Dao, the Godhead, and the Wandering Way: Daoism and Eckhart’s Mystical Theology

Abstract

In popular discourse, it is not uncommon to highlight the distinctiveness of systems of “Eastern thought” (e.g., Daoism) in contrast to so-called “Western” systems. However, there is an interesting congruence between Daoism and Meister Eckhart’s mystical theology, particularly in regard to the concepts of the Dao and the Godhead. Like the Dao, the Godhead is the “ground” of all being, simultaneously radically transcendent and immanent, considered as distinct from all things and yet the enfolded totality of them. Both these concepts are also dynamic principles, continually manifesting in the flux of the ever-changing universe. In both systems, nature at its fundamental level is characterized by namelessness, emptiness, encompassment, and dynamism. Nature as “ground” is also a religio-ethical concept. Humans are called to align with this ground and enter into a state of wandering joy, called wuwei (non-action) in Daoism and the “wayless way” for Eckhart. Through reverting to their indeterminate source, the person is able to become detached from rigid teleological norms. Thus is laid the foundation for an ethics of non-attachment, wherein individuals dwell in an existential flow and are attuned to all yet anchored unquestionably to none.

1. Introduction

In popular discourse, it is not uncommon to highlight the distinctiveness of systems of “Eastern thought” (e.g., Daoism) in contrast to so-called “Western” systems. Although there are indeed essential differences between these two broad paradigms, points of convergence and comparison are still identifiable. One such instance of congruence is found between the Dao of classical Chinese thought and the “Godhead” of Meister Eckhart’s mystical theology.

Like the Dao, the Godhead is the ground of all being,1 simultaneously radically transcendent and immanent. Both can be considered distinct from all things and yet the enfolded totality of them at the same time, a primordial emptiness ultimately encompassing all existence and contradiction. Both these concepts are also dynamic principles, continually manifesting in the flux of the ever-changing universe. Now, the Dao and Godhead are not only philosophical concepts (fulfilling their roles as the fundamental realities for their respective ontologies) but deeply religious concepts. They are not merely distant metaphysical principles, but, to borrow language from William James’ attempt to characterize religion, each is “an unseen order” and “our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto” (James [1985] 1902).

Therefore, whether it be the Dao or the Godhead, humans are called to align themselves with the ground of being (which is likewise the ground for their own being). Existing in this way is characterized by a kind of “wandering joy”2. By living in this existential flux, the person can unite with their true nature precisely by returning to their indeterminate source without neglecting the real presence of those things in the “ordinary” world. Hence, a novel kind of ethics emerges, an ethics of non-attachment, wherein the encouraged imperative is to release oneself into the flow of the indeterminate origin, but not in the sense of “hiding away”. Such an ethics is not a mere foil to “common” religious deontologies characterized in systems like Divine Command Theory. Instead, an ethic of non-attachment is still a kind of pious exercise, as to be released to the ground of being is to live the “good” life, where one is simultaneously attuned to all things (in spirit and body) and yet anchored to none.

The purpose of this paper is not to argue a historical continuity between Eckhart’s theology and Daoism, nor is it an attempt to argue that these two are identical in content. Instead, this essay engages Daoism and Eckhartianism in critical dialogue to draw out important realizations concerning nature, the human condition, and the person’s relation to nature with respect to proper living. In both of these systems, nature, at the fundamental level of its ground (the Dao and Godhead, respectively), is characterized by namelessness, emptiness, encompassment, and dynamism simultaneously. Meanwhile, persons are conceived of as beings that can become unbounded by telic normativity and thus attain the flow of their truest nature, the primordial source of all things. Thus, both of these systems reveal the human as an expression of nature, not superior to it, but capable of attaining it through an inner turn. By taking Daoism and Eckhartianism together in conversation, they provide rival models of the universe and the person in contrast to rigid formal schemas which attempt to render all of the cosmos discursively intelligible and human beings as under strict teleological principles in a hierarchical ontology.

2. The Indeterminate Ground, as Nature-as-Origin

The general image of nature and the cosmos commonly presented as bequeathed by the Greeks is one where all things are neatly intelligible, teleological, and value-assigned. For instance, philosophers like Aristotle argued that all things in nature possess an inherent telos, or end, which in turn corresponds to their good (Aristotle 1957, 2009). Others, like the Neoplatonist Plotinus, argue for the convertibility of being and intelligibility, that is, that things are “beings” only in virtue of being intelligible; “Intellect [is]…the genuine reality and true substance” (Plotinus 1984). Hence, Plotinus declares, “thinking and being are the same” (Plotinus 1967) and that intellect is “the law of being” (Plotinus 1984).

