The Harmony of Taoism

Taoism, created and developed in China, venerates the Dao, or Way, and advocates it as the central focus of one’s faith, a practice to be cultivated and a lifestyle to be lived. Most fundamentally, the Dao is the all-encompassing principle of generation. The Way refers to being naturally at ease, peaceful and unselfish, one must do away with active desire, become flexible and yielding, and cease all contention. There is an equivalent in Chinese culture to the universal creator God that is widely recognized as in the West. Where did the heavens and the earth come from, then? Lao-tzu thinks that “The Dao existed before its name, and from its name, the opposites evolved, giving rise to three divisions, and then to names abundant.”(5) This conception of the Dao is replete with “harmony.”

Health for the harmonious man. Of all religions, it can be said that Taoism is the most affirmative of human life itself, valuing all its forms as well as enjoying life, intent in their quest for longevity. The earliest Taoist classic, Scriptures of the Great Peace, already records the virtue of enjoying life, “The greatest task of man is to fulfill his urgent yearning to continue enjoying life,” and the belief that “My life belongs to me, not to the heavens.” As Taoism developed, its emphasis on “cultivation of the spirit and the life,” became more pronounced. Spirit refers to the mind or consciousness, and life to the living body. Cultivating both means psychological and physiological fitness to keep both your mind and body healthy and both aspects of your being in harmony. In addition, Taoism also emphasizes harmony between the self and objects: One must guard against becoming enchanted with one’s discoveries, or a servant to one’s possessions, and being tempted to insatiable greed for fame and fortune, as to do so would be to forfeit one’s inner tranquility and one’s genuine nature. The remedy for this is knowledge of the inner self as separate from one’s possessions.

Harmonious administration of the state. The Scriptures of the Great Peace mentions “the three entities with the same heart” as a way of expressing harmony with the Dao in ruling a country. “The primordial ether has three elements, Utmost Yang, Utmost Yin and the Harmonious Neutral. The bodies with form have three elements, heaven, earth and man. State rule has three elements, monarch, minister and subject.” In the light of the basic truth that things at every level in the natural and human worlds each have a yin, yang, and harmonious aspect, only when Yin and Yang are in balanced interaction, when harmony is attended to, can society and the world be ordered and harmonious. Along the path of harmonious neutrality, monarch, minister, and subject can live in harmony. In order to attain peace and prosperity, the three elements must work together as one. Taoism rejects the use of military intervention. The Tao Te Ching says, “The harvest is destroyed in the wake of a great war, and weeds grow in the fields in the wake of the army.” The Taoist politics of bringing about the Great Peace and policy of rule by “inaction” has been advocated by many monarchs in Chinese history. The reigns of the Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing of the early Western Han Dynasty achieved a period of peace, productivity and stability guided by “the non-action of the Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu,” which is the classic example of such policies succeeding.

Harmonious environmental conservation. Taoism regards the Dao, the Heavens, the Earth, and Man as the four constituents of the universe. Man, with his reason, is the most astute of them. So, how should man manage his relationship with nature? Taoism’s basic response is “the way of the Dao is nature.” “Man operates in the realm of the Earth, the Earth in the realm of the Heavens, the Heavens in the realm of the Dao, and the Dao in the realm of its own nature.”(6) That is, even though man is a spiritual creature, he must obey the principles of the Earth, and protect his home. The Earth follows the principles of the Heavens, the rhythm of the universe. The Heavens follow the principles of the Dao, obey objective laws. And the principle of the Dao arises from itself, from the processes that sustain growth and transformation in the universe. “All that has form is imbued with the Dao.” The Heavens, the Earth and the myriad things all originate from the Dao. They all have the right to develop the nature that the Dao instills in them. As members of the universe at large, man should “submit to the nature of all things and do not contrive action,”(7) and take care to reflect on the relationships between all things, realize their unanimous dependent nature, preserve the beauty of such harmony, in order to bring vitality to the world. “Compassion extends to all creatures, forgive others as you forgive yourself.”(8)

An auspice in the East. Lao-tzu remarks, “From constancy, there develops harmony, and from harmony, enlightenment.”(9) And Zhuangzi mentions the “Great Harmony of All Things.”(10) Building a harmonious and beautiful society has always been the unremitting social ideal of Taoism. The thinking includes many connotations of the Chinese character, forming part of the words for cohesion, peace, kindness or warmth, friendliness, propitiousness and neutrality, and containing an element in many profound expressions of practical, healthy, political philosophies advising harmony as a means of benevolence toward your fellow man, coexisting in a large community, cooperating for the benefit of society, governing a populace fairly, and getting what you want from life. The Taoist ethical concept of the Great Harmony of All Things contains many pearls of Chinese culture extolling Confucian Virtue, which still have explicit significance for the creation of a harmonious society in the modern world. Virtue is the basis of all conduct, and serves to discourage crime and promote good deeds, which are viewed as essential to life as water. They include filial piety, respect for the elderly and care of orphans, donation of medicines to the sick, compassion for the poor and infirm, helping people as a source of joy, teaching as a way of perpetuating wisdom, humility and discretion, frugality and sharing of excess, love of nature and conservation of the environment, supporting yourself with hard work, and a disinclination to be impressed by fame and profit or to make an ostentatious display of one’s talents. We in the Eastern world must make our philosophy of harmony a harbinger of reconciliation among the worlds “civilized conflicts.” Devoid of all pretentiousness, we will open our hearts as wide as the Yangtze River to usher in a new era of true Taoist spirit.