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Daoism and
Ecology
James Miller
Queen’s University
The
Western understanding of Daoism has been rooted chiefly
in the classical philosophical tradition of Laozi (Lao
Tzu) and Zhuangzi (Chuang tzu). This tradition, replete
with organic metaphors and distrustful of the complexities
of civilization, is immediately appealing to those who
are tempted to still the Western rage for order with
the natural harmonies of Eastern philosophy. These early
texts, however, present us not only with the bearded
wisdom of kindly sages but with evidence of meditational
theories and religious disciplines that were systematized
in the flourishing of Daoist religion after the Han
dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). This religious tradition
is emphasized here because it manifests clearly the
ecological sensibility that is latent in those early
texts.
Daoism, as the indigenous religion of China, is profoundly
ecological in its theoretical disposition, but in practice
does not conform easily to Western notions of what this
should entail. This is because Daoist cosmology forms
a metaphysical framework by which to realize the transformation
of the individual as a celestial being who is fully
translucent to the cosmic environment in which she or
he is situated. Such a perfected person is thus able
to penetrate beyond the gross physicality of ordinary
existence and, as a celestial immortal, be in attentive
harmony with the subtle and mysterious transformations
of the Dao (the ever-changing flow of cosmic processes)
at its root, primordial level. A dynamic ecological
system at a cosmic level is therefore the presupposition
of all higher Daoist thought and practice.
The Daoist universe is one, but infinitely diverse.
Its unity is implied by the fact that all dimensions
of existence, from the budding of a flower to the orbit
of the stars, may be denominated in terms of Qi
(ch’i) the fundamental energy-matter of
the universe whose dynamic pattern is a cosmic heartbeat
of expansion (yang) and contraction (yin).
Its diversity is a function of the complex interaction
of the myriad cosmic processes both light and fluid
and heavy and dense. The universe is a single, vital
organism, not created according to some fixed principle
but spontaneously regenerating itself.
It is not quite correct, therefore, to speak of an
ecology, as though there were an intellectual principle
(logos) for comprehending one’s cosmic environment
(oikos). The Dao de jing (Tao Te Ching)
warns that if we speak of the Dao (Tao),
such speaking must be in-constant, unusual, or extra-ordinary.
This has led, on the one hand, to an intense skepticism
of the ability of human rationality properly to grasp
its situation within the universe, and, on the other
hand, to the flowering of a religious tradition dependent
upon revelations from supreme celestial beings, those
most attentive to the subtle workings of the primordial
Dao. In the former case, human institutions (and August
academic conferences in particular) have borne the rhetorical
brunt of criticism: the transformations of the universe
are especially beyond the grasp of elderly men who pool
together their long years of learning. In the latter
case, it is only by being initiated into the sacred
texts and proper lineages of transmission that one is
able to comprehend and thereby transcend the ordinary
dimensions of human existence.
The hermeneutical principle on which Daoist religious
practice rests, however, is that of the mutual interpenetration
of all dimensions of being, with the body as the most
important field for the interaction of cosmic forces.
Properly visualized within the body, gods dwell in their
palaces, the constellations of the heavens are made
manifest, and a pure and refined Qi comes to
flow. From this mysterious energy the embryonic immortal
body is generated and the adept is eventually reborn
as a celestial immortal.
This biospiritual practice is dependent upon traditional
Chinese medical theory that views the body as a complex
system of interacting energy circuits. Illness, broadly
speaking, is symptomatic of some defect of circulation,
perhaps a blockage or a seepage or an excess. Religion
therefore is not the denial or the overcoming of physical
existence, but its gradual refinement to an infinitesimal
point.
Time is a function of the calendar: days and years are
not numbered but named according to the interaction
of two zodiacal cycles of twelve and ten. The Jiuzhen
zhongjing (Central Scripture of the Nine Perfections),
an important text of the Shangqing revelations (“Highest
Clarity,” the name given to these initial texts
of the emerging Daoist canon), for example, details
the correlation of cycles of colors, bodily organs and
divinities with days of the year and times of day. When
all the cycles mesh the possibility for radical transformation
reaches its zenith. On a much larger scale, the Buddhist-influenced
Zuigen pin (The Roots of Sin), speaks
in terms of millions of cycles of kalpa revolutions,
and outlines the degeneration of human culture from
a simple organic community to complex civilizations
based on law codes where corruption and vice are prevalent.
Each kalpa cycle ends with the total destruction
of the cosmos which, then, begins again.
In either case Daoism encourages us to take a radical
perspective on our temporal situation. Time is not something
that passes and is then irretrievably lost. There is
no kairos—moment that requires a decision
of apocalyptic consequence. Human civilization and all
life is inscribed within cycles far greater than it
can comprehend.
Because of the vast comprehensiveness of the Daoist
cosmic ecology, and not in spite of it, the arena for
all human action is the immediate environment. Only
by paying attention to the minute details of one’s
local context is one able to penetrate to the deep roots
of the Dao. Popular Chinese culture is full of ways
for human beings to micro-manage their environment,
from feng shui, the strategy of arranging one’s
immediate area to take full advantage of its natural
environment to taijiquan (t’ai-chi-ch’üan),
the embodiment of cosmic patterns to properly attune
the self in the world.
Daoism has particularly emphasized the importance of
small beginnings and local perspectives not as an end
in itself, but as a strategy. The advice of the Dao
de jing is to be low, soft, weak and nonassertive.
The Zhuangzi praises the spontaneous skillfulness
of craftspeople that cannot be easily taught in words,
but is achieved only by the repeated practice of an
individual in a highly particular context. Religious
practices begin with the purification of mind and body
and take for granted the respect for all living beings
in one’s immediate environment. Religious communities
enshrine such attitudes in precepts that are the precondition
for more advanced methods.
The goal of all higher Daoist practice is to mirror
unobtrusively the dynamic spontaneity of one’s
environment, to become imperceptible and transparent
as though one were not at all. This goal is made all
the more remote by the complex web of social and intellectual
structures layered throughout history that form the
cultural flux in which human life is trapped. The path
towards pure spontaneity thus consists always in reversion
or undoing. This reversion can occur mentally, through
sitting in oblivion, physically, through the generation
of an immortal embryo, and even cosmogonically, through
alchemical practices founded on the principle that degenerative
natural processes can be reversed and restored to their
pure essential state.
Daoism proposes a comprehensive and radical restructuring
of the way in which we conceive of our relationship
to nature and our cosmic environment. This imaginative
act does not readily lend itself to the solution of
the problems of modern society except inasmuch as it
challenges the very foundations of our economic, political,
scientific, and intellectual structures. At the same
time, however, as Daoism becomes more influential in
the West, even as it is misunderstood, it surely exerts
a positive influence with respect to understanding what
it means to be embedded in a cosmic ecology.
In such an understanding nature is not something outside
of us to be dealt with after the fashion of a mechanic
repairing a car, but is both a mental attitude to be
carefully cultivated and the true condition of one’s
body that contains the infinite dimensions of cosmic
reality within itself. Ultimately, therefore, nature
is to be constructed and visualized time and again.
Its destiny lies more than anything else in the human
powers of imagination.
James Miller is Assistant Professor of Chinese Religions
at Queen's University (Canada) and is the co-editor,
with N. J. Girardot and Liu Xiaogan, of Daoism
and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape (Cambridge,
Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions, 2001)
Distributed by Harvard University Press.
This article was originally
published in Earth Ethics 10, no.1 (Fall 1998).
Copyright © 1998 Center for Respect of Life and
Environment.
Reprinted with permission
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