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The
Tao Comes West
Christine
Hall
Although most Americans know little, if anything, about Taoism, there is a Taoist symbol that’s known to virtually all Americans. It’s the Yin-Yang symbol, a circle dissected vertically by a line curved like the letter “S.” On one side of the line, the circle is black, representing Yin, the female principle. The other side is white, for Yang, the male principle. Within the dark Yin field there is a small white circle, to depict the maleness that is hidden within all things female. Likewise, within the Yang field there is a small black circle, depicting the feminine that is hidden within masculinity.
These days you’ll find the Yin-Yang symbol just about everywhere. Practically everybody owns a piece of jewelry, either a bracelet, earrings, tie clasp or cufflinks, displaying the symbol. Even when people only know that the symbol was something the hippies used to wear, having no idea of it’s ancient Chinese and Taoist roots, they know that it’s about balance, and the constant dance within the universe between polar opposites, the Yin and the Yang, the female and the male.
“The Tao that can be named is not the Tao,” said the Taoist sage Lao Tzu in the opening line of the Tao Te Ching. In other words, the Tao (or essence behind all that exists) is beyond description and can’t be put into words. But it can, perhaps, be explained in a symbol like Yin-Yang. Maybe, when this symbol is hung on a place on the wall where it can be easily and readily observed during meditation, the observer can in time come to know the Tao. Then again, perhaps not, for another translation of this line reads, “The Tao that can be known is not the Tao.”
Actually, the Tao, the Tao Te Ching, the Yin-Yang symbol: all of it almost never became known in the West. During the late 50s and early 60s, there began to be an interest among Western intellectuals in Zen Buddhism, mainly through the writings of the Englishman-turned-American Alan Watts. Because Zen Buddhism and Taoism are closely intertwined, some Taoist thoughts were introduced at that time, even if they were usually confused with Buddhism or Confucius.
The Tao was kept at bay by the “bamboo curtain,” a series of steel clad doors that stood between “red” China and the “free” world. In those days, America was just coming out of the grips of McCarthyism and the resulting communist witch-hunts, which meant that embracing any philosophy from China could get one branded as “un-American,” a traitor, or both. Watts and his friends could expound upon the virtues of Zen, because Zen also existed in Japan, which was one of our best allies by 1959-60.
But the Tao belonged only to the Chinese, and the Chinese represented our worst nightmare. Even if one could break the grip of fear regarding the “red menace,” there was virtually no Taoism left in China anyway, since Chairman Mao and his zealots had succeeded in destroying, in only a decade’s time, all of the mainland’s indigenous religions and philosophies, from Taoism to Confucianism to Buddhism. The only “isms” left were Marxism and Communism, and the only sacred text the people were allowed to read was The Quotations of Chairman Mao, the infamous “little red book.”
In this country, as the age of McCarthyism gave way to Kennedy’s “Camelot,” which gave way to the psychedelic renaissance of the mid 1960s, the interest in Zen Buddhism, with it’s Taoist leanings, began to wane. The spiritual focus turned slightly westward, to the Indian subcontinent. The Beatles discovered grass, turned hippie and trekked to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and George Harrison’s sitar laden composition “Within You/Without You” appeared on the Sergeant Pepper’s album. Suddenly, young American’s were making journeys to India to sit at the feet of gurus.
It wasn’t until the 1970s, after Nixon “recognized” China, that Taoism began making any major inroads into American culture. When it did, it came not in the form of a spiritual philosophy, but as the graceful Chinese exercise program Tai Chi.
Tai Chi traces its beginnings to the sixth century CE, when the Taoist teacher Bodihdharma realized that many Taoist monks were in poor physical condition from too much meditation and too little exercise. To compensate for this, he introduced the “Eighteen Form Lohan Exercise,” which, over the years, has developed into the modern form of Tai Chi Chuan, which consists of 108 body movements. Many adherents claim that the performing of these movements is itself a meditation process that puts one in touch with the natural order.
In Tai Chi, every movement has a name and these names mirror the Taoists’ appreciation of nature. Some of the names are “White Crane Spreads Wings;” “Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain;” and “Bird Flies into Forest.” And most Tai Chi instructors display the Yin/Yang symbol on their clothing, symbolizing the delicate balance between the feminine and masculine that is at the heart of the balance of nature.
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