Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
In films, television, and literature about Taoism, we often hear Taoists say: “My life is up to me, not to heaven!”
In fact, this phrase mainly expresses the Taoist idea of nurturing life (yangsheng) and longevity, which can be summed up in one sentence: “My life lies with me, not with heaven.”
In Taoism, whether in its teachings or in seated meditation, elixir refining and ingestion, or circulating qi and daoyin (guiding and pulling exercises), this spirit is everywhere expressed. Taoist classics such as On Nurturing Nature and Prolonging Life (Yangxing Yanming Lu), the Inscription on Returning the True Qi to the Origin, and Awakening to Perfection (Wuzhen Pian) all express similar views.
On Nurturing Nature and Prolonging Life, in setting out the basic proposition that “my life lies with me, not with heaven,” develops it further: “Whether one is born foolish or wise is up to heaven; whether one is strong or weak, long-lived or short-lived, is up to the person. The Way of Heaven is what is so of itself; the way of humanity is up to oneself.” Awakening to Perfection explains it from the standpoint of cultivating the Golden Elixir: “Once a grain of the numinous elixir is swallowed into the belly, one first knows that one’s life is not up to heaven.” Awakening to Perfection and On Nurturing Nature and Prolonging Life represent the basic Taoist view on the question of life.
Taoist teaching values virtue and prizes life; it is positive and enterprising, believing that a person’s life and death can be mastered by oneself and that the initiative over life lies in one’s own hands—that is, the way of humanity is up to oneself. This idea of mastery over one’s own life is concentrated in the firm belief that the process of life’s development is reversible: by their own efforts, people can reverse the path of life’s development, return to the source of life, and bring about a transformation of the form of life, escaping the allotted span of life and death.
Escaping death in this way is impossible, but prolonging life is possible. Many Taoist priests like to take young novices as disciples. Why? Because these children have abundant yang qi of prior heaven and progress faster in cultivation. The worst is for a man to reach seven times eight, fifty-six, and a woman seven times seven, forty-nine: by then the prior-heaven yang qi is exhausted, men begin to age, women reach menopause, and the body starts to decline. Though they can still go on cultivating the Tao and nurturing life, it takes far more effort than for those whose prior-heaven yang qi is not yet exhausted. So start cultivating early!
To return to our topic: this idea that “my life lies with me, not with heaven” comes from the “Way of the Immortals and Their Arts” (fangxian dao) of the Spring and Autumn period, which expressed through wondrous imagination the ideal of controlling one’s own life and of freedom of body and mind. Zhuangzi, a master of Taoist philosophy, also delighted in speaking of it.
The Zhuangzi depicts many ideal figures who have reached a realm of freedom in life. Their skin is as white as ice and snow, and their faces as young as an infant’s; they are said to inhale the wind and drink the dew, not eat the five grains, and live free and at ease; they can ride the clouds and mist, drive flying dragons, and roam beyond the four seas; they can travel with “the Creator of things” and befriend “those who are beyond life and death and without beginning or end.” Their actions are no longer bound by any conditions.
Taoism shaped a series of immortals who “accord with the Tao” and have escaped “life and death.” The chapter “Letting Be” of the Zhuangzi records that Guangchengzi, the teacher of the Yellow Emperor, because he “embraced the spirit in stillness,” cultivated himself for 1,200 years, yet his body showed no sign of aging.
The Biographies of Immortals (Liexian Zhuan) and other books say that there was once Pengzu who, by practicing the methods of “exhaling the old and taking in the new, bear hanging and bird stretching,” lived nearly eight hundred years and remained healthy in body. Ancient literature contains many such stories of prolonging life through certain paths of learning, and they undoubtedly greatly inspired Taoists, giving rise to the idea that “longevity” can be attained through certain paths of learning.
Furthermore, Taoist mastery of life is not merely theoretical but is joined with concrete practices of nurturing life. Since ancient times Taoists have looked up to observe the patterns of heaven and looked down to examine the patterns of earth, discovering that some living beings can undergo transformations of form. For example, Hua Tuo’s Five Animal Frolics imitate the movements of five animals and serve as one of the Taoist arts of nurturing life. The Baopuzi (Inner Chapters) records that a macaque that lives eight hundred years becomes an ape, and an ape that lives five hundred years becomes a jue. Not only birds and beasts: all things in nature undergo endless changes, and change is a universal phenomenon of existence: “Those that change and become other things come in a thousand forms and ten thousand kinds, too many to discuss.” Taoism even holds that such changes can cross the boundaries of species.
Tan Qiao says in the Book of Transformations (Huashu): “An old maple turns into a feathered person, and rotten wheat turns into butterflies—this is going from the insentient to the sentient. A virtuous woman turns into a chaste stone, and a mountain earthworm turns into a lily—this is going from the sentient to the insentient.” Whether or not the changes in the forms of life described here are facts, we can sense between the lines that Taoists observed the many things in their environment seriously and meticulously. From their observations they sensed the universality of change and, drawing an analogy with the form of their own lives, were inspired with the wish and passion to transform their own form of life. In the process of observing and understanding the objective world, Taoists also came to know themselves and strengthened the subjective spirit of “my life lies with me, not with heaven,” which spurred them on in their own practices of nurturing life.