Taos

“ Here the interpreter made a pretence of great reverence and respect, as he answered—
"My all-enlightened brother of Tau."
This reply drew attention to me, for Tau is the "priest" of Chinese theosophy or magic art, and is accordingly respected, for every Chinaman fears Tau, the more so as he has no idea what it is, any more than its votary. Tau is "The Right": what one cannot see, nor hear, nor seize. It is a kind of "Fêng Shui" in its essence, and Tau is the true Reason for all things in the universe, the Great Primitive Cause in the world, not a religious dogma. ”

“ Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things; it contains the visible universe and everything that we call reality. He who apprehends the mysteries of Tao sees clearly all that was and will be."
"Rubbish!" I retorted.
"Tao resembles a great animal, recumbent, motionless, containing in its enormous body all the worlds of our universe, the past, the present and the future. We see portions of this great monster through a slit, which we call time. With the aid of this drug I shall enlarge the slit. ”

“ Confucius said to Lao Tzŭ, "To-day you are at leisure. Pray tell me about perfect Tao."
"Purge your heart by fasting and discipline," answered Lao Tzŭ. "Wash your soul as white as snow. Discard your knowledge. Tao is abstruse and difficult of discussion. I will try, however, to speak to you of its outline.
"Light is born of darkness. Classification is born of formlessness. The soul is born of Tao. The body is born of the vital essence.
Existence springs from non-existence. "Thus all things produce after their kind. Creatures with nine channels of communication are born from the womb. ”

“ He is said, when born, to have had long white hair, and is therefore represented as an old man, and called 'old boy.' The Chinese assert that his mother was fed with food from heaven, and that when he was born he jumped up into the air, and said, as he pointed with his left hand to heaven and his right hand to the earth, 'Heaven above, earth beneath: only Taou is honourable.' The Taouist trinity are supposed to live in the highest heaven; and Taouists used to spend a great deal of time in seeking for a drink that they thought would make them live for ever. ”

“ It is very serious, Alan, as you shall hear. Tao, with his great news of your wonderful world, is very fast winning over our men to his cause. A revolt, there may be, here in our own city—a revolution against our government, our king. We can only look to you now, my husband, to save our country from Tao as well as your own."
[Pg 77]
The situation as I found it in the Light Country was, as Miela said, alarmingly serious. During the two years Tao had been in the Twilight Country, preparing for his attack upon the earth, his project had caused little stir among the Light Country people. ”

“ But there was no danger to the Light Country from Tao, he thought with satisfaction. At least, there would be none when the other cities were rid of Tao's men, as the Great City was now. The men would find their way back all right—
At the sudden thought that came to him Mercer dropped his bit of bread and sat up in astonishment. Tao no longer a menace? He remembered my reasoning in the boat coming down the bayou. Of course, Tao would have no reason to attack the Light Country by force of arms until he was sure his propaganda among the people had failed. ”

“ And, perhaps, when you have found Him, you will also have found your tao, fool!"
"I shall try," had come Li Ping-Yeng's reply. "Yes; most decidedly shall I try." He had walked to the door. There he had turned. "Little brother," he had said to the priest over his shoulder, without malice or hurt or bitterness, "and why should I not find Him even in the Pell Street gutters? Why should I not find my tao even in the stinking, rotten heaven that vaults above Pell Street? Tell me. Is not my soul still my soul? Is not the diamond still a diamond, even after it has fallen into the dung-heap?" ”

“ In the Tao-te-king we have the ideas of Lao himself, which we will endeavor to state; premising that they are considered very obscure and difficult even by the Chinese commentators.
The TAO (§ 1) is the unnamable, and is the origin of heaven and earth. As that which can be named, it is the mother of all things. These two are essentially one. Being and not-being are born from each other (§ 2) . The Tao is empty but inexhaustible (§ 4) , is pure, is profound, and was before the Gods. It is invisible, not the object of perception, it returns into not-being (§§ 14, 40) . ”

