Gender & The Tao

In states of mystical union, we reside in a space which transcends the physical - in which we realize our innermost nature as pure consciousness. At this level, we are neither man nor woman. Yet at least part of our experience as humans is as a man or a woman, living in a specific historical-cultural context.

Taoist philosophy and cosmology revolve largely around the concepts of Yin and Yang: the primordial feminine and masculine energies. These fluid categories - in constant transformation, mutual support and interpenetration - are the basis of everything in our world. The masculine could not exist without the feminine, and vice versa. They are equal in importance.

So what relation does this philosophical equality between Yin and Yang have to the actual experience of women within the Taoist tradition? This is the question that I explore in this new essay, which also offers short reviews of a number of excellent books on this same topic. Enjoy!

The Mysterious Pass

In it's original Chinese, Laozi's Daode Jing is almost always gender-nuetral. In translation, the Chinese characters for "person" or "sage" are often rendered as "man" - but again, this is merely a matter of the choices made by translators, and not a reflection of gender bias in the language of the original. One of the few places that the Daode Jing is gendered is in the mysterious verse six. This is one of the most elusive verses of the Daode Jing, and its English translations vary widely. My favorite of those I've encountered so far is this one, by Douglas Allchin:

The spirit of the valley never dies.
They call it wondrous female.
Through the portal of her mystery
creation ever wells forth.

It lingers like gossamer and seems not to be,
yet when summoned, ever flows freely.

Here is Anne Kline's translation of the same verse:

The Spirit of the valley never dies.
It is called the mysterious female.
The gate of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Barely seen, it hardly seems there,
Yet use will never exhaust it.

And Stephen Mitchell has rendered it thus:

The Tao is called the Great Mother
empty yet inexhaustible
it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

To my ear, this verse evokes images of the "mysterious pass" between the manifest and the unmanifest - how the objects of our perception are continuously being "born," in much the same way as a human being enters this world (miraculously!) through the body of his or her mother. What's your impression?