History of Chinese Philosophy/Chapter 26
Chapter 26: Daoism as Philosophy and Religion — The Double Tradition
1. The Relationship Between Daojia and Daojiao
The distinction between "philosophical Daoism" (道家, dàojiā) and "religious Daoism" (道教, dàojiào) is one of the most fundamental and most contested distinctions in the study of Chinese thought. The standard narrative, which has dominated both Chinese and Western scholarship since the early twentieth century, holds that dàojiā — the philosophical tradition associated with the Daodejing (道德经) and the Zhuangzi (庄子) — is a sophisticated, rational, and purely philosophical tradition concerned with metaphysical questions about the nature of the Dao, while dàojiào — the organized religious tradition with its priests, rituals, temples, scriptures, and practices — is a later, degenerate development that corrupted the pure philosophical insights of Laozi and Zhuangzi with superstition, magic, and popular religiosity. This narrative has been challenged in recent decades by a generation of scholars who have argued that the sharp distinction between dàojiā and dàojiào is a modern construction that distorts the historical reality of the Daoist tradition.
The terms dàojiā and dàojiào themselves have a complex history. Dàojiā (literally "house/school of the Dao") was first used by the Han dynasty historian Sima Tan (司马谈, d. 110 BCE) in his classification of the "six schools" (六家, liùjiā) of pre-Qin thought. Sima Tan used the term to refer to a loosely connected group of thinkers who emphasized the concept of the Dao as the ultimate reality and who advocated a political philosophy of non-interference (无为, wúwéi). The term dàojiào (literally "teaching of the Dao") came into use later, initially to refer to the organized religious movements that emerged in the second century CE and that claimed Laozi as their spiritual founder and the Daodejing as their primary scripture.
The contemporary scholarly consensus, represented by the work of scholars such as Kristofer Schipper, Isabelle Robinet, Livia Kohn, and Russell Kirkland, holds that the relationship between dàojiā and dàojiào is one of continuity rather than rupture — that the organized religious tradition draws on the philosophical tradition as one of its primary sources while also incorporating elements from other sources, including Chinese folk religion, shamanism, and Confucian political theory. The philosophical texts of Laozi and Zhuangzi did not merely provide intellectual raw material that was later corrupted by religious practitioners; rather, these texts were always susceptible to multiple readings — philosophical, religious, mystical, political — and the religious tradition represents one legitimate line of interpretation and development of the ideas contained in these foundational texts.
The significance of this debate extends beyond the academic study of Daoism. The sharp distinction between dàojiā and dàojiào was a product of the modern Chinese intellectual project of "rationalizing" the Chinese tradition — of separating the "philosophical" wheat from the "superstitious" chaff in order to demonstrate that China possessed a rational philosophical heritage comparable to that of the West. This project, which was driven by the encounter with Western rationalism and the felt need to modernize Chinese culture, had the effect of marginalizing the religious dimensions of the Chinese tradition and of distorting the understanding of Daoism by reducing it to a set of philosophical ideas divorced from the practices, institutions, and communities that sustained them. The recovery of the full complexity of the Daoist tradition — philosophical, religious, ritual, and practical — is an ongoing project that has enriched our understanding of both Daoism and Chinese civilization as a whole.[1]
2. The Celestial Masters and Institutional Daoism
The emergence of organized Daoism as a religious institution is traditionally dated to 142 CE, when Zhang Daoling (张道陵, 34–156 CE) is said to have received a revelation from the deified Laozi (太上老君, Tàishàng Lǎojūn, "Most High Lord Lao") on Mount Heming (鹤鸣山) in present-day Sichuan province. This revelation established the Way of the Celestial Masters (天师道, Tiānshī Dào), also known as the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice (五斗米道, Wǔdǒumǐ Dào) — the first organized Daoist religious movement, which provided the institutional, ritual, and theological framework that all subsequent forms of Daoism would build upon.
The Celestial Masters movement was a comprehensive religious and political organization that established a theocratic community in the mountainous regions of western China. Zhang Daoling was recognized as the first "Celestial Master" (天师, tiānshī) — the supreme religious authority of the community — and his descendants inherited this title, which has been transmitted through an unbroken lineage to the present day. The community was organized into twenty-four "parishes" (治, zhì), each governed by a "libationer" (祭酒, jìjiǔ) who served as both religious leader and civil administrator.