“ This was the situation when Tao suddenly projected himself into public affairs as the leader of a new movement. Tao had paid court to Miela without success. He was active in the fight against the woman movement—a brilliant orator, crafty, unscrupulous, a good leader. Leadership was to him purely a matter of personal gain. He felt no deep, sincere interest in any public movement for any other reason. ”

“ And if no one knows to what extent a man's power reaches, that man is fit to be the ruler of a State. Having the secret of rule, his rule shall endure. Setting the tap-root deep, and making the spreading roots firm: this is the way to ensure long life to the tree.
Tao is the sanctuary where all things find refuge, the good man's priceless treasure, the guardian and saviour of him who is not good. ”

“ His followers are called Taouists. This philosopher says in his book that 'it is by stillness, and contemplation, and union with Taou, that virtue is to be achieved'—Taou here meaning a principle and a way. He said that virtue consisted in losing sight of oneself, and that man should love even his enemies, and go through life as if none of his possessions belonged to himself. The Taouists say that 'Taou is without substance, and eternal, and the universe coming from him exists in the silent presence of Taou everywhere,' and that only those who become very virtuous are happy. ”

“ He was a man of no ambition, content to earn a few cash by selling pea-nuts and spend his life in a philosophical melancholy. As he sat tapping the tin with an elongated finger-nail and droning out a mournful eulogy of his wares, To Tao, the hunchback, passed.
To Tao by his infirmity was unfitted for heavy manual labour, but his distorted body seemed to be endowed with some marvellous power of rendering natural objects equally grotesque. No one for hundreds of li around could produce small trees in such fantastic shapes and weird eccentricities of growth as he. ”

“ But though he drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs, the upshot of it all was that he never truly attained to Tao. We may seek the moral in a saying of Lao Tzu: 'Without going out of doors, one may know the whole world; without looking out of window, one may see the Way of Heaven. The farther one travels, the less one may know.'↑ The 'Creative Power', of course, is Tao; but how widely the conception of Tao, differs from that of a personal God may be seen from the commentator's note: 'How should the Creative Power possess a conscious mind? ”

“ The dome of night was as black as an Egyptian tomb save when a cloud bank opened timidly and admitted a fleeting glimpse of the thin crescent in the heavens. Over all the hot breath of the South Pacific, ozone laden, came to purge its island children of fever. Soughing softly through the palms, it kissed Tao Tao as a mother kisses a sleeping babe, and passed on, coming out of the great nowhere and going into the beyond. But for the rustling of the great leaves there was stillness everywhere. Tao Tao was wrapped in the deep slumber of equatorial night. ”

“ In the neighboring towns of the Light Country—the nearest of which was some forty miles away from the Great City—the situation was almost the same. Reports brought by young women flying between the cities said that to many Tao also had sent emissaries who were fast winning converts to his cause.
"Do all these people who believe in Tao expect to go to our earth when it is conquered?" I asked Miela. "How can they—so many of them—hope to benefit in that way? Aren't they satisfied here?"
Miela smiled sadly.
"No people can ever be satisfied—all of them. ”

“ The wearing of gay embroidered robes, the carrying of sharp swords, fastidiousness in food and drink, superabundance of property and wealth:—this I call flaunting robbery; most assuredly it is not Tao.
He who trusts to his abundance of natural virtue is like an infant newly born, whom venomous reptiles will not sting, wild beasts will not seize, birds of prey will not strike. The infant's bones are weak, its sinews are soft, yet its grasp is firm. All day long it will cry without its voice becoming hoarse. ”

“ He who is enlightened by Tao seems wrapped in darkness. He who is advanced in Tao seems to be going back. He who walks smoothly in Tao seems to be on a rugged path.
The man of highest virtue appears lowly. He who is truly pure behaves as though he were sullied. He who has virtue in abundance behaves as though it were not enough. He who is firm in virtue seems like a skulking pretender. He who is simple and true appears unstable as water.
If Tao prevails on earth, horses will be used for purposes of agriculture. If Tao does not prevail, war-horses will be bred on the common. ”

