"TAOISM:  THE RELIGION THAT FLOWS"

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, April 19, 2009

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

 

Years ago, when I spent my college summers as a camp counselor, one of my jobs was to teach children to swim.  I found this job to  be both tremen­dously challenging and personally reward­ing.

If any of you have ever taught swimming to someone who doesn't know how, you no doubt learned as I did that the most important lesson in learning how to swim is not physical, but rather psycho­logical.  The student first has to learn not to fear water.  Actually as I reflect upon it now, the psychological lesson is not only the first hurdle in learning how to swim, it is the only lesson that counts.

The only thing one needs to do in order to swim is to trust that the water will hold you up.  Once you learn to trust rather than to fear the water, you have mastered the art of swim­ming.  Everything else related to swimming --breathing rhythms, arm motions, feet kicking, and so forth, are only mechanical devices to improve the skill you already have.  These physical activities do not teach you how to swim; they teach you how to swim better. You learn how to swim by learning to trust the water, and allowing it to hold you up.

Taoism is a religion that teaches us to trust life the way a swimmer must learn to trust water.

Like other Eastern religions I have talked about in previous sermons, Taoism does not resemble religions we are used to in the West.  There is no church hierarchy that transmits doctrines to followers.  A Taoist may or may not believe in a God, or in many gods.  (God is not mentioned in the writings of the founder, Lao Tse, yet the writings about what is called "the Tao," seem to remind one about writings about the divine.).  Taoism is not considered to be exclusive in its claims, so one can be a Taoist and a Buddhist, or a Taoist and a Christian, or a Taoist and a secular humanist.

Like all religions, though, Taoism teaches that certain ways of living are better than others.  And the Taoist teachings are probably among the easiest to state -- for they are really quite simple -- and at the same time the most difficult to live by.

A man by the name of Lao Tse is consid­ered to be the founder of Taoism.  I say "con­sid­ered to be" because all the information we have about him is legend, and many scholars believe that he is a fictional character, created to be a composite of the origins of Taoism. 

Lao Tse is believed to have lived in the sixth century, B.C. -- a contemporary of Gautama the Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Plato, and the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. Many legends have developed about his life, and perhaps the most interesting is that he is said to have lived in his mother's womb for sixty or seventy years before birth, so that when he was born, he was a wise old man, a white-haired sage who could immediately discourse on philosophical issues.  The name "Lao Tse" means  "Old Master" or "Teacher."  (It does not mean “Benjamin Button.”)

By profession, Lao Tse was an historian, the keeper of the archives in his Chinese home­town of Loyang.  It must be remembered that ancestor worship has long been part of Chinese folk culture, so that an archivist (or historian) was, in fact, a position of great respect.  He gained a wide reputation as a wise man, and people from far away would come to consult with him.

Late in life, Lao Tse became increas­ingly disturbed by the turmoil that character­ized Chinese life.  He decided to leave his work and home and ride away to the country­side to be alone with his own thoughts.  On his journey, he met a man named Yin Hsi who had heard tales of Lao Tse's wisdom, so Yin Hsi begged the great teacher to stay a few days to write down his thoughts, so the world would not lose his great insights.  In the next few days, Lao Tse wrote a short little book, which he called the Tao Teh Ching, and then rode off, never to be heard from again.

The Tao Teh Ching has become the central scripture of Taoism.  I will spend the rest of my time talking about the Tao, but first I must comment on what became of Taoism after Lao Tse.

As is the fate of many religions, after its founder's death, some branches of Taoism became transformed into a religion that Lao Tse would hardly recognize.  Just as the simple teachings of Jesus evolved into elabo­rate ecclesiastical schemes of ritual, pietistic rules, hierarchical priesthoods, and compli­cated theological systems, so too Chinese society altered the simple teachings of Lao Tse.  One wing of Taoism, and perhaps the most popular one, developed Taoism into a religion of magic and sorcery.  In another wing, Taoism is the basis for a secretive mystical religion. Others followed the Western pattern of turn­ing the founder into a God, and began to worship Lao Tse as a divine being. 

The Taoist philosophy (which in its purity is very naturalistic) does not lead nec­essarily to these superstitious practices any more than Christian philosophy (which in its purity is ethical) leads by necessity to the practices of the polygamous Mormons or the transubstantiation of sacramental bread and wine. 

But the heart of Taoism, as an off-shoot of Buddhism, is a kind of philosophical and psychological religion.  This wing has not abandoned the simple teachings of Lao Tse, and it is this form of Taoism that has attracted much attention in the West. 

The key to Taoism is the concept of "Tao."  Like most important religious ideas, the idea of Tao is a slippery one.  As Lao Tse said, "The Tao you can understand is not the true Tao."  So like a true Unitarian, I will attempt to explain that which cannot be explained.  Like a true Unitarian, my answers will only be approximately true. 

