Michael Saso

Dao in a Nutshell

We are needed, the bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who relinquishes passing into the Pure Land until all sentient beings are freed from suffering) teach us. God/Dao/Fo is immediately with us, when judgment ceases. Zhuangzi says, in Ch. 4, “renjian shi” 人间事， “心斋坐忘“. “Fast in the heart” (ie, no selfish desires), and “sit in forgetfulness (no judgments at all), and then you will be “One with Dao” 与道合一。

The book of Genesis in the bible states almost the same thing. Adam and Eve could not stay in the Garden of Happiness, talking straight to God, when they “ate the fruit of judging good and evil.” So the moment we stop judging good and evil, we are back in Eden-paradise, the Daoists say. And when we start forgiving others, we are back in paradise too.

Patience (quiet inner awareness) attains everything, Teresa de Avila said. The book “Zen is For Everyone” (tranquil-awareness meditation) or”taza shikan” 打坐止观 teaches how to meditate in this manner. Dzogchen in Tibet, Shikan in Japan, and Daoist “Centering,” focusing in the “Lower Cinnabar field,” (the body’s center of gravity, just below the belly button, 3 inches in), teach this method.

One of my favorite stories from Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi) is in Ch 7. “Baby Yin and baby Yang used to love to play inside Hundun, 混沌 (primordial awareness of God/Dao presence).  They felt sorry for her (i.e., Hundun female dao), ie, she had no eyes, ears, nostrils, or mouth. So each day, for seven days, they drilled a hole in Hundun (Dao/God inner presence). On the 7th day, Hundun died.” I.e., our 7 apertures, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, and mouth, when used to judge or seek outer things, lead us away from God/Dao presence. So focus on Dao presence, in the belly, and stop all judging, all selfish desiring, even the desire for spiritual perfection, or heaven. Dao will be there of “herself,” waiting.

If you look at the wood block print of the Daoist body, you will see that Spinning girl is in the belly, eternally spinning out “QI” Dao/God awareness/vital energy. Cowherd boy is in the heart, holding the Pole Star in his hands (ie, focused on the Dao as center of the heaven, and center of my life).   If her wisdom energy reaches him in the heart, then the heart of the male is filled with compassion, and the wisdom of the female Dao in the belly reaches him too.

Daosm is profound, far more than we ever expected. We must read and put into practice the Lao-tzu Dao De Jing, 老子道德经， as well as the Zhuangzi 莊子.

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Zen is for Everyone

Zhi Yi wrote these brief ten lessons in “how to do Zen” in 580 AD. It has been a best seller since then. Still popular in modern Japanese bookshops, the book also goes by the title “Sho Shikan” , Brief lessons in “Stop” “Look” Zen meditation. Written in a modern, readable style, the book is widely used today as a manual for teaching and practicing Zen (Chan) meditation – one can actually practice Zen while sitting, standing, walking, or even lying down. Healing, expelling evil, and openness to understanding other forms of spiritual practice, are included in the brief “Sho Shikan” text.

Zen is for Everyone click here to purchase.

Buddhist Studies in People’s Republic of China 1990-1991

This “cutting edge” selection of contemporary Buddhist Studies in China is a marvelous tool for understanding the intellectual as well as the spiritual rebirth going on inside China today. Originally published as a textbook for upper division and graduate level studies, it soon became popular with the general public, as a means to understand the great legacy of China’s unique contribution to Buddhist spirituality in Asia. “Shen Xiu and Northern Zen (no different from the southern school), “Minority” Chinese Buddhist intellectuals, “Daoist Zhuangzi and the spread of Buddhism,” and “Buddhist Art Imagery,” are among the themes covered by the book’s authors.

Buddhist Studies in People’s Republic of China click here to purchase.

Velvet Bonds: the Chinese Family

This carefully researched and documented study shows how and why the Family has been the very core and sustaining force in China’s 5000+ year-old cultural history. The statistical segment of the book uses the analytical methodology developed at Stanford University, by the noted contemporary scholars Arthur and Margery Wolf, Huang Chieh-san, and the NSF sponsored staff. Velvet Bonds covers a 100 period history of change and growth in 4500 families, with 20,000 family members. 4 distinct patterns appear, which preserve the family institution through peace, war, and the social upheavals of the past century. Urban and agriculture based villages have differing statistical structures. The study then shows case studies of 5 Taiwan, 5 Mainland, and 5 ethnic minority families, including Tibetan, Islamic, the lesser known Muosuo matriarchy, as well as primitive Aini-Hani mountainside terraced irrigation villages. The study concludes with an exhaustive TAT (Thematic Apperception test) analysis of cultural differences between Chinese, Japanese, SE Asian, and American students, who attended University lectures that dealt with the “Velvet Bonds” statistical record. Lower and upper division university courses, graduate seminars, and the general public have purchased and enjoyed the stories and social values, showing the strength of the Chinese Families portrayed in Velvet Bonds.

