Daoísmo

Lo primero que la tradición dice de aquello en lo que se funda es que el nombre no lo alcanza. El Lao-tzu abre por ahí: «[CHAPTER 1] As for the Way, the Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; As for names, the name that can be named is not the constant name. The nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things; The named is the mother of the ten thousand things. Therefore, those constantly without desires, by this means will perceive its subtlety. Those constantly with desires, by this means will see only that which they yearn for and seek. These two together emerge; They have different names yet they’re called the same; That which is even more profound than the profound— The gateway of all subtleties.» «Lao-tzu — Te-Tao Ching (trad. Henricks, 1989) · p. 79». Y donde el texto tiene que nombrarlo declara que lo hace por fuerza y a falta de nombre: «[CHAPTER 25] There was something formed out of chaos, That was born before Heaven and Earth. Quiet and still! Pure and deep! It stands on its own and doesn’t change. It can be regarded as the mother of Heaven and Earth. I do not yet know its name: I “style” it “the Way.” Were I forced to give it a name, I would call it “the Great.” “Great” means “to depart”; “To depart” means “to be far away”; And “to be far away” means “to return.”» «Lao-tzu — Te-Tao Ching (trad. Henricks, 1989) · p. 105».

De esa Vía sin nombre sale, según estos textos, todo lo demás. El Lao-tzu lo pone en una serie: «[CHAPTER 42] The Way gave birth to the One; The One gave birth to the Two; The Two gave birth to the Three; And the Three gave birth to the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry Yin on their backs and wrap their arms around Yang. Through the blending of ch’i they arrive at a state of harmony.» «Lao-tzu — Te-Tao Ching (trad. Henricks, 1989) · p. 37». El Zhuangzi la describe por lo que tiene y por lo que le falta: «The Way has its reality and its signs but is without action or form. You can hand it down, but you cannot receive it; you can get it, but you cannot see it. It is its own source, its own root.» «Zhuangzi, obras completas (trad. Burton Watson) · p. 73», y hace de las fronteras algo posterior a ella: «The Way has never known boundaries; speech has no constancy. But because of [the recognition of a] “this,” there came to be boundaries. Let me tell you what the boundaries are. There is left, there is right, there are theories, there are debates,13 there are divisions, there are discriminations, there are emulations, and there are contentions. These are called the Eight Virtues.» «Zhuangzi, obras completas (trad. Burton Watson) · p. 42».

El nombre de la tradición se escribe de dos maneras en el corpus, y las dos se consignan sin arbitrar. Henricks imprime Taoist y data así la religión: «We agree in dating the formal beginning of the Taoist religion to the establishment of the Celestial Master Sect, c. A.D. 150, by a man named Chang Taoling;» «Lao-tzu — Te-Tao Ching (trad. Henricks, 1989) · p. 12». Robinet imprime Taoism y hace de la marginalidad su rasgo: «In a certain sense, it is the very vocation of Taoism to be marginal. One can say that whatever did not fall within the categories of official learning or did not fit into the framework of some particular technical knowledgeall that was "other" without being Buddhistwas classified as Taoist.» «Robinet — Taoist Meditation (1993) · p. 34». Cleary imprime Taoism al adscribir el primer párrafo del texto que traduce: «1. The identification of the Way with essence and primal spirit follows the traditions of the Chan school of Buddhism and the northern branch of the Completely Real school of Taoism.» «The Secret of the Golden Flower (trad. Cleary, 1991) · p. 51». Pregadio imprime Taoism en el volumen del Cantong qi, y consigna con qué nombre lo llama el propio poema: «Either as a direct reflection of its historical origins, or to assert in an explicit way its roots in Han-dynasty legacies, the Cantong qi refers to Taoism as “Huang-Lao” (26:27, 84:3, and 87:10), one of the names by which the Taoist tradition was known during the Han period.» «Pregadio, The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong qi), 2011 · p. 59». Bokenkamp imprime Daoism y formula desde los textos qué dice de sí: «Simply stated, then, Daoism is by its own account the higher religion of China, characterized by the doctrine that the primordial and eternal Dao acts in human history both directly, through the agency of its hypostases, particularly Laozi, and indirectly, through a pantheon of deities that include those resident in the human body.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 14». Pregadio imprime Daoism en Great Clarity: «In turn, the close association of the Great Clarity with Daoism is the primary reason for its decline after the Daoist revelations that occurred in the second half of the fourth century, and for the development of new forms of alchemy in later times.» «Pregadio — Great Clarity (2005) · p. 16». Y Watson, que también imprime Daoist, consigna el linaje que la tradición se da a sí misma: «Zhuangzi, along with Laozi, or Lao Dan, has long been revered as one of the founders of the Daoist school. Because it was believed that Laozi was a contemporary of Confucius and that he was the author of the book known as the Laozi, or Daodejing, he has long been honored as the prime patriarch of the school, and Zhuangzi, as a later disciple and continuer of his doctrines.» «Zhuangzi, obras completas (trad. Burton Watson) · p. 13».

