心神 ~

In this context, I mean the Laozi / Zhuangzi presentation of the Dao. Dao as the root that precedes fixed names and rigid norms, and the practical orientation that comes with it; wuwei as non-forcing, ziran as self-so unfolding, and the wu/xu register that points to openness, absence of imposed structure, and the usefulness of what is “not there.” Of course Daoism draws on a very long prehistory of Chinese ritual life and spirit-facing practice (like you said, pre-philosophical shamanism, but there's also a huge span of time and a lot of change between early court ritual worlds, Shang divination practices, and the Zhou / Warring States philosophical explosion. So if we’re looking for Daoism without xuanxue, I'm not sure pre-philosophical shamanism gives us a good idea of what to expect. Maybe better to consider the Daodejing and Zhuangzi with the center of gravity on practice, governance, and cultivation language, before Wang Bi-style metaphysical framing became the default for educated readers.

Yes, I agree. And I find the ‘emptiness’ translation of sunya / wu matters a lot. To me, translated as nothingness, Buddhist and Daoist concepts feel remote and purely abstract. When translated as relational reality/interdependence, the connection to daily life and practice is clearer. One small thread in xuanxue discourse was an effort to make Confucian social order and Daoist (Lao-Zhuang) ideals fit together. If the Dao is the root and ziran describes how life unfolds on its own, then how does mingjiao (Confucian rites, roles, and norms) align with that root and that natural pattern? Without the xuanxue filter, maybe publicly Daoism shows up less as ontological text for literati debate, and more as everyday life-craft and governance guidelines: emphasis on close seasonal and environmental observation, conserving vitality, aligning action with circumstances, and keeping rule light. I wonder, without xuanxue influence, would Confucian framing have been less dominant in how elites explained Daoism? And I wonder which Daoist strands might have become the “prestige” readings?

The doorway most people use today is books, translations, and philosophy classes, and xuanxue is the style that treats the Daodejing (and the Yijing and Zhuangzi) as high metaphysics. Xuanxue (Dark/Profound Learning) was a Wei–Jin era way of reading the classics, especially through big commentaries like Wang Bi’s Laozi. Those commentaries became hugely influential, got copied and taught for centuries, and shaped what later readers thought the text "really" means. So when people discover Daoism through reading, they often meet it through a lens already polished by xuanxue. Later Daoist traditions, especially internal alchemy and the Quanzhen world, developed emptiness / stillness / nonbeing language while in relation to Buddhism and Confucianism. Modern presentations tend to pull from that shared vocabulary. Not only that, but ritual Daoism requires extensive training, community, ordination networks, temples, and lots of context. Online spaces and modern education reward what’s easier to share quickly, like Dao = emptiness, ziran = expression of Dao, wu = the root, and other simple abstract statements. So modern Daoism looks like xuanxue because the most visible vehicle for Daoism is textual, and xuanxue is the most established, widely inherited framework for reading those texts that way.