"Tao" is most often translated as "The Way."  It is also translated in many other different forms, such as "path," "road," "exis­tence," "word," or even "reason."  Though it cannot be precisely defined, most people are able to grasp some flavor of its meaning.

Part of the reason that "Tao" is so hard to define is that there are at least three diverse levels of meaning.  At one level, it has a transcen­dental sort of meaning in referring to ultimate reality.  The universe is made up of many little pieces:  people, plants, planets, stars, and so forth.  The Tao is that which holds those pieces together. (I do not mean "gravity" -- I mean relationships.)  We cannot perceive the Tao with our senses, yet we can experience the power of the Way of the Uni­verse.

So on this first level, the Tao seems to me very much like what Plato described as "the world of forms," or "ideals."  The world we experience here is imperfect and flawed, but the Tao expresses to us the perfection of a reality, an ultimate reality, which is beyond our understand­ing.

Good old Philosophy 101 might help here.  Unitarian Universalists, I’ve come to discover, love trees.  Most of us love the forests, and many of our churches are built with trees surrounding them.  So here is a question from philosophy 101:  What is the true nature of a tree?  Is it that it has leaves and branches?  Is it that it grows up out of the ground?  If we were to describe the molecular make-up of a tree's physical reality, have we fully described the nature of the tree?  Does the tree's nature include an aesthetic dimen­sion -- does it provide us with aesthetic pleasure?  Does the true nature of a tree include that it provides shade, that it is fun to climb when you're young, or that you can swing from its branches?

Everything that exists has its own inher­ent nature, but it is also true that we can never fully grasp the wholeness of this nature. There must be some ultimate nature that is difficult for humans to comprehend in its completeness.  But we give it a name anyway. We call it a tree.  The universe itself also has an ultimate reality, an inherent nature, about which we can only dimly grasp its meaning. We also give it a name:  it is called "Tao."

But that is only one level of understand­ing Tao.  On a second level, Tao does not transcend the nature of the universe at all; but rather it is the universe.  On this second level, Tao is immanent within nature and is expressed through the order of nature itself: the seasons, birth and death and rebirth, the spinning of celestial bodies and the ebb and flow of ocean waters.  In the West we call these the "laws" of nature, and though that is a part of Tao, it is not the same as Tao. Remember, the Tao that can be understood is not the true Tao.  Rather than the "laws" of nature, it would be better to think of the "spir­it" of nature:  not how the seasons change, but the striking appropriateness of such change.

The Tao understood as the spirit of nature is illustrated by a com­ment from Alan Watts that I have thought about often since I heard it some years ago.  In speaking of Tao­ism, Watts observed that "Nature never makes an aesthetic mistake."  Nature never makes an aesthetic mistake!  I have yet to see an excep­tion to this rule.  Aesthetics concern the artis­tic sensi­tivity, and nature is the grandest --indeed perfect, flawless artist.  In all its wide variation of artistic media, from waterfalls to desert sands, from arctic icelands to tropical forests, from caterpillars to snowflakes to watermelons -- nature never makes an artist­ically distasteful error.  A tree standing tall in the forest is strikingly beautiful.  If it dies and falls, and allows its rotting trunk to be covered by moss and lichen and other wild plants, it is beautiful.  Even when nature seems to us chaotic, as in explosion of a vulcano or the blustering power of a hurricane, there is an undeniable artistic dimension to the result.   I have stood on the side of a vulcano that has destroyed everything in sight, and even our human perspective cannot hide the aesthetic sense of grandeur in the vista of toppled-down trees. 

There is a third way in which Tao is understood, and it deals with human behavior -- with the way people should order their lives.  To act according to Tao is to act in harmony with nature.  Never be forceful or aggressive in your behavior; never try to scheme or plot your way into action.  If what you are doing feels artificial or unnatural, you are not doing it right.  Do not try to construct the situation around you, but rather learn to adapt to whatever situation you confront in life.

Taoists like to think of water as the perfect metaphor for human behavior.  Water is supremely adaptive.  A river does not force its way from the mountains to the sea, but rather seeks the easiest, lowest path on the journey.  If there are barriers, the river will gently wind its way around such barriers. From our point of view, a river often travels on the craziest path, winding this way and that, going far out of its way to reach its destination.  Though it may meander through distant areas, water always finds the easiest path, and adapts to the nature of its envi­ron­ment.

Like water, we must not fight against our life environment, but rather adapt to it, gently discovering routes around barriers to happi­ness.  This Taoist principle of behavior is called "wu wei."  It is often trans­lated, "Do nothing," or "inaction" or "actionless action," but that does not ade­quately express the meaning.  A more revealing definition might be "non-interference."  Never force things to happen, but rather, let them happen naturally. Do not seek to interfere with or control nature; do not seek to interfere or control other peo­ple.