In other words, from such a perspective, the only truly meaningful things that can ultimately be discussed are those which can be neatly categorized and compartmentalized into taxonomic apparati. Such a view carries well into modernity, as evident in the following comment from the 19th-century philosopher Thomas Spencer Baynes: “The available facts of human history, collected over the widest areas, are carefully coordinated and grouped together, in the hope of ultimately evolving the laws of progress, moral and material, which underlie them” (Baynes 1888).

Unlike these images, the pictures of “nature” found in Daoism and Eckhart’s theology are more complicated. While nature (or rather, the things of nature) can be viewed in certain circumstances through the lenses of form and function, eidi and teloi, nature in its most fundamental state is beyond such labels and schemas. The core insight that can be derived about nature from examining these systems is that nature-as-its-ground is nameless and empty, and yet, also the encompassment of all beings (and contradictions) and a dynamic ever-manifesting source. Each of these aspects challenges the view of nature where nature is determinate, limited, and essentialized.

The opening lines of the Daodejing, the foundational text of Daoism, are as follows:

As to a Dao—

if it can specified as a Dao,

it is not a permanent Dao.

(Moeller 2007)

The Dao (道), or Tao, sometimes translated as “the way,” is “a scenario of perfect functioning in all realms of the world, be it the body, society, or nature” (Moeller 2007). As noted by Alan Chan, the Dao can also be interpreted as signifying “a conceptually necessary ontological ground”, not merely some “original substance or energy” (Chan [2001] 2018); the Dao is the root (gen) of all beings (Moeller 2007).3 A key feature of this concept (as evident in the opening lines of the Daodejing) is its inability to be named. This is because when something is named, it is limited. For example, if I point to an animal and say, “This is a bird”, and define what entails being a bird, I have constrained the animal to the bounds of what is included in the category of bird and bird-ness. However, since the Dao is meant to be referring to a state of perfection4 and origin from which differentiation secondarily emerges, it can have no imposed limits. Therefore, naming, insofar as it is a kind of limiting, cannot be applied to the Dao, and any attempt to name it already undermines its conceptual indeterminacy. As expressed by famous 7th-century Daoist commentator Cheng Xuanying, the Dao’s “principle goes to the depths of the blurred and indistinct” (Cheng 2021).

It is important to remember that the Dao can be regarded as the condition for the cosmos itself. In other words, the Dao exists metaphysically prior to all else; the Dao is the “beginning of the ten thousand things” (Moeller 2007), the source and principle of the vast multiplicity of beings in the universe. As defined by James Miller, the Dao is “not subject to any higher law or pattern but is self-generating, spontaneous, and free”, acting as both the “ultimate ground of subjectivity” and “model or pattern for the heavens” (Miller 2017). Nature, subsequently, in this model would not be a “material substance” but a “liquid process” (Miller 2017), ultimately reflecting its own deeper “nature”, i.e., nature-as-its-ground, the Dao. Thus, the conceptual system referred to as “Daoism,” in this initial context, can be understood as “a universal religious tradition, one that…understands the Dao as the underlying source of generative vitality for the cosmos” (Miller 2017). With this in mind, it makes sense why the Dao cannot be predicated as an object with a name: it is simply not the kind of thing proper to naming, or any true univocal predication. Predication, and by extent naming, concerns determinate beings, those constituents of that set “the ten thousand things”. However, the Dao, precisely as the source of this set, consequently cannot be counted as a member of this set and, thus, cannot be subjected to the same attributes we expect of the ten thousand things (like nominability).

From this, it becomes more clear why the fourth chapter of the Daodejing states, “the Way [Dao] is empty…an abyss” (Ryden 2008). Since the Dao is the indeterminate origin of all the things of the universe, it is not merely something ineffable in the sense that it is “higher” than the confines of our language or intellect. It is not that our words or thinking fall short. Instead, it seems that to consider the Dao as something to be spoken of or to be cognized in any univocal sense is to miss the point. It is not that the permanent Dao is “too powerful” for our minds per se, but rather that there is nothing actually to comprehend. This is why Cheng Xuanying notes that this chapter states that the Dao “seems like” (si 似)” the ancestor of the ten thousand things “in order to make clear that there is no ancestor and yet [he is] ancestor” (Cheng 2021).

In a technical sense, the Dao is not a thing (determinate being), and thus, it is nothing (i.e., “no-thing,” as in, “no-discernible-thing”). This is because the Dao is the very condition for things and, thus, is not a part of the category “things”. As the ground of all beings, the Dao cannot be counted among its posterior constituents as just another being among beings. Hence, the Dao is rightly considered an emptiness, a “barrenness” and “desert” (Moeller 2007)5. Hans-Georg Moeller notes in his commentary on Daodejing 14, “the Dao is not…‘beyond’ any form, shape, or description, but rather, ‘below’ it…it does not escape definition because of any ‘supernatural’ nature, but rather because of its natural emptiness” (Moeller 2007).

