Under a bodhi tree

Just Be: All Is What It Is

Wu Weiming吳維明December 21, 2022

Daojia (道家) is another Chinese school of thought that rivals Confucian philosophy and has had a great impact on the Chinese and the Asian culture. The two most important Daoist philosophers are Laozi (老子) and Zhuangzi (莊子, 庄子). The Daoist school of thought is sometimes referred to as Lao Zhuang zhexue (老莊哲學, 老庄哲学), the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi, so as to distinguish it from Daojiao (道教, religious Daoism).¹

Against the Cultivation of Virtue

The Confucian way of knowing dao is through de (德, virtue). Once a person becomes a junzi (君子, a person of ren), they would learn about dao. This is why the cultivation of virtue is paramount in Confucianism. Strikingly, Daoism is against the cultivation of virtue and regards it as the root of disharmony.

Virtue and Degeneration

The first reason Daoism is against the cultivation of virtue is that li (禮, 礼, the norms of decorum and civility) leads to hypocrisy and moral degeneration. When society tries to mold its people into junzi by means of li, usually through rewards and punishments, people would pretend to be virtuous to gain rewards and avoid punishments.²

In Dao De Jing (《道德經》, 《道德经》), Laozi clearly states why he is against the cultivation of virtue:

The higher de has merit because it has no concern with virtue; the lesser de has no merit because it cares about not losing virtue. The higher de does not try to do good and does not need to be driven by good intentions; the lesser de tries to do good and is driven by good intentions. The higher ren (仁, benevolence) tries to do good and does not need to be driven by good intentions; the higher yi (義, 义, righteousness) tries to do good out of good intentions. The higher li does good out of the expectation of customs that compel people to behave. Accordingly, de takes center stage after dao is lost; ren is in play after de is lost; yi is emphasized after ren is lost; li becomes the game in town after yi is lost. The focus on li reflects the lack of zhong (忠, faithfulness) and xin (信, trustworthiness), and is the beginning of disorder.”³

Laozi’s most profound insight is that if all things follow dao, they would flourish and become the paragons of what they are supposed to be. They would by nature thrive and reach their own kinds of excellence in each of their own ways without the slightest idea that they need to be virtuosos. They are virtuosos simply as a result of the ways they flourish. They do not need moral concepts and rules to tell them how they should behave.

A world where people care primarily about legality and civility would already have been less just and righteous. When minority groups have to fight in court against atrocious gerrymandering cases, how fair and just is such a democracy? When people have to struggle for their fair share, what happens to kindness and generosity? Isn’t the call for compassion toward disadvantaged and less fortunate people a reflection of the lack thereof? And why would there be a need for compassion to begin with? Would people in a virtuous and caring society end up being homeless? Haven’t we already lost our way if we need virtue and morality to guide and regulate our lives?

Preference and Prejudice

A more serious charge Daoism levels against the cultivation of virtue is that it perpetuates certain values that reflect a society’s preferences and prejudices. Daoism sees li as a set of values derived from societal and cultural preferences. It views the cultivation of virtue with suspicion as a way to institutionalize and perpetuate sanctioned values that would lead to systematic discrimination and become the root of disharmony.

Truthful to the philosophical framework of Yi Jing (《易經》, 《易经》, the Book of Changes), Daoism reminds us that differences in the world are merely contrasts. They are represented as yin and yang. Yin is not better than yang and yang is not better than yin.⁴ We need to be careful not to favor yin over yang, or yang over yin. Otherwise, preference would lead to prejudice. Laozi’s insight is stated in Dao De Jing:

When the world knows what beauty is, whence comes what it dislikes; When it knows what is good, whence comes what is not good. In this way the presence or absence of something yield each other; the difficult and the easy correlate with each other; the long and the short contrast each other; the high and the low distinguish each other; different sounds accord each other; the anterior and the posterior put each other in order⁵.⁶

When people like what is beautiful, such a preference is already a prejudice against that which is not beautiful in the sense that they like the latter less than the former. When a child is adored for being beautiful, how would that affect other kids when they notice that they are not getting the same amount of attention and praises? Moreover, can we blame the child showered with adoration for vanity? Doesn’t the problem with designer babies and eugenics stem from our preference for the healthier, better-looking, more intelligent and more athletic people?

