Search Results

Reflecting on his own history of teaching the DDJ at American colleges and universities from the early 1970's through to the end of the 20th century, Norman Girardot describes scholarly and cultural changes that have had an impact on what he does in the classroom, especially his use of popularized presentations of the DDJ both as a way of opening students to the text, and as a reference point to be criticized once he has led them toward a fuller understanding of its historical and cultural context. Included is a discussion of the nature and role of performative ritual including a one‐day college‐wide phantasmagora called “Dao‐day.”

In this “contrarian” approach to reading he DDJ, Russell Kirkland argues that most textbooks do a credible job of presenting the DDJ as it has been inherited through both Confucian and Western conceptual lenses, but that such a view fails to see the Daoist as they saw themselves. He challenges students to “ponder the alienity of ancient China” before making assumptions about what the text is trying to accomplish. By focusing their attention on early Daoist religious practices, and the status of the DDJ as a Daoist scripture, Kirkland aims to cultivate in his students an appreciation for both the originary aims of the text and the way hermeneutical models are developed, challenged and clarified.

This essay urges teachers of the Daode jing to cultivate in their students an appreciation of the multifarious history and ongoing reception of the DDJ and the traditions it has helped spawn. In particular it urges that our students come to understand the textual history of the DDJ's development (as revealed via recent archeological finds), the historical reality surrounding the text's creation (e.g. Warring States politics; competing philosophic views), and the role the DDJ has played in the development of Daoist rituals and practices. Livia Kohn also suggests that students would benefit from an appreciation of the religious dimensions of Daoism, especially an understanding of the meditative and cultivation practices which seem so critical to the early Daoist communities and the development of Laozi from legendary antagonist of Confucius to the status of a divine being.

The contemporary Daoist practitioner, Eva Wong, explains that many of the DDJ 's most puzzling passages make perfect sense when seen in the light of Daoist activities and exercises. Specifically, she argues that phrases like “quieting the mind,” “nourishing the soul”, “infant breathing,” and “cleaning the subtle mirror” point toward particular kinds of actions which early (and in many cases contemporary) Daoists believed would lead one to live a life more nearly in accord with the Dao.

Michael LaFargue aims to cultivate in students a capacity to see the DDJ from the point of view of its many literary forms and implied interlocutors. By exploring the structures of proverbial sayings he leads students away from the tendency to take its statements too literally, a tendency that typically makes the DDJ seem more obscure and mysterious than it is. LaFargue encourages students to ask: What “pragmatic implications” of the DDJ's statements can we reasonably attribute to the early Daoist practitioners who both produced and made use of this text? This leads to a historicist understanding of the DDJ that is rooted in questions quite different from those that a contemporary western reader would typically bring to the text.