These characterizations of the Dao as the ground of being, and yet, nameless and empty, are likewise shared by the Eckhartian Godhead (in German, Gottheit, a neuter and impersonal term for “divinity”). Eckhart, in his own sermons, explicitly uses the language of “ground” (Grund, in German) as a synonym for the Godhead, identifying it as “the ground that is groundless” (Eckhart 1979). He also remarks that the Godhead “is neither this nor that that one can speak of” (Eckhart 1979)6. In other words, the Godhead is “unnameable naked simplicity” (Evola 1960). Hence, the Godhead’s namelessness can be inferred by much of the same reasoning used to infer the justification for the Dao’s namelessness, “Anything you see, or anything that comes within your ken, that is not God, because God is neither this nor that”7.

Now, it is important to note that at some points, Eckhart’s work draws a distinction between the Godhead and God (in German, Gott, referring to a personal entity). At other points, the Godhead and God are treated as synonymous.8 For the instances in which these concepts are distinguished, the Godhead is what underlies the “God” of Christian worship (that is, the divine persons of the Trinity). Upon initial glance, it might seem that the Godhead is at odds with the Dao in the Godhead’s explicitly theistic connotations (something which the Dao does not seem to convey). Moeller even makes the contrast between the Dao and God in his commentary (Moeller 2007). However, as already noted, the Godhead of Eckhart is not referring to the personal deity of Christianity but to the very condition for those Triune persons. This is in contrast to the more orthodox view of the “Godhead”, where it is either the divine essence in the Thomistic sense or the collective of the divine persons themselves (thus rendering the Godhead personal, which Eckhart’s “Godhead” is not). At this point, it is also worth mentioning that the exact delimitation between the impersonal and personal forms of the Absolute is a general, ongoing debate in the theologies of many traditions. It is also an important issue to consider in comparative religious studies, as the terms “god” and “personal” are both equivocal in their usages broadly.

Although the Dao would certainly still be at odds with certain portraits of God, such as “a creator god with attributes like the ‘Lord on High’ (Shangdi; 上帝) in ancient Chinese religion” (Chan [2001] 2018), the legitimacy of drawing an absolute contrast between the Dao and “God” is going to entirely depend on what is exactly meant by the signifier “God”. If “God” is just used to refer to the same existent as the Godhead, then the prima facie theistic differentiations between the Dao and “God” dissolve. Furthermore, it ought to be mentioned that notions of “divinity” are not entirely absent from the Daoist view.9 For instance, Vincent Goossaert notes a concept of emanation in some later Daoist theologies, where the divine figure Yuanshi Tianzun (元始天尊) is the “first individual entity to emerge from primordial undifferentiated Dao” (Goossaert 2023), soon followed by two other deities, Lingbao Tianzun (靈寶天尊) and Daode Tianzun (道德天尊), all three of which compose the “Three Pure Ones” (三清). However, it must be mentioned that these emergent gods are not like the Eckhartian divine persons per se. While movements like the Three Immortals Cult held a “personal model” where these gods could be directly petitioned as local protectors, Hymes notes that others, such as the Celestial Heart sect, abided by a “bureaucratic model” (Hymes 2002). From a “bureaucratic model” view, these gods deriving from the Dao did not really have genuine relationships with human followers despite being determinate transformations of the Dao, unlike the persons of the Christian Trinity (even in Ekchart’s theology).

As a point of comparison to the Dao’s “emptiness”10, Eckhart similarly declares in Sermon 62, “God is nothing” (with the “God” in question being the Godhead) (Eckhart 1979).11 According to Eckhart, the Godhead “is neither this nor that that one can speak of: He is being above all being. He is beingless being” (Eckhart 1979)12. The idea of the Godhead as a “beingless being” and, thus, entailing both beinglessness and being simultaneously, introduces another conceptual feature entailed in the ground of being: the enfolded encompassment of all things, including contradiction. This feature is similarly evident at various places in the Daodejing, such as chapter 11, where the Dao encompasses both presence (you; 有) and nonpresence (wu; 無).13