Since we are on the subject of water, let me return for a moment to my story about teaching swimming at summer camp.  I claim that one learns how to swim when one learns to trust the water to hold you up.  There are those who do not trust water, who fight against it, who thrash arms and legs about, using all the force and energy they have to overpower the water and force it into submis­sion.  They will always fail.  In the written Chinese language, the character used for the word "swim­mer" means literally, I am told, "one who knows the nature of water."  If you fight against the buoyant nature of water, no matter how gentle and serene it may be, you will always succumb to its docile power until you learn to trust it.  This seems to me a striking illustration of the Taoist principle of "non-interference" with nature.

Before leaving the metaphor of water, a word should be said about its power.  The Chinese Taoists are impressed that water can be at the same time gentle and powerful. Without forcing its way, water has the power, over many years, to transform sharp rocks into dull ones and to reduce boulders to pebbles.

The lesson from this is that the Taoist principle of non-interference is felt to be far more powerful in the long run than aggressive efforts to control and force one's will.

This non-interference is seen to be a highly creative mode of behav­ior.  It appeals to our unconscious rather than conscious mind.  Many artists claim that genuine crea­tivity comes not from the conscious mind, but rather from our subliminal self which is expressed through the unconscious. 

The principle of non-interference is not passivity.  It does not mean to "do nothing." On the contrary, it encourages us to let behav­ior flow spontaneously, defined not so much by our desires as by the situation itself.  In Taoism, spontaneity is always preferable to scheming.

 

The logic of the principle of non-inter­ference, of living within the flow of nature and life, is illustrated by the symbol "T'ai-chi T'u," or more commonly called the "yin-yang" symbol.

The symbol of yin and yang is not exclu­sively Taoist, since its history in China pre­dates Lao Tse, but today it is most closely associated with Taoism because it fits that philosophy so well.

The circle itself encloses the universe of all things.  The light and dark sections repre­sent the interdependence of all opposites in the world:  masculine and feminine, good and evil, winning and losing, summer and winter, love and hate, and so forth.  The shapes sug­gest a cyclical motion, demonstrating that there is a constant flow in life from one extreme back to the other.  The polar oppo­sites are dynamically related; one cannot exist without the other; and therefore, one can never conquer the other.  Good will never completely extinguish evil, nor vice versa. We cannot always win in life, nor will we always lose. 

Recognizing that all opposites are dy­namically related, dependent upon one anoth­er, a Taoist sees happiness not in achieving any extreme, but rather in maintaining a dynamic balance between extremes.

The dots are perhaps the most telling aspect of the symbol.  They suggest that every extreme contains the seeds of its opposite. Peace contains the seeds of war, just as the seeds of summer exist within winter.  What this means, in fact, is that these polar oppo­sites are really not opposites in any literal sense:  they are merely different aspects of the same phenomena.  What we often see as opposites are more accu­rate­ly complementary parts of the same whole.  Mascu­line and feminine are not opposites in the sense of being opposed to one another; they are just different aspects of human nature.  Up and down are different aspects of a vertical direc­tion; and good and evil are different aspects of moral behavior.  Each one makes the other possible; therefore each one con­tains the seed of the other.  Taoism directs us not to seek one at the expense of the other, but to find the right balance.  This is another sense of the principle of "non-interference." 

The ethical principle of Taoism is some­times called "the golden mean" because it tries to balance the yin and yang of life.  Lao Tse writes that, "The sage avoids excess, extravagance, and indulgence."

One reason for seeking the balance is the cyclical motion of yin and yang.  Whenever a situation develops toward its extreme, such as winter, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite, such as summer.  There will always be a return from one pole to the other, and in a sense it is that "return" that is Tao, the spirit of the universe.

Absent from Taoism is the common Western dualism of nature, such as the forces of good opposing the forces of evil.  Good and evil, like summer and winter or day and night, are accepted as inherent qualities of life, of nature, and the task is not to fight against evil, but to work toward balance in all things.

 

In the previous sermons on world religions,  I have tried to high­light aspects from them that seemed to me to be of value to us.  I do so now with Taoism.  In doing so, I would point out again that there is a signifi­cant distinction between the popular religious practices of Taoism in Chinese village life on one hand, and the Taoist philosophy that under­lies the popular religion on the other.  The lessons I draw come from the philosophy that shapes Taoism.

The first lesson I would highlight is the notion of balance that I just mentioned -- the overcoming of dualistic thinking, and recogni­tion of the complementarity of all things, including of good and evil.  The greatness of Helen Keller's life is directly attributable to the physical challenges that stirred her to a stunning and inspiring life.  The tragedies of Nazi Germany would not have happened if Hitler had not first been successful in trans­forming a devastated Germany into a strong and thriving nation.  Good contains the seed of evil, and evil contains the seed of good.

