In the prior section, we saw that during the Shang dynasty that there was a differentiation between the Government and the Clan. In this section we will see that during the Shang the religion of government differentiated itself from the indigenous fertility cults. The religion of government eventually became Confucianism, while the religions of fertility became Taoism. The yang phallic quest for power separated itself from the yin vaginal quest for fertility. While the religion of government was phallic, Taoism was vaginal. The roots of Taoism are in the Paleolithic as exhibited by their injunction against dependency upon agriculture. Because of their reliance upon Nature, Taoism is predicated upon a greater trust of the Tao of Heaven.
Traditionally the military cultures based upon the pursuit of power have been male based and phallus oriented. This started with the phallic spear of Homo erectus. The Shang culture followed this pattern. Their most important god was Shang Ti, the supreme ancestor. Next in importance was Sh, the god of the earth. The archaic pictogram for both ancestor and Sh is a phallic symbol. These cults have continued down to the present day. [1] This phallic orientation probably was a continuation of the Longshan with its emphasis on warfare. This stratified society with the phallic male on top is certainly reflected in the Confucian hierarchy with the male emperor on top of the father-dominated family. Hence Confucianism is based upon the Bronze Age military culture.
While the power-based cultures are normally centered on the phallus, the fertility based cultures oriented upon generation and creativity have been gynocentric, i.e. focused upon the female vagina. Taoism follows this pattern. The Taoist symbolism is riddled with references to the mysterious female, pregnancy and birth. Below is just one of the many vaginal references from the Taoist Bible, the Tao Te Ching.
#10. Can you play the role of the female in the opening and closing of the gates of Heaven.[2]
Taoism was and is linked to the female vagina, emulating the pregnant state of the woman, to give birth to oneself. The Taoists tend to advocate small and decentralized political structures. The Shang ancestor worship was linked with the phallus, the male, the father, a patriarchy. This eventually connects up with the imperial structure with Confucianism. Thus the phallic orientation of the religion of the state oriented around Shang Ti, is a polar opposite to the vaginal orientation of Taoism whose focus is upon vitality and creativity.
Worshipping the fertility of the woman, Taoism has been main force behind Chinese artistic expression. Behind Confucianism is the warrior ethic, which developed during the Shang. Well return to this when we examine Confucianism. We will also see that Taiji Quan has its roots in Chinese warrior training of the Shang dynasty. Confucianism, in worshipping the power of the man, has been the main force behind all of Chinese politics. This spilt occurred during the Shang, with its stratification of society into a military aristocracy, an agri-cultural peasantry, and the artistic class.
The focus of Taoism upon female fertility links it with the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer fertility cults. While fertility was worshipped by the agri-cultures, it was linked with the fertility of the soil. The fertility worshipped by the hunter-gatherers had to do with fertility of Nature itself. First these cultures worshipped the propagation of the species as symbolized by their many fertility figurines. Second as hunter-gatherers they were dependent upon the annual rebirth of the natural flora and fauna. The female fertility figures, which symbolize this northern fertility culture, originated deep in the Paleolithic and were merely continued in the Neolithic agri-cultures.
The connection between the fertility of Taoism and the hunter-gatherer cultures is further indicated by their dietary restriction against wheat and grains. The Taoists felt that a dependency upon grains led to a dependency on agriculture. Due to the sedentary and annual nature of agriculture, their freedom was severely limited. Also because of the nature of the military aristocracy, the farmers were and are always prone to domination.
The peasants depended entirely on agriculture and were forever tied to their land through all kinds of fiscal and administrative measures. As a result, the rural communities became an easy prey to all the ills of sedentary civilization: ever higher taxes, enslavement to the government through corvee labor and military draft, epidemics, periodic shortages and famines, and wars and raids by non-Chinese tribes from across the borders.[3]
Indeed it has been suggested that the cleared ground of the farmers was a necessary precursor to the development of the bronze military technology based upon the Chariot. The chariots were ineffective in forests. Only the cleared ground of the farmers allowed them to be conquered and enslaved by the cultures with the bronze military technology. Hence the security of annual crops tilled by the human sweat and brow also brought domination.
