Page 348 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

DAD 309

from the Neiye through neidan to today's Quanzhen self-cultivation practices,
Taoists have envisioned the spiritual life as a re-unification of one's personal
reality with "the absolute Dao:' that lies beyond-and is ultimately more real
than-the more familiar range of phenomena. But while devotees of such
traditions often did ignore Taoism's other spiritual models, they seldom labored
to distance themselyes from those other models. Modern Quanzhen Taoists,
like most of the "ecumenical" Taoists of Tang times, have almost always been
quite content to bring their lives, and their world, into harmony with Dao by
any means that others throughout Chinese history have found useful, including
liturgical activities. Despite many twentieth-century protestations, especially
from Westernized Chinese intellectuals, Taoists never really opposed liturgi-
cal models to mystical models, in theory or in practice; and they certainly
never denounced the former as "superstitious" (the way that early Western
interpreters taught the modern public to do). To the contrary, China's Taoists,
down to the present, are-by tradition if not by temperament-people who
holistically embrace all aspects of reality: models that focus on the individual
are complemented (often in the very same tradition) by acknowledgment
of the value and importance of society, the political order, and even the
non-human world; and models that focus on cultivation of consciousness
are complemented by teachings explaining the value and importance of our
bodily existence- once it is properly understood. What Dao therefore "is"
can-on Taoist terms- be explained in terms of sagely government, or in
terms of physiological refinement, or in terms of the daoshi's transformation
of a community through liturgy. Viewed holistically-i.e., as the universal
key to all Taoist models of activity-Dao can be defined as the true matrix of
authentic life in this world. In all Taoist contexts, participants are led (whether
through study of intellectuals' texts, or through practices that may not easily
be explained in terms of "theoretical" models) to engage themselves in a dis-
ciplined process of spiritual transformation. The term dao thus refers to the
spiritual realities that underlie every aspect of such transformation, whether
that transformation be carried out within the individual's mind/ body, within
the community within which one's life takes place, or within the world as a
whole.

Russell KIRKLAND
m Bokenkamp 1997, 12-15; Kohn 1992a, 162-76; Kohn 1993b, II-32; Robinet
1997b, 1-23; Robinet 1999b; Schipper 1993, 3- 5
* de; wu and you; wuji and taiji; wuwei; xiang; xing; Yin and Yang; ziran; Daode
jing; TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMORTALITY