This volume is the fifth in a five-part series on the Dàodéjīng. The third volume, The Dàodéjīng, Daoism, and the Restoration of Humanity in the Asian Healing Arts, contains a large section on the Ancient Chinese cultural background of the text as well as a Complete translation of each of the eight-one chapters, including the Chinese characters from the Received Text of Wángbì’s Hàn Dynasty version, and a commentary on each chapter based on the cultural background. The Received Text of Wángbì is the version from which all other prominent versions in China and around the World since at least the Míng Dynasty (1368-1644 CE) have been derived.

The fourth volume in this series, Many Paths, One Center: The Dàodéjīng and the Worldview of Ancient China, provides a detailed presentation of the Thematic Context, which organizes the many important themes used in the Dàodéjīng so that its underlying Principles can be better understood and coordinated with practical application to daily Life. Here in the present volume, we shall also include the theme of the evolution of the Ruler to the Heart of every person including the role of the Sage who connects the two. This important role of the Ruler can be understood on four different levels in the text: (1) the archaeological versions where different references to the Ruler were used, (2) the Thematic Context where the Ruler is associated with Political or Governmental Force, (3) a numerological interpretation of the eighty-one chapters where the different roles of the Ruler are symbolized, and (4) the Three Levels of Healing established by Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景 in the fourth century CE where the role of the Ruler/Heart/Mind reaches the most comprehensive level of application.

The archaeological versions, Guōdiàn 郭店 of 300 BCE and Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 of 168 BCE, and discovered in 1993 and 1973, are the earliest Known versions of the text that we have today. The Guōdiàn version was written during the Warring States Period on bamboo strips while the Mǎwángduī version was written during the Former Hàn Dynasty on silk banners so that slight character variations are found that are not present in the Received Text of Wángbì. While most of these variations are minimal, most of which indicate that these earlier texts were written for the Ruler, the Received Text included in its audience the educated literati and, by implication, the common ordinary person. These differences are accounted for as much by the political and educational changes made in the Hàn Dynasty as they were by the writing Materials available at the time. From the Warring States Period through the Former Hàn, texts were written on silken cloth or rolled bamboo slips, a technique that limited their availability. However, by the Later Hàn, when the Received Text of Wángbì was written, paper was invented so that the same texts were now available to a wider audience, especially the larger and emerging class of bureaucrats. Furthermore, by the Táng Dynasty (618-905 CE), when Lǎozi was deified by the first Táng Emperor, woodblock printing was invented, which made these texts, and others, much more available as more and more people began to read. At the same time, the earlier Zhōu Dynasty concept of the Mandate of Heaven (tiānmìng 天命) evolved with the cooperation of Chinese Medicine to the extent where the Outer Ruler of the Kingdom also became a pertinent symbol for the Shén/Spirit of the Heart, which functioned in every person as the Ruler of the Body/Mind/Spirit within. The ideas in the Dàodéjīng, then, came to be understood as advice given, not only to the Outer Ruler of the Kingdom, but also to the Inner Ruler of the Heart for Humanity as a Whole.

The Thematic Context is an organization of over two hundred fifty-three different terms used in the Dàodéjīng into an overall Pattern from which the main Principles of the text can be understood on a more linear and comprehensive level. I discovered this system when I first translated the text from the original Chinese, which enabled me to see how different words were repeated throughout the text as well as throughout other related texts of Ancient China such as the Yìjīng, the Chinese Medical texts, the Confucian texts, and other Daoist texts that used the same words to consistently convey ideas that were not perceptible by reading other western translations. I, then, organized these terms into five basic categories, which in themselves summarize the fundamental meaning of the text and the highly significant worldview that emerges from it. These are:

1. A Definition of Dào as both Source and Path

2. The Manifestation of Dào into the World

3. Human Nature, Virtue/Empowerment, and the Psycho-Spiritual Dimension of Humanity

4. The Fragmentation and Loss of Dào

5. The Embracing of Dào for the Restoration of Humanity

Please notice that, for the sake of clarity and to facilitate the learning process, all of these terms appear in Small Caps wherever they are used in the text.