While the unpredictability of nature was insecure, it brought freedom. Cultures depending only upon the bounty of Nature were simultaneously the most insecure and the freest. This worship of nature is very different from the worship of nature by the agri-cultures. The agri-cultures worship the rainfall and the ground to bring good crops which they need to feed themselves and their livestock. The agri-cultures have taken matters into their own hands, depending upon their own efforts rather than trusting Heavens Will.
One Taoist story is of a Taoist going to live in the freedom of a mountain. A friend gives him a goat. Caring for the goat leads the Taoist into the binding agricultural lifestyle, complete with fences and dependency upon the soil[4]. In this story the livestock lead to the inhibited agricultural lifestyle.
This theme of the binding nature of agriculture is reflected in the first book of the Bible. Adam and Eve are hunter-gatherers who presumably just pick fruit to survive. They survive on the bounty of Nature. Because they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Adam is cursed by having to live off the sweat of his brow as a farmer. He has been banished from the innocent hunter/gatherer culture of the Garden of Eden to the dominated life of the farmer, working hard to support his family.
And to Adam, God said, Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit when I told you not to , I have placed a curse upon the soil. All your life you will struggle to extract a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you shall eat its grasses. All your life you will sweat to master it, until your dying day.[5]
Ironically one of Adams sins was the lack of trust in divinity. He wanted to taste the duality of choice rather than depend upon the wisdom of greater powers. The knowledge of Good and Evil fragmented his original wholeness into parts. Depending upon the unpredictability of Nature, means the cultivation of trust. The unpredictability of natural events can be so anxiety provoking as to be paralyzing. At that point of an individual becomes paralyzed by fear or anxiety, no matter how slight it might be, freedom is gone. Thus while unpredictability can lead to freedom it can also lead to anxiety that paralyzes. Each of us has our own line at which time too much freedom becomes paralyzing. Where the line is drawn is based upon our level of trust of nature or divinity or whatever.
The first level of trust is simply believing that one day, that one season, and that the years will follow with some regularity and continuity. Believing that the fertility of spring will follow the barrenness of winter, relieves the anxiety of winter. The anxiety we experience in each of our personal winters, the darkness before the dawn, is eliminated if we unswervingly trust that day follows night as surely as spring follows winter. The long-term perspective based upon trust relieves the anxiety of being too present. Children even go through periods of fear of the dark, which only reflects their anxiety that they might not survive the night. Many anxieties are rooted in this lack of trust during the down cycles.
Of course sometimes we dont survive the night. Sometimes people dont survive the winter. Sometimes people do die of disease. Each of us experience unfulfilled goals and aspirations. Not everything follows the continuous cycle. Sometimes the down cycle is little too low and breaks the continuity all together.
Of course sometimes these extreme downs can lead to something much better. Possibly Borgs death at the river crossing allowed the tribe to survive by enabling them to cross the river and avoid the coming flood. The next level of trust has to do with believing that everything happens for the best. This level of trust validates every occurrence as of divine intent. The gods sacrificed Borg so that we as a tribe could survive and live. It was meant to be.
Of course we have also experienced accidental death, injury, or misfortune, which served no apparent purpose. Some of these are based upon carelessness while some are based upon random circumstance. If one wishes to extend the Borg analogy we could say that a senseless death was part of a divine plan that was beyond human comprehension. However this view negates personal effort as its universal affirmation of divine intent invalidates choice or free will. The view that everything happens for the best negates free will just as surely as does predestination.
If one can internalize the idea that everything happens for the best then one can live in a fools paradise free from anxiety. However we have all seen senseless misfortune, a friend rear-ended by another car while standing still at an intersection, permanently disabled. Childhood death from genetic disease. These misfortunes did not seem to result from personal negligence or bad karma, more likely they were random acts of nature, without meaning except what we read into it. From the Tao Te Ching:
5. Heaven-and-Earth is not sentimental;
It treats all things as straw dogs.