Dentro de las escrituras, lo que en el Lao-tzu no tiene nombre pasa a tener voluntad y a hablar. Los Commands and Admonitions abren nombrándolo el gran Dao: «The great Dao is that which encompasses heaven and earth, is joined with and nourishes all forms of life, and controls the myriad initiatory mechanisms. * Without shape or image, it is undifferentiated and yet spontaneously gives birth to the million species. Though it is something to which humans cannot put a name, from heaven and earth on down everything is born and dies through the Dao.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 90», y repiten el precepto que impide fijarlo en una forma: «As for the Dao, you should not point to any shape and call it the Dao, but the wise, having seen one part, will know it in all its multiplicity.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 95». Bokenkamp describe así el Dao del comentario Xiang'er: «The Dao possesses consciousness and movement, likes and dislikes. It acts in the world not only through spreading its teachings, but also by means of its pneumas, which vivify all living things and provide the motive force behind all existence. Sometimes the pneumas of the Dao congeal to form “essences,” which are the spirits that inhabit both the universe and the bodies of human beings.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 27», y dice por qué libro habla: «Through the Laozi, the book of the deified Lord Lao, the Dao thus speaks directly to humans.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 27».

De los linajes escriturales, las obras del corpus nombran tres y los datan. Bokenkamp los enumera: «This was also a time of copious scripture production, the period during which three major scriptural traditions of Daoism—the Celestial Masters, the Shangqing (Upper Clarity), and the Lingbao (Numinous Gem)—took shape.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 5». Del primero da los nombres con que se lo conoce: «The Way of the Celestial Masters (also known as Zhengyi [Correct Unity] Daoism or, often pejoratively, as the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice) is the first Daoist organization for which we have substantial documentation.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 8». Del segundo, de dónde le viene el nombre: «These texts, entitled the Shangqing (Upper Clarity) scriptures after the name of the heaven from which the beings came, were to profoundly alter not only the history of Daoism, but that of Chinese society and letters as a whole.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 11». Y del tercero, que el suyo no viene de un cielo: «The Lingbao scriptures are not, like the Shangqing scriptures, named after the heaven of their origin. The name means “Numinous Treasure” and is derived from an ancient term for mediums, regarded as the locus into which the spirits might descend.» «Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Taoist Classics 1) · p. 205».

Robinet, que estudia el segundo de esos linajes, le adjudica un peso propio dentro de la tradición entera: «As we indicated at the outset, the Shang-ch'ing texts have been enormously important in the history of Taoism.» «Robinet — Taoist Meditation (1993) · p. 253», y lo define por su temporalidad: «The religion of Shang-ch'ing is a religion of the immediate present, of presence, and of epiphany.» «Robinet — Taoist Meditation (1993) · p. 256».

La alquimia entra en la Vía sin salirse de ella, y los dos volúmenes de Pregadio lo dicen con pasaje. El Cantong qi propone dos vías de realización y llama taoísmo a una de ellas: «Based on this fundamental view, the Cantong qi presents two ways of realization. The first is what it calls Taoism (“Huang-Lao”), which for the Cantong qi is the way of “non-doing,” canonized in the Daode jing. The second is alchemy—in the form canonized by the Cantong qi itself—which is the way of “doing.”» «Pregadio, The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong qi), 2011 · p. 17», y Pregadio sitúa dónde entra la otra: «Alchemy comes into play when the Cantong qi expounds its way to “return to the Dao.”» «Pregadio, The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong qi), 2011 · p. 74». Las dos ramas del arte las fecha por documentación: «External Alchemy is documented from the second century BCE, and Internal Alchemy from the eighth century cE.» «Pregadio, The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong qi), 2011 · p. 14». Y de la más antigua de sus tradiciones dice dónde empieza la historia del arte en China: «After the fragmentary documentation surveyed in this chapter, the history of Chinese alchemy confronts us with the Taiqing scriptures. The shift is a major one, for these scriptures claim to derive their teachings and methods from divine beings, describe actual methods, give details on ritual practices, and frequently refer to each other. In other words, the proper history of Chinese alchemy begins with these texts.» «Pregadio — Great Clarity (2005) · p. 53».

En los textos tardíos del corpus la Vía sigue diciéndose por lo mismo y con la lengua del elixir vuelta hacia dentro. El texto de la Flor de Oro la identifica con la naturalidad: «1. Naturalness is called the Way. The Way has no name or form; it is just the essence, just the primal spirit.» «The Secret of the Golden Flower (trad. Cleary, 1991) · p. 13», cuenta por dónde le llegó: «4. Taishang appeared magically to Donghua, and the Way was handed on through a succession to Yan, then to the southern and northern schools of Complete Reality, which can be considered its full flourishing.» «The Secret of the Golden Flower (trad. Cleary, 1991) · p. 13», e iguala su término propio con el alquímico: «The golden flower is the same thing as the gold pill. The transmutations of spiritual illumination are all guided by mind.» «The Secret of the Golden Flower (trad. Cleary, 1991) · p. 14». Liu Yiming usa esa misma lengua y a la vez aparta de ella la operación sobre la materia: «The Tao is a treasure. If you understand it, it can extend your life span. This has nothing to do with material alchemy. It is utterly simple, utterly easy, there is no difficulty involved . It is completely spiritual, true goodness. The ridiculous thing is that foolish people seek mysterious marvels , when they do not know enough to preserve the mysterious marvel that is actually present» «Liu Yiming — Awakening to the Tao (trad. Thomas Cleary) · p. 100», y se objeta a sí mismo el método: «The great Tao is natural and spontaneous, without artifice-why is it necessary to use a method of deliberate action? The reason it is indeed necessary to use the method is to get rid of degeneracy . When all degenerations are effectively done away with, then the method is not needed , just as a raft needed to cross a river is to be left behind once the river is crossed, and a net needed to catch fish is to be put away once the fish have been caught» «Liu Yiming — Awakening to the Tao (trad. Thomas Cleary) · p. 56».

in the library: 5 ascribed works (plus 5 in its branches) · 2 linked authors