3. Encompassment and Transformation

All of the ten-thousand (myriad) things find their origin in the Dao (Moeller 2007),14 and so, their innermost nature and existence come from nothing apart from the Dao. Therefore, all things are prefigured and enfolded in the Dao; “the Way [Dao] is the reservoir of the myriad things” (Ryden 2008). This includes contradictions, such as presence and nonpresence (you and wu; being and non-being). To emphasize this point, the Daodejing invokes the imagery of the wheel, the pot, and the room (Moeller 2007).15 All of these analogies entail emptiness at their centers but a kind of thing-ness at their periphery, further illustrating how the Dao is both (and neither) being and (nor) non-being. Since the Dao is prior to determinate existence and, hence, limitations, it is also prior to rigid dichotomies. In other words, the Dao defies the standard delineation between being and non-being we find at our level of reality, simultaneously transcending this dualist paradigm and being the source for both terms of the contrast. Such is further reminiscent of the unity of opposites seen in Daodejing 2, where it states that if there is beauty, there “is already ugliness”, that if “everybody knows what is good…there is that which is not good”, and “presence and non-presence”, also translated as “being and beingless [or non-being]”16, “generate each other” (Moeller 2007).17. While this language of seemingly contradictory pairs is being affirmed simultaneously, the Daodejing itself asserts “true words are paradoxical” (Mitchell 1988), or as Moeller translates, “right words are like the reverse” (Moeller 2007). Furthermore, through the use of opposing couples, the Daodejing attempts to give insight into the paradoxical Dao. As Thomas Michael writes, quoting Graham, “the approach of the Daodejing is to lay out couplets which, juxtaposed as parallel, imply both that there is and that there is not a constant Way with a constant name” (Michael 2015).

As the ground of all else, the Dao (as well as the Godhead) is beyond the noetic logic of dichotomy and duality within a discursive and multiplicitous nature. This fact, in turn, reveals an intriguing insight: since differentiation itself is an attribute of specific beings in a specific plurality (the distinction of this thing as opposed to that thing), the Dao, as nature-qua-enfolded-simplicity, is beyond differentiation. Thus, even the language of distinction falters when attempting to paint a picture of the Dao; the Dao is “undifferentiated” (Moeller 2007).18. Although Eckhart mostly engages in apophatic language for describing his Ground, as mentioned previously, there are times in his sermons when he invokes contrary correlatives at the same time to describe the Godhead. Hence, for both the Dao and the Godhead, it seems then that even negative language falls short. If these concepts are meant to serve as the ontological ground encompassing of all, including opposites (even you and wu for the Dao or being and beinglessness for the Godhead), to say “the Dao is not” or “the Godhead is not” has the same problems as “the Dao is” or “the Godhead is”. Negation signals an affirmation of the contrary, thus violating the property of namelessness.

Furthermore, the Dao is intrinsically related to “flux, transformation”, and “process” (Schipper 1993). In his commentary on the second chapter of the Daodejing, Hans-Georg Moeller discusses the “permanence” entailed in the “permanent Dao” as the “permanence of the impermanent” (Moeller 2007). Given the contrasting character of nature’s opposites, and yet their non-dual source in the Dao, the Dao, in generating these diverse forms, is both singular and fluid in its generation; hence, the analogy of Dao and water (Mitchell 1988)19 Through existing as a paradoxical state of affairs, the Dao overcomes static binaries as not only the primal encircling of all beings, but as a continuous process of change and production. With the diverse plurality of things in the world, the Dao is both the origin of multiplicity and the stage upon which reality plays out.

The Dao is an overflowing fount, the productive power of all things in flourishing possibility, an ever-unfolding unity into plurality. This ontological flow of complexity evolving out from an initial unity is demonstrated in Daodejing 42:

The Dao generates Oneness.

Oneness generates Twoness.

Twoness generates Threeness.

Threeness generates the ten thousand things.

(Moeller 2007)

Cheng Xuanying interprets this passage as not only about a transformation of the Dao numerically but also an ontological development, “One is the original qi. Two is yin and yang. Three is Heaven, Earth, and man” (Cheng 2021). Nature intrinsically involves a kind of transformation and development, establishing yet another reason why the rigidly determinate perspective of nature held by thinkers like Aristotle, Plotinus, or Thomas Spencer Baynes falters when explaining the world and its fundamental condition. Such a feature of nature is likewise espoused in Eckhart’s writings in Sermon 32a: “Whatever God gives has been eternally becoming: its becoming is now new and fresh and altogether in one eternal Now” (Eckhart 1979).20. That which was given by God (i.e., all of existence; “God” in this context refers to the Godhead) is in a state of eternal “becoming”, always proceeding and always renewed by its source, never static. Eckhartian nature is not something truly different from her creator, God, or the Godhead. Rather, God and cosmic multiplicity are part of the same economy of being, a continuity all partaking in the same existence. Hence, there is a oneness to all, and since there is perpetual change for the things of the world, nature itself exists in a state of metamorphosis.

