Martin Palmer
Martin Palmer |
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Next week, one of the most senior Masters of Daoism from China is visiting the West to attend a meeting in Oslo of religious leaders and organisations such as the World Bank and the UN.
Oddly, no one seems to be expecting him to make demands on our Government that they withdraw from Iraq, or that the USA closes Guantanamo Bay. I say oddly because a senior religious figure from the UK has just been in China and many religious and human rights pressure groups have expected him to make similar calls about the way that Government behaves towards its citizens.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, during his recent trip to China, has been wise in praying and teaching but not saying much about a country he knows almost nothing about. Yet this hasn't stopped demands that he speak out against the civil rights abuses that do sadly mar the face of contemporary China.
Yet protesting loudly may not be the best way to proceed. The Daoists and Chinese Buddhists and Christians, that I work with, view their country and its government in a particular light. Their view is that the Communist Regime will be seen in years to come as one of the nasty, short lived dynasties and China has seen plenty of those. But it has also seen long eras of peace and prosperity under great dynasties such as the Tang and Ming. In a country so vast, with so many different cultures, change is always a complex process.
Surprisingly, the Chinese Government has recently turned to the faiths in China, in particular Buddhists and Daoists, and asked their help to restore a sense of balance to a country which has taken the creed of consumerist capitalism to its heart.
This is an interesting situation and many religions would probably jump in with all sorts of expectations and demands. Daoism by contrast has always been cautious of engaging with governments, preferring to guide by setting other values and lifestyles. This is captured rather nicely I think, in a story about the Daoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, written around 400 BC.
One day Chuang Tzu was fishing when the King of Chu sent officials to visit him with a message, asking him to become Prime Minister. Chuang Tzu continued fishing and said to the officials, 'I hear that in Chu there is a sacred tortoise which was sacrificed 3000 years ago. The king venerates its shell in his ancestral temple. Tell me, would this tortoise have wanted to be killed and leave his shell to be venerated or would he rather have wanted to live and continue to crawl about in the mud?'
The officials said, 'It would rather have lived and continued to crawl about in the mud.' Chuang Tzu said 'Shove off then, leave me to my mud!'
Chuang Tzu's writings are now read world wide; Daoism is still one of the major social and religious forces in China. But who today knows of the King of Chu or his tortoise shell?
It seems to me that the Archbishop has followed a line similar to Daoism, reflecting the words of the Psalmist that 'men of power' are but puffs of breath. What is consistent is the soul's search for the divine - and that is what provides the constant in many peoples' lives.
Copyright 2006 BBC