Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xv
1 Reading the Daodejing Synthetically 1
Orientations 1
Conventions 3
Shadows 9
On the Early Daoism Label 12
2 Modern Scholarship on the Daodejing 15
Religious and Philosophical Approaches to the Daodejing 15
Modern Western Approaches to the Daodejing 21
Modern Chinese Approaches to the Daodejing 35
3 Traditions of Reading the Daodejing 47
Daojia, Daojiao, and Early Daoism 47
The Role of Commentary in the Daodejing 51
The Heshang Gong Commentary 53
The Xiang'er Commentary 55
The Wang Bi Commentary 57
Three Commentaries in Comparison 58
4 The Daos of Laozi and Confucius 67
Records of the Interview 67
Glimpses into the Dao of Antiquity 74
The Fault Line 81
Two Disciplines of the Body 85
Laozi and Confucius Revisited 91
5 Early Daoism, Yangsheng, and the Daodejing 93
The Hiddenness of Early Daoism 93
A Separate History 100
Orality and the Daodejing 103
Early Daoism and Yangsheng 109
Two Master Traditions and a Thitd 119
Yangsheng and the Daodejing 132
6 The Sage and the World 139
Early Chinese Archetypes; the Sage, the King, and the General 139
The Benefits of the Sage 146
Qi: The Stuff of Life 152
De: Circulation Is Not Always Virtuous 157
De in Action 165
7 The Sage and the Project 175
The Death-World 175
Projects 183
The Great Project of the World 189
Salvation 194
8 The Sage and Bad Knowledge 197
A Confucian Study Break 197
Knowledge and Yangsheng Sequences 201
Brightness and Yangsheng Sequences 205
Knowledge Is a Sickness 211
The Question of Early Daoism Revisited 222
9 The Sage and Good Knowledge 225
The Second-Order Harmony 225
Yangsheng and the Knowledge of the Sage 229
Appendix: The Daodejing 235
Notes 269
Bibliography 293
Index 303