Such an observation is particularly evident in Eckhart’s writings when he invokes the analogy of the magnum opus (“great work”) of alchemy (Schürmann 2003). The magnum opus, the process of transmuting one element to another, is directly alluded to in his twenty-sixth sermon: “For all things which melt on heating or solidify on cooling are altogether of a watery nature. They must therefore be wholly reduced to water and get quite rid of their present nature; then heaven and science combine to transmute it all into gold (Eckhart 1979)21. Unlike the ordinary telic nature characteristic of Medieval Europe, the cosmos of universals and particulars, Eckhart’s nature is alchemical, existing in a kind of interminable fluidity. In his view, through alchemic operations, each of the elements can “renounce their natures” (Schürmann 2003) and be transmuted into one another. These points about nature’s fluidity and generative potential will become even more pertinent when discussing the Daoist and Eckhartian perspectives regarding the person and what these demonstrate concerning the person’s relationship with and response to nature.

4. The Person: The Joyous Wanderer

In turning to the human being and their place within the cosmos, we must first consider the general articulation of this concept in Western thought. One of the earliest explicit articulations of the “person” in the West can be found with the Roman philosopher Boethius, who defined the person as an “individual substance of a rational nature” (Boethius 1918). Such a notion of personhood adheres to a clear theticism22 characterized by thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, and the Medievals, where human beings are portrayed as subsists of unchanging essences and teloi, and thus, commanded by their very existence to adhere to the dictates and ethics of the polis in an absolute and tragically irrevocable fashion.

As evident from what has been said in this essay’s treatment of nature, the Daoist and Eckhartian views challenge this assumption of the person, presenting persons as existing in a state of flux and only meaningfully called to follow the condition to being, not deontological prescriptions unquestionably. Furthermore, these two systems also stand against the modernist positions of individuals like René Descartes, who declared Mankind as the “masters and possessors of nature” (Descartes 2006). Rather than being the dominators of the world, superior to all and shaping all else to their will, the human being turns out to be an expression of nature capable of aligning with it in harmony through a turn inwards and motion away from attachment.

In its first chapter, the Zhuangzi, a collection of Daoist stories, anecdotes, and philosophical musings, asserts, “The Consummate Person (zhiren; 至人) has no fixed identity, the Spirit Man (shenren; 神人) has no particularly merit, the Sage (shenren) has on one name” (Ziporyn 2009). Both of these terms refer to archetypal ideals of a person. Unlike the person of Boethius or the human being of Aristotle, with a fixed end and accompanying virtues23, the ideal human of Daoism is characterized by a lack of concrete ends and a lack of rigid adherence to traditional virtues. Instead of committing their absolute fealty to social duties, they find and constitute their identity on the Dao, the ground of all existence, including their own.

Aligning with the Dao involves a kind of turning inward, or as put by Daodejing 52 in Ryden’s translation, “bolt your ears; plug your mouth” (Michael 2015). This refers to a kind of abstinence from being too distracted by or wrapped up with the particulars and predicable categories of this world. Cheng Xuanying’s commentary on the passage notes that this kind of “closing” and “blocking” of the senses can involve either “[cutting] off the feelings” or realizing that the fundamentals of the external world are “empty and illusory” (Cheng 2021). Humans exist in the midst of a tension between the “self” as constituted under the schema of cultural influence and differentiated concept and genuine existence, that is, our true being that “[embraces] simplicity…[has] less desires…[has] no worries” (Moeller 2007). This genuine self is, in actuality, a localized site of the Dao. At the most fundamental level, the person, like everything else, turns out to be both a concretized specification of the Dao and a potential channel through which it can flow and operate among itself. One demonstration of this is through the idea of self-so (ziran; 自然),a singularized manifestation of the Dao as a state of natural spontaneity unburdened by artificial influences.

Eckhart, in challenging the presumption that Man is best understood as “a being most itself in the affirmation of its determinicies” (Schmidt 1998), similarly calls for a similar alignment with the Godhead. However, this encounter with the indeterminate origin is not an upwards flight but a dive inwards to the depths of our very existence (Schürmann 2003). To describe this movement, Eckhart uses terms like “sallying forth” (ûzrucken) or “piercing through” (durchbrechen) one’s desires and understanding to reach the unschemetized depth of the Ground (Eckhart 1979).24 Humberto Gonzalez Nuñez further describes this “piercing” as an “existential practice” where one ultimately find themselves unable to “appeal to any frame of reference” (Nuñez 2017). In turn, this involves an attitude of “non-attachment” (abegescheidenheit) or “releasement” (gelâzenheit), whereby one is reduced to formlessness and then serves as the site of the production of new forms (Schürmann 2003). This entails letting go of the kinds of behaviors and ways of thinking intrinsically tied to our idea of the human person as framed by teleology (Schürmann 2003), where non-attachment breaks a person from the active–passive dichotomy and leads them to learn to think and “speak of [themselves] in the middle voice” (Schmidt 1998).

