Verse SixtyThe mystical techniques for achieving immortality are revealed only to those who have dissolved all ties to the gross worldly realm of duality, conflict, and dogma. As long as your shallow worldly ambitions exist, the door will not open. Devote yourself to living a virtuous, integrated, selfless life. Refine your energy from gross and heavy to subtle and light. Use the practices of the Integral Way to transform your superficial worldly personality into a profound, divine presence. By going through each stage of development along the Integral Way, you learn to value what is important today in the subtle realm rather than what appears desirable tomorrow in the worldly realm. Then the mystical door will open. and you can join the unruling rulers and uncreating creators of the vast universe.~ Translated by Brian Walker ~
One aspect of the HHC that I haven't drawn out to this juncture is the fact that this document was written by religious Taoists. While the philosophical arm of this belief system has been around for thousands of years, the religious aspect came into existence around the 5th century CE.
My understanding is that the philosophy evolved into a religion due to "market pressures". During the first several centuries of the Common Era, Taoism fell out of favor with a lot of folks in China due to the popularity of Buddhism and, later, Zen Buddhism. As with most religions, emphasis was placed on looking toward the future and obtaining a form of eternal enlightenment. Because Taoism focuses more on the here and now, some of its leaders at the time felt they could bring people back into the fold by borrowing some of the trappings of the religious experience.
Needless to say, as someone who is patently irreligious, I'm not a big fan of religious Taoism. To my way of thinking, they took a great philosophical perspective and adulterated it in the sole hope of gaining a bigger "market share".
This is a feeble lead in to my comments about the concept of immortality. While I certainly agree with the general gist of this verse, I personally feel that introducing said concept into the mix sort of mucks the whole thing up. The only part of ourselves that may long to live forever is the ego and, through all Taoist texts, the ego is what we're trying to evolve beyond.
In other words, deciding to live a virtuous life in line with Tao is about shedding the self and connecting with the universal Oneness of the universe. It is about moving beyond a life of needs, wants and desire. The interjection of immortality thwarts this objective, in my opinion, because it is based on the desire for eternal life.
If we are to become one with Tao, we must leave all desire at the doorstep.
This post is part of a "miniseries". For an introduction, go here.
My understanding is that the philosophy evolved into a religion due to "market pressures". During the first several centuries of the Common Era, Taoism fell out of favor with a lot of folks in China due to the popularity of Buddhism and, later, Zen Buddhism. As with most religions, emphasis was placed on looking toward the future and obtaining a form of eternal enlightenment. Because Taoism focuses more on the here and now, some of its leaders at the time felt they could bring people back into the fold by borrowing some of the trappings of the religious experience.
Needless to say, as someone who is patently irreligious, I'm not a big fan of religious Taoism. To my way of thinking, they took a great philosophical perspective and adulterated it in the sole hope of gaining a bigger "market share".
This is a feeble lead in to my comments about the concept of immortality. While I certainly agree with the general gist of this verse, I personally feel that introducing said concept into the mix sort of mucks the whole thing up. The only part of ourselves that may long to live forever is the ego and, through all Taoist texts, the ego is what we're trying to evolve beyond.
In other words, deciding to live a virtuous life in line with Tao is about shedding the self and connecting with the universal Oneness of the universe. It is about moving beyond a life of needs, wants and desire. The interjection of immortality thwarts this objective, in my opinion, because it is based on the desire for eternal life.
If we are to become one with Tao, we must leave all desire at the doorstep.
This post is part of a "miniseries". For an introduction, go here.
Translated from Chinese, not just a different language but a different world view, it depends who reads it as to what it means.
ReplyDeleteAsking you to have escaped duality to see the real subtle truth it is asking you to go beyond life/death, loss/gain, and see the eternal nature of Tao. So it is down to the reader - all these texts are very open to interpretation, to decide what that means to them. But I feel on the high level of awareness they are communicating on that immortality is achieved by recognizing the whole and escaping the I.
Gosh I wrote a long post, and disappeared it, then to find that Tao said what I was going to, except for a couple of observations:
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why you say Taoism "fell out of favor"; it informed and supported Buddhism brought to China by Da Mo to create Chan (Zen) Buddhism. Indeed lots of people practiced and continue to practice both or a blend, sometimes with Christianity thrown in for good measure.
I found your remarks about market share and market forces interesting, because religion follows trade, e.g., the incidence of Islam in Indonesia as a result of the spice trade. (Except for missionary activity; in Hawaii Christianity preceded the pineapple trade!)
You write:
"...to live a virtuous life in line with Tao is about shedding the self and connecting with the universal Oneness of the universe. It is about moving beyond a life of needs, wants and desire. ...If we are to become one with Tao, we must leave all desire at the doorstep."
This is precisely the goal of the Internal Alchemists, whose definition of "immortality" is nothing like the "eternal life" we were taught in Sunday school. These mystical practices to move back beyond primordial qi to merge with the Tao, appear to be religious, but they are rooted in very ancient Chinese philosophy (particularly the I Ching and its principles of change, which I think of as the Old Testament of Taoism.) All of these philosophies mix to create a cultural world view, in the same way the Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian traditions create the western world view. Now, in this globalized world, we can bring them all together.
Taoist philosophy as I understand it is all very much like quantum physics and binary code; there is no here and now, there is just a continually changing magic show which we perceive in our corporeal existence. Immortality is to go behind the curtain of the magic show.
I appreciate your distaste for religion, all the functional gods and incense burning, but when approaching this particular text (all very practical on one level), you come close to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
OK, I've had MY say!
Tao,
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with your analysis. I just wish they had left the quest for "immortality" out of the equation.
BR,
I wrote that Taoism fell out of favor because this is what I've read re the history. While I will readily agree that Taoism flavored Buddhism and Zen, my readings indicate it sort of fell on hard times for a period or, at least, its main practitioners thought so. Hence the establishment of a religion to compete for the hearts and souls of the population.
TRT i agree with you. immortality is not the immortality of the "I" but the immortality of the "We". so you can interpret the verse to mean the latter immortality, but there's really nothing in this verse to indicate that interpretation, exclusively.
ReplyDelete