, practiced in breathing.

Breathing

The taoism refined the respiratory techniques with a degree which one meets only in the Yoga. The Western historian can seek there influences, the texts yogis are former. But the comparisons are not enough to prove a transmission, it is just possible to call upon a pool of Chamanisme Eurasia N.

The taoists discovered the originality of their techniques besides by comparing them with those imported by the Buddhists. The Indians recommend a major breathing and continues, in order to detach the spirit of an illusory body, so that the Atmân joins the Brahman . The Chinese have a Métaphysique and a different technique. They seek to retain the breath more the possible for a long time. This Apnée has different effects Psychotrope S, accompanied by representations. The air, the IQ , is regarded as the Substance of all the bodies. The follower, while breathing, regenerates his matter, with a mental accompaniment of the feeling of air in a felt anatomy, the circulation of the breath . A Westerner can have an idea of these exercises with the Sophrologie, to try out the long-term effect asks for a more important engagement. What is this the follower hoped for this continuous practice? “Confucius said: Formerly I spent the days without eating and of the nights without sleeping, devoting me to the meditation. I would have learned while studying. ” Talks 15:30. The taoist does not seek a knowledge there but the Transmutation of his body by the air, that IQ feeds the embryo.

Gymnastic S

Under the name Daoyin, Maspero draws from the texts of the exercises of very precise gymnastics. These movements are always accompanied by instructions on breathing. They aim at softening the body to help the thought to make circulate energies, which they are food, respiratory, or sexual. These practices are distinguished definitively from the yoga, because they are not postures, but many movements. The taoism brings the movement to the asceticism, and the asceticism with the movement. This inspiration continues in IQ gong “work of the breath”, or the Martial arts Chinese - Wushu.

Sexuality

“The yellow Empereur slept with 1200 women in one night, and it became immortal; the common people have only one woman and destroy the life. ” Ylang Zhiyaon , transl. Maspero.

Contrary to the religions monacales, a taoist can be married, the filial devotion and the Chinese worship of the descent is respected. The Sexualité is not repressed, but is not sacrilized, in particular by the complementarities Yin-yang nourishing the vital principle symbolically. Let us point out the characteristic of the Chinese respiratory technique: the Apnea, retention. This mode is applied to the act, the treaties extend on receipts to preserve the gasoline all while stimulating it ( coitus interruptus , masturbation). Certain exercises taoists make it possible to the men to have multiple orgasms without ejaculating, this practice do not have anything extraordinary and can be reached by all, this is explained for example in " The Multi Orgasmic Man" of Mantak Shit. There too, India is different, the Tantrisme idealizes rather the Orgasme like a way of the nirvana.

To include/understand sexuality taoist, it is necessary to be interested in what arrived to occident under the name of the sexual lesson of the White Tiger-cat. This lesson applies to the men and the women without discrimination of age. Little known by the common people, even in China, sexuality taoist is interested in the transformation of the physical body, rejuvenation, by practices considered as a branch with share of the Taoism. " To gather daisies apart from Tao" , under intended to practice sexuality Taoist, does not belong to the ideal eremitic of immortality but rather to a way of improving the daily life to prolong the passage in the alive world.

Medicine

“Chinese medicine always was under the influence of the Taoism, and the first doctors who were not simple wizards could be taoists” Henri Maspero, Taoïsme , note 140.

The scientific attitude with regard to medicine is revealing of a rupture with the ancient taoism, of the influence of the ideal confucéen starting from the Han, and of the appointment missed with a more experimental method. Zhuang Zi (3) tells the fable variously interpreted of a butcher finding CAD world by cutting out carcasses. there is no yet scientific intention, but at least, the epistemological obstacle of the contempt for the trades of blood is raised. Only thereafter, with “the difference of the Greeks and the Hindus, the Chinese never practiced the dissection like process running of study. One quotes two series of dissections, thousand away years, one in the first years of Ier century of our era, the other in the middle of XIIe century. ”. The first observations helped to build an image of the body being used as support with an anatomy symbolic system, using correspondences between the bodies and the elements. The following observations were refuted when they did not confirm the theories, while asserting that the body of one condemned to dead was not of comparable nature only that of a wise taoist having contemplated all his life.