In this manner, like metal liquifying into indeterminate prima materia of alchemy, the person can be metaphorically liquefied into their own ground, becoming the “mirror the nothingness” (Krummel 2021). Eckhart scholars such as Reiner Schürmann have also identified releasement or non-attachment with the “unlearning of [the] hubris [of univocal law]…[and a restoration] to the law of its disparate” (Schürmann 2003). Schürmann further frames releasement in the following two main senses: releasement from the world and releasement to God. The latter of these notions, releasement to God, already entails the former. Such a framing, detachment from the Divine, is due to the Divine and Man converging at the Godhead, the indeterminate origin. Therefore, since the Godhead is the ground of both the Persons of the Christian Trinity and the human being, Eckhart proclaims, “God’s ground is my ground” (Eckhart 1979)25. By returning to the ground of all things, the person subsequently retreats to that which is metaphysically prior to teleology and form and, thus, escapes even the binds of normativity and difference.

The retreat to the Dao is portrayed in an analogous fashion, whereby aligning with the Dao, the person detaches from particulars, including the understanding of the self as an independent entity. As put by Ziqi in the Zhuangzi, “I have lost me” (Ziporyn 2009)26. To put it another way, all becomes equal in me, for I become nothing on my own. Thus, in being encouraged to follow the Dao, the person is told to make their “real home in oneness” (Ziporyn 2009)27. This is why it is written in Zhuangzi 4:11 that “Good fortune comes to roost and stillness. To lack this stillness is called scurrying around, even when sitting down” (Ziporyn 2009)28. A person must be freed from the diversions of the workaday world and evaluations of ordinary society to live by their Dao. This is why the Sage is instructed not to pursue material wealth or glory (Mitchell 1988).29

On a related note, the Daodejing stirs its readers to be like the infant (Moeller 2007)30, thereby returning to the origin of their existence. This is why the person who lives by the Dao is compared to uncarved wood (Moeller 2007)31, and the following words are advised: “Manifest plainness and embrace simplicity” (Moeller 2007)32. Rather than engaging in the virtues of Confucianism ethically paradigmatic of the time, the only imperative of the Daodejing is, paradoxically, a movement away from all imperatives, and, consequently, also an adjacent movement to the Dao. As declared in the Zhuangzi, “Heaven and earth are born together with me, and the ten thousand things and I are one” (Ziporyn 2009)33. At their source, the entire universe is consubstantial with and undifferentiated from the human being. Hence, through recognizing this truth and aligning with the Dao, whether it be by consciously harmonizing with natural processes or attuning to the Dao and letting nature act through oneself, the person reaches a kind of theological union. Like how all humans in the Eckhartian model possess the Godhead, the essence of Deity, within their innermost being (Eckhart 1979),34 “the Taoist carries his gods within himself” (Schipper 1993). As further clarified by Kristofer Schipper, “the true gods are found within”, with these being the pantheon of Anterior Heaven, the “One” (Schipper 1993). Attending to this inner divinity is through the “union of being and non-being”, which is achieved via that “disintegration of the conceptual system” and “a fall toward the origin of things” (Schipper 1993).

It is at this point that the person, after having loosened one’s commitments to the noise of the world and having lent their attention to the silent yet dynamic ground, can now emerge anew as an ennobled singular in joyful wandering. The Sage, aligning themselves with the Dao, can now flow along with their truest nature; they “abide in the practice of non-acting (wuwei; 無為), [undertaking] teaching without words” (Mitchell 1988). With this “illumination of the obvious” (Ziporyn 2009)35, where the Dao is brought up out of obscurity and into the conscious foreground, the human can now look through the perspective of the Dao (Ziporyn 2009),36 learning from it and participating in its very act of reciprocal overflowing, as affirmed in Zhuangzi 6:35–37 (Ziporyn 2009).37 The union achieved with the Dao is a oneness that is primarily epistemological. As already mentioned, humans, whether they recognize it or not, already have the Dao as their ground. Through a process of being receptive to the Dao, however, the person is now able to apprehend its disclosures in a meaningful way.

This renewed emergence upon contact with the ground of being is also represented by Eckhart, particularly through the illustration of gold as the product of alchemy. Just as gold can be produced after the elements are reduced down to their indeterminate origin, the human soul, in its emptiness and formlessness, can yield its own gold, its own better state as a numinous aureate existent (Schürmann 2003). For Eckhart, this aureate existent is furthermore entangled with none other than the Word of God, that is, God the Son as birthed in the soul just as He was birthed from eternity by God the Father. Through entering into the indistinct oneness of the Godhead, Christ is incarnated in the human. When “God finds the soul to be on par with this order, there the Father begets His Son” (Schürmann 2003). God is distilled through the soul’s transformation per non-attachment, “Thus human nature was transformed by becoming the divine image, which is the image of the Father” (Eckhart 1979)38.

