Taoism, how to stop learning and lose unessential knowledge

For a long time, I had difficulties reconciling my own thirst for knowledge with the often anti-intellectual teachings of Taoism. I believe I’ve found a solution, and in true Taoist fashion, it seems quite backwards at first glance.

Skilled unawareness:

The goal of a Taoist is to live in harmony with the Tao, to “go with the flow“, which I’ve described as a state of “skilled unawareness“, where a person spontaneously reacts to all situations in the best way possible.

According to the Taoists, in order to achieve this state of skilled unawareness one must “lose their knowledge”, as the following from the 48th chapter of the Tao Te Ching states:

The student of knowledge (aims at) learning day by day;
The student of Tao (aims at) losing day by day.

How exactly then, does one go about “losing day by day”?

Learning more means knowing less:

Like I said in the beginning, the solution is quite backwards: One loses day by day by learning day by day.

Huh? Let’s let the 47th chapter of the Tao Te Ching point us in the right direction:

The farther one pursues knowledge,
The less one knows.

It’s a phenomenon that all intellectuals face: the more you learn about the world, the more you realize there is to learn, so overall, the percentage of what you know about the world goes down.

In elementary school, each year I was convinced that the math I had learned was all that could possibly exist. After addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, what more could the world need? However, by the time I reached college, I was convinced that no person would ever be able to learn absolutely everything about mathematics, that the possibilities didn’t end.

The pursuit of knowledge is fatal:

We find another argument against the pursuit of knowledge from the Taoist Zhuangzi:

Human life is limited, but knowledge is limitless. To drive the limited in pursuit of the limitless is fatal; and to presume that one really knows is fatal indeed!

So how can I claim that the solution is through more learning? Because Zhuangzi also says:

One who knows how to stop at where he cannot know has reached the limit of knowledge.

What man knows is very little. Although that knowledge is little, man must rather depend on what he does not know before he can know the meaning of God.

A person begins with little knowledge, but is confident that they know everything. Only through continual learning can they discover how much of the universe that they do not know, the goal being to know “how to stop”.

Knowing “how to stop” and skilled unawareness:

In order to achieve the state of “skilled unawareness” a student of Tao must learn to observe the universe directly. A Taoist must learn to recognize the difference between the primary and secondary things: the inward essence and its outward accouterments.

Let’s use marriage as an example. In a marriage, the primary thing, or inward essence, of the event is the love of the couple and the bringing together of two families. On the other hand, the secondary things, or outward accouterments, are the ceremony itself, the dancing, the rings and the cake.

A Taoist must first recognize that the accouterments are not the essence, only outward manifestations or representations thereof. Ultimately, the Taoist favors the essence as worth knowing, and discards the accouterments as “unessential knowledge”.

The accouterments are many, but the essences few:

Let us look at chapter 20 of the Tao Te Ching for further understanding:

Banish learning and vexations end.
Between “Ah!” and “Ough!”
How much difference is there?

Both “Ah!” and “Ough!” are utterances of disapproval (in the original Chinese). That is, both represent the disapproval, but are not the disapproval themselves, and once you know of the disapproval, what matters which word was chosen?

Once we can divide a given thing into its primary and secondary parts, we recognize that overall, there exists only a limited number of primary things in this universe, and that their secondary accouterments are many and unlimited.

In the marriage example, there exists an unlimited number of possible accoutrement combinations, given the wide variety of different cultural practices with respect to marriage and the personal tastes of the couple. Even given unlimited different types of weddings, the primary essence remains limited: the couple’s love, the bringing together of two families, etc.

The solution:

Now we have the solution. We strive to get better at separating the primary from the secondary things, to see the primary essence through the accouterments. Then, in our observations of the universe, though we may see many a new and fancy accoutrement, we see the same essences over and over again until we’ve seen all of the primary essences possible.

It is that point that we know when to stop, as the 48th chapter of Tao Te Ching continues:

The student of knowledge (aims a) learning day by day;
The student of Tao (aims at) losing day by day.
By continual losing
One reaches doing nothing (laissez-faire).

Once we’ve seen through to a primary essence, we no longer need the obscuring accoutrement and so that knowledge becomes unessential. Eventually, after having seen though enough unessential knowledge: we will know all of the existing primary essences and have discarded the ceremonies of society.

To the common man, whose knowledge favors the accouterments, the Taoist seems to do nothing, because the Taoist doesn’t participate in the institutions of society.