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List of contents
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE: APPROACHING THE MATRIX
1. Matrix Side A: Conventions of the Dao
2. Matrix Side B: Yangsheng, According to Ge Hong
PART I: YANGSHENG DAOISM AND THE MATRIX
3. Uncovering Yangsheng Daoism
4. The Measurability of Chang
5. The Temporality of Heng
PART II: HUANG-LAO DAOISM AND THE MATRIX
6. Yan Zun and Heshang Gong
PART III: GE HONG AND THE MATRIX
7. Ge Hong and the Philosophy of the Pristine Dao
8. Ge Hong and Yangsheng Daoism
EPILOGUE: YANGSHENG DAOISM AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
9. Heidegger and the Philosophy of the Dao
Bibliography
Index
Summary
In Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism, Thomas Michael illuminates the formative early history of the Daodejing and the social, political, religious, and philosophical trends that indelibly marked it.
This book centers on the matrix of the Daodejing that harbors a penetrating phenomenology of the Dao together with a rigorous system of bodily cultivation. It traces the historical journey of the text from its earliest oral circulations to its later transcriptions seen in a growing collection of ancient Chinese excavated manuscripts. It examines the ways in which Huang-Lao thinkers from the Han Dynasty transformed the original phenomenology of the Daodejing into a metaphysics that reconfigured its original matrix, and it explores the success of the Wei-Jin Daoist Ge Hong in bringing the matrix back into its original alignment.
This book is an important contribution to cross-cultural studies, bringing contemporary Chinese scholarship on Daoism into direct conversation with Western scholarship on Daoism. The book also concludes with a discussion of Martin Heidegger’s recognition of the position and value of the Daodejing for the future of comparative philosophy.
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[Philosophical Enactment and Bodily Cultivation in Early Daoism] is a treasure chest of insightful explanations concerning meaningful connections between discursive thought and nondiscursive enlightened awareness. Since Davis has the knack and competence to write in a way that remains cool on the surface but intimates a deeply passionate engagement to Zen practice, the experience of reading it is as rewarding as it is intellectually stimulating.