Velvet Bonds: the Chinese Family click here to purchase.

T’ien T’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika

This fascinating study by Professor Yu Kuan Ng is one of the very best and clearest explanations of the famous “Middle Way” school of Mahayana, in East Asian Buddhism. The Middle Way, known as the Madhyamika in Sanskrit, was formulated in India by a monk named Nagarjuna, and developed into a full spiritual practice system by the Chinese monk Zhi Yi (Jr Yi), the founder of T’ain-t’ai Buddhism in China. Zhi YI made the “Middle Way” into a more practical, “emptying” form of meditation in China. The book has helped College students, and the general public, understand this basic spiritual path of Asia.

T’ien T’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika click here to purchase.

Reflections from Beijing

Five inches of snow (downtown) to a foot of snow (suburbs) blanketed Beijing last night, in contemplative splendor. It is now early morning. I look out from my window towards the north, where the Temple of Heaven recalls a time when Emperors worshipped Shang Di 上帝  the “Highest Deity” in the Heavens.  The first Jesuits in China, Ricci, Schall, Verbiest, Aleni, used the philosophers of China, much as Augustine and Thomas used the Greeks (Plato and Aristotle) as fertile soil to sow the seeds of Christian spirituality.

Confucius taught five basic virtues that define what it is to be human: love between parent and child, loyal friendship, benevolence (literally, wishing good things) to all others, respect for all others, and “keeping the heart in the center” (“balanced,” unprejudiced). Matteo Ricci found these values consonant with the Gospel message. Confucius also wrote a manual for emperors, with rituals used to ask Shang Di to bless the nation, at the Winter Solstice, and the beginning of Spring (Chinese New Year).

Daoism teaches that an Eternal, Transcendent Act (The Dao of Wu Wei, Transcendent, or “Non” Act) gestates, mediates, and indwells or nourishes all of nature.   Daoist spirituality teaches us how to be always aware of this gestating and nourishing presence, just as Ignatius of Loyola taught the “Contemplatio ad Amorem”   (Contemplating Divine Love).

Buddhism, which came from India to China, was immensely successful because it adapted itself to Chinese cultural values. Instead of just praying for one’s own ancestors, Buddhism taught the Chinese to pray for All Souls; to be compassionate and respectful not only to all humans, but to all living things as well, preserving the natural beauty and “living quality” of nature. Buddhist metaphysics (Yogacara Idealism and Madhyamika Realism) was popular from 4^th to 12th century China, at the same time that the two great Greek philosophers, the Idealism of Plato and the realism of Aristotle, were popular in Europe.

One great difference in Europe and China is that the Chinese accepted all 3 systems, Confucius for ethics, Buddhism for compassion, and Daoism for finding Dao working always in nature, whereas Europe allowed “belief” in only one of its three systems, the Judaic Bible, the Christian “New” testament, or the Islamic Quran. The Chinese have always wondered why the three great western religions can’t get along with each other, just as the 3 great systems of China are seen as “3 teachings, One Culture.” 三教归一。

Inter-religious dialogue

To carry on inter-religious dialogue in Asian and other contexts, we may perhaps be as profoundly and deeply moved by including the writings of “real” spiritual masters, in other than Greco-Roman contexts – e.g., Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian philosophers of East Asia, for instance, whom early Jesuits felt were as appropriate for China, as Plato and Aristotle were for Rome, are crucial to inter-religious understanding.

We would like to suggest other than pre-Christian Greek thinkers, i.e., the works of Asian teachers, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Zhuang-tzu, and the various Buddhist masters of spiritual cultivation, are relevant to inner cultivation as well as to inter-religious dialogue. Ricci was all for Confucius, but other great Jesuits wanted Daoist and Buddhist philosophers included, as relevant to Christian, as well as other inner cultivation practices.

