Modern theories in Daoist thought

Daoism is a living philosophy, it deals with real situations and problems and seeks to provide effective solutions based on its own unique conceptualization of existence.
Daoism as a concept is predicated on an old idea, but it is a very deep idea which is still as relevant today as it was at the time of its early inception.
Talking about the Dao in modernity, we find an already well established corpus left behind in the 20th century by writers such as Chen Yingning, Jiang Weiqiao, and Pang Ming.
These secular Daoists believed that the Virtue of the Dao was best expressed in the practice of meditation and the application of meditation to life.
Mr.Chen Yingning believed in first attaining physical health through Daoist practices and then attempting to break the human shell and become a spiritual immortal. His Immortality Study school gained great prominence in the 1950s and again in the 1980s and 90s, when his head disciple, Hu Haiya worked on the board of directors the Beijing Daoist research association. Chen’s method is practical and based on ancient precedent and Chen himself commented on many different Daoist texts in order to create a unified meditation theory which spanned religion, and the secular world and was available to all people wishing to study the path of the Dao.
Jiang Weiqiao attempted to combine Pavlovian psychology, the study of physiology, Daoism and Buddhism to create a scientific, modernist approach to meditation, and his three books on the subject are indispensable reading for the modern meditation student.
Pang Ming probably had the most pragmatic views on Daoist theory in modernity and created the concept of “Free social virtue of the dao” which attempts to reconcile modern social conventions with the spontaneity of the Dao of nature.
Each of these people had a different view of the value of the Dao in modern society, but one commonality between them was that the virtue of the Dao ought to be practiced and then applied to society, rather than applied without a basis in practice. This practice also ought to take the form of realizing the essential nature of the void mind and how the void mind is mixed with the natural energy of the world. That is to say, our original primordial energy and the original primordial energy of the world should be brought together in practice and after achieving these things, we could emphasize a healthier and better life style.
Although Chen Yingning and Jiang Weiqiao are no longer with us, and the influence of Pang Ming on Chinese culture has waned since the hay days of Qi gong practice in the 1980s, we are still left with a functioning corpus of knowledge relayed in their written work.
We ought to ask ourselves, regardless of whether we are secular or religious practitioners of the Dao, what should be the place of Daoism in the 21st century and how should we continue the development of Daoist Virtue into the new problems which face our world?
We are left with a very important questions, that is, is there any place for Daoism in the discussion of global political ideas and if so, how should this discussion take place.
Many Daoist bloggers, especially those with religious pretentions have recently written articles about their stances on all manner of modern political issues and have not been afraid to conflate their own political beliefs with Daoism as a whole, but no one has yet created a rationale by which the political theories of Daoism can even be applied accurately to our modern global context.
What does Daoism have to say about things like globalism, immigration, climate change, Liberal politics, democracy, Racial tensions, international conflict, or virtually any other major problem affecting the world today?
Remember, your opinion on this subject is not guaranteed to be reflective of Daoist philosophical ideas, so it isn’t as simple as just saying “I believe this therefore this is the Daoist way of thinking.” Many people have fallen into the logical trap of historical presentism, the means by which we judge the morality of history against our modern day understanding of the human landscape. Daoism is used as a rationale for politics movements as diverse as Libertarianism to Anarcho Communism, and many shades in between, and yet, there is nowhere in any of the Daoist classics in which these views are clearly espoused.

The problem of the Dao of modernity is worth thinking about seriously and collaborating on. This is both a Chinese and international project and scholars, practitioners, and students of the Dao alike should all come together and open a discussion on how the Daoist idea can be brought out of the dust of antiquity and into the living world to once again use natural virtue to guide us away from calamity and toward a balanced and peaceful existence.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *