Taoism
Taoism items test the vocabulary of the Daodejing and Zhuangzi, the distinction between philosophical and religious Taoism, and the relation of wu wei to other Chinese traditions.
Core concepts
The dao is the ineffable source and way; the Daodejing opens by denying that the speakable dao is the eternal one. De is its virtue or power; ziran is spontaneity or naturalness; pu is the uncut wood of simplicity. Wu wei is non-action, meaning action without forcing or contrivance. The three treasures are compassion (ci), frugality (jian) and not daring to be first. Water is the governing metaphor, soft yet overcoming the hard.
Zhuangzi
The Zhuangzi teaches the relativity of perspectives through the butterfly dream and the usefulness of the useless, and illustrates effortless skill with Cook Ding carving an ox. It is more skeptical and literary than the Daodejing.
Religious Taoism
Organized Taoism begins with Zhang Daoling and the Celestial Masters in the second century CE. Its pantheon includes the Three Pure Ones and the Jade Emperor; its practices include external and internal alchemy, longevity techniques, talismans, feng shui and taiji quan; its canon is the Daozang. Immortals (xian) are beings who have transcended ordinary death.
Worked example
A passage says that when the ruler stays quiet, the people transform themselves. Reasoning: this is wu wei, ruling in accord with ziran rather than coercing. It is not laziness; the ruler acts effectively by not forcing. Contrast the Confucian program of li and moral cultivation and the Legalist program of law and punishment.
Traps that cost marks
- Reading wu wei as passivity or doing nothing at all.
- Treating Laozi as a documented single author; the Daodejing is a composite text.
- Setting Taoism and Confucianism as simple opposites; they coexisted and borrowed.
- Casting yin and yang as good and evil; they are complementary phases of one process.
- Assuming philosophical and religious Taoism are unrelated; the tradition bridges both.