The “catholic” (.e., universal) mind is the mind open to everything true. In the words of Thomas Aquinas (& Aristotle, Jewish Maimonidies, Islamic Avicenna), “Omne ens est verum” “Every being is true.” It is the very nature of mind as such to recognize the “true” (ie factual existence) of all nature/creation. Augustine was particularly concerned with those philosophers who resonate with the “koan” found in Christianity. “Everything that is true,” is precisely the point for inter-religious dialogue. Daoist Lao-tzu, Zhuangzi, as well as the I-ching follow Ignatius’ and Gregory of Nyssa’s 4 steps to unitive experience. Spring’s 元 primordial purifying/ ploughing, is the purgative way; summer’s heng 亨nourishing with sacred image, is the kataphatic illuminative way; “li” 利 autumn cutting is apopathic emptying way; winter’s zhen 貞 unitive way, is when God/Dao writes on the soul in flaming characters.

Anyone concerned with inter-religious dialogue must, I think, begin with finding what is common to all religions as a point from which to initiate discussion. This common point is, we propose, the “3^rd” was of apophatic emptying (kenosis).

In most of Asia, for instance, “religion” does not mean a belief system with a creed, but rather, the rites of passage (the “7 sacraments”) and the annual festivals and customs. 3 forms of teachings, Confucian for human-to-human relations/ethics, Buddhism for compassion, and Daoism for human relationships to Transcendent (*Wuwei) Dao gestated nature, are taken as 3 teachings (not religions) that comprise one culture. The philosophers of these 3 systems were seen by the early Jesuits as teachers, like Plato and Aristotle, providing a fertile field ready for the seeds of faith, compatible with Christian spirituality. It is not necessary for Asians of any religious system to read Plato or Aristotle to be “true” Christians, Confucians, or Muslims, except when taking university level philosophy courses.

The obvious starting point for all inter-religious dialogue is a universal spiritual experience. The via apophatica, a no-judgment, no concept, no image of the Transcendent, is a common starting point for Daoist, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Judaic dialogue. “Noche Oscura”, the Agony in the Garden, “why hast thou forsaken me”, are shared aspects of Transcendent God awareness, from Jesus’ own prayer experience, in Christian teaching.

The famous quote from Augustine, “Our minds were made for Thee O Lord, and will not rest until they rest in thee,” suggests that our minds “rest”/cease in God’s presence. The common point for dialogue here is the “heart fasting, sitting in forgetfulness” of the Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi, Ch. 4), and the 3^rd step “annihilation” of selfish focus of Buddha’s  4 noble truths.  Theresa de Avila, Zohar’s Kabala, Attar’s “Conference of the Birds,” further describe a seven stage process through the experience of apophasis.

Modern “western” philosophers tend to see Aristotle’s Metaphysics as portraying a “god” who does not “need” human love or worship. Our dialogue might perhaps suggest that this may be a misreading of Aristotle’s text; the meaning in the Greek version of Meta.12/6-9 is simply that God’s gestation-creation can only be motivated by “love”, not “being alone,” since the transcendent ultimate Act already has “absolutely” all that Absolute Itself needs – to exist, “tw `eivai” is a verb,” as the Zohar, and Sufi Attar assure us.

Another point for dialogue, from human-ethology (and other modern scholar’s view) is the data, which shows that the very brain structure of the atheist and the religious believer are different, ie location in the brain of atheist, vs believer activity are different.  The apophatic way would suggest that the cessation of all sense-derived negative judgment in the mind is necessary before the human psyche can evolve to a stage where Divine or Absolute Presence can be recognized, for believer or atheist, a state also known as “wisdom,” or “belly centered” rather than heart (selfish) or judgment-mind focused, in Daoist cultivation.

One of the best sources for dialogue is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius de Loyola. In the 1^st and 2^nd week of the Exercises, conceptual imaging is required for spiritual cultivation. In the Via Kataphatica image and word are crucial, ie, special to each religious tradition, and therefore not open to dialogue. In the 3^rd an 4^th week, the Via Apophatica, ie, the cessation of judgment and desire, leads to union. Thus reason is sublimated in the 3^rd and 4^th week.  Please look at the illustration that Juan de la Cruz puts at the beginning of his work, “not” philosophy, “not” theology, for direct contemplation of Divine Presence. We must read and do the Spiritual Exercises again, for dialogue in this context. Teresa de Avila said explicitly that only those trained in the Sp. Exercises could be adequate spiritual advisors in prayer.

Another point for common discussion is that a “Trinity” aspect of the Absolute is an essential part of all spiritual traditions, ie God/Dao as gestating, mediating and indwelling is basic to all spiritual cultivation experience.  The Incarnation is also one of the most easily understood doctrines to ordinary people, not involved in the Neo-platonic and Gnostic heresies of the 4^th-10^th centuries. Thank God for Francis of Assissi, who saw how easy it was to Love Jesus as a child, or feel the suffering of Mary holding her crucified son. Renaissance art is one of the greatest vehicles for dialogue in Asia. “Art as Sacred Image Encounter,” is the very foundation of the 2^nd, and 3^rd weeks of the Exercises.

