Why is all of modern Daoism 'Xuanxue' (neo-Daoism)?

[MadePossible]

Xuanxue, unless I am mistaken, is interpreting the Dao de jing as a metaphysical, philosophical treatise?

 

That Dao is emptiness and ziran is the expression of this emptiness.

[zerostao]

I do see the  Dao De Jing as one person's metaphysical, philosophical, treatise.

One that has many layers and meanings for the reader, regardless of where they are, among the food chain.

[心神 ~]

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.

 

[Apech]

4 minutes ago, 心神 ~ said:

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.

 

 

 

Nagajuna's shunya and Xuanxue match quite closely and in a way Wang Bi and his school paved the way for an easy entrance for Buddhism into China.  I wonder how different Daoism would be without Xuanxue?  Can we ever know?

 

 

[心神 ~]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

Nagajuna's shunya and Xuanxue match quite closely and in a way Wang Bi and his school paved the way for an easy entrance for Buddhism into China.  I wonder how different Daoism would be without Xuanxue?  Can we ever know?

 

 

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?

 

[MadePossible]

2 hours ago, 心神 ~ said:

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.

 

Even later Daoist schools such as Quanzhen seem to be Xuanxue. I asked chatgpt if Quanzhen is xuanxue, and it said it wasn't, yet they seem to follow Wang Bi's interpretation of the Daodejing.

 

Indeed, I've read the Heshang gong commentary by Dan Reid and it's confusing since it seems to add his commentary to a Xuanxue translated daodejing.

 

I am starting to wonder where exactly is there original Daoism without Xuanxue?

[Apech]

51 minutes ago, 心神 ~ said:

 

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 use of the word Dao was fairly universal in Chinese philosophy wasn’t it?  Like the other schools such as the Naming School and so on.  So we would have to identify a purely daoist Dao distinct from others?   And also where are we placing the origin of daoism anyway?

 

 

[Apech]

14 minutes ago, MadePossible said:

 

Even later Daoist schools such as Quanzhen seem to be Xuanxue. I asked chatgpt if Quanzhen is xuanxue, and it said it wasn't, yet they seem to follow Wang Bi's interpretation of the Daodejing.

 

Indeed, I've read the Heshang gong commentary by Dan Reid and it's confusing since it seems to add his commentary to a Xuanxue translated daodejing.

 

I am starting to wonder where exactly is there original Daoism without Xuanxue?

Pre-philosophical shamanism????