Included in these terms are the Ruler, the Sage, the role of Numbers as an aspect of the Pattern/Template system of archetypes, and the Mandate of Heaven, which connects the evolution of the Ruler to the Heart of every person and makes the text not only more available, but also a requirement for everyone who wants to attain the goal of One Peaceful World. In addition, the Mandate of Heaven is also related to the Three levels of Healing, an idea introduced by the Máoshān Daoist and Chinese Medical practitioner, Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景 (452-536 CE). These levels include the Symptomatic Level as the Lowest, the Preventive Level at the Middle, and the Fulfilling of Inner Potential at the Highest, which is directly related to the Mandate of Heaven as we shall see later in the section on the Thematic Context.

Reviews

A plethora of books exists on the Daodejing. Why do we need another one? Or, perhaps more to the point, why do we need a new five-volume work on the Daodejing? What more can be said that has not already been said?

These are reasonable questions to ask when confronted with Dennis Willmont's new five-volume opus on the Daodejing. How can there possibly be something new to say?

The fact of the matter is that there is something new to say. Willmont has studied the Daodejing for 50 years, learning Chinese and doing his own translations of the ancient text. In the process, he realized that extant English translations of the Daodejing have been made through the filter of the modern Western worldview. There is never a one-to-one corre­spondence between words in different languages. A translator always is called upon to make judgments when deciding how to translate various words, which is why computer translations of foreign text can be quite amusing or even mean­ingless. Decisions about how to translate the Daodejing have been made according to our own suppositions about what the text is saying rather than from the perspective of the people who were alive when the text was written.

How can a translator know the worldview of a text written down some 2000 years earlier and use it to inform the translation? Being a scholar as well as a translator, and being both literate in the language of ancient China and well-read in its texts, Willmont solved this problem by analyzing the text itself to uncover the worldview of the writer or writers of the text and of the people who lived according to its teachings. As an acupuncturist, Willmont also reveals to us aspects of our medicine that we could never learn elsewhere. By understanding the worldview out of which our medicine developed and was practiced, we expand our depth and breadth as practitioners of Oriental Medicine and recapture an element of our medicine that was lost long before we ever studied it.

In Volume 4, Many Paths, One Center: The Daodejing and the Worldview of Ancient China, Willmont analyzes the themes that appear in the Daodejing and reveals for us the worldview out of which the text emerged. This worldview is quite different from our own, which means that his translation of the Daodejing, based on the worldview of ancient China rather than our own dualistic and reductionistic worldview, is different from earlier English translations.

Willmont takes us step by step through the themes that appear in the Daodejing, deciphering the characters that make up the concepts used in the text and explaining their meanings. Given that there are hundreds of concepts in the text, this is no mean feat. To make it easier for us to understand the worldview revealed in the Daodejing, Willmont gathers the concepts together in categories and shows us the logical consistency within the text. He identifies five broad categories within the Thematic Context of the Daodejing:

1. Dao as Both Source and Path

2. The Manifestation of Dao into the World

3. Human Nature and the Psycho-Spiritual Dimension of Humanity

4. The Fragmentation of Dao and the Origin of Suffering

5. Embracing Dao for the Restoration of Humanity

Taken together, these five categories tell a story. We learn the meaning of Dao as the Source from which all things come as well as its function as a Path by which we can find our way through this life. We see how Dao manifests in the world and how it becomes the Pattern/Template for what we know as the world. We discover the psycho-spiritual nature of humanity, what makes us tick spiritually and how virtue manifests through us. We also learn how evil, misfortune, and suffering manifest in the world as Dao becomes fragmented. But, most importantly, we learn how to embrace Dao and restore ourselves and our world to wholeness.

The Daodejing is not a book of platitudes. It is an explanation for how we got into the mess in which we find ourselves - such as melting polar icecaps, millions of gallons of oil spilled in our oceans, plastic molecules in the food chain, discarded medications showing up in our water supply, mad cow disease, a medical system based on profit rather than health, agriculture that rewards quantity over quality - and it is a prescription for repairing ourselves and our world. It is a story of hope, and it comes with an instruction manual!

Willmont reveals all this for us and pulls it together so that the Daodejing informs our modern worldview and becomes a formula for how we can approach the troubles of our own time, as it became a formula for right-living for people facing the troubles of a world half way around the globe from us and in a totally different historical time. The message of the Daodejing is timeless. It addresses our needs today as well as it addressed the needs of the ancient Chinese. We have Willmont to thank for making its message accessible to us. Now it is our responsibility to apply its lessons in our daily lives - in our health care practices, for our personal growth, and for the restoration of our world.—Mary J. Rogel, PhD, LAc, Editor of Oriental Medicine Journal