Returning to the Root
The Teaching
Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death comes, you are ready.
Commentary
The Taoist image of returning to the root maps directly onto the Christian mystical concept of union with God and the Hindu Atman returning to Brahman. ‘Emptying the mind’ is contemplative prayer, is meditation, is what Jesus practiced in the wilderness.
The serenity from recognizing the source is the ‘peace that passes understanding’ of Philippians 4:7. This serenity produces practical virtue, tolerance, kindness, dignity, not withdrawal from life.
‘When death comes, you are ready’, Seneca’s learning to die, the Stoic Memento Mori, the Buddhist awareness of impermanence, the Sufi fana, all traditions use the confrontation with mortality as the sharpest teacher.
Themes
Connections 28
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Gnosticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Merton published The Way of Chuang Tzu (1965), his renderings of Zhuangzi.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Stoicism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hermeticism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Stoicism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Taoism.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Stoicism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Buddhism and Taoism were in documented contact (from 65 CE).
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
Chinese yin-yang and Taoist practice reached Japan (Onmyōdō). How much they shaped Shinto is argued.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Stoicism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known line from Taoism to this scientific work.