What do Laozi, Socrates, Buddha and Jesus have in common? One thing for sure is this: none of them, during their lifetime, committed their teaching to writing. Instead, their wisdom was transmitted entirely via their spoken words, actions and whatever energetic or mind-level transmissions were happening, in the moment.
Laozi is considered the author of the Daode Jing, yet – as legend has it – he actually spoke these words to a gate-keeper at China’s western border, as a parting gift. It was the gate-keeper who recorded them for posterity, in the form that we now call the Daode Jing.
Alphabetic literacy is considered – and rightly so – as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. But perhaps it isn’t all good? Leonard Schlain, in The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, explores the shadow-side of the literacy boon, arguing that the advent of the written word re-wired the human brain in a way that privileged left-brain, rational or so-called “masculine” ways-of-being. Schlain links these biological changes to cultural developments marked by the disappearance of goddess worship and a decline in women’s political status.
As part of his exploration, Mr. Schlain traces the development of the institutional religions and philosophies that emerged out of the teachings of Laozi, Socrates, Buddha and Jesus. What he sees is that as the teachings of these great masters become canonized, i.e. committed to writing and preserved as texts, the emerging traditions manifest distinctly masculine visages.
To his credit, Mr. Schlain rounds out his analysis in distinctly Taoist fashion, pointing to the wisdom of balance and harmony:
"Emphasis on one hemispheric mode at the expense of the other is noxious. The human community should strive for a state of complementarity and harmony."
The Precision Of Intuition
Tangentially: Oftentimes, in discussions of the relative virtues of “masculine” rationality and “feminine” intuition, there is the assumption that the quality of precision is replete in the former, while distinctly lacking in the latter. Yet in my experience, intuitive guidance, again and again, proves infinitely more precise; intuition is the Perfection of Precision.
There is predictive power, of a kind, in abstraction. Yet truth that is truly alive can only emerge – a newborn sliding from its mother’s womb – utterly unique to the moment that births it. Formulas and strategies are perhaps useful in aligning ourselves, creating optimal conditions, good fengshui. But they’ll never be the source …
(To be continued. Or not.)