The theological foundation of the Celestial Masters tradition was the concept of the Dao as a personal, active deity — a radical reinterpretation of the philosophical concept of the Dao as articulated in the Daodejing. Where the Daodejing describes the Dao as an impersonal, formless reality that underlies and pervades all things, the Celestial Masters tradition identified the Dao with Laozi, who was understood not merely as a historical philosopher but as a cosmic deity who had appeared in multiple incarnations throughout history to reveal the Dao to humanity. This theological reinterpretation of the Dao — from impersonal principle to personal deity — was the foundational move that made Daoism possible as an organized religion, providing a focus for worship, a source of revelation, and a basis for priestly authority.
The ritual practices of the Celestial Masters tradition centered on communal ceremonies of confession and repentance (首过, shǒuguò) that were believed to heal illness, which was understood as the result of moral transgression. The sick person was required to confess his or her sins in a written petition (章, zhāng) addressed to the Three Officials of Heaven, Earth, and Water (三官, sānguān), who were believed to have the power to forgive sins and restore health. This understanding of illness as moral consequence and healing as spiritual restoration established a fundamental principle of Daoist religious practice: the inseparability of physical health, moral conduct, and spiritual cultivation.
The Celestial Masters movement underwent significant development and transformation in the centuries following its founding. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the "Shangqing" (上清, "Supreme Purity") and "Lingbao" (灵宝, "Sacred Jewel") revelations introduced new scriptures, new rituals, and new cosmological frameworks that dramatically expanded the scope and sophistication of the Daoist tradition. The Shangqing tradition, associated with the visionary Yang Xi (杨羲, 330–386 CE) and his patron Xu Mi (许谧, 303–373 CE), introduced elaborate meditation practices and visionary journeys through the heavenly realms. The Lingbao tradition, attributed to the revealed scriptures of Ge Chaofu (葛巢甫, fl. late 4th c.), incorporated elements of Buddhist ritual and cosmology, developing a comprehensive liturgical system that became the foundation of Daoist communal ritual.[2]
3. Daoist Alchemy: Outer and Inner
Daoist alchemy — the pursuit of physical immortality and spiritual transformation through the manipulation of substances, energies, and physiological processes — is one of the most distinctive and most misunderstood features of the Daoist tradition. Western scholars have often dismissed Daoist alchemy as pseudo-science or superstition, but this judgment reflects a failure to understand the philosophical and soteriological framework within which alchemical practice makes sense. For the Daoist alchemist, the goal is not merely the extension of physical life but the transformation of the entire human being — body, mind, and spirit — into a perfected, immortal state that transcends the limitations of ordinary existence.
The Daoist alchemical tradition is conventionally divided into two branches: "outer alchemy" (外丹, wàidān), which involves the preparation of elixirs from mineral and herbal ingredients; and "inner alchemy" (内丹, nèidān), which involves the transformation of the body's own vital energies through meditation, breathing exercises, and visualization practices. This division, while useful for analytical purposes, is somewhat misleading, as the two branches are not sharply separated but represent different emphases within a single soteriological project — the transformation of the mortal human being into an immortal being (仙, xiān).
Outer alchemy (外丹, wàidān) emerged in the Warring States and Han periods and reached its peak during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). The central concept of outer alchemy is the preparation of an "elixir of immortality" (金丹, jīndān, literally "golden elixir") through the controlled heating, combining, and transformation of mineral ingredients — particularly cinnabar (丹砂, dānshā, mercury sulfide) and lead (铅, qián) — in a laboratory setting. The alchemical process was understood as a microcosmic reenactment of the cosmic process of creation and transformation — a condensation and acceleration of the natural processes by which the Dao produces and transforms all things. The alchemist, by mastering the principles of transformation, achieves the ability to reverse the natural process of decay and death and to produce a substance — the golden elixir — that, when ingested, confers immortality.
The decline of outer alchemy — due in part to the undeniable fact that many alchemical elixirs were toxic and caused the deaths of several Tang dynasty emperors — led to the ascendance of inner alchemy (内丹, nèidān), which internalized the alchemical process by identifying the laboratory with the human body and the mineral ingredients with the body's own vital energies. The three fundamental energies of inner alchemy are jing (精, "essence"), qi (气, "vital energy"), and shen (神, "spirit"), which correspond to the three "elixir fields" (丹田, dāntián) located in the lower abdomen, the chest, and the head. The practice of inner alchemy involves the progressive refinement and transformation of these energies — "refining essence into energy" (炼精化气, liàn jīng huà qì), "refining energy into spirit" (炼气化神, liàn qì huà shén), and "refining spirit to return to emptiness" (炼神还虚, liàn shén huán xū) — through a systematic program of meditation, breathing exercises, and visualization that can extend over years or even decades.
