The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.Here we find a stark difference between Christian and philosophical Taoist thought. For the former, light is equated with love and goodness, while darkness is equated with evil and hate. Light is to be with God; darkness is to be with Satan.
~ King James version ~
Darkness is not evil.
~ possible Taoist alternative ~
The Taoist sages viewed light and darkness as two sides of the same coin. As the yin yang symbol illustrates, each flows into the other.
While Christianity teaches that we should fear the darkness, Taoism teaches that we should embrace it just as much as the light.
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True, unless you take the darkness, in the context of that line, to be ignorance or lack of awareness, at which point it aligns quite well with Taoism, with being aware of one's faults and in tune with the world around you. Not blind to its flow.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that a general theme in Christianity is God/light, Satan/darkness -- one good, the other bad.
ReplyDeleteTaoism presents an altogether different perspective. Darkness often is associated with stillness and the void.
Stillness and darkness are indeed yin, one half of the taiji. But preceding the taoji is wuji, which is regarded as primordial yang, illustrated as light and white.
ReplyDeleteIf you understand yang and yin as sun and moon, both have to do with light..emissive and reflective.
I don't find this so different from Judeo-Christian cosmology.
But to the proverb: this is about a student learning wisdom under the tutelage of a teacher. If he doesn't pay attention, learn the wisdom, he stumbles over things in the dark, not even knowing what they are.
I like the preceding line, 4:18, without which this citation seems incomplete: "But the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn, which sines brighter and brighter until full day."
I don't find this at all incompatible with Taoist thought and practice. I would recommend anyone interested read the whole Chapter, Proverbs 4; it could have been written by Lao Tzu. Cheap joke: The Sayings of Lao Jew.
"...which SHINES brighter and brighter..." Although "sines" is kind of a cool typo.
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