5. Non-Attachment: The Wayless Way

Within Eckhart’s interpretation of Christianity, the person living by the Godhead, having been released from teleological prescriptions, can now exist in a state of wandering joy, a “wayless way” (Eckhart 1979)39. This “wayless way” is a simultaneous rejection and embracing of the human end of flourishing.40 The caveat here, however, is that the wayless way of “living without a why” is a rejection of a “simple why”, that being, a definite human telos that is unique to humans, immutable, and independent. Therefore, it can also be said that the wayless way consists of a kind of double-bind, involving both a kind of adherence to natural law and an overcoming of it. However, the antinomic status of the Eckhartian non-attachment need not be viewed as an irrational proposition. Instead, the thrust of letting go, the preached imperative of “detach yourself,” is itself the consequence of normativity.

Telic nature and her legislation in the Eckhartian model is precisely what leads one towards denaturation in the ground, “the natural order itself demands abegescheidenheit” (Schürmann 2003). In other words, there is a destituting element already present in the institution of teleological ethics. If we see nature as a hierarchy of ends (as Plato, Aristotle, or Thomas Aquinas), then there is an ontologically requested fealty to higher, more universal ends. As stated by Eckhart in his tenth sermon, I hold humanity in itself more dear than the man I carry about in me” (Eckhart 1979)41. Therefore, following the present logic of this key principle of teleological ethics, we ought to reject individual concepts in favor of more “universal” ones. However, through this subsequent stripping away of more and more particular conditions, we reach a point of indeterminacy, with no set conditions at all, transcending “universality” itself and moving into a state of absolute detachment from the telic paradigm altogether. In this way, true faithfulness to the telic order results in a movement beyond that very order. Hence, as phrased by Reiner Schürmann, Eckhart’s sentiment is the following: “The man of non-attachment is not a friend of the man of law; but both of them are me” (Schürmann 2003).

An idea analogous to Eckhart’s “wayless way” can be found in the seventh chapter of the Daodejing, which mentions how not having “self-interest” will actually bring “self-interest” to completion (Moeller 2007).42 Daoism’s wuwei (無為), or non-action (Moeller 2007),43 further uncovers the same insight about the life of persons that the Eckhartian wayless way does. By flowing with the Dao and living out wuwei, the person can let themselves “be carried along by things so that the mind wanders freely,” handing “all over to the unavoidable so as to nourish what is essential within” the person (Ziporyn 2009).44 The person can find their satisfaction by moving with the rhythm of the Dao (Ziporyn 2009).45 Like a fish in the water, the human being can subsist freely and fluidly in the Dao’s presence, adapting with the currents of nature and pursuing no precise aim.

Living with the Dao is an openness to flow and a “letting be” of the things in the world, surrendering oneself to an attitude of indifference to presence and absence. This is encapsulated in the sentiment of “hearing” from the Dao as distinguished from “learning,” where learning “increases daily” but “hearing” the Dao diminishes, i.e., attunement to the Dao displaces the person from ontic systems of knowledge and teleological demands. Instead of pushing the human to obsessively cohere with a hegemonic criterion, texts like Zhuangzi 3:7 say, “flee from heavenly and turn away…resting content in the time, and finding a place in the flow, [as that] joy and sorrow [has] no way to seep in” (Ziporyn 2009)46. Thus, a person’s acceptance of their place in nature includes a continuous and habitual way of seeing and interacting with the world. Instead of being a sudden and momentary break from the ordinary world, to live by Dao is to experience the world with a new set of eyes.

This reading of Daoist living parallels the habitual character emphasized in Eckhart’s non-attachment. Although some scholars read Eckhartian detachment as an “ecstatic” practice (Bernasconi 1997), interpreters like Schürmann and Robert Bernasconi view releasement via the Godhead as being an active praxis for life in this world.47 Eckhart is taken as not advocating for an “otherworldly” experience but a “this-worldly experience” (Bernasconi 1997). Religious historian Richard Kieckhefer similarly argues for a habitual reading, describing non-attachment as an ongoing state of the soul (Kieckhefer 1978). While there are moments of an ecstatic break in Eckhart’s work, we ought to view this notion of releasement as a complementary feature (and not the central feature) of the process of the “wayless way”, that is, living without a “why”.

For both Eckhartian and Daoist thought, by identifying with the ground, the person relinquishes an identity with particulars and any attempt to dominate them. Humanity is not the Cartesian “master and possessor of nature” (Descartes 2006) but an instantiation of nature. The Daodejing calls for a softness and suppleness comparable to water (Ryden 2008),48 working with what is present as opposed to attempting to compel or constrain what is there to fit one’s image. In his commentary, Cheng Xuanying also points out how the “uses” of water are “boundless” (Cheng 2021). So, too, can the possibilities of human potential be made evident through synchronizing with the Dao, thus becoming amorphous, limber, and flowing, never static or settled in a permanently defined state in the cosmic hierarchy. Humans do not have a superiority to or priority in the natural order. Ultimately, like all else, humans are expressions of nature and are, thus, equidistant from the ground of all beings. The Daoist and Eckhartian ontologies are relatively “flat” when compared against many classical, medieval, and modern schemas. Therefore, the person is not meant to overpower nature but to respond to nature with versatile ease.

