Taoism is based on three fundamental principles, known respectively as Tao, Te, and Wu-wei. Many attempts have been made to translate the word “Tao”—the Way, Reason, God, Law, the Logos, Nature, Life, and Meaning. Jung, who worked with the German Orientalist Wilhelm, has called it the principle of synchronicity and has also made it mean “personality” in a special sense of the word.16 All these terms, however, only give certain aspects of the meaning of Tao, and I prefer to follow the example of those Orientalists who have left it untranslated. The idea of Tao is found in Chinese thought long before the time of Lao Tzu; originally it meant “speech” and thus the Tao Te Ching appropriately opens with the pun, “The Tao that can be tao-ed is not Tao,” or, as Ch’u Ta-kao renders it, “The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao.” In the I Ching or Book of Changes the “synchronistic” aspect of Tao is uppermost, and this little-understood work must be given some consideration because many authorities hold, and I believe rightly, that the I Ching is almost the foundation of Chinese thought. To my own knowledge the word does not occur philosophically in the actual text of the I Ching; but it is found in the appendices, of later date, and there is no doubt at all that the Chinese concept of Tao has been greatly influenced by the I Ching. Moreover, the “synchronistic” aspect of Tao has contributed largely to the Buddhist psychology of the moment.
The I Ching is probably the second earliest of the great Chinese classics, and according to Legge was written in 1143 BC or thereabouts. It is generally used as a book of divination, but probably has much profounder uses. “If some years were added to my life,” said Confucius, “I would give fifty to the study of the I, and might then escape falling into great errors.”17 The actual text is an analysis of sixty-four hexagrams made up of eight trigrams, sets of divided and undivided lines corresponding to the eight principal factors or elements of life. One of these hexagrams (made up of two of the trigrams) is said to show the two main factors involved in any situation at a particular moment. The divided lines show the principle of yin (negative and female) and the undivided lines that of yang (positive and male), the two aspects under which Tao operates in the world of form. (See diagram.) The I Ching and the system of divination based upon it has, I believe, puzzled so many Westerners because it presupposes a view of life and a way of reasoning which are quite foreign to us. This is what Jung terms the principle of synchronicity.
All our reasoning is based on the law of cause and effect operating as a sequence. Something is happening now because something else happened then. But the Chinese do not reason so much along this horizontal line from past, through present to future; they reason perpendicularly, from what is in one place now to what is in another place now. In other words, they do not ask why, or from what past causes, a certain set of things is happening now; they ask, “What is the meaning of those things happening together at this moment?” The word “Tao” is the answer to this question. The present situation within and around oneself is Tao, for the present moment is life. Our memory of the past is contained in it as well as the potentiality of the future. In short, this way of looking at things is based on a great appreciation of the significance of the moment, and implies that all things happening now have a definite relation to one another just because they have occurred together in time, if for no other reason. This is another way of saying that there is a harmony called Tao which blends all events in each moment of the universe into a perfect chord. The whole situation in and around you at this instant is a harmony with which you have to find your own union if you are to be in accord with Tao. When you have discovered your own union with it, you will be in the state of Te, sometimes rendered as “virtue” or “grace” or “power,” but best understood as Tao realized in man. Of this Lao Tzu says in his laconic style, “High Te is not Te and thus has Te; low Te does not lose Te and thus is not Te,” which Ch’u Ta-kao renders, “The superior virtue is not conscious of itself as virtue; therefore it has virtue. The inferior virtue never lets off virtue; therefore it has no virtue.”
Tao and Te are best understood by considering the principle which joins them, which makes Tao appear in man as Te. This is wu-wei, the secret of harmony with Tao in its spiritual aspect. Other and slightly different orders of wu-wei give harmony with the Tao in its material aspects, and it is with these that the I Ching is primarily concerned—with the conduct of everyday affairs, politics, strategy, economics. For while the I Ching explores the mechanics, the parts and the detailed relationships of the momentary harmony, the purpose of Taoist psychology is to feel it as a whole; the former is analytic and the latter synthetic. Literally wu-wei means “nondoing” or “nonassertion” and is often mistranslated as “doing nothing.” But wu-wei means “nondoing” simply in the sense that by no action of our own can we bring ourselves into harmony with Tao, for, as we have seen, the secret of this harmony in the moment is not action but acceptance of a harmony already achieved by Tao itself. We do not alter the actual situation; but our attitude toward it undergoes a change whereby we feel harmony where before we felt discord. This change Chuang Tzu illustrates by the story of “Three in the Morning.”18
A keeper of monkeys said with regard to their rations of chestnuts, that each monkey was to have three in the morning and four at night. But at this the monkeys were very angry, so the keeper said that they might have four in the morning and three at night, with which arrangement they were all well pleased. The actual number of the chestnuts remained the same, but there was an adaptation to the likes and dislikes of those concerned. [Trans. Giles]
Wu-wei as acceptance indicates that the only difficulty of Taoism is its unheard-of simplicity. Thus Lao Tzu says:
My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practice.
Yet all men in the world do not know them, nor do they practice them.
The reason for this simplicity is given in the third appendix of the I Ching. In the fifth chapter Legge’s translation reads:
The successive movement of the inactive [yin] and active [yang] operations constitutes what is called the course of things [Tao]. That which ensues as a result of their movement is goodness; that which shows it in its completeness is the natures of men and things. The benevolent see it and call it benevolence. The wise see it and call it wisdom. The common people, acting daily according to it, yet have no knowledge of it. Thus it is that the course of things, as seen by the superior man, is seen by few. [The italics are mine.]