Because vital energy and spirituality are not clearly distinguished, old age in itself becomes a proof of sagehood. Aged Daoist sages become sages because they have been able to cultivate themselves throughout a long existence; their longevity in itself is the proof of their sageliness and union with the Dao. Externally they have a healthy, flourishing appearance; inside they contain an ever-flowing source of energy that manifests itself in radiance and in a powerful, beneficial influence on their surroundings, which is the charismatic efficacy (de) of the Dao.
The mystic insight of Zhuangzi made him scorn those who strove for longevity and immortality through physiological practices. Nevertheless, physical immortality was a Daoist goal probably long before and alongside the unfolding of Daoist mysticism. Adepts of immortality have a choice between many methods that are all intended to restore the pure energies possessed at birth by the infant whose perfect vital force Laozi admired. Through these methods, adepts become Immortals (xian) who live 1,000 years in this world if they so choose and, once satiated with life, “ascend to heaven in broad daylight.” This is the final apotheosis of those Daoists who transform their bodies into pure yang energy.
Zhuangzi’s descriptions of the indescribable Dao, as well as of those who have attained union with the Dao, are invariably poetic. Perfect persons have identified their life rhythms so completely with the rhythm of the forces of nature that they have become indistinguishable from them and share their immortality and infinity, which is above the cycle of ordinary life and death. They are “pure spirit. They feel neither the heat of the brushlands afire nor the cold of the waters in flood”; nothing can startle or frighten them. They are not magically invulnerable (as the adepts of physical immortality would have it), but they are “so cautious in shunning and approaching, that nothing can do them injury.”
“Persons like this ride the clouds as their carriages and the sun and moon as their steeds.” The theme of the spiritual wandering (yuanyou), which can be traced back to the shamanistic soul journey, crops up wherever Zhuangzi speaks of the perfect persons.
Those who let themselves be borne away by the unadulterated energies of heaven and earth and can harness the six composite energies to roam through the limitless, whatever need they henceforth depend on?
These wanderings are journeys within oneself; they are roamings through the Infinite in ecstasy. Transcending the ordinary distinctions of things and one with the Dao, “the Perfect Person has no self, the Holy Person has no merit, the Sage has no fame.” They lives inconspicuously in society, and whatever applies to the Dao applies to them. Symbolism and mythology
Daoists prefer to convey their ecstatic insights in images and parables. The Dao is low and receiving as a valley, soft and life-giving as water, and it is the “mysterious female,” the source of all life, the Mother of the Ten Thousand Things. Human beings should become weak and yielding as water that overcomes the hard and the strong and always takes the low ground; they should develop their male and female sides but “prefer femininity,” “feed on the mother,” and find within themselves the well that never runs dry. Dao is also the axis, the ridgepole, the pivot, and the empty centre of the hub. The sage is the “useless tree” or the huge gourd too large to be fashioned into implements. A frequent metaphor for the working of the Dao is the incommunicable ability to be skillful at a craft. Skilled artisans do not ponder their actions, but, in union with the dao of their subjects, they do their work reflexively and without conscious intent.
Much ancient Chinese mythology has been preserved by the Daoists, who drew on it to illustrate their views. A chaos (hundun) myth is recorded as a metaphor for the undifferentiated primal unity; the mythical emperors (Huangdi and others) are extolled for wise Daoist rule or blamed for introducing harmful civilization. Dreams of mythical paradises and journeys on clouds and flying dragons are metaphors for the wanderings of the soul, the attainment of the Dao, and the identity of dream and reality.
Daoists have transformed and adapted some ancient myths to their beliefs. Thus, the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu), who was a mountain spirit, pestilence goddess, and tigress, became a high deity—the Fairy Queen of all Immortals. Early eclectic contributions The idea of yin and yang
Yin and yang literally mean “dark side” and “sunny side” of a hill. They are mentioned for the first time in the Xice, or “Appended Explanations” (c. 4th century bce), an appendix to the Yijing (Book of Changes): “A succession of yin and yang is called the Dao.” Yin and yang are two complementary, interdependent phases alternating in space and time; they are emblems evoking the harmonious interplay of all pairs of opposites in the cosmos.
First conceived by musicians, astronomers, or diviners and then propagated by a school that came to be named after them, yin and yang became the common stock of all Chinese philosophy. The Daoist treatise Huainanzi (book of “Master Huainan”) describes how the one “Primordial Breath” (yuanqi) split into the light ethereal yang breath, which formed heaven; and the heavier, cruder yin breath, which formed earth. The diversifications and interactions of yin and yang produced the Ten Thousand Things.
The warm breath of yang accumulated to produce fire, the essence of which formed the sun. The cold breath of yin accumulated to produce water, the essence of which became the moon. The idea of qi
Yin and yang are often referred to as two “breaths” (qi). Qi means air, breath, or vapour—originally the vapour arising from cooking cereals. It also came to mean a cosmic energy. The Primordial Breath is a name of the chaos (state of Unity) in which the original life force is not yet diversified into the phases that the concepts yin and yang describe.
All persons have a portion of this primordial life force allotted to them at birth, and their task is not to dissipate it through the activity of the senses but to strengthen, control, and increase it in order to live out the full span of their lives. The idea of wuxing
Another important set of notions associated with the same school of yinyang are the “Five Phases” (wuxing) or “powers” (wude): water, fire, wood, metal, earth. They are also “breaths” (i.e., active energies), the idea of which enabled the philosophers to construct a coherent system of correspondences and participations linking all phenomena of the macrocosm and the microcosm. Associated with spatial directions, seasons of the year, colours, musical notes, animals, and other aspects of nature, they also correspond, in the human body, to the five inner organs. The Daoist techniques of longevity are grounded in these correspondences. The idea behind such techniques was that of nourishing the inner organs with the essences corresponding to their respective phases and during the season dominated by the latter. Yang Zhu and the Liezi
Yang Zhu (c. 400 bce) is representative of the early pre-Daoist recluses, “those who hid themselves” (yinshi), who, in the Analects of Confucius, ridiculed Confucius’s zeal to improve society. Yang Zhu held that each individual should value his own life above all else, despise wealth and power, and not agree to sacrifice even a single hair of his head to benefit the whole world. The scattered sayings of Yang Zhu in pre-Han texts are much less hedonistic than his doctrine as it is presented in the Liezi (book of “Master Lie”).