“ I would test my knowledge in this sense, that perchance I may do some good to that State."
"Alas!" cried Confucius, "you will only succeed in bringing evil upon yourself. For Tao must not be distributed. If it is, it will lose its unity. If it loses its unity, it will be uncertain; and so cause mental disturbance,—from which there is no escape.
"The sages of old first got Tao for themselves, and then got it for others. Before you possess this yourself, what leisure have you to attend to the doings of wicked men? Besides, do you know what Virtue results in and where Wisdom ends? ”

“ There was a knowledge that Laotse, enthroned in his silence, had no means of using; that Confucius riding the chariot of duty, had no occasion to possess.
Now whether you call Tao duty, or silence,—what should the Man of Tao desire beyond the fulness of it? All the light is there for him; all the suns are kindled for him;—why should he light wax candles? That is, for himself: he will light them fast enough where others may be in need. To us, a great poem may be a great thing: but to them who have the fulness of which the greatest poem is but a little glimpse—what should it matter to them? ”

“ Hot people thinking of last winter's icy blast!
"The prince of Ch'u is dignified and severe. In punishing, he is merciless as a tiger. Only a very practised or a very perfect man could influence him.
"The true Sage, when in obscurity, causes those around him to forget their poverty. When in power, he causes princes to forget ranks and emoluments, and to become as though of low estate. He rejoices exceedingly in all creation. He exults to see Tao diffused among his fellow-men, while suffering no loss himself.
Tao is a constant quantity. It can be shared, but cannot be divided. ”

“ The Tauist, then, becomes by inheritance, or profession, a kind of priest, a miracle-man, supposed to be versed in ancient lore, able to tell fortunes, and decide social questions with authority as regards the work and operations of nature, and "Fêng Shui"—the effects of wind and weather. Superstitious as the Chinese are, these attributes confer great authority upon the adherents and practice of the Tauists. Hence, if I was not found out, my companion concluded we should escape.
Unfortunately one of the villagers perceived the accent of the Japanese interpreter, and declared him a Corean! ”

“ THE PEARL OF TAO TAO NEVER had Tao Tao looked more perfect than in the golden dawn when, for the last time, Chester rang the great gong on the veranda, to assemble the blacks for their journey over to their new employers on the island of Tamba. The sun had barely made its appearance before the labourers were stowed, a solid mass of chattering humanity, on the deck of the Kestrel. ”

“ He travels like the bird, leaving no trace behind. If there be Tao in the empire, he and all things are in harmony. If there be not Tao, he cultivates virtue in retirement. After a thousand years of this weary world, he mounts aloft, and riding upon the white clouds passes into the kingdom of God, whither the three evils do not reach, and where he rests secure in eternity. ”

“ Therefore, those of old who apprehended Tao, first apprehended God. Tao came next, and then charity and duty to one's neighbour, and then the functions of public life, and then forms and names, and then employment according to capacity, and then distinctions of good and bad, and then discrimination between right and wrong, and then rewards and punishments. Thus wise men and fools met with their dues; the exalted and the humble occupied their proper places. ”

“ In point of influence the Positive and Negative principles are mighty. Yet Tao folds them all in its embrace. For convenience' sake the bond of society is called great. But how can that which is thus conditioned
By having a name. be compared with Tao? There is as wide a difference between them as there is between a horse and a dog."
"Whence then," enquired Shao Chih, "comes the vitality of all things between the four points of the compass, between heaven above and earth beneath?"
"The Positive and Negative principles," answered T'ai Kung Tiao, "influence, act upon, and regulate each other. ”

“ Comm. heard this, he said, "Those who exemplify Tao are sought after by all the best men in the empire. Now if one who has not attained to more Tao than the ten-thousandth part of the tip of an autumn spikelet, is still wise enough to withhold vain talk and die,—how much more those who exemplify Tao? To the eye it is formless, and to the ear it is noiseless. Those who discuss it, speak of it as 'the obscure.' But the mere fact of discussing Tao makes it not Tao." ”