the arts of the dao,
TRANSCRIPT
THE ARTS OF THE DAO,
Daoism and the Mind of China
DECEMBER 6, 2016
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歡迎
Huan-ying! Welcome!
Daoism and the Mind of
China 1 November – 13 December, 2016
David J. Keegan
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REVIEW •A Daoist won’t govern
•Reject benevolence and virtue; be a sage
•Good rulers are a disaster
•The Wheelwright, butcher, and carpenter have a knack for the dao
•Advising rulers is risky
•Don’t improve the Hundun to death
The Classic of the Way & Its Power
Way 道 dao The Zhuangzi
way 道 dao carried by
breath氣 qi
Way 道 dao carried by
Breath 氣 qi embodied as
Virtue 德 de
Way 道 dao of politics allows
Virtue 德 de to flourish So that people are
naturally 自然 ziran good
THE ARTS OF THE DAO
DECEMBER 6, 2016
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PREVIEW •Mawangdui banner guides Lady Dai
•The Three Purities paintings teach beliefs
•Daoist pastorals by Li Bai & Tao Qian
•Two Daoist Landscapes –
“Cloudy Mountains” & “Twin Pines”
•Calligraphy captures the sinews of the Dao
•The Story of the Stone, a Daoist Romance
DAOIST ART & LITERATURE
1.Funeral
2.Temple
3.Landscape & calligraphy
4.A Daoist Romance
FUNERAL POETRY & ART
CALLING THE DEAD HOME “THE GREAT SUMMONS”
& MAWANGDUI TOMB
Lady Dai’s storybook
Banner
Lady Dai’s Banner –
Underworld
Lady Dai’s Banner – Natural Human world
Lady Dai’s Banner – Her Departure
Lady Dai’s Banner – Afterlife
The Three Purities
DAOISM & NATURE
LANDSCAPES & POETRY
Li Bai You ask me why I dwell in mountains green? I laugh and don’t reply; my heart feels just at peace. Peach blossoms with the stream float far away . . . This is another world, not that of men.
Cloudy Mountains 1/
Cloudy Mountains 2/
Wang Wei, “Deer Fence”
Empty Hills, no one in sight, only the sound of someone talking; late sunlight enters the deep wood, shining over the green moss again.
Twin Pines, Level Distance 1/
By Zhao Mengfu
Twin Pines, Level Distance 2/
3/
4/
Tao Qian, “Returning to the Fields”
When I was young, I was out of tune with the herd: My only love was for the hills and mountains. Unwitting I fell into the Web of the World’s dust And was not free until my thirtieth year. . .
“Returning to the Fields” (end)
At gate and courtyard – no murmur of the World’s dust: In the empty rooms – leisure and deep stillness. Long I lived checked by the bars of a cage: Now I have turned again to Nature and Freedom.
After War & Peace or
Gone with the Wind read:
REVIEW •A Daoist, like a turtle, won’t govern
•Reject benevolence and virtue
•Good rulers are a disaster
•The Wheelwright, butcher, and carpenter have a knack for the dao
•Advising rulers is risky
•Don’t improve the Hundun to death
NEXT CLASS:
Dao with a small “d” (mostly modern)
(December 13) 32
Ju Ming “Tai-ji”
謝謝!
Thank you! Xiexie!
Resources • Michael Loewe, Ways to Paradise, The Chinese Quest for
Immortality (London: George Allen Unwin, 1979) (on Mawangdui banner)
• , Maxwell Hearn, How to Read Chinese Paintings (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008)
• Eliot Weinberger & Octavio Paz, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei (Kingston Rhode Island: Asphodel Press, 1987) (new expanded edition just published)
• Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone, translated by David Hawkes and John Minford, 5 vol. (Penguin, 1973-1986)
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Readings on the Arts of the Dao • Tao Qian Poems from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems
translated by Arthur Waley (Alfred A. Knopf, 1919)
• Augustin, Birgitta. “Daoism and Daoist Art.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/daoi/hd_daoi.htm (December 2011)
• Mawangdui Tomb archaeology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawangdui
• (See also Heilbrunn articles on line on calligraphy and nature in Chinese painting.)