The picture above of the stars depicting the dragon are from the Taoist Cave located south of Chengdu adjacent to the Giant Leshan Buddha I visited in 2017 is more than two thousand years old. As noted earlier the dragon in Chinese history was to signify the connection of man as the sage who exemplified the stars above. I visited the cave in 2017. One of the core principles of spiritual understanding is to see how everything fits together in the universe. That we acknowledge and follow the righteous path we tread upon. This was one of the underlying premises of following the stars, the big dipper being a favorite, for example.
For the earliest shaman, this understanding and eventual wisdom was paramount in establishing the connection between what was to be known as heaven and earth and what man’s role was to become. Because it encompassed everything (the ten thousand things), it was unnamable but was to become known as the Tao. The advantage that China has had over the millennia has been an uninterrupted history where the dots (prefaced by the stars in the sky) could be connected over space and time. The question was and has always been what man’s connection or role between heaven and earth should be. It was to this question that Taoism was able to answer. If we are connected to a universe that is never ending, then we too are never-ending. Not simply human, we ourselves are never-ending spirits having a human experience. We are here to live and breathe our own immortality.
It would be the shaman, I Ching and their practical application of universal principles of nature that defined what Taoism would become. A fundamental question asked by the shaman as he/she looked to the stars was – if you abandon your origins – is it possible to erase the claim they have on your body and soul. That if man is universal and eternal, then where do we begin and end. The Book of Lieh Tzu took the esoteric, what could not be explained as the Tao, and provided a cushion that one could lean on to provide a practical application, or way, to proceed. It would be during the early Han period (200 BC-200 AD), when Confucianism was becoming the mechanism for state authority to exert itself at the end of the Warring States period that three authors of Taoist principles and thought emerged. Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and his book called Chuang Tzu, and Lieh Tzu, whose existence was always questioned. However, the Book of Lieh Tzu was to later become the primer for those who wanted to gain the true essence and meaning for what would become known as Taoism. My own interpretation of all three a appear here on this website.
I am deeply indebted to the book by A.C. Graham entitled “The Book of Lieh Tzu a Classic of Tao”, which is the basis for what follows. Upon completion of my own interpolation and commentary of his work, I sent a copy of my completed manuscript to his publisher in London and to Columbia University Press in New York. Sadly, Mr. Graham had passed away and neither was able to help to publish my book in its current form. In many places, it is historical, philosophical, and personal as it follows my own personal journey as well. Their thoughts and words must go through you as well. The numbered texts below are my own divisions of each chapter to better tell the story to give the text further meaning. The titles are my own.
For the Taoist studying the meaning of Taoism to better understand his place in the universe, capturing the essence of what was meant in the works of the early shaman, the I Ching and Lao, Chuang, and Lieh Tzu and following historical commentaries has always been essential. Confucius works known as “The Five Classics”, also contributed greatly to what would be known as Taoism. The stories and references to actual historical figures juxtaposed, i.e., to place closer side-by-side, especially for comparison or contrast, is what was done over time. Moving people to their ultimate endeavor and destiny has always been the role of the shaman, sage, and the philosophers over the centuries and in the process of doing so developed their own commentary of “take”…. on what was really meant in the writing or thought that was before them. It is the forever quintessential as attempts at gaining the meaning and essential essence or embodiment of what was said. It is this that writers have tried to replicate through their own thoughts, writing, and commentaries over the centuries. In other words, what did they really mean? (written in November 1994)
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