Page 93 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

OVERV IEW 53

posits an alternation of activity, what happens when we have five phases? In
fact two main types of pattern are said to occur (see fig. 77). The so-called
"production" sequence (xiangsheng t§1:.) follows the circumference of the
circle: thus Wood grows from Water, Wood produced Fire, Fire produces Soil
(ashes), Metals grow in the Soil (as was thought), and Water condenses on
Metal. In the "conquest' sequence (xiangke *ElSl!:) shown by the cross-lines,
Water puts out Fire, Fire melts Metal, Metal cuts Wood, Wood (as a primitive
spade) digs Soil, and Soil dams up Water.
Among other forms of correlative thinking in China was of course the elaborate
system of correlations between the eight trigrams (*bagua) and the sixty-four
hexagrams of the *Yijing and the whole of the cosmos. The importance at-
tached to such thinking varied from period to period, and of course its suffered
a major blow with the popularization of the more mechanical style of modern
scientific thinking. But it is certainly still alive and well in the world of Taoist
practices, as well as in divination and traditional medicine.
Christopher CULLEN

III Graham 1986c; Graham 1989, 318-58; Harper 1999; Henderson 1984; Kalin-
owski 1991; Le Blanc 1985; Major 1978; Major 1987b; Major 1993; Needham 1956,
216-345; Onozawa Seiichi, Fukunaga Mitsuji, and Yamanoi YU 1978; Schwartz
1985, 350-82

2. Taoist notions
While Confucianism mainly deals with relations among human beings in
society, Taoism focuses on human relations with Nature: unlike Confucians,
Taoists maintain that one cannot understand human affairs without know-
ing how the cosmos functions, because the Dao is the totality of what exists
and the whole world is a manifestation of the Dao. Moreover, in Taoism the
human being is seen as a microcosm related in an analogical and organic way
to the pattern of the world. In order to attain physical and mental health, and
to achieve immortality, therefore, one should know and follow the cosmic
laws. Cosmology thus plays a basic role in Taoism. That is why around the
third century CE, when Confucianism rejected the cosmological speculations
it had incorporated during the Han period, Taoism became the main heir of
*fangshi lore and Han naturalistic thought, and contributed to their renewal
in Neo-Confucianism from the eleventh century onward.
The Taoist view of the cosmos. For the Taoist saint (*shengren), first as depicted
in the *Zhuangzi, the cosmological dimension serves as a means to go beyond
the self. The world that Taoism deals with is not exactly the same as the world
of the cosmologists: Taoist cosmology is based on the common Yin-Yang and