Why do we prefer people with good health, attractive physical appearance, talents and abilities? Isn’t it because we realize that they have advantages and are more likely to succeed in the game of getting ahead in life? Don’t they tend to be adored and treated favorably? If this is the honest truth, can we blame parents for wanting their kids to have these desirable traits? It is small wonder that our world would face the problem of eugenics and designer babies.⁷

Wuwei (無為, 无为, No Action)

Laozi’s remedy for the ills rooted in preference and prejudice is wuwei. And the key to wuwei is wuyu (無欲, 无欲, desireless). Desire and preference are two sides of the same coin: to desire something is to wish for what one prefers. Desires would incline people to act with the intention to pursue what they want. Hence to act without intention one needs to become desireless.

A common objection to the tenet of being desireless is that to desire is human. It is simply impossible for humans not to desire. It is natural to want to eat when hungry and want to drink when thirsty. There is nothing wrong with such desires.

But of course Laozi would have no quarrel with such natural drives and behaviors. On the contrary, he would include them as part of wuwei. To live a life of wuwei is to simply be—to live without preference and act without intention. It is to act in a natural and spontaneous way: to eat when hungry, to drink when thirsty, to sleep when drowsy and so on. In contrast to wuwei, actions with intention are actions driven by human-contrived ideas and preference. To crave delicate cuisines even when one is full, to hoard gold and jewels to show off one’s wealth, or to grasp power to advance one’s status and fame would be the opposite of wuwei.

Laozi points out that the best way to understand wuwei and wuyu is to follow the course of nature:

Hence the paragons of virtue conduct affairs in accordance with wuwei and teach without using words;⁸ let all things flourish without interruption and produce without claiming possession. Act without expecting certain consequences.⁹ When things are accomplished, do not dwell on and claim credit for them. Since there is no attachment, there would be no sense of deprivation and loss.¹⁰

He cautions us “not to prefer people with abilities and virtues so that people would not engage in one-upmanship with each other; not to value hard-to-obtain goods so that people would not steal; not to see things as desirable so that people’s hearts would not be stirred.”¹¹ As an alternative, he advocates “the paragon’s rule” that “humbles people’s hearts, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones.” Laozi envisages that a way of life under such rule would “make people, as a norm, have no clue what is desirable, and hence have no desires. Keep those who know what is desirable from daring to act upon their desires. When people act without the will to act, then there would be no disorders.”¹²

Transcending Virtue and Morality

It is now clear why Daoism is against the cultivation of virtue. Virtues and moral values are socially and culturally sanctioned preferences and prejudices. Their cultivation is the root of disorders and unrest. Both Laozi and Zhuangzi see moral concepts and rules as a human contrivance that is at odds with the way of nature.¹³ Once humans acquire moral concepts and rules along with the consciousness of pride/guilt, honor/shame and praise/condemnation, we can’t help but anxiously assess our own moral worthiness and judge each other without end.¹⁴ We are entrapped in the cage of moral judgment and have forgotten how to flourish by simply following dao.

For Laozi, to truly live a life in accordance with dao we need to transcend virtue and morality and live amorally. We have lived under morality for so long that it has become unfathomable for most of us that a life beyond morality is possible. To begin with, imagine that humans have no concepts of morality and are so pure and innocent as not to need them.¹⁵ Alternatively, imagine Heaven where all the faithful and spiritual rejoice. Would they still worry about committing sins? Would there still be moral judgment? Would moral rules still apply in Heaven?

If one finds it hard to imagine the Garden of Eden or Heaven, then simply observe how living things interact with one another to form the web of life in nature. A mother bear would watch over her cubs without needing to be compelled by a moral sense to carry out a parent’s duty. Lions would kill and eat gazelles without feeling guilty of being savage and immoral.¹⁶ It is only through the lens of morality that we see natural animal behavior as morally praiseworthy or condemnable. But nature on its own is amoral, without preference and prejudice¹⁷ and has no use for morality.

Daoism shuns human contrivance and advocates that humans follow the way of nature and live in harmony with nature. In this sense, it is one of the oldest environmentalism. At a time when we are struggling with global unrest and terrorism, the likelihood of nuclear annihilation and the collapse of ecosystems due to climate change, a renaissance of the Daoist teachings can provide us insights on the way forward.

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