There are many Taoists around us, I mean, Taoists living in Western culture. However, they are, for the most part, invisible to the untrained eye. They don’t propagandize their philosophy. They do not proselytise or engage in debates. They do not wear special clothes, signs or distinctions.
Taoists remain invisible because they put into practice a key insight from Lao-Tzu. We can find this idea in Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching, namely, that Taoism is the truth within the truth. It’s a hidden message found in an ancient bottle, a message that is too precious to be wasted on prejudiced minds.
The inconspicuousness of the Taoist lifestyle makes Taoism incomprehensible for many people. While other philosophical movements try to gain new adepts, Taoists could not care less. In a world of relentless publicity, Taoists remain silent, focused on their own lives and happiness.
Thanks to the flexibility of Lao-Tzu’s teachings, it is easy to live as a Taoist in Western culture. We just need to interpret his insights in the light of current technology. We drive cars or ride trains instead of riding water buffaloes, but we still need to rely on philosophy to choose our life’s destination.
The obstacles
The institutional and legal framework has also changed, but our problems match those faced by Lao-Tzu in China in the 6th century BC. Taoism is workable in our century, even in highly congested urban areas, as long as we figure out how to put its principles into practice.
Chuang-Tzu wrote short stories illustrating the difficulty to find happiness when one’s attention is consumed by prejudice, superficialities or false beliefs. Those aspects prevent personal growth, but we should not put the blame on Western culture.
I am convinced that, when it comes to achieving happiness, the obstacles we face today are no larger than the obstacles that confronted Lao-Tzu, Yang-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu. Nonetheless, it is clear that we need to adapt ancient Taoist stories to today’s environment.
Let me do one adaptation as an example: Once upon a time, there was a king who, like many people today, was suffering from sadness and anxiety. His kingdom was in a state of decay, socially and economically, and he feared that he would soon be deposed by the angry populace.
The king did now know what to do, but he had access to an early version of artificial intelligence. One night, when he was alone, he asked his chat-box about his problems. How could he bring prosperity back to his kingdom? And how could he bring joy back into his own life?
For the chat-box, this was not a hard question to answer. Its database contained the wisdom of centuries, not only from real people, but also from movies, TV shows, and diluted bits of Shakespeare.
Within seconds, the king received the answer to his queries. Number one, said the chat-box, if you want to bring prosperity to your country, find a prosperous country and copy what they are doing. Number two, the chat-box went on, if you want to become happy, find happy people (preferably Taoists) and then imitate what they are doing.
The king was astonished at the wisdom, accuracy, and speed of the chat-box. It would have taken two hundred people a year of research to come up with such high quality answers. He just had to implement the recommendations from the chat-box and all his problems would be solved.
The implementation
To make things even easier, the chat-box also gave the king a list of prosperous countries and a list of the locations where happy people could be found in droves. The king was surprised to see that both lists were identical. They contained exactly the same countries and the same locations.
Today is my lucky day, thought the king. I can solve all my problems in one go. I just need to go to one of those places and copy what people are doing.
Strictly speaking, the king didn’t have any time to travel. All hours, all minutes of his day were occupied with meetings and signature of directives. Neither one nor the other helped solve any problems, but the kind did not know any better.
He feared that, if he stopped the meetings and the signatures for one minute, his kingdom would fall apart. From day to day, the issues were growing more pressing and the criticism from the populace, more menacing.
Unable to sleep, the king turned the matter in his head until, at the break of dawn, he resolved to send his three brightest counsellors on a field mission; he felt confident that, if he gave them clear instructions, they would be able to gather the details and bring them to him.
The counsellors were named Smith, Schmitt and Schmid. It wasn’t a coincidence, but the result of careful inbreeding and nepotism across the centuries; their ancestors had occupied key positions in the kingdom, serving themselves generously to the detriment of the general prosperity and happiness.
Loyal to their duties, Smith, Schmitt and Schmid didn’t fail to praise the king for his wisdom, and immediately went away on their field trip. In view of the seriousness of the matter, they travelled incognito, accompanied only by their mistresses.
An unexpected lesson
The king did not hear of Smith, Schmitt and Schmid for a long time. He sent emails and chat messages, but didn’t get any reply. He wondered if Smith, Schmitt and Schmid had suffered a road accident or if they had fallen sick. He feared the worst and his anxiety grew stronger with each passing day.
After two months, the king could not take it any longer. Not only had he not solved his problems, but he had also lost his three brightest counsellors. What an absolute disaster.
Since Smith, Schmitt and Schmid had left, the king had not taken part in any meetings nor issued any directives. He had spent his mornings walking in the garden, and his afternoons, sitting in the sunshine.
Finally, after two months of inactivity, the head of the royal guard entered the garden, walked to the king, made a profound reverence, and requested permission to speak. The king nodded and the head guard began to talk.
“Sire, the populace’s representatives request an audience.”
“They should present their grievances in writing.”
“But they are already here, Sire.”
“Already here?”
“Yes, about twenty of them.”
“Twenty?” Scared, the king made a brief pause to collect his thoughts. “Do they look angry?”
“Not at all, Sire,” said the head guard. “Actually, they look quite happy.”
The king did not feel at all reassured, but he concluded that he could not refuse the audience. Possibly, he reflected darkly, he would be assassinated during the audience. They would stab him twenty times because of the dire situation in the kingdom.
To his surprise, the audience went in the opposite direction. The populace’s representatives smiled all the time and thanked the king for having successfully addressed all the problems. In the last two months, they said, prosperity and social peace had returned to the kingdom. Things were looking great.
Doing his best to hide his surprise, the king accepted the compliments of the populace’s representatives. When they left, he remained alone in the throne room, trying to figure out what was going on.
It was already two months that Smith, Schmitt, and Schmid had gone away. During that time, hundreds of meetings had been cancelled, and hundreds of directives had failed to see the light of the day.
The amount of cancelled meetings and aborted directives was so mind-boggling that the king felt dizzy. As a result, he decided to take the afternoon off. He returned to the garden, and did nothing for the rest of the day.
Chapter 48 of the Tao Te Ching enunciates the philosophical principle behind the story, namely, discarding things that don’t work, unpromising projects, and disproportionate efforts.
I can recognize Taoists by their commitment to letting go of the accessory and concentrating on the essential. That’s the Tao in action. That’s natural law at its best. That’s how Taoists live in Western culture and in any other culture.
If you are interested in putting effective ideas into practice in all sorts of situations, I recommend my book “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief.”