Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to Its Source (review)

"Those who embody dao (ti dao) do not exert themselves yet are never at wits' end, while those who rely on devices (ren shu) are worn out with nothing to show for it in the end" (Lau and Ames, Yuan Dao, section 7).¹ Throughout "Yuan Dao" , the opening chapter of the Huainanzi, the would-be sage (shengren), or man aspiring to "the acme of de" (zhi de), is exhorted to take unfathomable dao as his "source," to rule the world as it does and always has—impersonally and anonymously—through a "nonactivity" (wuwei) in which the myriad things are allowed to unfold of their own accord and coexist spontaneously in a state of "productive harmony" (he). Overseeing all through his position at the pivot (shu), the sage "has his hands on the control handles of dao and rambles in the land of the inexhaustible" (zhi dao [yao] zhi bing er you yu wuqiong zhi di (section 4). Mirror-like, he is as all-encompassing as "great dao" (da dao), and staves off disorder by not partaking of such "small devices" (xiaoshu) as "harsh laws and severe punishments" (qiaofa kezhu). Recognizing a world of untold differentiation, in which the "forms and basic natures" (xingxing) of the myriad things "should not be changed," and where "neither should the circumstances under which they live (shiju) be altered" (section 10), the sage accomplishes his purpose of "leaving nothing undone" (wu bu wei) by simply "making use of what is done by other things" (yin wu zhi suo wei) (section 11). Emulating the virtue of water, he is "weak of purpose yet forceful in action" (zhi ruo er shi qiang) (section 12); "follow[ing] the course of the one norm" (yi dao xun gui—) (section 15), he achieves his success in governance not through "contention" (zheng), but through seizing the "opportune moment" (shi).

Ultimately, however, "possessing the empire" (you tianxia) is redefined as simply "finding it in oneself" (zide) (section 19), and the "acme of de" becomes that "highest joy" (zhi le) one experiences as the tranquil absence of all worldly emotions and desires (wu le) (section 16). By "looking inward and finding it within [his] own nature" (fan zhu xing) (section 17), the sage allows his spirit (shen) to gain mastery over his physical form (xing) (section 22), and thereby becomes wholly "without reliance" (bu dai) upon external things.

In terms of both its basic notions and its terminology, "Yuan Dao" is clearly a successor to the philosophy of both the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. However, placed within the historical context of the times of Liu An , the King of Huainan, the text invariably takes on new meaning. As Roger Ames points out in the introduction, the essay can on one level easily be read as a call against the ever-increasing centralization of authority by the powerful Han imperial court, whose recent and ongoing project of reclaiming the various kingdoms seriously threatened Liu's very existence (see pp. 5, 53-54). Given this backdrop, when the reader is confronted with such statements as "Even if he has the empire as his personal possession, and the myriad people as his subjects, this will not be sufficient to give his vitality sustenance" (section 16), it is difficult not to read into them a direct motivation aimed at a rather limited and particular audience.

This new translation by D. C. Lau and Roger T. Ames makes the important opening chapter of the Huainanzi available for the first time to the world of English readers, and thereby constitutes the most recent contribution to an emerging corpus of Huainanzi chapters now available through translation, adding its efforts to the prior studies of Charles Le Blanc, John S. Major, Harold D. Roth, and Roger Ames himself. The translation is preceded by a substantial introduction by Ames that aims at placing "Yuan Dao" not...