The philosophical significance of inner alchemy lies in its integration of cosmological theory, soteriological practice, and phenomenological observation into a comprehensive system of self-transformation. The inner alchemist does not merely believe in the possibility of spiritual transformation; he or she engages in a systematic, experiential investigation of the body's own energies and processes that constitutes a form of empirical inquiry — an inquiry conducted not with instruments and measurements but with attention, awareness, and the disciplined cultivation of internal perception. This dimension of Daoist alchemy — its character as a practice-based, experientially grounded form of knowledge — distinguishes it from mere superstition and places it in dialogue with other contemplative traditions, including yoga, tantric Buddhism, and the contemplative traditions of Christian mysticism.[3]
4. Daoist Cosmology and Ontology
The Daoist cosmological tradition represents one of the most sophisticated and most influential intellectual achievements of Chinese civilization. At its center stands the concept of the Dao (道) — the ultimate reality that underlies, pervades, and gives rise to all things — which is articulated in the foundational text of the tradition, the Daodejing (道德经), and elaborated in the vast body of Daoist philosophical and religious literature that developed over the subsequent two millennia.
The Daodejing describes the Dao in language that is simultaneously affirmative and negating, asserting the reality of the Dao while insisting that it cannot be captured in any positive description. "The Dao that can be spoken of is not the constant Dao; the name that can be named is not the constant name" (道可道，非常道；名可名，非常名, chapter 1). The Dao is "something nebulous and complete, born before Heaven and Earth, silent and empty, standing alone and not changing, pervading all things without being exhausted" (有物混成，先天地生，寂兮寥兮，独立不改，周行而不殆, chapter 25). It is the source of all things: "The Dao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth to the Two; the Two gave birth to the Three; the Three gave birth to the Ten Thousand Things" (道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物, chapter 42).
This cosmogonic formula — from the Dao to the One, from the One to the Two (yin and yang), from the Two to the Three (yin, yang, and their harmonious interaction), and from the Three to the Ten Thousand Things (the manifold diversity of the phenomenal world) — became the foundational framework for all subsequent Daoist cosmology. It was elaborated in the Huainanzi (淮南子, c. 139 BCE), which developed a detailed cosmogonic narrative in which the undifferentiated primal unity progressively differentiates into the complementary principles of yin and yang, which in turn generate the "five phases" (五行, wǔxíng) — wood, fire, earth, metal, and water — which constitute the basic elements of the phenomenal world.
The ontological status of the Dao has been the subject of extensive philosophical debate within the Daoist tradition. The most significant contribution to this debate was made by Wang Bi (王弼, 226–249 CE), the brilliant young philosopher whose commentaries on the Daodejing and the Yijing established the "Learning of the Mysterious" (玄学, xuánxué) as the dominant philosophical movement of the Wei-Jin period. Wang Bi interpreted the Dao as "nothingness" (无, wú) — not as a mere absence or negation but as the positive principle of formless, undetermined reality that is the source and ground of all determinate beings. The relationship between wu (nothingness) and you (有, "being") is not one of opposition but of dependence: determinate being depends on indeterminate nothingness as its ground, just as the wheel depends on the empty hub, the vessel depends on the empty interior, and the room depends on the empty space enclosed by the walls.
Guo Xiang (郭象, d. 312 CE), who produced the most important commentary on the Zhuangzi, challenged Wang Bi's ontology by arguing that there is no transcendent Dao underlying the phenomenal world — that each thing is "self-so" (自然, zìrán), spontaneously existing on its own without any external cause or ground. This radical ontology of self-generation — which denies any transcendent source of the phenomenal world and insists that each thing generates itself out of itself — represents the most philosophically bold position in the Chinese ontological tradition and has been compared to certain positions in Western process philosophy and existentialism.[4]
5. Quanzhen Daoism and the Synthesis of the Three Teachings
The Quanzhen (全真, "Complete Perfection" or "Complete Reality") tradition, founded by Wang Chongyang (王重阳, 1113–1170) in the twelfth century, represents the most significant reform movement in the history of Daoism and the most systematic attempt to synthesize the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism into a unified spiritual path. Quanzhen Daoism has been the dominant monastic tradition of Chinese Daoism from the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) to the present day, and its understanding of the Daoist spiritual path has profoundly shaped the development of Daoist practice in the modern period.
Wang Chongyang was a remarkable and charismatic figure who, after a mystical experience in 1159, abandoned his comfortable life as a scholar-official, adopted the lifestyle of a wandering renunciant, and began attracting disciples through his unconventional behavior and his powerful spiritual presence. Wang's most important innovation was the establishment of a celibate, monastic form of Daoist practice modeled on Buddhist monasticism — a dramatic departure from the earlier Daoist traditions, which had been primarily non-celibate and non-monastic. Wang required his followers to live in monastic communities, to observe strict rules of celibacy and asceticism, and to practice inner alchemy, meditation, and moral cultivation as a comprehensive path to spiritual realization.