Therefore, the life of wandering joy is not one of hiding away from the world or literally doing nothing but simply a way of doing things subtly and effortlessly. To illustrate this point, Eckhart himself invoked the story of Mary and Martha to demonstrate how non-attachment engenders a present living in the world. In Eckhart’s reading of the story (Luke 10:38–42) as seen in his ninth sermon, rather than Mary, who simply sat at Christ’s feet, being more devout than Martha, who labored in the house when Christ came to visit, it is Martha who is the more pious (Eckhart 1979).49 In other words, union with the Godhead is not simply “sitting around”, a continual existence in the world while being detached from the things of the world. The Zhuangzi exemplifies an analogous conclusion in its various examples of individuals perfecting their craft through the Dao. Perhaps the most famous of these individuals is the cook who cuts up an oxen so subtly, slicing every joint of the animal with such ease, that the beast does not even realize what is occurring (Ziporyn 2009).50 By moving with the flow of the Dao, the cook is a master butcher without the need for fixation on his subject or the laborious machinations of discursive reasoning. Those who act with the Dao are “in a mindfulness flow state, leading to graceful, efficacious, selfless, spontaneous, and free action”(Sellman 2019).

However, this “skill” achieved through the Dao is not automatic like a bodily impulse. Instead, skill, as yielded by the Dao, is fluent and intelligent without the need for being systematic (Chiu 2019).

Hence, in considering all of these points, an ethic of non-attachment emerges, wherein the encouraged imperative is to release oneself into the flow of the indeterminate origin, but not in the sense of “hiding away”. Such an ethic is not a mere foil to “common” religious deontologies characterized by systems like Divine Command Theory. Rather, an ethic of non-attachment is still a kind of pious exercise, as to be released to the ground of being is to live the “good” life, where one is simultaneously attuned to all things (in spirit and body) and yet anchored to none. The person is not called to be “lost” in the world, meaningless in their existence. Nor are they called to be inert, abdicating all of their responsibilities, abandoning the world of activity and motion, and resigning themselves to a life of indolence and apathy. Instead, the person of the wayless way or non-action is to act as if they owned the world and yet are fully aware that they are still travelers, passers-by that came into being and will one day leave it.

Those who live by non-attachment are not lost or doomed to meaningless existences. On the contrary, they are exactly where they ought to be. They are like nomads, where every place can be their home, so they are never astray. Meanwhile, because they have renounced a hegemonic devotion to telic hierarchies and socially constructed systems, meaning is no longer stratified by nature or constricted to paradigmatic ideals. Rather, all things have equal meaning and worthiness; therefore, the adherent of the wayless way finds far greater meaning in even the smallest aspects of life. Furthermore, non-attachment does not demand the relinquishing of responsibility and activity, nor a shirking of care or duty, but a reframing. This reframing is in reference to the Divine in the “deepest” sense, deeper than any particular deity, whether it be the Triune God, Shangdi (Lord on High), or heaven and Earth itself. The divinity of non-attachment is unqualified existence, being without any predication. It is the origin of all things, and thus, the one who harmonizes to this harmonizes with all things, mastering all not through domination but through subtle and elegant cooperation.

6. Conclusions

Overall, unlike the predominant paradigms of Western thought characterized by ontic hierarchies, telic communities, and logocentric taxonomies, the Daoist and Eckhartian perspectives give credence to the immanent by holding all things to be grounded on the same undifferentiated source. This indeterminate origin for nature (the Dao for Daoism and Godhead for Eckhart) exists as the primal ground for the cosmos. In this way, nature-as-its-ground can be considered conceptually distinct from all particular beings and yet the whole of them simultaneously. Existence in this most-fundamental sense is a pre-discursive abyss that intrinsically possesses all identities and differentia in harmonious paradox. Furthermore, both the Dao and Godhead are transformative powers as displayed through the ever-fluctuating state of becoming within which all beings partake.

Therefore, if a human is to be as they truly are, existing as authentic persons, they must recognize their ground in the ground of all beings and align themselves with it. Through this process, men and women can come to live in a state of existential flow, attuned to all things while being in a state of detachment. This lifestyle of non-attachment represents a kind of wandering ethics, where the good life is the wayless way of releasement and non-action. By proceeding in this manner, persons are able to commune with both nature and divinity at their most foundational level, thereby encountering the world without controlling it, apprehending it without imposing one’s will on it, and living in it without scrutinizing it.