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In Chinese, Tao means simply way or path, and the mysticism of the
early Taoists grew out of the longing and search for union with an
eternal "Way." To attune oneself to the rhythms of nature rather
than to conform to the artificialities of man-made institutions
(embodied in the rigid hierarchies of orthodox Confucianism) became
the goal of Taoist masters such as Chuang-tzu, who refused high
office so that he could, like the turtle, "drag his tail in the
mud." As the British authority on early Chinese religion, D. Howard
Smith, expresses it in his lucid introduction to The Wisdom of the
Taoists: "To seek and find that mysterious principle, to discover
it within one's inmost being, to observe its workings in the great
universe outside, and to become utterly engulfed in its serenity
and quietude came to be the supreme goal of the Taoist mystics." In
presenting the wide spectrum of Taoist thought and experience,
Professor Smith has newly translated excerpts from a variety of
mystical writings. He concentrates, however, on the two basic
sources of Taoism, the humorous and satirical stories of Chuang-tzu
(who lived in the fourth century B. C. in Honan) and the
Tao-Te-Ching, a classic of mysticism attributed to Lao-tzu.
Eventually, Taoism broadened into a magical folk religion, but the
dedication to the inward path, the emptying of self, and the search
for the nameless principle that could be apprehended only in quiet
periods of ecstatic vision contributed to the Chinese form of
Buddhism known as Ch'an--which we in the West know better by its
Japanese name of Zen.
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