Wang Chongyang's spiritual teaching was explicitly syncretic: he required his disciples to study the Daodejing, the Confucian Classic of Filial Piety (孝经, Xiàojīng), and the Buddhist Heart Sutra (般若心经, Bōrě Xīnjīng), and he taught that the three traditions were different expressions of a single truth. "The three teachings are like the three legs of a tripod," he wrote; "remove one, and the tripod falls." This syncretic vision — which reflected the broader cultural trend toward "the unity of the three teachings" (三教合一, sānjiào héyī) that had been developing since the Tang dynasty — became the defining characteristic of Quanzhen Daoism and ensured its appeal to a broad range of Chinese seekers who felt the limitations of any single tradition.
The Quanzhen tradition reached its peak of institutional power under the Mongol Yuan dynasty, when Wang Chongyang's most famous disciple, Qiu Chuji (丘处机, 1148–1227), was summoned by Genghis Khan himself and granted authority over all religious communities in northern China. This imperial patronage enabled the Quanzhen tradition to establish a vast network of monasteries, temples, and hermitages throughout northern China that provided the institutional infrastructure for the transmission of Daoist practice. The White Cloud Temple (白云观, Báiyún Guàn) in Beijing, which became the headquarters of the Quanzhen tradition, remains to this day the most important Daoist institution in northern China and the center of Quanzhen monastic life.[5]
6. Daoist Practice: Meditation, Qigong, and Taiji
The Daoist tradition has developed a comprehensive system of practices for the cultivation of physical health, mental clarity, and spiritual realization that includes meditation (冥想, míngxiǎng; or 打坐, dǎzuò), breathing exercises (吐纳, tǔnà), physical cultivation (导引, dǎoyǐn), and the martial and health arts of taijiquan (太极拳, tàijíquán) and qigong (气功, qìgōng). These practices, which have ancient roots in the Chinese cultivation tradition, are not mere physical exercises but integrated psychophysical disciplines that embody and enact the fundamental philosophical principles of the Daoist tradition.
Daoist meditation encompasses a wide range of practices, from simple sitting meditation (坐忘, zuòwàng, "sitting and forgetting," as described in the Zhuangzi) to elaborate visualization practices in which the meditator visualizes the interior landscape of the body as a microcosmic universe populated by deities, spirits, and luminous energies. The inner alchemical meditation tradition, as practiced in the Quanzhen and other traditions, involves the systematic cultivation of the "three treasures" (三宝, sānbǎo) — essence (精, jīng), vital energy (气, qì), and spirit (神, shén) — through practices of concentration, visualization, and internal circulation that progressively refine and transform the practitioner's psychophysical constitution.
The practice known as zuòwàng (坐忘, "sitting and forgetting"), first described in the Zhuangzi and later developed as a systematic meditation method in the Tang dynasty text Zuowang lun (坐忘论, Discourse on Sitting and Forgetting) attributed to Sima Chengzhen (司马承祯, 647–735), involves the progressive letting go of mental activity — thoughts, perceptions, desires, concepts, and ultimately even the sense of self — until the meditator achieves a state of complete emptiness and stillness in which the distinction between subject and object, self and world, dissolves. This practice is understood not as the destruction of consciousness but as the recovery of a more fundamental, more primordial mode of awareness that underlies and pervades ordinary consciousness.
Qigong (气功, "energy cultivation") refers to a broad range of practices — standing postures, slow movements, breathing exercises, self-massage, and meditation — that are designed to cultivate, balance, and circulate the qi (vital energy) within the body. While qigong as a unified concept and a popular health practice is largely a twentieth-century creation — the term itself was not widely used before the 1950s — the individual practices that constitute qigong have ancient roots in the Daoist tradition, including the daoyin (导引, "guiding and pulling") exercises depicted in the famous Mawangdui (马王堆) silk manuscript from the second century BCE.
