Tracks of the Tao, Semantics of Zen
by Victor H. Mair
In the counter-culture that flowered during the sixties, withered during the seventies, and almost died during the eighties, two of the most ubiquitous rallying cries were Tao and Zen. The latter, indeed, had become enormously popular even earlier with the Beat Generation who were influenced by Alan Watts and D. T. Suzuki. The former, of course, was well known to Sinologues and Sinophiles for at least a century before their time.
Zen and Tao epitomize the quest for an intuitive approach to life that stands in opposition ( or perhaps, to make the point more nicely, as a complement) to traditional Western rationality. A trip to the library reveals that Zen can be applied fruitfully to the following areas of human endeavor: running, jogging, archery, baseball, martial arts, motorcycle maintenance, photography, assembly language, tea drinking, pottery making, writing, painting, poetry, dancing, flower arrangement, photography, and helping(!). Apparently, even the reclusive J. D. Salinger relied upon Zen in crafting his inimitable fiction without being wholly aware of its capacity to transform our vision.
Recently, it would seem that Tao has surpassed Zen in the number of activities that have been identified as benefiting from its illuminating powers. Whole tomes have been written on the Tao as it pertains to cricket, architecture, management, power, voice, Pooh, sailing, science, relationships, health, sex, longevity , leadership, meditation, onliness(?), freedom, sage religion, nutrition, being, Mao Tse-tung, psychology, medicine, organization, love, communication, programming, the species(?), balanced diet, physics, acupuncture, cooking, symbols, water, T'ai-chi (shadow boxing), and health. I have listed these subjects in no particular order to show how Tao reaches into every nook and cranny of our existence.
Of late, still another triliteral talisman has been activel y encroaching upon various fields of endeavor. This is pert, little Joy which began inconspicuously in the kitchen with cooking (and eating), moved quickly into the bedroom as a guide for sex, then shifted to the study as a stimulation for lex. In the meantime, Joy has infused sports such as running and flying with newfound pleasure and (a)vocations such as building, gardening, hand weaving, cataloguing, and computing with untold zest, but it remains far behind Tao and Zen in the quest for committed adherents, doubtless because it makes no pretense at being mysterious or awesome. Joy is but a poor country cousin of Tao and Zen.
The canonical formulations of books and articles illustrating the intrincacies of these two elusive New Age shibboleths are The Tao of... and Zen in... or Zen and .... This may indicate why Tao has recently been more successful than Zen in annexing various spheres of our lives. Tao is thought of as subsuming entire fields, whereas Zen merely informs or parallels them. Be that as it may, the combined range of Tao and Zen as we near the beginning of the third millennium is absolutely astonishing.
Two tiny words of three letters each! These terms from East Asian religions are now part of the daily discourse of midwestern quilters, California surfers, and Maine fishermen. Together, they have partially displaced another three letter word of universal import that is now usually uttered only as an oath or perfunctorily in prayers. How did Tao and Zen enter our vocabulary? And what do these two extraordinarily powerful words really mean? This will require a somewhat lengthy excursion into the neglected realm of philology, but I shall try to make it as painless and entertaining as possible....