To think of the interdependence of good and evil is for me a very helpful insight.  In my Western mind I tend to think of good always excluding evil.  But with this Eastern wisdom, I can now look at good and ask, "What is the evil within this good?" or look at evil and say, "What is the good within this evil?"

One example.  By and large, I think Unitarian Universalism is a good religion. Though we are probably not for everyone, we serve a good purpose in this society, and have a good influence on the development of a sense of freedom, justice and tolerance in the world.  Yet now armed with Eastern wisdom, I am ready to ask, "What is the evil within this good I call Unitarian Univer­salism?"  For no "good" is without some "evil."  There are probably quite a few answers to that question, and though this is not the place to elaborate an answer, I suppose our evil has some­thing to do with what we in the West call, "the sin of pride." 

For now, I'll let it go at that, but I do want to say something about Taoism and pride, which is my second lesson from Tao­ism.  Taoism teaches a profound sense of humility.  The principle of non-interference means that one must influence or persuade without the use of force; sometimes even without the use of argument.  Taoism is anti-competi­tive, and anti-pride.  Of pride, the Tao says, "Those who feel punctured must first have been a bubble."

Like the gentleness of water, humility is a far more effective method than pride.  The Tao says the following about leadership:

 

"A leader is best when people barely know that he exists....  Of a lead­er, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, 'We did this our­sel­ves.'"

 

I think of this line when I reflect upon the many accomplishments of this congrega­tion over the years.  I think, for example, of the major renovation of our building completed a few years ago.  It is significant for me to know that the accomplishments were made by the many efforts of the members here.  It is accurate for the membership here to say, "We did this ourselves."  And if the Tao is right, then to the extent that this congregation has succeeded in its own efforts, this congregation has enjoyed good leadership over the years. 

In many ways, Taoism reminds me of the Western religion called "the Friends," also known as Quakers.   The traditional Quakers make a virtue out of gentleness and humility.  Like the Taoists, the Quakers seek not to force other people or to force nature, but rather to "befriend" people and nature. And like the Quakers, Taoism -- you may have guessed by now -- is strongly non-vio­lent in its view of society.  One of my favorite statements from the Tao says this:

 

In time of war, those civilized in peace

Turn from their higher

to their lower nature.

Triumph is not beautiful.

The death of a multitude

is cause for mourning:

Conduct your triumph as a funeral.

 

Yet another lesson from Taoism that the West is learning to accept more willingly is its respect for the ways of nature.  The Unitarian Uni­versalist principle of "respect for the interde­pendent web of existence" is funda­mentally Taoist in spirit. 

During my lifetime, there have been a number of cultural develop­ments which reflect a respect for the environment:  recy­cling, lead-free gasoline, resource conserva­tion, solar energy development.  None of these were a part of life when I was a child, but they have developed because we believe protecting nature is good for us.  While these prac­tices are valuable, doing them because they are good for us is not partic­ularly Taoist. Rather, Taoism would more likely tell us that we should treat nature with respect rather than exploitation because nature simply deserves our respect and honor.  

Whatever the reasons, the Taoist lesson about nature is one that we are learning slow­ly, and one that we are benefitting from as we practice it.  It is this spirit, of course, that inspires the current work at All Souls toward recognition as a “Green Sanctuary.” 

Finally, I think we can profit from the Taoist principle of "wu wei,"  or non-interfer­ence.  This perspective can reinforce our value of toler­ance, for example.  The Unitarian tradition has prized tolerance quite highly, and believes that individuals ought to be encour­aged to follow their own religious paths. Taoism has evolved into one of the most tolerant of all the world's religions -- it is difficult to conceive of a Taoist-based war, or Taoist fundamentalism, for that would be inconsis­tent with Taoism.  In fact, Taoist temples welcome Buddhists and Confucians to come and worship however they wish. 

Non-interference is valued because of a trust in the natural balance in the world of the forces of yin and yang. 

As a rule, we in the West find it very difficult to follow the Taoist principle of non-interference and balance of yin and yang.  I know I do.  We are taught to be assertive, to plan to succeed, to control all around us, including people with whom we live and work.

In essence, we in the West learn to swim by struggling against the water.  In spite of all I've said this morning, I am not convinced that the analogy between living and swimming is absolutely fitting.  I am too much of a West­erner not to struggle when I see a goal worth having, or a cause worth winning.

And yet, I also know that my struggles often fail.  I also know that I often tire of struggling, and I search the horizon to find a shore on which to rest. 

The constant struggle -- the wild thrash­ing of arms and legs to keep myself afloat --does not always work well in life.  When that happens, and when I'm ready to give up, Taoism provides a valuable and profound alternative:  don't fight for now; just learn to trust the water to hold you up.

Trust life, and you’ll be rewarded for that trust. . . .