According to the chronicles, the life of a good taoist lasts at least 90 years (symbolic system number), age to which the embryo must awake to survive the burial. In its tomb, it will not leave that its belt and its bonnet, or a stick, continuing its happy immortality in a corner of country where it will not frighten the company. A candidate will seek it to ask him for his secrecy; thus the belief remains. It is difficult to measure of it adhesion, it still inspires by the fictions.

To nourish the spirit

Morals

Taoism, one knows initially the libertarian individualism of Zhuangzi, one more rarely reads a pragmatism in the mystic of CAD De Jing, finally generally, the morals developed in the collective currents is ignored. It is this aspect which is developed here, because it is expressed at the same time as the ideals of longevity, even if it contradicts the ancient taoism partly.

“Those which do not achieve acts of virtue and satisfy to practice the magic processes will never obtain the Eternal Life” Ge Hong, Baopuzi , J. 3,8 B.

“The first of the month in the morning it was going to walk to the market, along the streets, on the places; and when he saw the poor or the famished ones, he took off his clothes and theirs gave… One year that there were great dryness and famine, and that the bushel of rice reached the price of thousand coins, so that the roads with famished, it was covered exhausted its fortune and ruined its family to come to assistance of their distress; and it did it in hiding-place, so that people did not know that it was of him that these generous gifts came. ” Daozang , “the gun taoist”, fasc. 152.

The source of the last extract is a canonical biography of a saint taoist, supposed to have lived an ideal life. Before discovering the way, the follower practices a rather familiar charity with Christianity. It prescribes commands of good sense as “you will not kill, you will not fly”. The ethical reflection distinguishes discrete charity from the demonstration of virtue, it does not explore in-depth the mobiles of the intention. The fault is not transmitted fathers out of wire, or by the rebirths; forgiveness and the repurchase are possible. The very precise evaluation of the faults and the good deeds answers the code of the offenses and the sorrows, revealing of the representations and the social order. One can repurchase oneself by repairing hundred step of road, or by providing rice and the meat useful to free public inns.

This precise scale of the values allows a precise accountancy. There is not the equivalent of Extrême-onction which gives the sins of dying so that it reaches the eternal life. For a taoist, an ill deed, they are days of life in less, and when death comes, it is too late. The texts add a progression logarithmic curve. When with a threshold of his moral life the follower owes 30 good deeds to go up in rank, only one failure requires of all to start again. “It is necessary, says an alchemist of IVe century, to have achieved 1.200 good deeds to be able to become immortal; and all ill deed stops the series and obliges to start again beginning, was ‑on arrived at 1.199”.

the Pantheon

Exorcism

In the popular company, the saint taoist has the role of the wizard, specialist in irrational, and expert of the demons. It is thus naturally that he plays the part of exorcist of the individual diseases, and sometimes collective, by its knowledge of rites and magics.

Divination

Ceremonies

Sociologiquement, the taoism initially concerned the elites, even the emperor. The individual practices were ritualisées in collective ceremonies after the Dynastie Han, with the appearance of the popular movements of the type celestial Maîtres. To interpret texts often coming from external judgments, like Buddhists, is a dubious exercise. One will however distinguish the rites from nomination which officialize the conversion and the progression of the follower in the Voie , referring to the feudal habits of the Dynastie Zhou. One finds also readings collective of CAD De Jing, confessions and repentances public. The calendar is rate/rhythm by solar festivals, in particular the equinoxes, preceded by fasts, outcome to paroxysms. There is much literature on these feasts orgiaques, seeking to return symbolic system of the exchanges ritualized between sexual partners. In certain areas, the churches taoists held the registry office, and celebrated the births, the marriages and the deaths. Contrary to the universal religions of hello, the ritual taoists are not fixed in a strict and exportable receipt.

Practices, taoism

The search of immortality shows an acceptable principle to present the variety of the practices taoists, but, one should not especially which it gives the impression that there is only one religion taoist, even for the period circumscribed in this section. Breathing and the modes for example, are detectable in several social layers, but with a different direction.

The “study of the mystery” Xuanxue (250 ~ 350) engages of the aristocrats without hope of career in the “pure talk”, where they renew the theoretical speculation and the comment (Zhuangzi and Laozi). They carry out a life épicurienne between friends ( seven wise of the thicket of bamboos ), cultivating as well the breaths as the wine. At that time, the taoism definitively influenced the penmanship, the painting and the music which we recognize from now on like Chinese.