Taijiquan (太极拳, "supreme ultimate boxing"), though primarily known today as a martial art and health exercise, is deeply rooted in Daoist philosophy and practice. The fundamental principle of taijiquan — the dynamic interplay of yin and yang, expressed through the alternation of hardness and softness, advance and retreat, fullness and emptiness — is a direct embodiment of the Daoist understanding of the cosmos as a dynamic process of complementary opposites in perpetual transformation. The practice of taijiquan is thus not merely a physical exercise but a philosophical practice — a way of enacting and embodying the fundamental principles of Daoist cosmology through the movement of the body. The influence of these Daoist-derived practices on global culture in the twenty-first century — from the millions of people worldwide who practice taijiquan and qigong to the growing scientific research on the health benefits of these practices — represents one of the most significant examples of the global dissemination of Chinese philosophical culture.[6]
7. Contemporary Daoism
Contemporary Daoism — both as a living religious tradition and as a philosophical resource — has experienced a remarkable revival after the devastation of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), during which Daoist temples were destroyed, Daoist texts were burned, and Daoist practitioners were persecuted. Since the relaxation of religious policy in the 1980s, the Daoist tradition has undergone a process of reconstruction that has involved the rebuilding of temples, the restoration of rituals, the training of new priests, and the development of new forms of Daoist practice and thought that engage with the challenges of modernity.
The revival of Daoism in mainland China has been shaped by several factors: the support of the Chinese government, which has recognized Daoism as one of China's five official religions and has promoted it as a distinctively Chinese cultural heritage; the efforts of the Chinese Daoist Association (中国道教协会, Zhōngguó Dàojiào Xiéhuì), founded in 1957 and reconstituted after the Cultural Revolution, which has served as the institutional framework for the restoration of Daoist temples, the training of priests, and the publication of Daoist texts; and the growing popular interest in Daoist practices — particularly qigong, taijiquan, and traditional Chinese medicine — as means of maintaining health and well-being in the context of rapid social and economic change.
In the realm of philosophical thought, contemporary Daoism has been the subject of a remarkable outpouring of scholarly attention in both China and the West. The publication of new critical editions and translations of Daoist texts, the development of new interpretive frameworks for understanding Daoist philosophy and religion, and the application of Daoist philosophical concepts to contemporary problems — environmental ethics, technology criticism, the philosophy of science, political theory, and the critique of modernity — have established Daoism as a vital participant in the global philosophical conversation. The work of scholars such as Chen Guying (陈鼓应, born 1935), who has produced influential interpretations of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi from a comparative philosophical perspective, and Western scholars such as Hans-Georg Moeller, whose work on Daoist philosophy and contemporary social theory has introduced Daoist concepts to new audiences, has demonstrated the continuing relevance of the Daoist tradition for addressing the intellectual and practical challenges of the modern world.
The global dissemination of Daoist ideas and practices represents one of the most significant developments in the contemporary religious and philosophical landscape. Daoist concepts — particularly the concepts of the Dao, yin and yang, qi, wuwei, and ziran — have entered the global vocabulary and have influenced fields as diverse as environmental philosophy, organizational management, psychotherapy, and the philosophy of science. Daoist practices — particularly taijiquan, qigong, and Daoist meditation — are practiced by millions of people worldwide who may have no formal affiliation with the Daoist religious tradition. This global reception of Daoism raises important questions about the relationship between the philosophical and religious dimensions of the tradition, about the possibilities and limits of cross-cultural appropriation, and about the future of Daoism as both a living Chinese religious tradition and a global philosophical resource.[7]
Notes
- ↑ Schipper, Kristofer, The Taoist Body, trans. Karen C. Duval (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). See also Robinet, Isabelle, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, trans. Phyllis Brooks (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). See also Kirkland, Russell, Taoism: The Enduring Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2004).
- ↑ Bokenkamp, Stephen, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). See also Raz, Gil, The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition (London: Routledge, 2012). See also Kleeman, Terry, Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2016).
- ↑ Pregadio, Fabrizio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006). See also Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed., The Encyclopedia of Taoism (London: Routledge, 2008). See also Komjathy, Louis, The Daoist Tradition: An Introduction (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
- ↑ Wang Bi, Commentary on the Laozi, translated in Lynn, Richard John, trans., The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te Ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). See also Ziporyn, Brook, Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016), chapter on Chinese ontological debates. See also Chan, Alan K.L., Two Visions of the Way: A Study of the Wang Pi and the Ho-shang Kung Commentaries on the Lao-Tzu (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991).
- ↑ Eskildsen, Stephen, The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004). See also Goossaert, Vincent, The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007). See also Marsone, Pierre, Wang Chongyang and the Foundation of Quanzhen Daoism (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
- ↑ Kohn, Livia, Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation (Dunedin, FL: Three Pines Press, 2010). See also Wile, Douglas, Lost T'ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing Dynasty (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996). See also Despeux, Catherine, and Livia Kohn, Women in Daoism (Dunedin, FL: Three Pines Press, 2003).
- ↑ Goossaert, Vincent, and David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). See also Miller, James, Daoism: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003). See also Moeller, Hans-Georg, The Philosophy of the Daodejing (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). See also Dean, Kenneth, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).