For those that discriminate, the trust that everything happens for the best is insufficient to relieve anxiety. For the Taoist the highest level of trust according to my limited perceptions is the trust that aligning oneself with the Tao of Heaven is the best one can do, regardless of outcome or consequence. If one is given an evil or tragic role, one must still fulfill it to the best of ones ability.
This higher level of trust is rooted in the Buddhist notion of unreality of the phenomenal world. Investing in the polarities of good and evil, life and death, (as did Adam and Eve) only leads to disappointment and suffering. In between the polarity of yin and yang is Taiji. Taking a yin yang bath in the non-duality of existence divests one of attachment.
Hence this higher level of trust is based upon the trust in Nature, not because natural events are for the best or a punishment for past transgressions, but only because Nature is so powerful that we are helpless before it. Any resistance and we will only be swept away by its mighty force. We will not float upon the Sand River, but will instead sink to the bottom. This type of trust is of a slightly different nature. The trust is a yielding to the Power of Nature, Divinity, the Will of Heaven. Hoping to fulfill Destiny but unattached. Relaxed before the potential of our aborted fate. Not assuming that because we are good people that we are blessed and protected by the almighty. But instead blessing each moment as the Grace of Conscious existence.
In Taiji, the trust comes from the same root. Fear is based upon investment in duality. The divestment in the duality lessens the fear. The trust is based upon being in the Womb of the Mother. It is so comfortable and warm that even if she asks for your sacrifice you are thankful for the few brief moments that you have been able to reside in her womb. Between a precipice below and wild animals above one can still appreciate the taste of a wild strawberry that happens to be there. And maybe just maybe we always hope that strawberry is perhaps magic and will lead us from our problems. Hence the trust in Taiji is not based upon trust of technique but instead upon the trust in existence. If your technique is not sufficient and you take a few knocks, so be it.
The relaxed state of trust allows us to be soft, not rigid with fear. The fear of the future motivates us to adopt rigid behavior patterns for security. Opting for security, we become hard, protecting ourselves from the insecurity of Heavens Will. The only way achieve our destiny is to be soft enough to yield. This softness allows us to yield to our Divine Destiny, self-actualization. This enables us to be soft enough to squeeze through cracks performing miracles, achieving the impossible, and thwarting our fate.
In the Journey to the West, Tripitakas trust is continually tested, usually unsuccessfully. Although Monkey, Piggy, Sha Monk, and his guardian Angels (bestowed upon him because he is fulfilling the Will of Heaven) continually protect and save him from harm, he still doesnt trust them and experiences incredible anxiety. He chants about the unreality of Maya, the phenomenal world, but as soon as his flesh is threatened he falls apart, crying and quivering. From the Heart Sutra which Tripitaka chants:
When the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin was moving in the deep course of the Perfection of Wisdom, she saw that the five heaps were but emptiness, and she transcended all sufferings.[6]
For the Taoist there is one other primary trust. This is the trust that the Tao of Nature, the Will of Heaven, is revealed in the midst of extreme quietude. While the Buddhists seek quietude in the pursuit of detachment, the Taoists seek quietude to allow the Tao of Nature to emerge and be listened to. The Buddhists seek the emptiness of the Void. The Taoists see the Void between yin and yang, but it is not empty. It is filled with purpose and meaning.
The ancestor worship of the Longshan clans and Shang government was oriented around phallic power, while the Taoism has always been oriented around vaginal fertility. The traditions based around the government and ancestor worship eventually coalesced around Confucianism, while the traditions centered upon cultivating fertility became associated with Taoism. Taoism is based in the freedom and insecurity of the Paleolithic while Confucianism is based in the military aristocracy of the Bronze Age. The insecurity of freedom is neutralized by the trust that doing the Will of Heaven, the Tao of Nature, is the best that we can do. Further only through trust can one become soft enough to yield to ones destiny. This trust is further supplemented by the trust that quietude reveals the Tao of Nature.