The expressions of masses of the type celestial Maîtres use them like ways initiatory of progression towards the ranks of a Église organized, with ritual and the Pantheon.

The alchemy, which left the dissolved court of the Han, was transmitted to Ge Hong (164? ~244?). It is an independent aristocrat. Its books are found in the Lingbao feeds (500), an organized movement, which will then melt in the celestial Maîtres. It is with this organization that one owes the compilation of a “gun taoist” Daozang , in which are detailed the techniques. They continue to be cultivated in the monasteries posterior taoists.

Taoism and Occident

As for others Tradition S spiritual, attachable designs with the taoism penetrated the Occidental culture, while following the way of the European history. These moments define attitudes which inevitably did not disappear. In the current French-speaking world, the taoism still mainly remains business of specialists and curious.

Antiquity and the Middle Ages: merchants

One finds traces archaeological of contacts commercial between China and the Roman Empire. The silk route brought Christians nestoriens until Xi' year under the Dynastie Tang (635). They disappeared in a reaction Confucianist directed against the contemplative religions (845). They did not leave traces in the texts, whereas already Plutarque mentions gymnosophists , these wise of India which lived naked (yogis); Plotin claimed to have received their teaching. The Indus stopped Alexandre Large the, drawing European mental space for several centuries.

The Relation of China and India instruction towards 851 the testimony of several Arab travellers who visited China. The mentions on the religion are so short that one can bring them back all. §23 “Their religion resembles that of the magi”. In a translation of 1948 Jean Sauvaget proposes two assumptions: the Chinese are strange like zoroastriens, or, the Yin-Yang resembles dualism mazdéen; without no other index being able to ensure that it is about the taoism. One reads as §72 “the Chinese claim as they are the Hindus who brought their Buddhas to them”, §64 “they have crowned books”, perhaps traditional the confucéens. The modern reader can recognize the three lesson ; these merchants are explained more on the laws, the administration or the beauty of the bodies. One will note the astonishment of these Arabic in front of the ruinous funerary habits §35, and this which summarizes the prospect, §63 “Neither the Hindus nor the Chinese practice the circumcision”. These opinions were taken again and compiled with many recoveries in the Moslem literature, but by adding very few of other first hand information to it, from where the value of this testimony. It did not make career in the European medieval scholastic.

This is why the delivers wonders of Marco Polo (1298) appeared as new, with more the fantastic one as the Relation , but with also little on the beliefs and designs. The ignorance of the language and the needs for the trade did not make it possible to learn some more.

Great discoveries: missionaries

It is necessary to await the dash missionary and the Jésuite Matteo Ricci so that the Occident receives its first rudiments of Sinologie. The approach was consciously skewed, it did not aim to science but to the conversion. However, the method Jesuit consisted with not évangéliser by the force, but to insinuate the Foi by persuasion, by borrowing the habits and the Chinese language. Ricci established a dictionary and translates the traditional ones, but it did not identify the taoism. Indeed, it started by being made pass for a Bonze Bouddhiste but noted that it would have more effect by taking the costume of the well-read man Confucéen, in order to convert the company by the top. The social position of the taoists at that time could not serve its projects, Europe was unaware of this inspiration still a long time.

Leon Wieger (1856-1933) is another missionary Jesuit, quite posterior, who also deserves to be announced. The agnostic Marcel Granet quotes his translations of Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi and Lie Zi but formula of the reserves on interpretations. Its History of the religious beliefs and the philosophical opinions in China since the origin until our days (1922), is with being read with precaution: “the Taoism appears to me to be, in its broad outlines, a Chinese adaptation of the contemporary Indian doctrines of the Upanishad”, “the ideas of these men, the only thinkers whom China produced, are to be studied carefully”, “their system is a pantheism realistic, not idealistic”, “one should not seek a revelation of the Trinity, in the formula of Lao-tseu (Lao Zi), one made two, two made three, three did all ”. Its prospects are sometimes lighting, but generally null and void.

