Daodejing Chapter One

There's really only one logical place to start when building the foundations of an early classical Daoist community, and that is with the opening lines of the Daodejing, or Laozi, the warring states classic (經) of this processional path (道) we all walk. The warring states (戰國時代 403-221 BCE) was a curious time for free thinkers: warfare, insurmountable death, battle for supremacy among neighbouring clans, and surprsingly, the birth of an increcible amount of innovation too, namely that of military strategy, weaponary (the highly impactful crossbow, which will be discussed in future posts), and more. As Ames and Hall (2003) elegantly wrote: "It was as a response to these darkest days in which the blood of China's children irrigated the crops and their flesh fertilized the land that the Daodejing emerged as an alternative vision of what human experience might be like. The world was wasting away, and the Daodejing was a mysterious elixir that offered to serve as its restorative". In the midst of chaos, murder, and what felt like the hopeless decay of the world around them, tranquility, simplicity, and illumination of what can be was offered forth in (what is now) 81 succinct guiding chapters - and the Daodejing was born. It is worth briefly discussing the title of this text, namely the break-down of the key characters, that can give us immediate insight into the unique cosmological, philosophical, and meditative foundations of what we are about to absorb.

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Daodejing a.k.a Laozi Dao 道 is a an incredibly multifaceted conceptual character. Its etymology is rather simple, however, being a combination of a road-and-foot (辵), and head (首). It is a path we walk, a processional path, an experience that we make, lead forth into, and that moulds around us (as we mould it) as individuals. Early notions of dao correlate to early notions of the observable movements of nature and even link with jing (經) - that will be discussed later. In pre-classical Daosim, Dao was used as a metaphor for the channeling of pathways in order to appropriate lead the river movement of a tributary corridor in order to serve and save the surrounding banks from overflow. It is for this reason that we see the usage of dao as a path, way, road, and more. I have adopted the translation of "processional path" in order to highlight that once a step is taken it has a history to it, it has a present moment, and once planted, forges the future ahead. In this manner it is not "The Way" rather it is "your way", a very personalised experience in the realisation of self. De 德 enacts the sense of morality, virture, and ethics needed to appropriately take action upon this path you are walking. Even though each processional path may be of a personal experience, it must still be guided by principle, i.e. what is naturally-so within the cosmos and within our "self". De is the heart (心) at the root-process of our experience, as the character suggests.

Jing 經 is a widely used concept, it is the thread of all things, the loom of being that the warp is threaded by that who guides it. The character is exactly that, a loom of longitudinally patterned threads, meaning there is a beginning and end, an origin and a destination that holds worth, and value, to its being. Jing is the same character used here to mean a "classic text" as it is for the longitudinal patterned pathways of circulation within the vessel and terrain system in classical Chinese medicine of the Huangdi Neijing (黃帝內經). Jing is a pattern we see physically in nature, whether it is the roots of a tree, the river systems, the loom as mentioned above, within celestial movements, and then conceptually within the passage of time and lineage of a text.

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Chapter One 道可道也非恆道也 Dào kě dào yě fēihéng dào yě

名可名也非恆名也 míng, kě míng yě fēihéng míng yě

無名萬物之始也: wúmíng wànwù zhī shǐ yě:

有名萬物之母也 Yǒumíng wànwù zhī mǔ yě

故恆無欲也 gùhéng wúyù yě

以觀其妙 yǐguān qímiào

恆有欲也 héng yǒu yù yě

以觀其徼 yǐguān qíjiào

兩者同出而異名 liǎngzhě tóngchū ér yìmíng

同謂之玄 tóngwèi zhīxuán

玄之又玄 xuánzhī yòuxuán

衆妙之門 zhòngmiào zhīmén

"Dao that is called dao is not truly dao

Names that are called names are not truly names

Nameless is the myriad things of all that is occurring

The myriad things are called "mother"

Hence non-desire is the constant

Observing this is the exquisite mystery

Yet, desire is the constant Observing this is the boundary

These two have similar origins yet different names

Together they are profound

The profound of the profound This is the gate of the manifold mysteries."

What is this path that we walk? What do we call it? And if we call it so, does that truly define it? A name is just that, and in being so holds no weight to the underlying experience that is manifest within. What manifests cannot be named, only experienced, and it is that experience which in turn gives birth to all interactions around us. These interactions, these experiences, hold true to certain constants: change, feelings, desires, and more. If we observe these constants we can understand the depth of their mystery, of their innate being, and hence our innate process and perspective, which in-turn means we are also observing their limits. Knowing these two as one leads to deep, profound, understanding of self and its relationship with all the mysteries of the universe. Pathless paths, nameless names, desire-less desires.