Another point for discussion: Greco-Roman influence on Christianity is enhanced and complimented by the Asian prayer of “total body” experience. Intellect knows, heart loves, belly is for intuitive awareness of presence, “gut” feeling; God is here, right now, creating me, every largest and smallest thing in nature, given to me, — again found in the “Contemplatio ad Amorem” of Inigo de Loyola – a Spanish spiritual context where Kabala, Sufi, and Catholic mysticism flourished in proximity to each other. The whole point of Ignatius’ exercises is that the WHOLE BODY, all the senses are used to pray, not just the intellect.

Could we not say, as well, that faith does not need reason to believe, ie, “blessed are you because you have not seen, and still believe.” Reason diminishes the spiritual experience of immediate “now” awareness of presence. In this sense, what is in the intellect is essentially always in ”past” tense, having passed from the sound emitted by the speaker, or written word seen by the eye, through the senses of the hearer/seer, into the brain and then into intellect judging and storing, ie the “idea” itself is irretrievably in past tense, just as the heart/will is always in future tense (until the willed object is attained and contemplated). Thus wisdom as “now” experience of Divine Presence cannot happen as long as the intellect and will are active. All Christian mystics, including Paul 1^st Cor., assure us of this. “The eye cannot see, the ear cannot hear, the mind cannot conceive,… the Divine Image.”

Professor Jim Schall SJ, Georgetown University scholar observes: “Much modern rationalism, under the guise of method, wants to limit reason to what is now called “scientific” reasoning. This step narrows the meaning of reason and excludes large portions of reality that the method cannot touch because it limits itself to the measurable in terms of quantity. If God and the soul are not `quantities,’ this method cannot deal with them.” This is, indeed, very true! Could we not then say that both science and reason in the presence of God, Divine Love, Beauty, are both irrelevant? God as Love, or living presence, felt interiorly, totally renders useless the use of mind or reason; it is equally out of the range of observed measurement that defines science, as well as “Christian” reasoning that judges ill of all others who disagree with one or another interpretation of biblical meaning.

In this sense, modern atheism is a phenomenon especially dominant in European thinkers, tired by centuries of “matter and body hating” neo-platonic clericalism, which condemns all bodily feelings as impure, even when directed towards prayer experience. As Nietzsche predicted, (confirmed by Marx, Feuerbach, and today’s science based agnostics), “if God is dead – Christians (and immoral clergy) have killed Him.”

A phenomenon found universally in inter-religious dialogue includes this physical experience of Divine or Absolute presence. Margeurite de Porete’ was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310 by “dogma” minded Dominicans, because she wrote a book called “A Mirror for Simple Souls” in which she paraphrased John’s epistles on Divine Love as something that all Catholics should physically experience. Ignatius was jailed when he first taught the physically seeing, feeling, sensing, touching the mysteries of Christ’s life in the Exercises. Plato’s seeing of the material body as somehow “evil” or to be separated from the body at death to return to the “spiritual” realm, negates one of the basic Christian doctrines, ie, the body is also going to heaven (found in the late 1^st Century “Apostle’s Creed”).

Thus, the physical feeling of “devotion” in the presence of sacred image, followed by “apophasis” or the emptying of all image and desire, and then the experience of “union” as immediate presence, are common phenomena that act as the basis for dialogue with religions that at one time or a other were “at war” with each other.   It is the apophatic (no word) rather than the kataphatic (faith prescribed word-image) that must define peace bringing dialogue between the World’s great, and less known religious systems.

Michael Saso.   Nov. 27, 2009

Copyright, Mystic, Shaman, Oracle, Priest: 2009

First published by Yale Press, 1978

“The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang” (Daoist Master Zhuang); a brand new edition of the original 1978 verbatim account of a Daoist Master’s oral teachings, is in preparation. The “3rd edition” contains new materials, in Chinese, from Master Zhuang Chen Deng Yun’s mijue 秘诀 private, hand written holdings. Teachings brought to Taiwan from Longhu San, Mao Shan, and Wudangshan, listed under the collective title “Sanshan dixue pai” 三山滴血派，(“Three Mountain Drop of Blood Alliance”), are in the 3rd edition. The full Chinese texts, published under the title “Daojiao Mijue Jicheng”（道教秘诀集成)  can also be ordered through this website.