The Large Ricci (2002), the most important Chinese dictionary towards a European language, concretizes fifty years of labor achieved by associated Jesuits and researchers. It is an enormous work, tool impossible to circumvent of deepening of the taoism in the character. “The wish of those which will have spent several years of their life to raise this monument, it is that much finds there the keys which will be used to them to open the doors by which one reaches the heart even of people and not those which open with some visitor of occasion. It is necessary, to include/understand China, to know communier in patience with the secret heart of those which live it. ”. This quotation in fence of the foreword expresses the current spirit of an approach of the language and the Chinese culture.

the Lights: Exoticism

The European thinkers of the lights used the documents Jesuits for their engagements, like the Confucius of Voltaire, but none was characterized by its scholarship or an original translation. Perhaps Leibniz has the first summer touched by inspirations of a taoist kind when he imagined that the Idéogramme S note really the ideas and that the Yì Jīng can found the algebra of a perfect language. The speculations in the spirit of Jung (1875-1961) still concern this attitude. On exoticism still, the taoism remains used to justify new medicines or meditations. It is not contradictory with the history of this teaching, but not always enlightened with the best texts.

20th century: Sinology

“the ground that the sinologists leave vacant, they are the gurus who invade it: what the knowledge forsakes, imagination seizes some serving as the keys with all the mysteries, lending itself to nice is delirious of exoticism”

The slow positive approach of the taoism by the Occident can be illustrated by the difficulty in translating CAD De Jing. In 1934, Marcel Granet still said “It is necessary to acknowledge that this book, translated and retranslated, is properly untranslatable” and in the note 1023 it adds “One of these translations, that of Stanislas Julien, (1842) deserves to be announced; perfectly conscientious, it does not betray the text, but it does not make it possible to include/understand it”.

To the same time, Henri Maspero brings a first hand analysis of the texts. The French school remains fertile and quoted abroad. Max Kaltenmark, or Isabelle Robinet are references ( Taoism: Growth off has Religion , Stanford University Press, 1997,); ( Geschichte of Taoismus , Diederichs, 1995,).

The audience of these specialists widens, several authors now open the taoism in a reflection crossed with the Greek Philosophie (Marcel Conche, François Julien).

21e century: Immigration

Except for North America, Chinese immigration in the French-speaking world is in hand, but does not have yet the effect of a cultural presence such as it meets with the the United States. It is necessary to expect from it an influence of the taoism which will not be only any more book, but being expressed by an alive community, with the richness of its language and its practices.

Influences

In addition to its major influence on the art of the Far East, the taoism deeply influenced fields as varied as medicine, the policy, the popular religion, the Chinese Buddhism, the art of the gardens, the kitchen and the sexual life (often regarded as parts of medicine), martial arts, philosophy, the literature, etc Aujourd'hui, after one half-century of repression in popular China because its demonstrations were regarded as feudal superstitions by the Communists, the taoism is again regarded as an basic element of the culture in its country of origin. In addition, its influence extends as far as Occident and nourishes the discussions on esthetics, ecology and becomes even a leaven for many news forms of spirituality.

Share constitutive with its during Confucianist of the culture of the alive civilization oldest, having contributed to work people which represent today a good quarter of the humanity, but having also been repressed by the currents of thought which disputed to him the ear of the people or the princes, the taoism follows its own precepts: fluid like water, old man like the sea, difficult to fix in words, impossible to lock up in a category, particularly restive with systematization, it impregnates and fertilizes all that it touches and reappears where it was not awaited.

The taoism grew rich by impregnating the thoughts and religions which it crossed during the centuries, receiving and giving much. Buddhism was transformed by the Chinese CAT, the Zen Japanese is grateful to him. The Indian monks brought a religious organization, moderating the individualistic ends of ancient ethics. The exchange with the Occident started. China reinterprets its cultural heritage while borrowing from the methods of criticism, the Western thought finds there a neighbor who does not owe him anything, for better including itself/understanding. The study and the practice of the taoism are always fertile.

Bonds and bibliography

A French-speaking Bibliographie on the taoism requires some precautions, in order not to confuse sources, studies and comments. The topic of CAT nourishes for example speculations esoterists which can mislay the reader who would not have taken note of the texts. The external bonds will be classified in this section according to same the categories, more especially as they are often online versions of printed documents. The references in other articles privilege the general subjects of the same width, one finds very many bonds more precise in the body text.

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